abstract
| - Crackshot is in here today to one side, where 'his' satellite sat on the middle of a cloth on a clean, square table under a light. He moved around it, muttering softly, almost affectionately as he prepared tools and equipment. Shark walks in, remembering that Crackshot had mentioned there would be an awakening this cycle. "How's it cracking there Crackshot?" the young mech asks in rare humor. Jade sits over at her desk, reading something..not really noticing the arrivals, as no one’s screaming in pain at the moment. Crackshot looks up, and smirks "Har har." he chuckles "Not bad. Just gotta wait for Ratchet. He was down in Iahex and just voxed he had an emergency, so it may be a few minutes Shark nods his head to that, "Not surprising he'd be there after what happened." he remarks, taking a spot nearby, "See you are all set up." Crackshot nods "Yup. Feel free to have a seat, look, but no touching." he waggles a finger comedically "I decided on a name." Shark mock-pouts for all of two seconds, then grins and raises his hands, "NO touching." he promises as he takes a seat on a med table. "Don't you think it has a name already there Crack?" "Well, yes. But until we learn it I thought of calling it Ampli. As in Amplify, since it seems to be made to collect data and transmit it." Shark nods to that, "Well let's hope it don't amplify its way out of this room and cause some sort of havoc hm?" Crackshot states "Oh, the transmission parts are damaged anyways. And it can't even move, the jets on it aren't powerful enough to break gravity." he explains Shark ahs softly, "Well that's good at least then." he notes, sitting on the med table and idly swinging his legs a bit. Crackshot nods "Yeah. " he smiles "And there's no weapons anyways so Amplif couldn’t do much." he was preparing the satellite, sitting it on a large clean cloth on a square table under a light, various tools and equipment ready to go Shark inclines his head to that bit of news, "Good, I don't think the docs would like their repair bay shot up." Ratchet eventually makes his way in just in time to hear Shark's comment. "No, I know I wouldn't," he grumps, thereby 'announcing' his presence. He gives a dubious glance at the satellite in question, an optic narrowing slightly in thought. "So this is that satellite you told me about?" Crackshot looks up at Ratchet and lifts both hands "It’s weaponless, don’t worry." he nods at the Bumblebee sized contraption, ancient and covered in dirt "YEs, this is it. It was more damaged when we found it. It still has battery power, but not much left" he explains The Young mech First Aid was also here, most following Ratchet for the day to give Lifeline a bit of peace, though he was always helpful-- but hey, the kid needed to get out and about once and awhile. Though for now he remains silent and just peeks around the door. Shark moves off the med table before he's asked to, getting out of the way. Ratchet walks over to the satellite, his expression purely business-like as he circles around the table it rests on. "Any data you found in or on it?" He asks. "I haven't tried reading its' memory yet. But there's markings on the sides." Crackshot brushes dirt off the stenciled lettering, alien, yet simple."And these." he smiles at First Aid, removing one panel to reveal two golden disks with diagrams on them First Aid walks in and looks around, he has been here once before, but last time there was allot of issues. Those two different colored optics scan about, before he looks up at where everyone else is looking. Canting his head to the side, but remaining quiet for now. Shark stays silent, arms crossing over his chest. Ratchet blinks at the discs, raising an optic-ridge enough to disappear behind his chevron. "Oh-ho." He takes a closer look at the lettering on the hull first, very carefully running his fingertips over them as his optics faintly whirr softly in magnification. He blinks a few times to return his optics to normal scale, then focuses on the discs. "What on Cybertron are these?" He asks. Shark speaks, "I think it’s some sort of communication disks that we'll probably have to translate, but that's just my uninformed opinion." Crackshot shrugs a little "That's what I think. There's pictures and such. Some look like star systems. The rest... not sure. The second one has grooves in it, textured First Aid gets on his tip-toes to get a better look at it as well. Though he continues to be quiet and tries to stay out of the way. Ratchet frowns, not touching those discs yet in case he may activate them or something. "Is there any way to remove them, or are they a part of the satellite itself?" He continues the questioning, sounding more curious than businesslike. "They're removable I think. I didn’t want to until I got a second opinion." indeed, they were held in frames and could be removed. He thinks, then looks at First Aid "First aid, in the drawer over there there's some soft boxes. Could you get them please?" Shark is silent again, just watching on quietly. First Aid looks to Crackshot, "Of course." He says easily, before he goes to fetch. This seemed to take him a few but he did come back with the said boxes of request and handing them to Crackshot. Though after the mech took them, First Aid went to go look around, he seem to be-- examining something about the room and then the parts. Then-- He seemed to start putting this in some semblance of order. Yes, apparently the young mech had an OCD of some sort in keeping things in some sort of order. Ratchet nods slowly and moves aside as First Aid retrieves the soft boxes. "We'll have to be careful. We don't know how these discs are attached, much less what will happen when we do touch or remove them." He moves to the side to