Mission 02 - Stacy Says Follow the Yules

[cityship]

There is a resounding mental alarum that sounds through the ship. Nearly "deafening." Lights flash from places for extra emphasis, making it impossible to ignore.

||Attention, Attention. All personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention. All personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention, all personnel...||

It's entirely likely that she won't stop repeating the announcement until, well, everyone reports to Obs Deck. Outside the windows, a very Earth-like planet is visible, hanging in space. The mouth in the huge statue opens, revealing a screen. On it, the dossier for the mission flickers into display, understandable to every person there. Smaller copies of the dossier appear in holographic form in front of everyone.

The planet's stats, right next to a rotating holographic picture of it, marbled blue and green, are as follows:

Planet Designation: Earth-78734XM45
Status: Terrestrial, H-class.
Non-sentient life: Extensive flora and fauna.
Semi-Sentient Life: Yes.
Sentient Life: Homo Sapiens. [Various translations of "human" appear here so everyone understands it]
Water: 69.5% of the planet's surface.

Climate: Earth-like, in the throes of a mild nuclear winter [Click here for cultural equivalents for non-Earth cultures.]
Landscape: Varied.
Air: Normoxic concentration. Slightly elevated levels of carbon dioxide.

Air Pressure: 101.3 kPa (kilopascals) = 14.7 psi (pounds per square inch)
Sky: Blue. Often overcast.
Sun: A class G2V, yellow star.

Warnings: Wildlife and plant-life can be hazardous. Humans can be hazardous. A human cultural and legal database is available. [click here]

Mission: Revive the spiritual entity at the North Pole.

--

Following that, there are various maps and things visible. The version of Earth this world is may be very recognizable to some, but vast cities dot its surface.

||Attention, podmates. Attention.||

Apparently Stacy wants their attention.

||It is critical that you pay attention at this time.||

A few people will be able to avoid the call by being in the right place at the right time, but most will be gathered up on Obs Deck.

[ooc: Organization Post | You can post into the gathering thread. I'll add more subthreads with explanations of aspects of the mission as we go. Note: If you don't have time to post to this mission briefing but still want to have your character in the plot, that's fine. You can just pretend they were there the whole time. If you DON'T want your characters to be in this plot altogether, however, don't have them in the briefing--Stacy could have missed snagging them.]

Comments

Re: The Polar Night

[telekinetic_badass]

Julian hated the cold. He was a SoCal kid, winter was a foreign concept. Fifty degrees was freezing to him, so minus-50 was completely insane. And even at Xavier's, they never had extreme cold like this. Fortunately, though, he had his powers to help keep him warm, his tk keeping the cold air at bay, and agitating the air near his body, warming it up.

Once he was a bit more comfortable, his mood lifted a little bit. Not to mention being off ship was a nice change of pace. Not to mention that, while he wasn't fond of the cold, he had grown fond of the snow.

So, of course, the first next thing he did after warming up was to lob a snowball at the back of Katara's head.

Re: The Polar Night

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara, for all of her martial arts attentiveness, had not been out on her climate fora long time, so the snowball actually did catch her by surprise. She made a surprised "Ohh!" sound, then, without turning around, effortlessly packed a few snowballs and launched them in the direction of the offending thrower. It was only as they whistled in the air to its target did Katara see that it was her illustrious leader playing around.

Well. Two could play it that game.

Re: The Polar Night

[telekinetic_badass]

Had Julian not been busy giggling to himself, he might have noticed what she was doing. By the time he did notice, he couldn't get out of the first ones, though one he ducked under the last, letting it sail past and hit some poor bloke behind him.

Hey, not his fault they weren't paying attention.

But he was already making another couple of snowballs, both of which were launched right back.

Re: The Polar Night

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Katara grinned. So he was pretty good, and chances were he was going to use his powers. Just as well: not using her waterbending here would have been a sacrilege anyway. She did manage a "sorry" to the person behind Julian, but that was going to have to wait, as there were two snowballs coming at her.

Of course, now they turned to steam by the time they reached Katara. She wasn't going to be caught unawares again.

So now she formed the snowballs by barely touching it, and launched four at her leader, grinning.

Shameless Threadjacking

[enter-aeneas.livejournal.com]

Wha-BAP!

A compacted sphere of snow connected with Aeneas’s cheek and splattered over his face.

He blinked, startled out of his reverie and a little confused as to the meaning of this assault, before he located the culprits (via a quiet “Sorry!” also hurled in his direction) and their continuing onslaught against one another. Noting the grins curling up the two humans’ eyes and their playful laughter, this throwing of snow was some sort of game they had created.

