2/3 teegee 2023/11/05(Sun)20:50 No. 1076589 ID: 3286d2
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The words echo in the juggernaut's mind. Those three, torturous syllables. She wouldn't mind finding the bastard who came up with those words and ripping their spine out.

This has become her nightly ritual. The ruminating. The mental cataloguing of their diminishing rations. The gut-wrenching worry about what it's doing to everyone she loves. The staring out into the inky blackness that looks more and more like their grave.

She fucking hates it. Not just because of what it means for the Family, that's bad enough by itself. But also because of the effect it has on her. She feels that awful tension at the corners of her eyes, the swelling deep within her sinuses, that sensation juggernauts were never meant to know. The tear ducts swelling up, threatening to give away that even her resolve is failing. That the Family's proverbial matriarch is breaking, giving in to despair.

God damn she fucking hates it.

3/3 teegee 2023/11/05(Sun)20:51 No. 1076590 ID: 3286d2
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The little dragoon, her companion for the evening -- it was his turn on the schedule -- looks up at her from between her legs, concern smeared across his face. Great -- she's doing a terrible job of hiding how awful she feels right now. And it must be contagious... she can feel him losing confidence inside her.

The realization just makes her feel worse.

You're givin' him performance anxiety, asshole.

Can't eat carpet for breakfast, trooper. Limit strenuous activity during off duty hours, and stick to cuddles.

Little Dragoon: ask if everything is okay as it looks like her mind is on other things right now. You can leave a finish yourself off back in your room. It's no problem if she's not in the mood, really, and if she wants to be alone with her thoughts.

Juggernaut: Silently just grab the back of his neck, and push him towards your chest for more cuddles.

Juggernaut: Forego the sex and cuddle instead. This is a time when the comfort of intimacy is more important than pleasure.

Smooch him. Then cuddle.

How long until you can resupply?

Too long, of course, but how long?

You have a distress signal, someone could respond to, don't you? It's a small comfort, but it's there.

Save your tears for when you have food and water and air to breathe again.

Someone should check if the life support is still OK.

You can't go into stasis until the ship is found or drifts into an inhabited system?

Compliment him for doing a good job, it’s helping keep your mind off things. Try to get back in the groove and forget your concerns for a few more minutes

Juggernaut: Cuddles probably aren't something that ocurr to you, if you're supposed to be the extremely tough type.

Little dragoon: However, cuddles might ocurr to you. Ask how your boss (I assume Juggernaut is your boss?) is doing, & try to just cuddle instead. Maybe you need comfort as much as she does.
Maybe you've got some minor good news that boss hasn't heard yet. A potential issue with the water recyclers was solved, or someone figured out how to process a few of the chemicals in the cargo into simple sugars, which will stretch the food a little.

To whom it concerns: Are there any hydroponics/bioreactors/etc, for renewable food supply?
Is there any way to put people in stasis until food can be found?
Is there any kind of ship/station/planet in range (or close-to in range) that you could re-supply from?
Presumably, the answer to all of these is "No", otherwise you wouldn't be starving, but we need some more context. Are you on a ship? What were you guys doing before this issue came up, & how did this issue come up? How many people are on-ship, & how long will the food last? Is there anything besides food that is a concern?

"Why the hell did you install a window in my room? Those are structural weaknesses."

Use your hardass interior to keep minion focused.

Maybe space windows are just as tough as bulkheads. Maybe the entire ship's outer hull is made out of indestructible transparent material and windows are just holes in the inner hull.

Maybe it's a screen, using a live feed from a camera.

>Why the hell did you install a window in my room? Those are structural weaknesses

Well on the subject of structural weaknesses anyone check for any breaches on the inner hull?

Dragoon: He knows she must be worried about food. But he can't give up what little pleasure he gets to have at this point.
He needs to do something but he's too shy to ask anything of her.

Juggernaut: She can't let her brooding lower the crew morale. That would only make things worse or even make them spiral out of control.
She should bring his head close to hers and whisper to him that she wants him to do it in her mouth and then grin at him.

That should solve any performance issues one way or the other. Also, having stuff in her mouth might drive away thoughts of food.

What do sheep dream of?

Pull him tight into you, juggernaut, face to your chest. Do what you can to encourage him - scratch or stroke around the ears, tighten your legs a bit, that sort of thing. Keep him from looking at your face while you get control of those tears. Maybe turn yourself onto your hands and knees, if you can't do that, encourage him to go a bit harder? Sounds like you need the distraction.

>windows are structural weaknesses
The crew going crazy is an even more major structural weakness, they need to be able to see that there's an outside sometimes. With good enough materials, depending on what hazards you're expecting to face, it's a worthwhile trade.

