ataraxionlogs | (no subject)

[ Greg usually spends at least a couple hours a day in Comms. It's nice to be in a focused environment, and it's nice having concrete goals to focus on-- work on this project, figure out how to use this function in programming, and so on. Better than wandering around going crazy without any idea of when he's getting home, anyway. Which isn't to say he doesn't wander around in here. He has a strange fondness for looking at the activity map. It's like looking out a window, kind of, and like hell he's going to go down to the shuttle bay just to look out a window at stars that look the same wherever they are.

Lately his pet project-- trying to pull some kind of significant statistical data out of how many people appear and disappear each jump-- has kind of fallen by the wayside. He still pulls it up on his screen frequently, going over the spreadsheets again and staring at the graphs he's generated in hopes of making sense of it all, but there's no pattern to it. There's no rhyme or reason, and it's not even complete because there's just no way to code for the people who leave and come back and leave and come back and sometimes leave and come back completely different. ]

[ ooc: catch-all for Greg! feel free to interrupt him whenever. I wrote this up in actionspam but I am cool writing in prose, just let me know! c: ]

[There's a thunk down the hallway, then another at the door, followed by the muffled sound of someone irate on the other side of it. Church opens the door, and is preceded by a cleaning roomba with a spare communicator strapped to it. The little robot wheels its way haphazardly through the room as Church watches from the doorway, frowning at it, until it comes to a stop under a desk near Greg. At which point, the robot's irritable programmer sighs and stoops under the desk to grab it, but it wheels away right before he can get his hand on it.]

Stupid fucking robot, I'm not the- ow.

[Another thunk has interrupted him. He may or may not have just hit his head on the desk as he tried to stand. Rubbing the back of his head, Church gets up, then notices Greg.]

Uh. Just... Don't ask. It's that thing's fault.

[ Greg watches all this unfold from his desk, vaguely amused, pulling his feet up and out of the way (helpfully, or so he thinks) when the robot approaches. Just because these little guys are smart enough to go around obstacles doesn't mean they're not going to run into his feet, after all. ]

Okay.

[ But he's going to ask anyway, because it's... a roomba with a communicator strapped to it. ]

What's it supposed to do? Are you trying to communicate with them? [ He gestures at the robot. ]

[He gives you a "wow are you dumb" kind of look because seriously, what.]

Communicate with a cleaning bot? What, d'you try to talk to your computer?

[Just don't mind him while he tries to back it into a corner so he can capture it. It's doing a pretty good job of avoiding him so far though.]

I, uh, it's part of a mapping project I'm working on. Part of what they're supposed to do is avoid things like those manticores, but apparently they can't figure out who's an enemy and who's not, yet.

[ A little sourly, as his snippy revenge for that look: ] Well, they're out all over the ship all the time, they see a lot more than we do. You could hack 'em to act like little spies.

[ He spins his chair partway around so he can get up. ]

Maybe it's just avoiding you because you're mad at it. Want help? It probably doesn't think of me as an enemy yet.

Well yeah, exactly, that's the idea.

[He rolls his eyes, but then steps toward the roomba and it scoots away again, so he sighs deeply and rubs at his face.]

Maybe you better, 'cause at this point if I do manage to grab that little shit, I might just tear its wires out. I gotta add face recognition in there so it doesn't freak out about me trying to pick it up.

Do these things even have enough of a vision system for face recognition?

[ Greg approaches the roomba carefully, taking light steps and keeping his knees bent and his body low. When he's close enough, he bends down and scoops it up quickly-- and then holds it out at arm's length when its wheels start whirring again. That not-an-enemy status might not last. ]

Here you go. So you're part of Comms, then?

[He takes it with a sigh and switches it off so he doesn't have to deal with it somehow getting away again. For now anyway.]

Yeah. Name's Church.

[He disconnects the comm he'd stuck onto it and waves it a little in Greg's direction.]

And no, the roombas can't do facial recognition, but with this thing, they can. Also means we can track them through hallways while they run around.

Cool. It'd be nice to finally get a map of all the places people keep getting lost. [ Okay, considering what happened the last time the network went down it's probably not actually as simple as getting a map, but one can hope. ]

I'm Greg, I'm kind of new to the programming stuff, but, uh. [ A shrug. He hooks his thumbs in his pockets. ] I'm learning.

[The hallways will change each month too, but he can just keep sending the roombas out, he figures. As long as they don't all get destroyed by manticores, anyway.]

Yeah? It's not that hard. I hadn't really done any of it before, either, but, you know. Guess I'm just naturally good at it.