Not surprisingly, Aeneas wanted in. He caught the young female’s attention (once she was able to look back at him) and returned to her a devilish smile within his squinted pupils; moments later he procured several snowballs and, throwing them high above his head, smacked them towards the two using his fuisti and hoped for the best.

Then Aeneas dove for cover behind a nearby snowdrift, feathers ruffled with mirth.

SNOWBALL FIGHT! Jump on in y'all

[telekinetic_badass]

Of course Julian was going to use his powers. That was part of the fun. Another part was getting others involved, and the snowballs thrown by Katara were rerouted by Julian and launched towards other crew members.

Of course, with Aeneas involved, all bets were off, and snow was thrown everywhere.

Re: SNOWBALL FIGHT! Jump on in y'all

[psi-flames.livejournal.com]

Including onto a certain TK's roommate. Jono was dressed about as warmly as he could manage, but getting hit in the middle of the back wasn't something he could ignore.

Oof. There weren't THAT many layers, after all. He turned, seeing Julian in the middle of the flying snow. He narrowed his eyes. Oh, 'at's it, Keller. He bent down, packing a quick snowball before tossing it at Julian. From a very different direction than Katara was throwing hers.

What do you know? The mouthless one has a sense of humor after all.

Re: SNOWBALL FIGHT! Jump on in y'all

[bonk-you-up.livejournal.com]

And one of those stray snowballs hit this guy who is, well, the wrong guy to bring into a snowball fight. One beaned him and the back of the head. He took a minute to react before a rather cunning grin spread across his face.

Turns out being good at baseball also makes you horrendously good at throwing snowballs.

Re: SNOWBALL FIGHT! Jump on in y'all

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

It's good that Jono has a sense of humor because now that he's turned in the other direction, he just got beaned again on the back of the head by a snowball. Aeneas also got one tossed in a looong arc over the snow drift--meant to arc over and come down from above.

If Jono looks behind him, he'll see Jaime innocently fumbling with his gear, not paying attention, so certainly, it can't be him. He's Mr. Mopey lately, right? It's very doubtful he'd join in on a snowball fight.

But his mittens are dusted in snow, and there's the tiniest bit of a smirk at the corners of his mouth, so maybe he's not quite as innocent as he thinks he looks.

Re: SNOWBALL FIGHT! Jump on in y'all

[psi-flames.livejournal.com]

Jono stumbles a bit, rubbing the back of his head as he looks around. And he's more than bright enough to put two and two together.

Oi, Reyes! He scoops up a double handful of show, patting it together and throwing. Catch! He doesn't pat it together WELL, though, so it'll explode in a great ball of puff all over Jaime.

And he's laughing. It's a slightly harsh, almost rusty sound. But it's definitely laughter.

Re: SNOWBALL FIGHT! Jump on in y'all

[hugelikexbox.livejournal.com]

And introducing, the .50 cal M2 Browning of the snowball arms race...

The air whistles with the sound of several dozen snowballs hurtling in the direction of every soldier present as the Flash, decked out in the usual red onesie, albeit with a white trim as opposed to the usual yellow, comes plouging a furrow through center field.

In the immortal words of Mike Lowery, this shit just got real.

Re: SNOWBALL FIGHT! Jump on in y'all

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"Aaah!"

Between Jono's exploding snowball and the Flash's onslaught, Jaime is pretty much covered in it.

"No fair with the teaming up! I'm unlearned in the ways of snowball fighting, I'm from Texas."

SNOWBALL FIGHT! [Obi-Wan?]

[ladyofthesands.livejournal.com]

It is that snow thing! was Arha's first thought. Then, it started going places as she walked through it, heading toward Obi-Wan. Her expression was something torn between amusement in confusion as she watched a ball of snow sail in his direction.

She dove for Obi-Wan.

Not that he needed protection for snow, but still. Arha was going to intercept that snowball, anyway, and she leaped.

SNOWBALL FIGHT!

[jedimacguyver.livejournal.com]

Obi-Wan watched Arha take the snowball in the chest and hit the ground in a flurry of snow with barely-contained sarcasm. He adjusted the glare-resistant goggles, then tightened a glove fastidiously. And then he cocked his head down and have her a sardonic look.

"Oh dear, someone seems to have saved my life, how shall I ever repay her now that she is dead?"

Re: SNOWBALL FIGHT!

