[ video ] it was not a party bunker

[hardwearing]

[ Sup Hadriel. Today’s video opens on three people (Wash, Nate, and Kyna) sitting in front of Wash’s propped-up phone. They all look uncomfortable to varying degrees but it’s not clear yet why. After a few moments of dead air Wash clears his throat and opens awkwardly, as is his way. ]

Hey. Uh-- hello. We… a group of us, that is, have been gone for awhile on a trip out to the mountains to investigate the planet a little, maybe find out where the Hosts might have been coming from.

...more or less. An exploratory kind of thi- you know, that doesn’t really matter? We found something. It’s. It’s not great.

Not great’s… an understatement. [ Is this where he tells everyone they should sit down for this news? Maybe he should, but Wash presses forward anyway. ] We found what we thought was a bunker, like for survival. But it was actually a lab. A Null lab, where they were experimenting on the Hosts.

Experimenting is a friendly word for it. [ Nate, whose arms are folded resolutely over his chest, flexes his hands, tense. ] It was basically torture. Very meticulous, well-researched torture. As it turns out, the Null were implanting Hosts with- something, it was a piece of equipment they’d worked on for a while. Something to control them.

[ At the word torture Wash goes very still, jaw working with tension and Kyna glances toward him, frowning, before making a face and speaking up to divert attention back to herself. ]

Wow, guys, way to break the news gently. Anyway, there were like, videos and everything.

Footage that, um. Isn’t really suitable for public consumption. I’ll just leave it at that. Point is, the Null have been doing this for a while. And we just- [ He takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly. ] Want people to be safe.

It seemed like something everyone should know about. [ Wash chimes in just to agree, still looking tense but like he doesn’t know where to go from here. ]

Yeah so, uh… [Kyna pauses awkwardly, toying with her necklace.] I don’t know. I guess that kind of explains why they’ve been so violent towards us? Maybe we don’t have to fight the Hosts and the Null. [Or maybe that’s wishful thinking on Kyna’s part.] Anyway, I guess we’ll take questions if you guys have them? Or if anyone wants to know where the bunker is, but it sucks, so you’d probably hate it.

[ Rated -5 stars on Yelp. ]


(( OOC: This is the info dissemination post for this big ol' expedition!! (OOC rundown here.) Unless you want to talk to someone in particular, replies to this post will be fielded randomly by one of the adventurers! ))

Comments

[video]

[northerndragon]

I don't understand everything you've said.

[It's obvious from his expression, his impatience with what he's just said, that this is a source of consternation for him, and not really understanding some of the words people use on the network is an ongoing problem for him in Hadriel. Still -- ]

But I do understand the meaning of it. Are the ones that have been attacking people doing it because they're being controlled, do you think, or because they're afraid someone will hurt them more?

video

[evocation]

Um... I guess we don't really know for sure. Which parts don't you understand?

[hardwearing]

It's impossible to know for sure at this point if they're controlled somehow or if they're hostile because they're traumatized and distrusting. We're trying to deal in facts as much as possible, not theories. And the only Host we found down there was long dead.

(Video)

[stonebird]

Is this what we should expect? To be...puppets? (That rubs her wrong for very specific reasons. Are the Null like modern Lannisters? Or worse? Probably worse. Great.) Do you know what they make their hosts do?

[hardwearing]

I don't know what they have in mind, but if they come for us we'll fight back. [ Then he shakes his head. ] The experiments weren't clear, and we don't know why the records stopped -- if it's because they succeeded or the Hosts fought back or what. It doesn't make much sense they'd leave them behind but it seems like that's what happened.

text;

[dedikated]

( ...Of course. )

Anything on how to stop the device?

( Or, come to think of it... )

What triggered it?

Re: text;

[hardwearing]

No, they don't seem intended to be removed and from the videos, it was active on implantation. We're not 100% on how well it actually worked, though. If they even really did what the Null wanted them to.

I do have a theory, just from knowing a bit about neural implants. They're disrupted by electrical surges.

[voice]

[hot_mes]

[already over the disgusted bit, on to the science bit]

I'll take any and all notes and photos you have. I might be able to make heads or tails of the medical nature of it.

We just reached the mountains ourselves, I've got a line on another bunker nearby.

