trans_9 | Archaeology, Natural Disasters and You [Closed]

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Archaeology, Natural Disasters and You [Closed]

The trip down revealed that Taleen was going to be of several things, none of which were pleasant. Arid, pale with a light dusting of red from the rocks, and yellow-white grass that extended in plains all the way towards far off mountains . There was a giant gash in the land near the orb landing area, which resolved itself into a massive canyon as the party drew closer. Spider webbing out across the top of the canyon were signs that a civilization had once flourished here. Traces of broken pillars and half submerged buildings, as well as what looked like a downed ship that had embedded itself in a massive building. There was no movement visible amongst the ruins now. As the dry wind blew through the stonework, it would became clear that they were walking into a mass graveyard.

Not somewhere you'd want to spend your vacation.

For some people, this was going to be a field day.

According to the scans and what little records they had, there hasn't been a sentient being around for hundreds of years. The majority of native wildlife had moved out of the area, seeking refuge. The land looked dead already. In the sky above, several specks of light twinkled in the sky, growing bigger with each passing hour. In a few days, it will be raining fire.

[Closed to Daniel, Eleventh Doctor, Sofia, Jamie, Hoshi, Howard, Billy, the Master, River Song, Cassie, Tom]

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The Doctor, in the meantime, didn't quite find the dig as fascinating as Daniel. The fact he was standing at the bottom of the ramp and having a good old-fashioned argument with an eight foot tall mantis-thing probably had something to do with it.

Captain Eneesh mirrored him, her secondary set of arms crossed over her chest as she twitched at him in irritation. "Where's your mate, Jamiemcrimmon? I should be talking to him, not...you."

She looked down at him over her mandibles like he was inferior stock. Apparently all that time apart and her opinion of Jamie's new "mate" hadn't improved seeing as he still hadn't got the hang of shaving off a useless few inches. Considering how long it'd been since they last saw each other, she thought he had no excuse at all, the Too Old For This Captain looking even more her advanced age as she shook and twitched that insect head of hers, weaving from side to side and clicking, agitated that Jamiemcrimmon hadn't whipped this thing into shape yet. The nerve! Talking back to her!

"I'm as good as talking as him! Better, even, especially about dusty old artifacts that are probably a little dangerous and a tiny bit nuclear while they're at it." The Doctor was insistent. He shook a finger at Captain Eneesh as her crew came tramping up and down the ramp, the crew casting looks at the fleshling making a nuisance of itself and then chittering on their way.

The base camp was starting to look more like a camp thanks to the bugs and any of Stacy's crew that might be deciding to help them set things up. There were a few temporary hive-like structures with decent ventilation clustered in a circle on the ledge as a few of the lower ranked bugs began to lay out markers for the most obvious artifacts protruding from the battle site. The others would have to be searched out by Stacy's crew.

Eventually the Doctor gave up trying to reason with Captain Eneesh, wandering off to inspect what looked like some sort of strike fighter sticking nose first out of the wall. The bug captain herself could be found wandering the camp, checking on the progress or nosing out who she thought were the most worthwhile members of their clientele - those who were somehow forward thinking enough to be short and/or bring a decent hat might find themselves suddenly elevated to a higher rank and given a bug's idea of the red carpet treatment.

[[I guess reply to this thread if you want to run into Eleven or run into Captain Eneesh for Day 1. Can be any time of the day or anywhere in the dig. :3]]

Edited 2011-09-16 09:33 (UTC)

Daniel came wandering up, putting the boonie on at the same time. It blocked out the sun a little, but not nearly enough. Too bad he didn't have his clip-on shades. The funny thing about waking up, naked, on Stacy was that you didn't have time to pack the necessitates. Actually, he had them when he'd gone through flying through the Stargate. 'Had them going' in being the keywords. Daniel was also pretty sure he'd had them when he'd hit the SGC ramp too, come to think of it.

Now he was on a dig without anything remotely appropriate to protect his eyes from the sun damage.

His optometrist was going to kill him if he ever got back.

The Doctor looked both a little unhappy to be attached to an archaeological dig, and offended by whatever Captain Eneesh just said. The Captain, he noticed, was being a lot more helpful, barking out orders at the other crew and helping out on occasion as she made her rounds at the growing base camp.

"What was that all about?"

Edited 2011-09-16 09:55 (UTC)

The Doctor turned. "She's being a...well, a bug. She thinks she's right. And that Jamie must know something about nuclear fallout just because she says so."

