((lol, true, one of my weakest points as a writer is thinking up names, those things help))
One of the advantages of the Mary Piper scenario as written is that all the present crew members have names, and there are spare names with which to replace them. It fixes the number of people in the crew and their current positions, and resolves any name problems.
But you didn't start that way, so I'm not sure how easily you could go back to it.
The crewlist is one of the things that are available on the support web site, in both PDF and MSWord.
--M. J. Young
Oh--if memory serves, the crewlist is set up so that you can cross out the name in one column and put a new one next to it. Of course, you can also use the Word version and edit the document as you like.
The alpha version is all first or given names, and the beta is all variants of those same names in a cultural "son of" form, including such as Johnson, O'Connor, Barabbas, Bronski, and so on.
--M. J. Young
((Another good thing I did with names is using a randomizer and typing in a large number to randomize and finding a name from the random letters. I used this literally the night before AnimeNext for villain character sheets and names of places.))
Tolohov. Anna Tolohov is your sporty girl's name, and she's a deckhand. They do a lot of manual labor and maintenance work and are generally on-call for whomever needs an extra set of hands.
"Probably," Harrison agrees, "But why not? We're not that far outside of Emerald Station. If anything goes terribly wrong, we're within range of help, and we have a decent security compliment on hand ourselves."
Tolohov is more skeptical, "How bad could it be? I still think it's just an old rock. We'll either tow it home for mining money or leave it where it lies."
"Guess I am just a cautious one, though cautious about as much as Alice, always had good advice and knew where the danger lied, but didn't take her own advice nor her own reasoning."
"Alice?" Tolohov asks, "Some friend of yours?"
Harrison seems intent on his food, and does not comment. Meanwhile the guys from Astrogation have settled down into a kind of standoffish silence while they wait to see who is vindicated and who is left cold on their curious discovery.
"A character in an old story," I look at the astrogation guys and hide a small laugh.
"Not one I ever heard." Tolohov shrugs and goes back to her food.
Harrison continues to eat.
The Astrogation guys continue to sullenly ignore you.
You can choose what you want to do, or just say 'skip to the rock' and we'll see what it was they found on long-range sensors.
((how long would it take to get there?))
((about a day - you're two weeks out of Emerald Station, and this will put you about a day and a half behind schedule getting there))
((cause I was thinking the well is going to be starting to run dry as we move further along the night, the next day would probably be a good idea))
The next day, during your off shift (everyone has three shifts a day: a work shift, an off shift, and a sleeping shift), about an hour before you're due in the infirmary for medic training, a sort of 'yellow alert' is sounded. The lights shift to a nigh-vision-friendly shade of red, and an announcement crackles through the loudspeakers to prepare for the shift to sub-light speed. The procedure is, naturally, to hold onto something sturdy.
I would look quickly and grab onto the nearest sturdy thing and try and think of what could be causing the yellow alert then a red alert.
It's not a red alert - there are no alarms sounding, no general announcements other than the 'prepare for sublight - it's just that yellow alert means a state of general readiness, and since it can come while some people are asleep or just waking up, they switch to a shade of red that doesn't hurt your eyes if you're adjusted for darkness.
The nearest sturdy thing is a protrusion from a nearby bulkhead. In fact, these are spaced evenly along each wall, pretty much meant for exactly this.
When the ship drops into sublight, there is a moment of lurching forward. If you have ever been on a ship that breaks through a wave - where the bow rises then drops, and then the stern rises and drops, and everything shifts forward, and then backward, a little - you have felt this feeling.
"Boarding teams to ventral airlock," comes the first officer's announcement, "Boarding teams to ventral airlock."
This is not exactly 'battle stations', but indicates a state of readiness, rather like being on yellow alert. It means that people who are assigned to an away team are to report to the bottom of the ship, in order to go over and explore whatever it is they have found.
Since you are not assigned to such a team, this means, 'go about your business, but be ready to be useful if you're needed.' In your case, go to the infirmary and prepare for whatever is coming.
Once everything felt stable I head over to the infermary.
Lefton is waiting for you inside.
