Inaugural post- welcome aboard!

[pfsb_cam]

First, there was NOTHING.

Then, it EXPLODED.

And then, there was a PARTY.


... essentially, the Big Bang has just come to pass, and there is already a place with a dance floor and music and a number of roving robotic waiters, and complicated mazes of pipes and bars overhead for flying and arboreal daemons to perch on, and an area with a swimming pool lit by multicolored pulsating lights for those with aquatic daemons, and... well, you get the idea. Welcome to the beginning of everything. Everyone and his/her/its daemon is welcome so long as they behave themselves. Enjoy!

Comments

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"The main production floor of the RobCo Protectron facility west of Arlington," says Ellen. "I fell asleep in the office last night- it's been a long week trying to get the control mechanisms for the new laser design implemented and I haven't been able to go home."

[toblameforit]

"Ooh, lasers," Tony says brightly. "What kind?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"1064 nanometer IR wavelength with a 532 nanometer second harmonic generation focus and an 8.18 picometers per meter beam divergence," Ellen says automatically. "Visibly green. Pre-War prototypical design, but it's worked pretty well in the rifles the Scribes've been turning out."

"We don't usually work the technical side of the line, but since we were the ones to get the factory back online in the first place, it's been our responsibility," adds the mouse. "This is why somebody hasn't been sleeping."

"I slept last night."

"Desks don't count."

[toblameforit]

"This one doesn't sleep either unless someone drops him in bed and sits on him," says Harpax, flexing her talons in the already much-gouged padding on Tony's shoulder. "I feel your pain, Bite-sized."

"I sleep," Tony protests. "Sometimes. When I don't have anything better to do."

"Uh-huh."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"My name's Saoshyant."

"Mine's Ellen," says Ellen. "Most people back home call me 101. And I sleep, usually, just in three-hour bursts."

The mouse snorts.

"When I've got my dog or one of the robots standing guard duty," she amends. "Or a person, if I'm traveling with someone."

[toblameforit]

"...okay," says Tony, "you win the insomnia competition. I'm Tony."

"Harpax," says Harpax.

Tony wonders in afterthought, "Why 101?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Pleased to meet you, Tony, Harpax," says Ellen. "And they call me 101 because I grew up in a sealed underground fallout shelter called Vault 101, and people seem to find it easier to remember where I came from than to ask my actual name. It was kind of annoying at first but you get used to it after a while."

[toblameforit]

"I just know I'm gonna regret asking this," Tony sighs. "Why did you grow up in an underground fallout shelter?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"It's always so weird to run into somebody who doesn't know," says Ellen. "There was a nuclear war about two hundred years before I was born, basically. A lot of people bought into the Vault system beforehand, to try and get protection for what they thought was coming. Vault 101 stayed shut longer than most, but the people who lived there are coming out and dealing with the surface now."

[toblameforit]

Harpax fluffs out her feathers and then tucks her wings firmly against her body. Tony looks glum.

"Yeah, I was afraid of that. Hate time travel. Do you know when that nuclear war was? I mean, what year? Because if this isn't an alternate universe thing I'd kind of like to make it one."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"October 23, 2077, 9:47 AM, Eastern Standard Time," says Ellen readily. "I find a lot of stopped clocks in the ruins and they all say the same thing."

She's gotten past the point where she worries about someone like Drake Tungsten, Chrono-Cowboy showing up to give her trouble if she says something to someone else who interferes with history.

Well, mostly.

[toblameforit]

"October 23, 2077," he repeats. "All right, thanks."

But despite his apparent calm, Harpax hunches protectively on his shoulder. Nuclear war: not exactly a pretty thought.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Not a problem," says Ellen as Saoshyant scrambles around to her other shoulder. "Is this the kind of thing you have to deal with regularly?"

[toblameforit]

"Yes and no," he says. "I've never done either time travel or nuclear war before, but my dad helped develop the atomic bomb, so if there's one coming I feel kind of responsible for making it not happen."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Oh!" says Ellen. "Oh, I see. Yes, I can understand that- well, if my history teacher is right, you're probably going to want to start with something that isn't nuclear weapons at all. The whole thing grew out of a series of conflicts that started off with energy resources like coal and petroleum running out."

[toblameforit]

Tony glances down at his chest, covered by a double layer of shirts.

"Oh," he says. "Uh, I actually think I've got a handle on that already. Maybe."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Saoshyant leans forward from his perch, whiskers stirring curiously. Ellen just nods. "The Texas oil fields run dry by 2052," she says, "and the Middle Eastern ones not long after that, and China invades Alaska in 2067 to get at the last reliable oil fields on the planet- so if you can come up with and popularize alternative energy sources very, very widely before then, you have a good chance of heading it off."

[toblameforit]

Harpax flexes her talons again.

"Thanks," Tony repeats. "Yeah. I think maybe... yeah."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"You're welcome," Ellen says. "In the meantime, how did you get here, exactly? I just walked out the door and, well...."

[toblameforit]

"That's even weirder than how I did it. I was actually supposed to end up in the first place capable of sustainably supporting human life, so... I guess it worked?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Looks like it," Ellen says. "At least it doesn't seem to have been an abduction, for me. I checked the door already and it looks like it goes right back to the factory. I'm not sure how that works, but after last night, I'm not arguing."

[toblameforit]

"...I kind of want to check my recall function now, but I also kind of want to stick around in case this is the only shot I get," he says.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I can understand that," Ellen says. "This place is kind of incredible, isn't it? No matter where you came from."

[toblameforit]

"Seriously!" he agrees, grinning.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"So what else do you think they have here?" Ellen says. "This is way nicer than any of the pictures we have back home of what the city used to look like."

"It's probably huge," says Saoshyant. "I can hear all kinds of feet upstairs. And in the walls- like there are maintenance passages."