He grumbled and hemmed and hawwed to himself, annoyed and quite happy letting Daniel Jackson know just what he thought about that. He looked the human over. Boonie hat, military clothes (he did like the vest -- the rest, not so much) and over all, as good shape as could be expected. He liked that about humans. Bounce back from anything, humanity. The bouncy balls of the universe! Only with, well...more hair and glasses and on-and-off-again taste in hats and anyway, he was sure Daniel Jackson was here to talk about Something and if it was Gallifrey again, he couldn't expect to get too far with those questions. The Doctor smiled at Daniel as he stepped away from wreckage half sticking out of the wall.

"Right, so. Your dig. Yours and Rivers. I'm afraid to see what you two are going to come up with," he went on, sounding anything but afraid because right now he was more curious than anything else.

He would just...insist he wasn't curious and never could be with archaeology, not at all. Not even on a planet he'd never been on with a mess of civilizations he never set eyes on before.

"She seems nice to me," Daniel shrugged. The Captain had been nothing but pleasant on the trip down. "I doubt there's any fallout here." Yet. Once the meteors hit and set off a chain reaction in the environment and air, probably blotting out the sun with the debris too, who knew what would happen? "Stacy didn't pick up any harmful radiation on the initial scans."

This was the man, after all, who had blocked a merchant from a possible sale on a planet where money was everything, all by essentially hijacking a customer. The Doctor seemed like he meant well, but it sometimes it was hard to tell what he thought of everyone around him, whether he saw them as individuals or amusingly alien oddities. Whatever John's problem was with the Doctor, there might be something to it. The Doctor's clone had corroborated parts. There was also the planet he'd destroyed. Even now, he couldn't imagine him destroying an entire civilization. He didn't look like the type of person.

The Doctor was eccentric. Daniel also knew from experience that eccentricity didn't usually win people over. "Hopefully we'll come up with a lot. What did you do to set Eneesh off?"

The negative attitude might have a little something to do with it. They didn't need the Doctor to supervise them. They knew what they were doing, and this place was the biggest archaeological find he'd seen recently, a candy store of bones, shards and buildings. Daniel could barely contain his own excitement.

Edited 2011-09-20 02:19 (UTC)

That was so very human! No fallout yet was much more accurate! There was no telling what one of the bugs or the crew could do if they happened to dig in the wrong area and he was tempted to point out that you know, Daniel Jackson, it wasn't as if Stacy was here to do a close-range scan of what was under the surface.

And that was why the Doctor thought he was here. Give the place a good up close and personal sonicing.

The Doctor looked offended at Daniel's question. "Me? I didn't do anything. She's just...particular. She's a bug, you know," his voice dropped to a whisper. "Funny ideas about properiety, I suppose. And kilts," he added. He looked like he was about to say more, possibly about how Daniel shouldn't go sticking that trowel into any positronic clusters if they happened to dig any up, when he glanced over Daniel's shouder, saw something he didn't quite like, and blanched.

"Actually! I'll check in with you later. Over there looks good enough!" The Doctor was suddenly in a hurry, running over his words. He reached out, shook Daniel's hand, peered over the human's shoulder again and then before Daniel could react, the Doctor was already making himself scarce.

The rapid beat of heavy footsteps behind Daniel tipped him in why the Doctor made a fast retreat as Captain Eneesh came skittered toward the expedition leader - or so it said on the orders she had, her great big eyes fixing on that marvelous hat of his for a moment. It was so - so official, which was wonderful and all except for that fact he didn't have a kilt and now she was admittedly confused on the chain of command here. A proper expedition leader really should have a kilt and a hat. Something easily seen from a distance or in the middle of a swarm! It would clear up any misunderstandings. Fleshlings and their bizarre conceptions of order. Eneesh clicked her mandibles as she watched the Doctor go and if it was possible for a bug to narrow her eyes, she would be making a very, very good effort. She finally turned to Daniel.

"Is he bothering you? I can send Fourteenth to keep him in line," she clicked and gurgled.

The Doctor looked offended like a kid caught with his hand in a cookie jar who'd just been accused of stealing. It wasn't a good look on him.