[He says, as if he's some kind of genius. He knows why he's learning it so quickly; that he's probably actually re-learning it, but it's easier to just not worry about what all of that means.]

[ He grins. This is kind of terrible, but he has to: ]

Your little hacked robot thing doesn't seem to think so.

Hey fuck off, man, there's a lotta trial and error involved in this stuff. Being naturally good doesn't mean I'm perfect. Yet.

[Though, programming is really goddamned nerdy and he kind of hates himself for getting into it. But his options on this ship are pretty limited. And being all up in people's business and able to spy on their conversations sounds cool. That's what matters.]

No excuse, there's a lot of trial and error involved in everything. [ Well, everything interesting, at least! ]

But sure, let us know when you're perfect so you can fix everything we need fixed.

At least someone'll be able to fix shit, then.

[He sits down at the computer he's been working at and sets the robot on the desk, then hooks up the hacked comm to the hard drive to download whatever data the thing might have collected. Not that it's worth much since he'd been following it the whole time, but the point was to make sure it could even be done, first.]

What've you been working on, then, huh?

Little bit of everything. Comes with not having much experience, I guess. I try to help where I can and stay out of the way otherwise. [ Mostly out of the way. Kind of. After a brief moment of hesitation-- should he, you know, let the guy get back to work or-- Greg pulls up a chair, too, watching with some amused interest. ]

I've got a running tally of who shows up and who leaves and when, in case we ever manage to get any useful statistics out of it, so I guess my main thing's working on keeping the comm device recognition stuff up to date.

Oh yeah? Have you seen any kinds of patterns come out of that?

[Because from what he can see, the ship's method of collecting and getting rid of people looks like complete random chance to him, but he hasn't exactly spent time looking into it, either. Still, he'd like to think there's more to it than chaos. A thing that can give a deleted AI a human body and a second chance at life is powerful enough where someone must have had some kind of intent somewhere.]

Nope. Unfortunately. Anytime I think there's a pattern, it's not even close to being statistically significant, so as far as I can tell it actually is random, right down to how many times some people come back after leaving.

Which sucks, I mean, can you imagine finally getting out of here and then getting pulled right back in a couple jumps down the line?

That'd be some pretty shitty luck, I gotta say. Though I guess not everyone remembers going home, or being here, or whatever combination of those things happens when they come back. I mean shit, who knows, maybe we've all been back and forth and just keep forgetting.

[ The forgetting-- not that he's experienced it himself, but having heard about it-- is really just a whole other level of fucked up, and he grimaces just thinking about it. ]

You'd think someone else on the ship would remember seeing you, though. Assuming you interacted with other people, that is, but you'd go crazy if you didn't. [ He sounds very sure of this. ]

I talked to this kid who'd been here three times, and he only knew about the first because other people here recognized him.

Three times, huh? [Poor guy. He shakes his head a little.]

Hey, d'you know though, if that kind of thing ever happens to people who're, y'know, dead? In their own timeline? I mean, because that seems kind of permanent. Has anyone here who's supposed to be dead at home ever shown up here more than once?

I... don't know, I didn't really ask people if they were dead at home. [ Mostly because he thought it was rare and not a necessary consideration. Oops. ] I've heard about-- or talked to, maybe, don't remember-- someone who was dead in their world, but I don't remember if they showed up multiple times. Gimme a sec, I can look it up--

[ He scoots back over to his computer. Maybe it's a good thing he rarely closes these spreadsheets; it's quick and easy to pull up the appropriate one and run a keyword search. ]

Yeah, here, okay. Two who were dead in their world and have been here a long time-- looks like they're still here. One who was dead in their world, came here, and left. As far as we know, they haven't been back since.

Not really enough to show any patterns then, I guess. I just thought that'd be interesting if someone who was dead could ever return here multiple times. I mean, it sounds impossible, right? But so does being here in the first place.

[At least Greg's project hasn't really shown anything yet. It makes him feel slightly less bad about his own lack of progress over a much shorter timeframe.]

Yeah, this ship and being on it kind of make you reevaluate your idea of what's possible. I'm not sure how complete this is, either, because this is all based on what I've heard from other people, so it's definitely-- well, not definitely possible, I guess, but it's not impossible. Could've even happened before I started looking into this and I wouldn't have any way to know about it.

[ He minimizes the spreadsheets and turns back around with a shrug. Basically, this is why anecdata sucks. And also why having a clairvoyant on your team is really useful. ]

But, you know. Even if it's happened before, it happening once doesn't necessarily mean it's going to happen again.

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come bother Greg or something.

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