Sherry had gone to the media library for some relaxation. Sure, other people ran off to the sensoriums, but Sherry liked reading. It relaxed her, even if the pages weren't paper, and she found something calming in the series of words on paper. Besides, her mother wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon, and Sherry was tired. Purplish smudges from too many hours trying to stay awake decorated the skin under her eyes. She had lost some sleep over Claire, and knew she'd fallen asleep awkwardly over a chair in a way that had probably looked uncomfortable.

She hadn't been, but that was beside the point. Sherry removed her headband and put it beside her, fluffing her hair and combing it out with her fingers. She was thinking too much, and that wasn't relaxing at all. She returned to her book of short stories and blinked at the screen.

May 16. I am ill, decidedly! I was so well last month! I am feverish, horribly feverish, or rather I am in a state of feverish enervation, which makes my mind suffer as much as my body. I have, continually, that horrible sensation of some impending danger, that apprehension of some coming misfortune, or of approaching death; that presentiment which is, no doubt, an attack of some illness which is still unknown, which germinates in the flesh and in the blood.

Sherry looked down at the screen in sympathy. Guy de Maupassant, I know exactly how you felt. She continued reading The Horla, but soon, her eyes drifted closed and she slumped over, her cheek pressed against her omnicomm.

The last words she read still repeated slowly in her mind, She was already half asleep on a reclining chair, overcome with fatigue.

Today should have been weeks ago. Truthfully, he hadn't been ready for it--even on a temporary basis, it was a strange sort of betrayal to take the responsibilities of another team, when there wasn't even any members of SG-1 on it. Leading a team was always a tricky business, and it was often something Cam preferred to tackle only after long deliberation and planning. This was compounded by the fact that Stacy had essentially tossed a group of random strangers together without preamble, and chosen a leader just as arbitrarily.

Of course, the ship wouldn't have just messily thrown anyone together as was convenient, or he wouldn't have gotten an addition to the team later on. Clearly the AI had some way of gauging their skills and finding a complementary combination. However, he did not possess those personnel files. Aside from Dr. Lam, who should not have been on the field, he had no idea what array of strengths, talents, personalities, vices, and weaknesses his impromptu team possessed. That by itself was a recipe for inevitable disaster. The fact that he had no way of knowing whether they were military, or whether they would accept an arbitrarily chosen leader (presumed skills or no) meant that the disaster would very likely happen far sooner rather than later, as soon as they were expected to act as a team.

In lieu of personnel files, buying rounds of drink, and early, rhythm setting missions, Cam would have to come up with alternatives to allow the team to become familiar with one another before they needed to be. He needed to find a way to see how the team members interacted with one another, ferret out peeves, judge where they could be pushed, and determine what unique skill Stacy chose them for before they had a giant alien breathing down their necks.

Most importantly, the team would have to know to trust each other without hesitation, and how to operate together harmoniously, before someone's difficult past and stubborn nature got themselves or someone else killed. On Stacy, there weren't very many ways to prepare a team for that, especially if the team was composed of civilians unused to what would likely be expected of them, or worse, the kind of military men who'd never learned flexibility.

In his own experience, the easiest, least trauma-inducing possibility, was a game of basketball. Many, in fact, but they could start slow, especially if some of them were like the woman he'd met earlier who didn't know the game. The learning of the game could do what he needed just as well.

For now, Cameron stood outside the Sensorium, leaning against a wall and waiting. The sad fact was, he couldn't say for sure when the others would arrive. Even if they all tried to be on time, timekeeping wasn't the most accurate thing on Stacy. Or anything close to that. However, they were in a fairly visible place. He had hope for the best. Even if their watches were off, there was still a good chance they'd all migrate to the right place mostly on time.

Provided they read and listened to the announcement. Apparently it was his turn first, to trust his new team.

[OOC: Despite the fact that Cam has set this up for Team Papa members exclusively, there's no reason someone couldn't just crash the game. He wouldn't prevent them from joining, it. Still on the same side, after all. Sensorium-generated players will augment any uneven teams.]

Daniel has been on the ship a while now. Though he's kept far more to himself than he intended. Mostly due to the fact he hasn't... well. He hasn't noticed the passing of time.

He's been very absorbed in his research about anything and everything related to the ship and the universe its cruising through. He had tried to go through all this information in the Media Library... but... well. There is only so long a book worm can go without... books.

Luckily, it didn't take much to translate the media library into holographic projections of books and the computers he's used to. If anything, it made him more content in his research. Not that he expected to find much beyond what was already known. So he decided on a new approach. He got the sensorium to call up old SG-1 mission reports (and in a moment of weakness, the ones that haven't happened for him yet.). That brought him to be sitting in a simulation of a library, at a desk pilled high with books and folders. Some of said folders baring the clear classified mark... not that it mattered much anymore... at least not to him.

He looked over an old report then clicked his recorder on, "The ship does seem to possess virtual reality technology like to that found on P7J-989. Though I've yet find any indication that this is... well... all in our heads. Or if it is... it's far more advanced. But now is hardly the time to get into a debate over what is real and what's not... at least not yet anyway." He clicked it off shortly after.

Still absorbed in his work, he won't notice if anyone else enters. He flipped through some pages of a different file, this one marked for the Atlantis expedition. He clicked his recorder back on, "An interesting note... the organic... ahem.. workings of the ship do bare a resemblance to that of the Wraith. Not.. Not that that is very comforting at all. As much as I would like to know what we're dealing with here... I would hope that this more a case of convergent evolution than any connection to the Wraith. Still... I'm not ruling anything out." He let out a sigh after that note.

