Play@YSDC

Day 1
11th March 2189
20:00 Earth Central European Time
Barnard's Rest Colony, Titan

As Kiara, Sam, Moses, Li, and Isabella arrive in the Central Hub Station they run into Kingsley and Virgil.

Kingsley is agitated and demands 'What is going on?' He notices the tools and equipment they're carrying, his voice rises 'Where are you going with that, what have you been doing?'

As Kingsley starts to work himself into a frenzy the green emergency illumination suddenly flickers on. The floor LEDs blink out and the red beacons and wailing sirens stop. A few seconds later the main lighting comes on. Around a minute after that they hear the unmistakable sound of CENTRAL, 'Initialising...initialising... kernel reboot...power supply restored...welcome to Barnard's Rest.'

"Chief White sent us to the sublevels to retrieve a backup generator to get the power back up," says Sam. "I guess it's no longer necessary."

“I guess so,” says Kiara, breathing a sigh of relief.

“I also guess CENTRAL rebooted itself, huh?” she asks Isabella.

Moses coughs, 'Um, uh, I think they just wanted us to start up the methane compression generator - we couldn't bring it up from the sublevels the thing is massive.'

In response to Kiara's question Isabella shrugs, 'Looks like it. CENTRAL, run diagnostics protocol thirty four gamma.' After a few moments CENTRAL responds, 'Hello Systems Engineer Garcia, welcome to Barnard's Rest. I am operating at one hundred percent efficiency, thank you for asking.'

Kingsley's face shows massive relief, 'Right, yes, good, excellent. I will be back in my office, CENTRAL, prepare status updates for the colony and all the pumping stations. Well please keep me updated on your investigations.' He starts to walk off then turns back, 'And you will take care of that matter Mr Steinmann.'

OOC,What do you want to do now? Incidentally, you've all missed several meals

"Right," says Sam. "I can't think straight when I'm hungry. Haven't eaten since we landed. Let's put the equipment back and get some grub."

“Now you come to mention it, I’m pretty hungry too!” says Kiara.

Virgil nods to Kingsley as he leaves and then looks at his watch. “Yes, dinner and bed; it’s 2000 hrs. Did anyone discover the reason for the power outage and CENTRAL’S disturbing absence?”

"I have no idea," says Sam. "It just blew out all of a sudden. We can examine the source to try to determine the cause, but we were more concerned about getting the power back up. For that matter, it's a mystery why it came back up."

“I don’t know why the power dropped off, but CENTRAL has been avoiding some of my questions since I came here. When I tried to set up a comms link it completely crashed. We were going to try a reboot at the AI core when the alarm sounded.”

Virgil tags along as they put the equipment back. Do you think CENTRAL caused the power cut on purpose?”

They chat as they stroll back to the Engineering Facility to drop back the equipment. The corridors are already returning to their usual level of traffic with methane miners changing shifts, off-duty administrative staff heading out to the commercial district, and CENTRAL's ARMs heading out to do whatever it is that they do.

Moses coughs, 'Er, um, I think Chief White said the tremors disrupted the power from the atmospheric wind turbines. So we were running on the emergency fission generator which developed some kind of fault. That's why there was a blackout. The power came back online when the turbines were reinitialised, thanks to Sam here.'

Isabella frowns, 'That doesn't explain why CENTRAL is acting so screwy though. Kiara triggered some kind of security protocol that shut it down, that was prior to the power going. But I don't think it was just Kiara, you shouldn't be able to shut down a colony AI just by parsing a bit of bad code! No, there was already something funny going on, I'm one of the most experienced AI programmers working for Richter and I can't even gain access to CENTRAL's core modules, the ones that set computational parameters on the core AI itself.'

They leave the tools back with White and his engineering crew. Li, who has been dawdling a few paces behind the others pipes up, 'Our ID cards let us get food over in the commercial district. Or we can order takeout.'

OOC,Do you want to ask any more of White and co or head somewhere else, like dinner?

"Yeah, I was referring to the blackout that had just happened," says Sam. "That was after I got the fission generator going. If you ask me, I think that computer needs a full diagnostic." She thinks they might have a HAL situation here, but she doesn't want to say anything in hearing range of CENTRAL's sensors.

“Rather than being cooped up in our quarters, let’s eat out in the commercial district. We can discuss matters over a nice meal, although I guess it might be noisy,” Kiara suggests, picking up on Sam’s train of thought.

Virgil frowns and his mouth forms a thin line; he’s not keen in eating in a noisy cafeteria but he nods. “Let’s go, at least the food may be hotter.”

After ten minutes' walk they arrive in the Commercial District it is much more brightly lit than the usual corridors. The odd oily smell that permeates the colony seems even stronger here. There are a number of shops selling clothes, groceries, and so on but it seems the options for refreshment are somewhat limited. There are a number of off-duty colony staff milling about, from the way they're swaying quite a few seem to be half-cut already.

A utilitarian building branches off from the middle of the street, above the entrance is a sign stating 'Refectory' in the standard corporate font of Richter Dynamics used throughout the colony. A number of people are heading in and out of it.

At the near end of the wide corridor stands a half-lit neon sign saying 'The Claim Jumper' above a dull metal building with small, grubby windows. Presumably it is some kind of bar and a few men stand outside smoking.

The far end of the street looks a bit grimier than the near side, the most obvious feature is a gaudy sign that reads 'Jack’s Play' alongside two figures in neon, a man and a woman both half clothed. The building itself is brightly painted in pink and white but the windows seem blacked out and a man dressed in a black suit is stood outside.

"The Claim Jumper looks like a fun place," says Sam, "but I can understand if some of you would prefer the Refectory."

Virgil shudders and says with distaste, “I will not be setting foot in that. I will eat in the refectory; you can join me if you like and then enjoy your ‘fun’ afterwards.”

"Bars aren't exactly my thing either," admits Kiara. "I vote for the refectory."

"The Refectory it is, then," says Sam.