retrieve a pair of 'pliers' just wide enough to put the edges on even sides of each disc. "I can't say I've ever seen anything like this before. Have you, Crackshot?" "Thank you First Aid! Shark, did you want to hold these for us? " he asks, wanting to include the mech He then nods at Ratchet as he peers into the thing again "No, nothing like it. What a curious way to store data. But it’s easy to 'find' at least, without special equipment." he notes Shark rolls his shoulders a bit, "Sure." moving to take the soft boxes and hold them, watching on quietly. As First Aid does his little organization he speaks up, "Perhaps they wanted it to be found by any race-- and a Sphere is a perfect shape and has the strongest surface, so-- in essence, though a disk is easy to break-- if you maybe have the proper read heads-- you can read it." Though he pauses, "..Though-- if it has images on it, then that wouldn't work." Back to work! Ratchet hrms at First Aid's words. "This is true... and we don't know what the other side of these discs look like..." He muses. He shrugs a bit and leans closer to the satellite. "I'll remove the first one. Keep an eye on the satellite and let me know if anything changes--power loss or spike, things like that." He carefully fastens the 'pliers' around one of the discs and carefully pulls it straight out, away from the damaged satellite. Crackshot looks over at First Aid, nodding "A sound idea. " he states "One has images, the other just spiraling grooves. I suspect the second is deciphered by the first." He stands to one side, by Shark as he nods, relaxing as the disk come off, some dust falling off it. "That dust is unlike anything I’ve seen. Strange and glistening." he takes out a swab, collecting some to look at later. First Aid glances over and hrms softly, though he continues to keep himself busy. He let the older mechs work on it, only input if he believed he could be helpful, after all-- he was still somewhat of a proto. Shark comments, "Let's how it ain't something that gets us all sick again." Crackshot states "If it is, then it would've done its' duty by now." he reassures Shark. Shark points out, "It wasn't outside of that thing til you removed that disk, Cracker." Ratchet is very careful with the disc, setting it down, face-up, in one of the soft boxes Shark is holding. "So far so good," he muses softly as he carefully extracts the other one and puts it in the other soft box. "Any change with the satellite, or were you two too busy debating to keep an optic on it like I asked?" Crackshot pauses "errr, it was actually. I just cleaned it up." he notes as gently as possible. "I'm a scientist anyways... I didn’t think of that till you mentioned it." he looks a little smarted and glances to the Satellite's notes "Nothing's changed. Still in stasis." First Aid finishes, seeming rather pleased with himself, before he returns to the other, his optics flicker gently, before his optics dim a bit, "So-- it came from outer space?" Ratchet nods once and scans over the satellite himself, seeming to almost memorize the satellite and everything on it. He's not a scientist or even primarily a tech, but even medical tricks help once in a while. Crackshot smiles at Shark "Thank you Shark. " he puts them to one side, under glass for examination as he looks back to the machine "I identified most of its' components. Its' CPU is well protected inside, with a weak batter. And yes, it came from outer space First Aid, through a strange anomaly." First Aid cants his head while he seems to look over the satellite, "..A CPU?" He questions before he gets back up on his tip-toes once more and looks at it, "So-- it has AI or some programming database?" His optics flicker, before he looks at Crackshot, then at Ratchet, "Perhaps it is recording us as well, or maybe it was recording everything it located on those discs?" Ratchet hrms softly as he looks back at First Aid. "That is what that'd imply, though I'm not exactly computer-focused enough to try to figure out the answer," he replies. "But it doesn't seem to be transmitting or receiving anything... so why record anything?" Crackshot nods "I think so." he explains to First Aid "And I don’t think its recording now though. Its battery is too weak, so its offline. I think we can bring it back, but that is the doctor's decision." he notes, looking to Ratchet. He nods once more "Well, its offline now. I imagine it collects, then transmits when it has a certain amount." First Aid looks to Ratchet, "Maybe so it can send back the data later, or send out a beacon to be picked up?" He then pauses, "Maybe even give the data over to anyone who is worthy for the knowledge-- like a test!" First Aid realized how silly that sounded and then looked a bit sheepish, "However.. if that disc that has grooves on it has data-- then we just need a laser reader, right? Hook that up to the computer, and I bet the computer could then read that data. After all data grooves are just ones and zeros." Ratchet smirks slightly. "These discs need to be cleaned first, otherwise all your 'ones' and 'zeros' will be nothing more than scratches and holes," he points out, his tone neutral but not harsh. "Either way, unless we can hook it up to something that would monitor any information it sends or receives, I don't think it'd be wise to try to reactivate it. Primus forbid we activate it and it ends up sending more information about us than we'd ever care to reveal." "If that's what the grooves are for." notes Crackshot "But a very good idea. To avoid damaging the originals, I will have a replica made. As for information gathered... it doesn’t seem capable of doing more than pictures and some information on material makeup and stuff. I don’t think it can see our