⇨ POLARIS AFTERMATH

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 115-118
Where: Polaris/Wyldlands
What: After killing the Mother of Invention, the majority of the carnival has decided to take some time and sort out the Polaris refugees before heading to the Summerlands. This log covers miscellaneous post-Mother Polaris drama, as well as some light camping in the Wyldlands down below.
Warnings: Idk, stuff, I guess.

ADAPTATION↴ After the battle, the majority of carnival members will opt to remain in the secured section to Polaris, hoping to spend some time making sure that the rest of Polaris is liberated. Many of the staff are not capable of coming to grips with the fact that the Mother is dead so quickly, and the remaining Alphas are doing their best to keep Polaris under their sway. It will be a busy few days of changing minds and exploring the remains of the station. Thankfully, with everyone's powers intact and allies at their side, they finally have the advantage. ► SHIFTING STATES: Right off the bat, about 10% of the staff will immediately change sides upon hearing whats become of the Mother. They are actively eager to get away from Polaris, and will do whatever they can assist the carnival. This is mostly Gammas and a few Betas, who were working primarily under duress. Over the next day or two, those numbers will grow to at least 30%, with some of the staff managing to convince their colleagues to join them. About two days after starting, one of the Alphas will surrender to the carnival, encouraging those beneath her to support their cause. That leaves four Alphas remaining, and staff cooperation at 50%. ► CAPTIVE ATTENTION: The loyalist staff's main tactics are trying to create defensive points within the various test group areas, using the prisoners as hostages. Luckily, the carnival (and the staff on their side) will be in a position where it's possible to push them out with a mixture of convincing and force. Once prisoners start being freed, there will be even more force backing the carnival's efforts, meaning that it will essentially become a matter of cleaning up the remaining staff rather than any uphill battles. Most of this is being left vague intentionally, as most of this action is being handwaved. However, you can play out parts of it if you want and NPC technicians and rescuees. Other test groups can be filled with basically whatever kind of residents you like, since they are grabbed from across the multiverse. Most of the test areas are similar to B7. ► THE JACKPOT: Alongside cleaning up the staff, some members of the carnival have expressed interest in convincing the staff to help them with armoury issues as well as hunting down some of the Mother's most private loot. This will be handled in investigations, mostly through summary, because I don't have it in me for another megathread right now. Post your plans, and I will respond! However, know that I also don't have time to generate five million special items, so loot drops will be limited to my availability. Also, the techs aren't really blacksmiths so they generally won't really be able creating weapons from scratch or anything. Meanwhile, Ignatius is going to set up a camp ground outside of Polaris, mostly because he doesn't want to be there anymore. He'll keep a fire going and they can drag things from Polaris down there for camping purposes, and mostly Ignatius is just going to be chilling and making sure that the campground doesn't get assaulted by magical creatures. The Gilded Mark will create a portal between the campground and the station so that people can go back and forth as required. It also creates a handy escape route. You can even see Polaris from here, floating up there in the sky. How picturesque. ► WYLDERKIN: Apparently not everything in the Wyld Lands is a full Wyld Fae - there are also a lot of less powerful creatures called 'wylderkin' - apparently lesser forms of the Wyld Fae, who are more akin to animal level intelligence. They can be a variety of expected fantasy type creatures, such as flower sprites, weird bugs, and general prey animals they probably spend most of their time getting eaten by bigger dudes. All of them are sort of weird and fantastical, and none of them are exactly like earth varieties, though they may resemble them. They are more of a pest than a major threat in this part of the Wyld Lands, and Ignatius will scare away any that cause too many problems. ► FLORA AND FLUID: There are some plants that you can eat down here, that Ignatius will tell you about. Mostly weird berries and roots. There is also some pools of clear water, thought hey are filled with weird fish. Try not to bitten by any weird leeches. You can safely make up some of the creatures you find as long as they fit the general theme of lesser faerie creatures. This is just a rest stop.