The Doctor's gaze drifted over his shoulder, and before he could blink, the Doctor basically booked it right in the middle of a conversation. Daniel was left staring at thin air. What the hell just happened? He hadn't even gotten to assigning him somewhere, so why had the Doctor felt the need to bail? There wasn't any other way to describe it. The man had fled, retreated faster than the Alamanni army before Emperor Aurelian.

And there was the cause. Eneesh came up behind him, limbs clicking and clattering. As traveled as Daniel was, he'd still never seen anyone quite like Eneesh. Hopefully it wasn't going to be a problem, but it would take time to get used to them, especially in how to read body language. Or not committing some taboo or rude motion accidentally in front of them. He craned his head upwards. He was never going to get used to how tall Eneesh and her people were. Eneesh's eyes, all facets of them, reflected his boonie as she glanced at it appreciatively. He thought it was appreciative, at least. If he read the way she twitched her neck right.

That look, the deathly disapproving one at the Doctor, however, he could read perfectly.

"No, no, he's fine," Daniel said quickly. He looked at the Doctor's retreating back. He wasn't about to turn him over to her care yet. "I just have to assign him something to do...." Assuming the Doctor would even do something he was assigned to. He looked around at the camp that was rapidly forming. "Your crew is impressive, Captain. I've never seen anyone so efficient."

Edited 2011-09-22 10:03 (UTC)

The bug rubbed her feelers together, not quite able to hide her pleasure at Danieljackson stating -- and rightly, too! -- sheer fact. Observant fleshling. No wonder he was given the responsibility of the hat and expedition leader.

She liked him. Why, he'd make a much more competent mate than the Doctor.

"I don't think you would have. It's one of those things you need a proper hive for. No offense, Danieljackson," she added. "We'll be done setting up before nightfall, I think. Now, I know the brief said we shouldn't expect any wild beast attacks, but I can give you Ninety-Eight and Ninety-Nine as a personal guard if you need the extra protection. Perhaps another for Jamiemccrimmon and Doctorriversong. "

She motioned for him to follow him back to the mostly finished camp so she could show him how to use the doors and other bits. They'd tried their very best to come up with beds for the fleshlings but unfortunately it was difficult to put yourself in a fleshling's claw coverings and so it probably wasn't as good as whatever they had back on Stacy. Eneesh ducked her head into the nearest hive structure, her hind legs sinking into the floor as it gave and it was becoming apparently was shortness was so valued -- the ceiling was low, tunnel low, and Eneesh was one of the few bugs who could fit relatively comfortably in it. In other words, if there was a crisis, she could be the most useful in terms of getting from point A to point B in a real hive.

"What do you think?"

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hi_there_aliens - 2011-09-24 20:34 (UTC) - Expand

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makeherblue - 2011-09-26 05:18 (UTC) - Expand

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hi_there_aliens - 2011-09-27 04:16 (UTC) - Expand

Howard's been mostly doing what he does best, so far - lingering in the background, ducking behind taller people, and taking mental notes on everything about his surroundings. Information, like all things, can be hoarded, and what may seem trivial or useless now may find a purpose later. Waste not, want not.

Honestly, the giant mantises creep him out, if only because they resemble the big, car-sized, (child-devouring) beetles back in the FAYZ. Nothing with mandibles should ever be that big, for any reason, he thinks. If only because mandibles are really gross.

The sentience helps, though. The fact that they speak intelligibly, despite some idiosyncrasies, does too. And if his suspicions are right, they like short people. He can only hope this means a position of relative protection, rather than "we like short people because their flesh is the most tender".

Still, he's not about to let himself be seen by Eneesh or her crew until he's confirmed that they're just looking for archaeology enthusiasts and not entrees. He's had enough of Stacy's missions go sour (all of them) to not take every precaution. What's worse, as far as he can tell he's the only person from Medical this time, and if something happens here, all he has is his one battered, trustworthy medical kit (the outside of which is currently held together by an ingenious combination of carabiners, rubber bands and packing tape).

"They don't want you to cut your hair, do they? I mean, you'd be like five inches shorter, but that seems like it'd take a lot of time to grow back."

He sidles up next to The Doctor, looking as casual as one possibly can while sneaking, and takes note of the irritated expression on the Doctor's face.

And of the ship sticking out of the wall.

Kind of hard to miss that.

"Cut my hair?" The Doctor is horrified. He claps a hand to his, let's be frank, impressively amazing head of (not ginger) hair. "I should hope not!"