>>1076734

There's other design issues too; an obviously space-only ship laid out like a belly lander or spaceplane, even WITH technological miracles of artificial gravity, inertial compensation, and the like, you still want to lay them out like skyscrapers so if those systems lose power or functionality, you don't fall sideways due to the thrust and instead fall downwards towards the floor.

This ship has to come from a culture that prioritized the look and feel of things over functionality and efficient use of space and safety. This probably also is related to the inadequate hydroponics and aeroponics for the mission or eventualities.

>>1076738

In that vein, how are the OTHER vital technologies for keeping you all alive? The carbon dioxide scrubbers, the ship's heat radiators that prevent the normal operations from cooking you, the climate control that ties into that so you are at an appropriate temperature in general, the water recyclers and water filters, the power generators or solar panels, and so on and so forth?

1/2 teegee 2023/11/07(Tue)20:14 No. 1076752 ID: 3286d2
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>Renewable food supply? Stasis? Resupply at a ship/station/planet?
No room for food production facilities on this hunk -- it was a galactic patrol cruiser when it crashed, and a total franken-job after they fixed it up.
>Stasis?
Ten crew, twelve if you count the girls, but only five cryo pods. Not enough by a long shot, even considering that she and Thorium would never fit. Bringing it up always starts fights, so she banned the topic from crew meetings.
>Resupply at a ship/station/planet?
As for resupply... heh, if only it were that easy. If only the cops weren't lit up like fuckin' crazy on the trade lanes right now. If only there were some real jobs available to them, the kind that don't amount to being bullet sponges for scumbags who weren't gonna pay to begin with. If only the galaxy didn't see their entire species as a problem, as an uncomfortable reminder of a particularly shameful part of galactic history, something to wait out while their numbers dwindle to zero.

>This ship has to come from a culture that prioritized the look and feel of things over functionality and efficient use of space and safety.
Can't say those things were high priorities when they got this hunk of junk working. Not when "will it explode" and "can it get off the ground" were open questions.

>What were you guys doing before this issue came up?
The only thing that's ever an option to them: taking what isn't theirs.

>Is there anything besides food that is a concern?
Food's the one area where they can't afford to be frugal. Maybe if they were all dragoons -- they're built to hole up in tight spaces for weeks to months, but even then it'd be a stretch.

>Distress signal
More like a come-blow-us-up signal.

>How long will the food last?
She runs the calculations in her head once more, hoping for a better answer this time. It isn't. Two, three weeks tops. That's if they really ration it hard.

>Is there anything besides food that is a concern?
Food's the big one. Medical supplies are a bit low, but still manageable. Ammo's in good supply, though -- good thing, too, 'cause if it wasn't... then they really would be done for.

2/2 teegee 2023/11/07(Tue)20:14 No. 1076753 ID: 3286d2
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"What's eatin' you, Cap'n?"

The words are like a punch to the gut. They sound so nonchalant, so casual, but she knows him well enough, knows that tone of voice. He cares, he cares about her, and it threatens to pull her over the edge.

>Ask how your boss (I assume Juggernaut is your boss?) is doing, & try to just cuddle instead.
Boss, leader, visionary. Same difference, he figures.
>Maybe you need comfort as much as she does.
He needs her to feel better. That's all that matters to him right now.

Her voice just won't come to her, she can't will it. But he doesn't need her to -- in his mind this was a foregone conclusion before he even opened his mouth.

Making love isn't right for them right now. The schedule can wait 'til another day. He pulls out, clambers up her torso, bringing his head close to hers. He holds her, at least as much as those short dragoon arms can manage. It's so wonderful and so horrible all at the same time.

>Maybe you've got some minor good news that boss hasn't heard yet. A potential issue with the water recyclers was solved, or someone figured out how to process a few of the chemicals in the cargo into simple sugars, which will stretch the food a little.
Barkin' up the wrong tree on that one. He wishes he had something for her, but... his forte is makin' shit go boom. Supplies engineering? Might as well be magic, to him.

"Hey." His voice is quiet, reassuring. "Don't bottle it up like that. Talk to me."

She can't bear to look him in the eye. "What's there to talk about? You know."

"What I know is that we're survivors." He pauses, running a big paw through her crimson locks.
"I can tell what's goin' through your head," the dragoon continues, "and it ain't pretty. This all hurts you more than you're lettin' on."
He stares past her, out towards the glittering starscape. "You've kept us alive this long. You did this, you found a way. I trust you, I trust your judgment. But you gotta communicate. Help me help you, mama bear."