Comments

phat loot

[textsfromhotland]

Now that they have free reign of the place, Alphys isn't entirely sure what to do with herself. When they first got here, she dreamed of getting to work on some of this equipment, but then she found out what most of it was for, and now she feels a pit in her stomach when she even looks at all the laboratories and test chambers. The implants on her head flatten to match her mood, and she wrings her hands together as she scurries about.

When she spots someone from the carnival, she perks up a little. "H-hey... did you find anything good?"

phuture loot

[impatientdefense]

"Ehh. We got some more people freed, and a couple of the head honchos gave up, but not much good loot." Beau shrugs and stretches a freshly bruised arm over her shoulder.

It's been a couple of days, and the excursion groups have made some real progress on convincing the staff to quit with the torture science shtick and embrace freedom. It's taken a mix of words and force alike, and there's still more than half the station to go, but it's progress.

"I was really hoping to find, like, magic weapons or something, but nobody here makes that..." She looks over this nervous lizard lady, with no obvious weapons to speak of, and says a little ironically, "guess most of these kidnapped groups aren't the fighting sort we are, huh?"

[textsfromhotland]

"W-weapons? Oh..." Alphys wonders how much of a nerd she'll look like if she admits she was hoping for some tech outside of the horrible torture machines. "Well... maybe we can re-purpose some of this stuff?"

[impatientdefense]

"Probably," Beau says, nodding. "Don't ask me how, I don't understand all the... 'electrical' or 'computer' technology here. But anything can be repurposed, if you know how."

She snorts a little laugh, thinking of trying to repurpose some of that stuff and getting hit with lightning again. Not fun. "I was thinking more like, I'm gonna go take one of those farm hoes and make a shitty staff with it."

[textsfromhotland]

Alphys totally gets the appeal of reusing old junk, don't get her wrong, but sharpening farm tools doesn't seem... ambitious enough, when surrounded by all of this cool tech.

"Y-you could do so much more, though!" She insists, ideas already flooding her mind. "Maybe I could combine a hoe with a hard light generator, o-or make it collapsing so it's portable..."

[impatientdefense]

It's not ambitious, it's not technological or magical in any extreme, but it's an efficient and simple solution. Like a punch to the face. Sometimes the basics are the best place to be, until she better understands what's going on.

Speaking of, she's almost certainly going to regret asking, but she has to try to know. "...How can light be hard."

[textsfromhotland]

Oh, yes, you're going to regret this.

"Well!" Alphys immediately perks up. "It definitely sounds like something out of a sci-fi manga, b-but it's possible! It would require manipulating photons in order to make them capable of bearing weight and having substance. It would take a lot of energy, but in a place like this, that kind of technology would be easy to find! Why, you could even use holographic technology..."

There's a lot more science jargon just kinda spewing from her mouth.

[lmpatientdefense]

It's almost like comprehensible words, to start. Beau gets tripped up by 'sci-fi' and 'manga' and 'photons', but photon sounds like photographic, so it's probably something to do with seeing things. But there's no time to process connections like that - she barely begins to grasp one concept before there's two more flying past her.

"Uh," Beau offers, increasingly gobsmacked. "Yeah. Sounds... right?"

[textsfromhotland]

"I know! Doesn't it?" Alphys is too far gone into nerd mode to realize that Beau is lost. "Oh! So keep your eyes peeled for any holographic projectors, and I'll see what I can do!"

[impatientdefense]

And there the lizard goes, as cheery as she was perivously skittish. This isn't Beau's first time being besieged by a nerd, at least, or trying to hide her ignorance while asking questions.

"Sure, sure sure, but quick question. You noticed how everything here is like... super stylized, all the whites, and silvers," she gestures at their surroundings, and the fairly consistent aesthetic the Mother established in the location and technicians alike. "Maybe they won't like, uh, look how they... normally do? What should I look for, here."