After shooting a suspicious look around, he decides that no, he isn't in danger of Eneesh taking it upon herself to "fix" his height problem, his hands dropping from his hair as he turns to face the human. Short little fella, isn't he? Forward thinking, too. The Doctor likes that. He hadn't even thought about the hair being a target until the human here brought that possibility up. Now determined to guard his hair against any helpful bugs, the Doctor doesn't wait for handshakes -- instead he reaches out and grabs the human's hand in his, pumping it up and down and smiling at him.

"Yes, almost forgot! Introductions! I'm the Doctor. Thank you, by the way. Never can tell with our hosts what they might do. They're all very keen."

"Just make sure you sleep with one eye op- whoa! Hey!" Howard wrenches his hand back, not at all pleased for someone to break his personal bubble and touch him without warning. He takes a step back and gives the Doctor a bit of a wary stare. "The Doctor? Your name's a title?"

He supposes, though, that that's not the weirdest thing he's heard on the ship so far, and if that's the peak of weirdness for this mission they're doing pretty well. "Howard. So are you just down here to check out all the relics?"

"If it was my title, it'd be something like 'Doctor the Doctor' and that would be downright stupid, so no, not my title."

The Doctor ignores Howard and his human possessiveness about that little invisible thing called personal space. Odd, really, how some humans need it and others don't. Jamie McCrimmon, for example. There's a human with no silly misconceptions about personal space, given how often he finds the Scot hanging on him. Obviously this Howard is one of those human who likes that meter or so difference. The Doctor inspects his hands as if looking to see if there's anything wrong with them and decides that no, aside from not being ginger, there's absolutely nothing wrong at all.

He smiles at Howard. "Check out? Oh yes, check out. Loads of checking out. That and I probably ought to make sure none of this could blow up in our face."

He adds that as an afterthought, looking not the least bothered at that possibility.

Edited 2011-09-18 19:51 (UTC)

He jams his hands into his pockets, giving a little bit of an apologetic smile for the sudden jerk. Maybe violating people's personal bubbles is a cultural thing. He doesn't know. He won't hold it against the Doctor yet.

"Or 'The Doctor Doctor'. You could be a super-specialized doctor, only treating other doctors with your doctorish doctor doctor powers."

Howard figures anyone that flippant about catastrophe must be one of three things - incredibly deadpan and resigned to disaster already, powerful enough that things 'blowing up in their face' are of little concern, or both optimisic and stupid enough to tempt fate. From what little he knows of The Doctor already, it could be any of those, although he leans away from the deadpan explanation. The Doctor just doesn't quite strike him as deadpan.

"That's sweet of you, to come protect us, then," he says, dry as bone. "I'm looking to check out how some of these cultures built stuff, figure out how t replicate it if they didn't use electricity. Knowing how to do stuff by hand is underrated."

The Doctor might like you, Howard With All The Right Points.

"I suppose I could work more on the doctorish doctor doctor powers," the Doctor muses. He has to say, Howard most certainly has a way with words and it's one of those things he noticed many humans don't have. Not that there aren't loads of gifted humans throughout time and space. It's just the averagely average one...doesn't. The Doctor folds his hands together, his eyes on Howard's face for a beat too long compared to most humans and just a little, tiny bit too focused.

The Doctor finally blinks, almost lazily. "Well, you humans do seem to need it from time to time. Anyway! Interesting idea. Anything yet or is this all theoretical?"

Howard has a good point, which makes sense: if Daniel Jackson is the resident Otter Soother, the Doctor thinks young Howard here is the Point Man. Mr. Good Points. Yeah, that about does it. He likes how that sounds. And of course he's right. You could underwater basket-weave by remote, but what's the fun in that? Knowing how to do that by hand, now there's a life skill. The Doctor decides if he needs help, he doesn't mind providing it, at least for now. He likes Howard so far and it beats actual archaeology.

DAY 1 || Eleventh Doctor or NPC Captain Eneesh

I will take both, ha ha?

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Could I get Eleven? Maybe Eneesh can join in later. :D

Sure thing!

Re: Sure thing!

Re: Sure thing!

Re: Sure thing!

Re: Sure thing!

Surprise me!

Let's do Eneesh, since we've got Eleven for meditation? :)

Sounds like a plan!!!

Re: Sounds like a plan!!!

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Re: DAY 1 || Eleventh Doctor or NPC Captain Eneesh

Re: DAY 1 || Eleventh Doctor or NPC Captain Eneesh

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