insides or anything. I think. " he states, his face still anxious as Ratchet thinks they should leave it offline. "Its damaged too. It can't do more than see us." First Aid then gets something to stand on and gets up higher, before he gently pokes it, "I bet we could fix it and once we learn what we can-- send it back into space, and then let it go back to doing whatever its designed to do." Poke poke.. Ratchet frowns and glances over at Crackshot. "We don't know what this satellite could do if powered up enough and/or repaired enough. Even 'seeing' may not be the best of ideas, considering we don't know where this came from or who built it," he points out. "I advise that we leave it be and report to Prime what we've found so far." Without looking down at First Aid, he lightly swats at First Aid's hand to get it away from the satellite. "My point still stands irregardless, First Aid, and don't touch it." Crackshot sighs in frustration "Ratchet, right now it can't do much at all. I haven't repaired most of its' equipment." he notes, still pressing anxiously "There's no weapons on it, there's no lasers or even a vocal box. IT doesn’t have limbs or on-planet mobility. Its HARMLESS." he notes "The satellite transmission dish is even busted so it can't even transmit anyways." he was getting irritated it sounded like. First Aid moves his hand away at the swat, then looks between the mechs-- oh boy-- he knows where this is going. Ratchet doesn't say anything at first and just stares at Crackshot, his blue optics narrowing slightly. This medic does not like being pushed, and you can almost see the proverbial hackles rising. "What is the rush?" He finally asks evenly, his tone holding just a shade of a tone indicating danger. "I understand that this," hand-motion to the satellite, "is 'harmless', in the sense that we are not at risk of anything short of a spontaneous combustion. But I have seen too many times when information can be just as deadly of a weapon in the wrong hands as a good rifle." He leans forwards slightly, his tone shifting ever-so-slightly to a lower octave. "So tell me--is there anything about this that you /haven't/ told me yet that would require such haste to return it to full operation?" Crackshot blinks at this, confused 'No... nothing at all. I just want to see if it is indeed, a living machine like us, and if we could talk to it if so." he explains simply, glancing to First Aid, and then back to Ratchet "That's all, really. I've been working on her for months already. I want to see!" First Aid quickly hops down and gets between Ratchet and Crackshot, "Ratchet," First Aid says softly, "Crackshot is just curious, you can't blame him for that can you?" The young mech says gently, "Maybe if we got Optimus ok-- and maybe a soldier in here or two.. that way in case it is dangerous, they can quickly deactivate-- or maybe even put it on our power supply, so incase it tries something, we can just pull the plug." Crackshot is nervous during all of this, but also almost pleading. First Aid then glances downward, "Though-- if it is living.. then that be like-- life-support and I suppose that wouldn't be really good." Crackshot mutters at First Aids' comment "It HAS no weapons. What will it do, beep at us?" Ratchet inhales deeply, straightening once more but still having the proverbial hackles up due to being pushed more than anything. First Aid's words don't seem to calm him down any--though, he doesn't seem like he's about to bash anyone over the head with a wrench yet. He cants his gaze towards the satellite as he muses on the situation for a few kliks. "I cannot say that I've registered any semblance of life-signs as we know it, and it does not seem to function on Energon as we do. However, that can easily be said to be due to foreign design," he finally states, turning his gaze back to the other two. "Very well. If the transmission array is damaged to the point where it cannot transmit, then I suppose I don't have much leverage on that end, do I?" Wry smirk. "Until we know if this is a mere machine or a sentient being, we will put it on an electrical charge-line and administer only vital repairs to get it back to at least semi-operational status so we can determine what--or who--it is. We will also alert Prime to our findings thus far and our plan for the near future." He rests one hand on his hip-plate. "Agreed?" Crackshot nods at that, relaxing a little "That is perfectly fine with me! Basics, enough to run, but nothing else until we know. I will even empty the canisters for its maneuvering jets." First Aid uuhs at that, "..you.. may want to remove those.." Ratchet emits a wry, humorless chuckle. "If only to make sure we don't accidently cause an accidental combustion during the course of our repairs," he remarks dryly as he walks over to the nearest machine and plugs in a line. "Hopefully we have something that we can plug into it in order to charge its battery." Crackshot looks at First Aid, with a smile "They're just compressed nitrogen tanks. And they're empty anyways. Not nearly enough to get off the ground on Cybertron even at full power and charge." he nods at Ratchet "I'll see if I can figure out something and work on it - and show it to you before I install too." First Aid cants his head before he sits down in a corner to stay out of the way, "Compressed Nitrogen? Isn't that kinda-- low tech?" Ratchet busies himself with trying to figure out something that can connect to the battery to charge it and other such medical-like duties. Crackshot nods "The entire thing is as well. The most high tech thing I found on it was the titanium alloy protecting the disks. And even THAT was rather impure." he notes.
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