Of course she had to get like this in front of him, of all people. Make him want to comfort her. Anyone else... she could take it. But this little fucker, something about him just makes her feel. Maybe if things were different, if her biology didn't play such an outsized role in their plans... maybe she could admit she already knows why.

But she can't. So she doesn't.
She has to fight back the tears. The dragoon doesn't need this from her right now. No one does. She's supposed to be strong, dammit. The strongest.

A juggernaut.

You should risk the spacelanes sooner than later. A hungrier crew will fight worse, even if they're more desperate. Does your strength lie in boarding actions, or could you just shoot a few holes in a freighter and grab what comes out like a space pinata?

Mama: You ARE the strongest. Physically. Emotional strength comes from others. Let him help you, if only by listening.

How unforgiving is this joint? And it looks like you'll need to reallocate resources and crew management. Get some people learning agriculture. If you're survivors, you'll have to build.

Also, what species are you, anyway?

Is that a tear in your eye?

Maybe ask to be alone to think. Nothing wrong with a little alone time.

So is this hunk on the ground or in space?

Are you the type of pirates that do a con? Like, pretend to be a type of ship you aren't, something that seems innocuous but surprise! It isn't? Is there anyone here that has any expertise on that sort of camouflage or bluff or hacking style piracy?

>>1076752
>No room for food production
That is a solvable problem. Convert ALL available space into food production facilities. Stack your hydroponics, dump your non-essential furniture out the airlock, etc. Of course, there's not much that grows fast enough for you to have a meal in two weeks. Mushrooms, maybe.

>Ten crew, twelve if you count the girls, but only five cryo pods.
Okay start using them. Put five people in cryo so they don't have to eat anymore. That'll extend your rations for... well, I don't know how much the bigger ones eat compared to the smaller ones, but it should give you significantly more time. Draw straws, no point in arguing with a random pick. Though you can allow those who have been chosen to refuse and give their spot to someone else.

Since you're pirates your most obvious solution is to pillage/hijack another ship, but if police activity is too high, then... what about finding a habitable planet and landing on it? Forage and hunt for a while until you've got enough supplies to last you until the next whatever. Of course, if you can get to somewhere where you can take ANY JOB WHATSOEVER you can do that to survive. Even if it's dangerous, it's better than death from starvation.

>>1076753
>A juggernaut shouldn't cry
Oh please. Nobody is made of stone.

Also, you should be rigging up makeshift hydroponics evverryyywherrree! Hell, turn the artificial gravity wayyy down so you all take up less space so you can use the saved space to put lights and pipes for the water with added, ahem, natural fertilizer EVERYWHERE. There have to be some seeds or root vegetables or you can take cuttings of an existing plant or something! Surely you have a basic database with designs and survival information about this sort of thing SOMEWHERE? You all have this thing called 'the ability not to squeeze sometimes while on the ship' and 'elbowroom'. Remove it by adding food plants and hydroponics!

None of that, now, captain! Yeah you're strong. Your feelings are part of you, so they're just as strong. I'm sure the water storage tank is strong too, but I bet it has an overflow for when it's too full. Those tears are a biological function to even out your brain chemistry, juggernaut. Holding them in doesn't make you strong any more than refusing to go to the bathroom. Keep it together in public to hold up morale? Fine, good idea. You're not in public now, and if you don't let some of those feelings loose then they might come out when you are. If you're fine with this dragoon helping you adjust your emotional balance by moving bodily fluids from inside at one end of your torso, you can get his help on the other. He's already seen that what you don't want to show is there, anyway. You want to be practical? Be practical.

As for solutions... are there any uninhabited planets with life around? Or maybe not uninhabited, but only just starting to be colonized? Space is big, and so are planets. Even some hell rock with lichen would be some sort of biomass. Or the other end of the spectrum - abandoned stations, ship graveyards? Battlefields? Might have something left behind in storage.

>>1076765

Yea, you also are holding to the luxury of 'being able to move about with a single orientation' or 'walking rather than climbing/crawling' or 'not having to tie yourself to a wall to sleep' or 'not having every single place that has atmosphere be a warren of equipment that requires twisting your body to move around' and 'having furniture'. All these things are luxuries that can be dispensed with for the exigencies of survival. You, visibly from here, have room! You just have to reimagine the internal spaces you all use to move in like those indoor plastic children's playgrounds with all the narrow tubes... or an ancient space station from the dawn of the space age.

>>1076765

Where the hell are they gonna get energy for hydroponics? The engine is dead, and the nearest sun is just a slightly more bright star. Head for that star if you can yeah, but there are no magic beans that grow without energy!