[hardwearing]

I'll send them your way -- the notes are in a language we couldn't decipher without magic but I can put you in contact with our translators if you really need it. I think the video footage might be enough.

...be prepared, we thought it might have been possible that the ones we've been encountering came out of a lab like we found. The power was still working, they might be using another one as shelter.

[voice]

[nonscriptum]

I've got translations, photos, and drawings.

[Chimes a second, perhaps more world-weary voice. Nate didn't want to be here, but given he was the one who brought them all out there he feels a certain responsibility in reporting findings back to the general public.]

I was the one who found the footage.

Text

[requiemshark]

were the experiments successful?

[ Somebody has to ask. ]

[evocation]

Well... Sort of? I mean, it seems like it did something, just not exactly what they wanted it to.

text; private

[hardwearing]

Hard to say if it was doing what the Null wanted, but considering how they knew to use our implants? I'm going with "at least moderately."

video;

[marmoron]

[Ah So the Null were involved. Fanfuckingtastic news.]

About this equipment they were implanting. Where was it being implanted and do you have any idea how that technology works? [A beat.] If it could work on species other than the Hosts.

[evocation]

I know there are other kinds of implants that work on other species. They're pretty common in Wash's world, so... Hypothetically? I guess?

voice;

[hasitsthorns]

How effective was this control? Did it seem to harm them in the process as well or were the unaware they were, in fact, being controlled?

[ After the Yao Corporation's fuckery, this doesn't actually come to Rose as a surprise. Maybe it says a lot that it doesn't but for now she's just focused on answers. ]

[hardwearing]

It varied from subject to subject, seems like. The reports were inconsistent, but... it seemed to harm them a lot, from the videos.

Video

[utulien_aure]

Orcs. They're creating orcs.

[True in the equivalent sense, if perhaps not in the technicalities of the process, and Fingon isn't yet feeling up to caring about the difference.]

Is there any obvious way to mitigate the damage?

[evocation]

[Kyna squints at that. Orcs are something much different in her world.]

What? No they aren't. And, uh... We're not really sure yet.

[hardwearing]

...what is that? They were trying to make slaves, and understand the link between the Hosts and Gods. So they could harness that power too, it seems like. I saw Fear talking about using the Gods as batteries, this may have been the start of their being able to do that.

text

[madamdirector]

Hello, my name is Lucretia. Thank you...um...all three of you, for the information.

[ Does she even want to ask? Of course she does. She needs to know, even if the answer's probably going to be horrible. ]

Who are the Hosts?

[evocation]

Oh, hey. I'm Kyna. Uh, the Hosts are the... people, I guess? Species? The guys who lived here originally.

[She wrinkles her nose.]

I guess "Hosts" is a pretty shitty word to use. We call them that because they're the first things that the gods fed off of. Emotions wise, I mean. They're the nautilus looking things that people have been running into lately.

Text

[hoperulesdespairdrools]

[All this that happened while they were gone.] That's quite a discovery you made there.

[And because they said 'be safe'....]

You think they could target us?

Re: Text

[hardwearing]

Personally, I don't think so. I think they learned what they wanted to from this series of experiments, and that's why they abandoned it. They wouldn't gain anything more by torturing us, at least not like this.

But we still shouldn't rule it out as possible.

Text

[theweakhavepurpose]

tell them the part where most of them died in horrible agony.

Re: Text

[hardwearing]

You just did, Pratt.

[Video]

[lifetothefullest]

[Lance is pretty up to speed on most of this from Nate, but he's still pretty unsure about one thing.]

Do we have any idea why the Null were bothering with something like this? It doesn't seem worth the reward, and if they're going on just logic--like they claim they do--then there has to be a purpose with a reward that outweighs the costs.

[And with such a limited number of hosts remaining, and how unlikely they would be to blend in with a population as spies or something, he's not seeing why they'd bother going through the effort to figure out how to control them.]

[evocation]

I think they were trying to figure out how the gods feed on emotions or whatever. Maybe try to use that energy for themselves?

video;

[pellameno]

[ Well that's incredibly disturbing. Pell wasn't even going to reply to this, because what could he do really, but then started wondering... what could he do? ]

Was there any evidence that the... implantation? [ He's unfamiliar with this concept but he's trying here. ] Could it be reversed? Can they be healed?

[evocation]

Um... I have no idea. I'm not much of a healer. Do you want me to send over what we found?