P:AE Group 2, Team Z83

Appearance: Natural

Lakaida strapped herself in; unassisted now, as the belting was better designed with hooves in mind. "I'll want a turn at some point too! Maybe on the way back?"

Ruby looked a bit nervous. As nervous as a maraca-bot could be, anyways. "I think I'll just power down a while. I have never enjoyed atmospheric flight," she said as she landed on a rack above the changeling's head.

"Pussy."

The hangar doors open, and the dragon mechanic gives a "thumbs up" from the control room, signalling that you're clear for launch. You start moving forward, slowly and then faster, before rocketing out of the ship: it's massive form quickly growing smaller as you leave it behind, and Planet growing larger below you. You enter the atmosphere, and speed on downwards.

(Piloting check from Flairvoyant real quickly. Nothing should go wrong, I already got a roll from Coral a couple pages ago, she can co-pilot if it was for some reason necessary)

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Gearick takes the lift to level X, stopping at the magitech lab there to grab his equipment. A blue unicorn with a purple-grey mane nods at you as you enter before returning to whatever he was doing before you entered. Your pad notifies you that the anomalies have stopped, though you should still be able to get there quickly enough to pick up some useful information on your fancy scanner.

You then proceed to level R, and make your way to that level's Archives, and see a dark brown earth pony enter the facility just before you do.

(Gearick: If you could momentarily post in the other group for a second, that would be nice, as you happen to be there at the same time as one of their characters- Dusty Trails, the earth pony I mentioned, in case you want to interact with him at all. Once you're no longer directly interacting with the other team, come back to this thread)

Flairvoyant eased into the atmosphere but it was not as smooth as it could be. Probably still had to shake off some of the stiffness of the big sleep.  "Well, that could have been smoother but it could have been worse. Everypony okay?"

OOC:

Coral holds a hoof to her mouth. "This is why I prefer being underwater. No possibility of turbulence or earthquakes shaking you up. Are we low enough yet for me to take control? We also probably don't want to be too low as I get myself familiar with this aircraft."

(Gearick, I'd like you to do a Technology roll and an Arcana roll)

Gearick definitely gets some readings from the scanner: picking up a very strong, though unstable signal: like the ripples left by a boulder being thrown into a pond.  Oddly, some of this magic seems to be concentrated around an empty mug with a colorful, random mosaic pattern printed on it, left on top of a computer terminal somepony had left running.  

Despite the instability and randomness of the magical signal, Gearick doubts that it was a natural phenomenon.  

(What are Gearick's free Freaky Knowledge areas, by the way?)

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Meanwhile
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The craft hurtles through  the uppermost cloud cover, and you begin a more controlled approach towards the surface: It would be safe to switch places and move about when you wish.  

You soon get low enough to get your first clear look at Planet's surface.  You are currently flying over the coastline of one of the larger continents.  The colors of the land and sea are quite vivid: the green and red of the surface's plant and fungal life, with even the sea being dotted with patches of its own flora and fungi.  Even the clouds are interesting:  plodding along of their own accord, unsheparded by pegasi weathercrafting, forming unfamiliar shapes and weather patterns.  

(Perception if you want to look for any details in the terrain with your eyes, Technology if you want to take a look at any scanners.  As a followup to either of these, or as you get closer you may make a Streetwise check to spot attractive colony sites, Medicine to analyze what you can see of the plant and fungal life, or something else if you think of it)

Appearance: Natural

Lakaida grew excited as she unbuckled herself, staring out the window. She was secretly relieved that the red had not turned out to be fallout; while fungus wasn't her field, she looked forward to finding out more about it.

"Isn't it amazing!? I wonder what the red stuff smells like. How warm is it? I should be looking," she said, pulling a screen down from an extending arm over her head...

Checks:

Coral happily takes the pilot's chair from Flair, moving the craft about in the air to get different views of different areas, getting close to the ground and higher in the air.

Rolls:

Switching seats, Flairvoyant gazed out over the land. The beautiful landscape made her energetic and giddy but she knew there was work to do. Moving towards a touch screen on the console, she started sketching out a basic map with rough coordinates as they continued their flyby. A better one could be made later but this should be a good start for planning things out.

OOC:

Deck R Archives:
Gearick does not see any sort of obvious surveillance system in the room.

There is some concentration of magic around the mug- in fact, it seems as though the cup would dissolve were it not permeated with magic.  There doesn't really seem to be a focus for the magic- it permeates the room.  It all seems to be an aftereffect of whatever the anomaly was: there's no active effect other than the cup being held together.  You are able to find a rough origin point near the middle of the room:  though there's nothing there now.  

(I'd like you to make a quick Technology roll to see what you can learn about the computer's recent activity)

Planet Atmosphere
Lakaida takes in the sights: though gets a little distracted in admiring the scenery:  which is beautiful, though sometimes in an alien way.  She does manage to spot some locations she thinks would be nice to live in: near sources of fresh water, with decent quantities of surrounding vegetation and limited quantities of the unknown fungus.  Scans of the areas she spots look promising.

The scanners show that most of the area you're surveying is temperate, with a little dip into an equatorial tropical zone.  