[ladyofthesands.livejournal.com]

Arha flopped over and peered up at him, serious as she concentrated. Well. It was just snow. It wasn't as if it were something life threatening. But still. Arha moved, pulling on her Bene Gesserit training, to abruptly snowball the snark off Obi-Wan's face.

She appeared right in front of him, a snowball in hand, and three more levitating in the air...not that she was going to use them. She made a soft hmh sound and squinted through her own goggles at him.

"Death by snowball is not so glorious," she said dryly, her voice threaded with teasing despite the seriousness of her expression. "I promise to try for something a bit more...worthy next time." And then she moved to strike with all of her snowballs at once.

Because, as the others had demonstrated, this was what was done with snow.

Re: SNOWBALL FIGHT! Jump on in y'all

[better-robin.livejournal.com]

Damian had no interest in joining the juvenile display of utter inanity. Compressed ice crystals made no logical sense as a weapon. It was impossible to keep them uniform enough to get a good sense of their weight, and they weren't designed well enough to be thrown accurately anyway. Even if you did manage to hit the target, all that happened was they got wet. It was a ridiculous waste of time, and Damian wanted nothing to do with it.

So he melted into the shadows and hoped no one would notice him.

Re: SNOWBALL FIGHT! Jump on in y'all

[mrsarcastic003]

O hai thar, Damian. Tim sees you trying to sneak off into the shadows. He's pretty good at that trick himself.

Grinning, he scoops up a handful and snow and packs it into a snowball. Pausing a moment to take aim, he throws it at Damian, and--his aim is dead on. It splats against the back of the younger Robin's head.

Re: SNOWBALL FIGHT! Jump on in y'all

[better-robin.livejournal.com]

Ice. Dripping down his collar. There isn't much room between his collar and his neck, but apparently it's not entirely waterproof. Damian turns slowly and glares at Tim. "You threw snow at me." He brushes the snow off his head and lifts his hood.

He has absolutely no interest in having a snowball fight of all things. But that transgression cannot go unpunished. He crouches down and scoops up a handful of snow. Of course, he's never actually made a snowball before, but it can't be that hard, just like molding clay--or not. The snow crumples to powder in his gloves. Damian scowls and grabs more, keeping an eye on Tim just in case.

Re: SNOWBALL FIGHT! Jump on in y'all

[mrsarcastic003]

"It's a snowball fight, and you were trying to back out. Not very sporting." Tim watches as Damian's first attempt at a snowball falls apart. Has he really never done this before? He crosses toward him and scoops up a handful of snow along the way. "Like this," he says, showing him how to pack it into a ball.

Re: SNOWBALL FIGHT! Jump on in y'all

[better-robin.livejournal.com]

Damian watches him, then scoops up another handful of snow. He starts crafting a snowball himself, but then he thought of a better idea. Tim was within arm's reach, and it didn't matter that much how tightly the snow was packed. The object of this game was apparently to cause as much discomfort as possible, not as much pain. So instead of continuing to pack the snow tightly, he twists and smashes it into Tim's face.

"We're even," he says, smirking.

Re: SNOWBALL FIGHT! Jump on in y'all

[mrsarcastic003]

Tim splutters in surprise and tries to wipe the snow out of his eyes. "Hey!" he says, laughing. "No fair!"

Re: SNOWBALL FIGHT! Jump on in y'all

[thexanwhosees.livejournal.com]

Snowball fight?

Xander was so there, and happy to have a less hurty and more fun fight to do. He was getting some hits on him, but he definitely tried to give as good as he got. He remembered doing one of these in Scotland. Boy was that crazy with all the Slayers.

Re: SNOWBALL FIGHT! Jump on in y'all

[bonk-you-up.livejournal.com]

And he might have found himself on the receiving end of this guy's snowballs. He was being kind of a jerk about throwing snowballs with his elite throwing and aiming skills. Kid grew up with seven older brothers, snowball fight skills were necessary to his survival.

"Bonk!" Scout yelled as one made contact.

Re: SNOWBALL FIGHT! Jump on in y'all

[thexanwhosees.livejournal.com]

Xander, however, wasn't bad with the throwing. He used to try for t-ball back in the day. But snowballs? Well he was a South Cali man and the snow was seriously lacking.

He yelled, and then tried to duck down a ditch before lopping another snow ball in Scout's direction.

Re: SNOWBALL FIGHT! Jump on in y'all

[bonk-you-up.livejournal.com]

He was fortunately quick too and dodged. What a jerk. That snowball missed, but he stood up straight with his arms out in a taunting motion, "Is that all ya' got?"

Yeah, he was wide open then.