Also, the existence of cryopods that people can actually come back from implies some pretty fucking extreme medical tech. Such that it's hypothetically possible that, if you are quick and careful enough, you could decapitate several people, put the heads all in one cryopod, and when at a proper medical facility, revive them with each a new body.

>>1076769

You do NOT actually need that many watts to run hydroponics. Certainly much less than are used keeping them in air without co2, in artificial gravity, at comfortable temperatures, etc. etc. So they do have SOME power, else they'd have died from carbon dioxide poisoning already.

>>1076769
>engine is dead
That hasn't actually been stated. Not even implied really. It sounds more like they're having problems GETTING more food, because they're branded as pirates and thus not allowed to trade openly or take legitimate jobs. After all, if the engines didn't work, they would have no use for ammo.
Also uh, even if the engines are dead they're getting power from somewhere to keep life support running. Without heat pumps and carbon scrubbing you die a lot faster than starvation kills you.

>>1076775

Ah so the problem is not that they're stranded in space, but that they're poor.

>>1076781
I think it's more that they can't get to anyone who is willing to sell them food. I mean they have supplies they could trade for food.

...hold on, the people that are willing to give out dangerous missions, do they have food?

On the subject of hydroponics do anyone on the crew even have a experience with farming

>>1076753
Do you know of any planets with a biosphere and little to no civilization? Foraging could be an option.

>>1076763
Yeah, this.
If the cryo-pods are currently completely unused, put the 5 people who eat the most & fit in them.
That means there are fewer mouths to feed. Assuming some of the crew eat significantly more than others, that could more than double how long the food lasts.

Unless there is a significant drawback to cryo? Does it take too long to wake people up in case you need to fight someone, or does it take extra resources to put people under/wake them up?



Why does the galaxy dislike you?
Shame is mentioned, which wouldn't be a thing if you guys were the original source of the problem. Similarly, you guys can't be innocent victims, otherwise the galaxy would (hopefully) have helped you guys after whatever-it-was happened.

So: I'm guessing you guys are bio-engineered soldiers or something. You (or maybe your ancestors) didn't really have a choice in the matter, but you/they fought in a war. The war was especially nasty, or a doomsday scenario, or had really uncomfortable moral issues (like slave soldiers, etc). After the war, everybody decided that species like yours shouldn't be created, because it just causes issues.
However, your species still exists. This is a problem that people aren't willing to directly solve (via genocide) because your people didn't have a choice, but they are perfectly willing to let the survivors die out "naturally".

I assume your species is instinctively quarrelsome/violent, or has trouble being peaceful with anyone that doesn't have the right bio-markers? Either option would make sense for an engineered species of soldiers.



Maybe in the medium-term, you guys can figure out how to hide what species you are, & take jobs without people realizing you're supposed to be outcasts? No, that probably doesn't work. The only jobs you could get away with that, are the ones that aren't legal, I imagine. Most illegal jobs are probably what you guys already do.



In the long term, it sounds like your issue is that the galaxy doesn't like your species, so the only places you could live in peace are away from everyone else.
Is there a way you guys could get/steal the stuff you need to set up your own settlement somewhere far away? Collecting all the various things & knowledge you guys will need will take a while, but it's a way out.
>>1076794
Hell, find a planet with a biosphere that supports you guys, & become dirt farmers. All you'd need in that case is knowledge, which is typically much easier to find, & some relatively simple/easy to acquire tools. Basic subsistence farming isn't too hard, so long as you can get the know-how.
Assuming you guys are meant to be soldiers, it sounds like the only way to make it long-term is to:
1: Learn to be something else
2: or find somebody that needs soldiers long-term.
Since you already mentioned that only scum want to employ you, that seems to leave only the first option.
Too bad there aren't any un-ambiguously evil swarms of monsters that you could swoop in & save people from. That would probably reverse at least some people's opinion of you.

You have a freaking starship with essentially magical gravity generation and an essentially magical drive linked to an essentially magical reactor, and you are not currently in a gravity well! Stop thinking like how you are culturally conditioned to and actually think of the REAL capabilities this actially gives you! You have an amazing amount of agency here! You don't even NEED an empty habitable planet to live a life of leisure as farmers for the rest of your lives! Just find any out of the way planet with a magnetosphere and not too heavy radiation, drag some small asteroids (which are all over the place) into orbit with your magical thrusters, and fabricate a Kalpana One style space station, where you'll have all the room you could possibly want for your crew numbers. Those things are crazy easy to make and wayyyyyy below your tech level and will let you live a life of plenty (plenty of room for farming!), and let you downshift to a functional lower technological base before your high tech gear all fails. If the galaxy has turned it's back on you, turn your back on the galaxy!