"I guess that brings me to the.... Ohm."

Truth be told, he'd avoided the Sensoriums for the most part. Maybe he just didn't fully trust Stacy yet, or maybe he just wasn't thrilled with the possibilities of what the stories he'd heard about them might amount to. Still, the Media Library wasn't quite his taste (It was hard to kick back and relax in the middle of unknown territory) and strange, vaguely creepy surroundings or no, without any open hostilities, he eventually ended up pretty damn bored.

Bored enough, apparently, to explore the Sensoriums.

Once he'd decided on actually going, he had to come up with something for it to do. Despite the urge to go home, to Stargate Command, or get advice from a virtual Sam, he kept those secrets to himself. He also chose not to fly. His boredom would not be the downfall of Earth or its secrets.

Unless its secrets included basketball. He was willing to share basketball. Even if it was really just a replica of his highschool gym and a team of old friends he'd long ago lost contact with. Okay. So there were one or two in there who were never his friends at all, but if he was going to play fantasy basketball anyway, he figured the identity of a few key players would only serve mediocre sci-fi movie plots, rather than Earth dominating ones.

Creepy or not, imaginary or not, it did feel good to be playing a game again. Even if it was the biggest team he'd actually played with and against. He still had veto power with the rules.

Luly has been checked into the Med Bay after a bit of an odd incident in the Mess Hall. So far she's stayed mostly of the way, given a bed in a secluded niche, and while she's ended up babbling to herself a few times or doing other odd behaviors, nothing's been obviously harmful.

With the ship's somewhat annoying lack of proper hospital robes and her disdain for the plantsuits, she's wrapped in just a sheet, hopefully while somebody figures out something to clean her usual makeshift red wrap with. At the moment she's sprawled across the bed assigned to her, focused intently on a holographic keyboard and screen being projected from a little cylinder she's placed on the bed. To look at her she could seem almost normal, except for the one hand keeps rapping out a compulsive, staccato rhythm against the bedsheets.

It starts simply enough: Meluly goes to get some of the horrible stuff in the mess hall that claims to be food. She sits, with the tray, and stares at it. One bite is taken, and a second, and she chews, but she hasn't swallowed, and her eyes are blank, and her face twists with disgust, and she coughs once, twice, and hurks, glop evacuating her mouth as her eyes squeeze shut with the involuntary half-tears of the gag reflex.

"( **** )

!" she screeches, snorting back reflexive tears, in that horrible transition moment between self-control and lack of it. She grabs the tray and throws, and the throw is powerful but unguided, and the tray hits the floor and shatters while the glop spatters onwards across the floor. "( ************ ***** **** ******* )!" Her face has become something terrible, a death-rictus scream—

—and she slams her head down into the table, letting out a wordless wailing whine, and again, and again, and again... She slides back, falling, eyes open but staring unfocused at the ceiling, and against the floor of the mess hall she cries like a child, her mouth trembling but near-silent. Her head is bleeding, the skin torn and pummeled.

It was fully two weeks since his unpleasant awakening on this ship, and...it hadn't gone away. Yeah, he figured it wouldn't do that about the third day in, but...it probably would have been handy if it had. All the same he thought he was adjusting pretty well. This weird went far beyond SG-1's level of 'weird', but his experience with SG-1's weird was...probably helping anyway. And boy, what levels of weird there were around here. He preferred not to count them--that tended to work contrary to his desires of dealing with said weirdness in stride.

He had a feeling there was more weirdness in store for him. No, not a feeling...from what he heard, there was a whole lot of weirdness in store for him yet. Really, though, if he was going to have to deal with more weirdness, the least compensation he could get was some decent meals. Honestly. Stacy needed to make a choice between creepy plant suit things and bland food before her crew (or...himself, at least) went crazy or staged revolt.

He'd yet to decide which he'd rather trade (keep the suit for the food, probably) or whether being unusable as a soldier or dethroning the tyrant chef was a more viable option. For now, he chose to sit in one of the spongy Obs Deck chairs, and contemplate the question. He was fairly certain, really, despite his misgivings over whether the plantsuit would actually protect against anything (and its lack of pockets), that he'd settle on better food in the end. You just couldn't ignore the lack of good food.

And what happens to Frank 'Doc' DuFresne when he is left to his own devices? He decides that searching for the Medical Bay before he tries to get Grif and Tex to get along mostly, so he doesn't have to patch the resulting injuries that will eventually happen. It didn't take long for Doc to find it.

Hopefully whoever's there, doesn't mind the interruption.

For the newbies, there are people waiting for them in the Obs Deck. A whole gaggle of people. Behind them is the nasty statue, and the beautiful sight through the windows of the stars streaming past and the swirling vortex of collars that was interdimensional travel.

There are more questions than answers, but the crew is willing to help, especially the Command Staff and greeters.

[ooc: Newbie Helpers List | Instructions: Post your character with one post establishing them as being podpopped. If you would like to play out them talking to the AI, please send an email to the mods making the request--we do this only by request. Then move onto the big Newbie Meeting. Once your character has gotten the rundown from the old crew, you may start posting entrance posts and freely tagging.]


||Pod Release Protocols Initating|| Stacy's familiar voice sounds out to all the podmates through the ship.

In the Pod Caverns, there are the sounds of: Pop. Pop pop pop. Poppuhpoppoppop. KASCHUNKhiiiiiiiissssss.

There is condensation and mist spraying out from cracks in the pods, as the people inside slide out onto the floors, covered in slime.

--

( There was nothing... )