Coral is able to pick out some more detail, and is able to spot a few more options, as well as picking out the best sites that Lakaida spotted.  She's able to help Flairvoyant notice landmarks and unique features which may be important later.  You see a couple spots near the shore that you would probably appreciate personally.

Flairvoyant is able to follow along with what the others see, jotting down everything you and your companions see as quickly as you can- though it can be a bit hard to keep up.  Your keen eye does help spot things that are harder to see or obscured. You notice a couple of geothermal vents that might make good energy sources, some volcanic activity that had best be avoided, and noticeable spore release in some of the denser fungal regions.

"Well, I know for one thing that a great place for finding resources of many kinds is right around where a river meets with the ocean. It would also be a good place to experiment with possible different atmospheric pressure from home, and all sorts of other such things. It would also be a great place to perch a settlement that is half underwater, for those of us who prefer to live there." ((Does Coral see any such places that look like other factors, such as vegetation and geography, all combine to make a nice place to start a colony? Doesn't have to be perched on the beach, just within reasonable distance of the ocean/river.))

Appearance: Natural

Lakaida looked up from the screen. "Spores are serious business, Coral dear. Although, we're here now; whatever they are, we're going to have to deal with them. Along with anything else new down there. I do wish we could land, I want to smell that place and it's fresh air," she said, inhaling deeply and sighing wistfully.

R Archives:
Accessing the computer brings up even more questions.  It appears that no one had logged into the computer- it looks as though it had turned on of its own accord.  Neither is there any voice log of any transactions with the computer.  There are even some files that were accessed before the terminal was even on.

Despite this mystery, whoever used the computer doesn't seem to have been trying to be particularly stealthy.  The files that were accessed were still up:  a number of historical records, mainly on Starswirl the Bearded, as well as articles on magical theory and technology, with an emphasis on chaos magic-not that there are many articles about it.  You note (though you may have been aware of this already), the ship's engine is not a pure Fusion engine as labled, but is supported with some basic chaos magic principles.  It looks like these files were copied to be accessed remotely at a computer terminal in room R89.

The files that were accessed before the terminal was even turned on seem to be a separate incident: and timed with some of the magical disruptions.   It looks like copies of the crew files were made and... sent somewhere else, you can't find it.  They weren't deleted, apparently transferred somewhere outside of the ship's network.  Whoever had been browsing these files seemed particularly interested in the corrupted crew files that hadn't been reading properly.  

Planet Atmosphere
Coral does in fact see a couple such ideal locations: one on a sheltered bay surrounded by a lush native vegetation and rich soil with a number of nearby geothermal vents, and one along a wide river not far from the sea, with arable land on one side and mineral-rich cliffs on the other.  Both seem to have relatively stable weather patterns from the limited data you can gather in such a short time, and practically no fungal activity.

A light flashes on one of the side screens, and the pegasus who contacted you earlier about your mission speaks to you again.
"How're you doing, team... Z83."  He still seems to be checking his screen for your names, but you can hardly blame him as he likely has to supervise a number of groups.  "Just checking in on your progress.  Having fun yet?"
He smiles.

"We're having a great time! Found some amazing spots on the coast, both with rivers, looks like we have a choice between better agricultural land and better mineral deposits, though both spots seem really strong in both factors. I'll send more data when we're done, probably going to pay some specific attention to these two sites." Coral says, half-thinking out loud, half-responding, as she guides the craft all over the place to get a thousand different views of these spots. "Sounds like you've had a long day so far. Just how many groups are there that you check in on?"

That's wonderful!  Both of those spots look lovely: We'll continue to analyze your findings, but at first glance I think both will get selected for initial landings."

"You could say that: most of us official ship crew were woken up before you colonists, to make sure we could start making preparations right away.  I'm dealing with a couple dozen groups doing aerial surveys right now, meeting with varying levels of success.  There's a lot of air to cover, it being a whole uncharted world and all!"

The pegasus does look a bit tired, but still excited nonetheless.

"Just make sure you get enough sleep of your own, we don't want you collapsing from exhaustion! At least, not until we get to the surface and the actual building gets underway." Coral smiles at the screen, before looking back at Flairvoyant. I think we've gotten pretty much all we're going to get on this run. Take us back to orbit?" She quickly puts the craft on autopilot while she switches seats with the actual pilot.

"Nice to know that multiple groups are tackling this.  More eyes can help catch any gaps or blind spots.  But Coral's right, don't overwork yourself up there.  We're headed back so that'll be one fewer group to keep an eye on." Flairvoyant then switched seats with Coral Wrench as they prepared to leave the atmosphere. "Everypony ready?"

If a piloting roll is needed:

Coral double checks that she's fully buckled, then gives a nod to Flairvoyant. "Ready when you are!"

"Aye-aye, will do!" the pegasus salutes playfully and grins. "See you back aboard! Well, I won't, but you know what I mean. Shift'll be over once everyone makes it back safely, so I'll be napping... hopefully long enough to be able to get some shore leave by time I wake up!"

The transmission ends, and Flairvoyant takes the wheel again, and smoothly carries you back up to orbit, landing flawlessly in the hangar. The mechanic is still there, and smiles and gives you a claws-up as you exit the craft- clearly glad he doesn't have to fix or repaint anything.