>>1076753
Finding a planet you can forage from is top priority. While it isn't a solution in and of itself, it will drastically increase the time you have to set something up that is more sustainable.

>>1076801

You don't need a planet. You need seeds for plants and spores for fungi that are useful to you and a database of simple machines and devices and tools and remote operated drones and the like which you can bootstrap to with only access to things you can get trivially (ie, floating around space, which has literally all the building blocks for absolutely everything, but only in certain forms). You may already have some of this stuff -- it should be centuries old and probably available for free in public networks, you might have it buried in your computer files somewhere, and you may have more seeds than you think.

Well, this sucks.
You might be Solar Iron, but half the galaxy is being used to crack you. Innocent civilians are being indirectly executed just to starve you. That's what genocide feels like.

What the hell happened to the galaxy, if it's willing to make monsters before it says it's sorry?

Also, the fuck with the history? Even requiring mandatory domestication gene therapy as a eugenic prerequisite for reproduction is better than out and out full genicide of a full species! Good god, at least let some variant exist! How did they come to this conclusion!?!

>>1076800
>space station
>low tech
Choose one.

>>1076808

Bullshit. Absolute Bullshit. You don't even need to have invented the microprocessor to do amazing things in space; you can get by just fine with vacuum tubes and slide rules. Hell, a civilization could make a functioning Dyson Swarm at that tech level without ever leaving it if they wanted, given enough time! A space station will function perfectly fine at astoundingly low technological levels; some of the main designs tend to be invented right around the time civilizations invent atomic bombs and atomic power! The reason those civilizations don't often get into space with big stations early on is the Rocket Equation; they usually can't get the stuff TO space because gravity's a bitch! Hell, the Kalpana One is intended to specifically be an early information age design, and implies the use of utterly simple remote operated drones which use silicon circuits in the 150nm range, you know, early information age processors under 400 mhz. A CHILD in any civilization that has cracked artificial gravity and cryopods should be able to whip up those processors and remote operated drones that use them in an afternoon! Hell, the small spacecraft to create and service the infrastructure around stations like that are LESS complex than most pre-driverless era internal combustion engine automobiles! The difficulty is getting TO space, not doing shit when you are there! And you can go even lower tech than that, albeit not comfortably for a station for only 12 people without a civilization supporting them.

WAN WAN WAN WAN WAN WAN WAN WAN WAN WAN WAN WAN WAN WAN WAN WAN

Wow I like the sex part of this quest, I like that there's sex in it!

Dragoon: What's the schedule about?
Juggernaut: What role does your biology play in the plans?

Dragoon: You should be able to remember some shit that went down between the two of you in the past. Mention it here and get her to stop thinking of all the gloom. Blew up something of hers in the past? Good! Tell her about it to make her mad at you. Fucked her best friend? Great, make her jealous. Sabotaged a cop ship that was going to chase you? Reminisce with her on the feeling of relief.

I'd say you should find a habitable death-world and live there.

>>1076834

Things can be 'habitable' but absolutely miserable. Consider: massive, constant natural disasters. Wrong day/night cycle. Wrong gravity. Very radioactive. No land that's not covered in water, or no freshwater anywhere. Wrong temperature. Wrong amount of air pressure. Not enough magnetosphere (see aforementioned radiation). Wrong soil composition. Wrong year length. Wrong temperatures. It isn't JUST giant monsters that are trying to eat you, which can be fought militarily if you are badass enough, that make a deathworld into a deathworld. It's fantastically easier to make a comfortable space station than it is to make a comfortable, livable outpost on a deathworld (at the bottom of a gravity well no less!), if such is a world that no one actually goes to because it is horrible, even if it is technically 'habitable' and technically within some arbitrary egghead's categorization 'limits'.

How much fuel does the ship have? What locations are reachable with our current supplies?

>>1076753
Maybe we have to take risk, maybe a medium sized settlement we could attack? Or a risky job you were offered? This time you and your team could be the ones coming on top.

>>1076842

I guess I got the definition of Deathworlds wrong. Rather than just being 'utterly inhospitable to life', Deathworlds are more worlds that are actively trying to kill you, like a world run by an insane AI and populated by giant, crazed monsters that are vaguely from fantasy and mythology, with nanotech that eats any technology more advanced than some particular fantasy author's conception of 'vaguely medieval'.

And they're marked as Deathworlds, despite being 'totally habitable', because the Galaxy doesn't want to spend the money and effort to clean them up yet.

We don't want to go to one of those, especially because we don't know the rules by which anything marked like that is operating, and also there is specifically *only one way to determine those rules*.

Guess what it is.