"Alright, well, nothing like on-the-job training..." she says, and begins to show you around. Since you are in yellow alert it's a bit difficult to tell what colors things will look like under normal lighting conditions, but the only part of the ship that has normal lights in an alert condition is the surgical room, and you don't have access to that yet. At least you can tell what all the tools look like, and she is able to start explaining how most of them work. If you have any basic first-aid knowledge, it's all just high-tech versions of the same, and if you don't, well, like she said, nothing like on-the-job training.
I basically spend most of my time trying to associate what I saw with somethign I already knew, which would eb the basic of the basic information. Antibacterial wipe and bandage. A temperature around 100 degrees is a fever. That sort of thing, which makes msot of it new to me.
Most of it is not hard, and we can probably safely add to your sheet a 1@1 Basic First Aid, and given the setting I'm going to set the bias as 11@1, which includes some of the high-tech gadgetry around you as well as things like how to sterilize your equipment, set a broken bone, and so forth. This does not include more advanced medicine covered under the same bias. You do not, for instance, know how to treat someone for radiation poisoning, but how often does that come up, really?
About that time, Lefton goes over to one of the communications panels. If you've seen Star Trek, you know what these look like - a monitor in the wall connected to a communications system. In this case, she is patching it into the helmet-camera of one of the Boarding Team members - Crewman Chase Wainwright from Engineering. His job there is to determine what exactly they're looking at if it's not hostile.
From his camera, it doesn't look like they have encountered much so far. The object appears to be an asteroid. Its surface is rocky and while it is not very large it appears to be incredibly dense - dense enough that they are able to discern a slight gravitational field. There is some banter on the voice channels, mostly scientific jargon and directions on how not to fall in a hole while walking on an asteroid.
((Knowing you guys?))
I basically look at the asteroid, shrug and try and focus on the work. I was more curious then anything else.
((sorry i am not doing a good size post here, I have been doing a lot today and starting a whole bunch of projects.))
This does not include more advanced medicine covered under the same bias. You do not, for instance, know how to treat someone for radiation poisoning, but how often does that come up, really?Actually, the better way to handle it is that it does include radiation poisoning, but since her SAL is only 1@1 she's not very good at anything under the 11@ bias. Thus if she is attempting to set a bone, she's probably pretty good at it, since splints are a 2@ medical skill so her effective SAL at 2@ bias medical skills is (11@-2@=+9) 1@10, and her ability at such 1@ skills as sterilization by heat, basic wound treatment, and external body temperature control is now effectively 2@1.
The assumption is that she is being given the overall course, and so she has already been exposed to concepts at the levels being used. Probably anyone who knows basic first aid in our world would understand what was required to perform an emergency tracheotomy--we just wouldn't feel comfortable attempting such a procedure under penalized primitive conditions, and we'd have a high chance of getting it wrong.
--M. J. Young
Ohhhh... I had never realized it worked that way. That is a big difference, and pretty much exactly what I was going for.
((Hey, I resemble that remark...)
Crewman Wainwright goes over a ridge, and it seems there's some sort of structure on the far side. The far side? It seems this asteroid is bigger than they realized. The ship noticed - and is docked against - the narrow end. The primary sound from the commlink is the Darth Vader-like sound of the away team's rebreathers.
Your work is fairly smooth right now. A young woman, Crewman Jolan, comes in while you're on duty, complaining of a mild concussion. It seems she fell about six feet down the bottom of a maintenance shaft when the alert lights switched over and hit her head on a bulkhead on the way. Lefton steps back, allowing you to get in a little practice on a relatively simple case, if you feel ready.
I basically try and remember anything she told me relating to the head or impact. I look at her though in a way saying, I could probably do this, but you better watch me to make sure I don't screw up.
((why is the time stamp suddenly 4 hrs ahead?))
She watches. "You're doing fine. Remember to check her eyes, and..." She goes on, talking you through it.
I continue as she instructs, gaining a little more confidence with each moment of not screwing up about my ability to give some basic first aid.
The time/date stamp is based on the time at the host server for the site. The people who run the site don't operate their own servers, but subscribe to a service; they don't know where the servers are.
