Project [New Life]: Episodes - Roleplay Thread

[Jack_Henderson]

//This is the roleplay thread in which episodes of the "New Life" roleplay can be posted. The thread is not meant to host turn-for-turn discussions, as they are not suitable for forum roleplay. It is meant to post short, closed episodes, short glimpses of what is happening from an in roleplay point of view of a character who is involved in the project. The goal is to give an interesting, multi-facetted approach to the topic and give many roleplayers the chance to contribute.

It would be nice if you could:

1. introduce and describe the character a little (it can develop in future posts)
   
2. add fitting pictures to make it look nice and give an impression
   

If you want to take part, please contact me via Skype (my adress is in my forum description).

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Rebecca Jameson - Chief of Engineering, Falkland Base, Tau 37:

Chief of Engineering on Falkland Rebecca Jameson felt nervous before the meeting with the Cryer representatives and she checked her transmitter for the time until the Cryer experts would arrive on Falkland to inspect the station. "62 hours... more than enough time..." she reassured herself.

After quickly answering an incoming message with a short: "Not now. Busy", she turned around to face the empty cavern that was brightly lit by a few million lux that had been installed over the last days. She could see her assistant, veteran miner Jimmy Gordon standing between the stonen pillars that reached 30 meters high.

"Small... we are." she thought for a moment while watching him check and adjust some of the lights in what they called the cathedral.

Falkland base had one thing in abundance: unused, abandoned space. The massive asteroid in Tau 37 had been excavated over the last decades until all the resources it once held were exploited. Hundreds of mining tunnels criss-crossed the asteroid and this part where most of the tunnels met and where the storage used to be, was where the Rehab Center for Operation New Life should find its place.

Rebecca - called 'Numbershead' by her fellow workers for her calculations and graphs - knew that this would be a huge task. Her first large assignment and a personal challenge. Up to now her job had been to make sure that the asteroid remained structurally intact, that the tunnels remained stable. Mostly desk-work and charting of sensor readings. She had been more focussed on monitoring and sensor placement than on construction projects. Sometimes a tunnel had to be reinforced, sometimes a ceiling supported. This scale was totally new to her.

"Jimmy!" her voice echoed through the labyrinth of the cavern: "... 30 degrees up and further left. Light that part well. That's where we want the cables for electricity to go and connect to the main generator units above us." she yelled to the worker. He signalled with a thumbs-up and a short adjustment of the spotlight that he had understood. Floodlight lit what used to be the shaft for an elevator that transported slag.

"A Rehab Center... high tech facility... for hundreds of Cardamine addicts... high security... medical center..." she turned around 360 degree, looking at the naked walls of rock. It was hard to believe that this was a real project and that she was ordered to manage it somehow. She picked up a stone that had fallen from the ceiling and she looks up: "... helmets... don't forget that." she reminded herself, staring at the rock of nickel-iron.

Taking out her PDA, she takes another note about securing the ceiling with a thin steel net so that small rocks would not endanger workers in the following months. The large construction machines would make the rock surface shake and cause a lot more of these small rocks to come down.

"Danger of... caving-in... needs reinforcing..." she also notes down and points at a few points on the map of the system. "... Here... and here... section 34/4A... and B... Titanium crossbeams..." she is muttering while she is assessing the cavern that is now almost as brightly lit as Tau 37. Another small rock hits the rough floor where heavy mining vehicles left the rock's surface scarred.

"... spray coating with elastic foam... nano-plastics type 3 should do.." she said to herself, not even noticing that Jimmy had walked up to her. Without a question asked, he put down a large drill that he had used to fix cables to the walls. "... The rock is strong enough. Don't worry about the ceiling. Falkland rock... nothing large will come down." he said with a low voice and heavy dialect of southern Bretonia.

Rebecca turned her PDA towards him to show him the calculations about how much the ceiling weighs and how many tons each of the natural pillars could hold... "Iron-nickel core... and some traits of carbonaceous chondrite... 11,882 % alloy made of...", but he just grinned and nodded:

"... I know, Reb. You calculated everything. And will it hold?" he asks her and Rebecca nodded, and then she started to explain to him her worries about cave-ins in the lower parts when heavy machinery would be used. Jimmy was listening and just shaking his head again and again, until he interrupted her after two minutes of engineer technical details on rock structure, fissures and stress fracture. "Believe a miner. It will not cave in." he added and then grinned:

"... Hey, Rebecca. Excited?" Jimmy asked her with a sly smile and she turned towards him, looked up from her PDA. Her movement was too abrupt to allowe her to entirely dismiss what he had hinted at. After a moment of hesitation she nodded: "A little... my first large project in construction here on Falkland." and she looked around the huge cavern... "And not a small one for starters..."

Jimmy was a miner somewhere between 50 and 60 years, it was hard to say from all the wrinkles in his dusty and dirty face, yet he was grinning broadly: "... Reb, relax." and he handed her a bottle of water. "... nothing much can be ruined here. It's just rock... good rock." and he shrugged and pointed to the pillar next to them before she could point him to her PDA again: "... I'll fix a few more spotlights here. Your cathedral should be well-lit for our guests."

Rebecca caught the benevolent irony in his words. She wanted to reply, but she just nodded agreement to his plan and he was gone before she could think of anything witty to tell him. They have had dozens of discussions, and she had spent weeks quarrelling with Jimmy over projects that were much easier at this one, yet on this one they seemed to agree. Her professional training in engineering and mining made her confident in her skills. And still, the old miner's advice had proven to be valuable.

"Organise 10 more helmets for tomorrow, Jimmy!" she yelled after him and he just gave her another thumbs up. Then the hammer drill drowned out any other sound with deafening noise. There was a lot of work still to be done before the Medical Chiefs and the Cryer experts could be shown into here.

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