--M. J. Young
It takes a few minutes, but you get it right. Continuing treatment is basically to keep her awake for the next few hours, which shouldn't be too hard with a yellow alert on and an away mission finally figuring out what the heck this thing they found is.
Speaking of which, it seems like that structure might be inhabited; one of the security guys has switched over to thermographic vision, and there is definitely a heat signature in there. "Consistent with some kind of heavy machinery," he says.
I only listen to whatever is going on while I take care of the girl.
She's mostly quiet. After all, she did just get knocked on the head. Doing much of anything still kinda hurts. If you sit with her, she will eventually wind up with her head on your shoulder, still awake but dozing lightly.
((btw I will be camping for the next few days if I end up not responding))
((Me too))
((sorry, I can't think of anything to put :())
((It's alright.))
All of a sudden, the screen monitoring the away team goes dark.
Lefton taps on it, then pokes a button and connects to the communications room. "Seems we've lost signal. They're trying to get a read on why," she explains.
When the screen comes back on, the signal is grainy and doesn't hold still. What it shows is a mess. At least two people are down, injured. There's no indication at all whose camera you're watching, but that person seems to be dragging another while trying to avoid enemy fire. One of the security guys is still up, returning fire with a genuine ray gun, trying to keep the enemy pinned down, but the range is immense and the enemy is many, so he's having a hard time of it. He's also using a pistol-style gun for this, even though he has a rifle slung over his shoulder. None of the monitoring lights on his suit are on, either.
"Sickbay, stand by to receive multiple casualties," someone's voice comes over the commlink, "Security, armor up! We have men down out there and I want them back. Navigation..." It's the first officer, ordering crewmen by departments.
I look at what is going on, speechless for any sort of word before it reached my mind they'll be here soon and I got to have my mind level if anyone is still alive to be at all helped, assuming I can help them.
The doors cycle open and Gopher shuffles in. He's dressed in a pair of violently purple pajamas and mismatched shoes. His eyes are bloodshot, but he looks wide awake. "Figured you'd need the extra hands," he says to Lefton.
"How much Guerrine are you on?" Lefton asks him, giving him a mean look.
"Enough for the next full day," he answers, "One on, one off."
"You know I'll be watching you."
"I'm counting on it."
He goes over to a sink and begins to scrub in. Scrubbing in is actually fairly easy, as it's mostly a bath in purple light and some phosphorescent disinfectant gel.
((lol, just came back from seeing Julie and Julia and Risa gave me a great idea for a blog, procrastination and over coming it, perfect subject for me :D))
I look at Gopher curiously and then shrug as I await for others to arrive, giving a great big sigh at the images.
There comes a flash over the monitors. A warning shot from the ship's main gun as the away team crests the hill. Being a cargo ship, the Piper Marie isn't classed for guns. That one is probably cobbled together out of spare parts. But it's big and flashy enough to warn whoever's base that is not to come chasing. After a minute they're in the cargo bay. After five they're in sickbay.
Gopher and Lefton spring into action. Triage is a nasty business, but it has to be done. Thankfully none of the wounded are too badly wounded, except for Wainwright himself, who apparently took some kind of blaster hit square to the chest, then spent five minutes sucking vacuum. He's not beyond help, but it's a near thing.
"Metia, see to Margrave!" Margrave is the security guy who was firing like a madman with a pistol. His left arm hangs limply at his side, but he seems to be the only other one hurt. Gopher and Lefton are hustling Wainwright into the surgical bay.
I start taking a look at the wounds and try and remember what she told me to do and try and do it without being in to much of a panic..
1@1 SAL + ... bugger. I seem to have forgotten Metia's BRA. Did we ever post your character sheet anywhere?
You're not quite able to figure out what's wrong with Margrave. It's puzzling.
Thankfully, Margrave himself explains why. "The arm's not real," he says, "So normal medicine won't tell you what's wrong with it. What's wrong with it is, we got EMP'd the living blazes out of, and it screwed up my wiring. I need an engineer, not a medic."
You get the feeling he's not being entirely truthful about that. After all, cybernetics is as much medicine as it is machinery.