nexus_crossings | [Nexus LOL] Technomagic was Never meant to work like this

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[Nexus LOL] Technomagic was Never meant to work like this

It's a beautiful day in this ~~neighborhood~~ Nexus. A really beautiful day.

Six-winged birds singing, flowers blooming everywhere one looks. From far off in the distance on the other side of the Nexus people wandering the Plaza will hear a sudden loud noise and feel a very minor shake but there's no invading force. No colossal calamity to be bested. Now for the poor sod who used to own the internet cafe that's just been blown to smithereens in a cascade of firework trails raining down it's a very bad day. Tina's still swearing about Aimbots and cheaters while waving around a game controller that isn't plugged into anything while the fire burns. She's not going to stop when the potions shop next door catches flame either.

But alllll the way back in the plaza? There's no sign of trouble. Maybe the faintest glimpse of fireworks. The smell of gunpowder mingling with a bitter herb and a touch of...ozone? Honestly with all the pollen in the air it's difficult to tell. Precisely Because it's the Nexus the fallout from this ill conceived haze may not be easily noticed at first.

A flicker of a little symbol over someone's head while they're reading a book. People cutting off mid conversation to glance at their conversation partners. Or rather, over their heads. So many little 😮 popping up over heads as confusion starts to spread only to rapidly dissipate into a myriad of other little pictures when people seem to realize that whatever the flavor of the day weirdness is, it's not seemingly dangerous. Is there a rhyme or a reason to them? What could it mean? Are you affected?

[Please refer to THIS POST in the OOC comm for an explanation of what's going on. The TL;DR to this Nexus LOL is that a character's innermost thoughts will be visible to anyone who is observing them whether they're speaking or not, but they will exclusively be communicated via Emojis. The OOC post has some guidelines for using these emojis in tags and some rules so please check there before posting in. Threadhopping and mingling are required for this post as there is no real Question Asker so Have fun!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If Reynard was the negotiator, he's not surprised by the terms of the agreement. Self-serving spirit that he is.

His emoji remains 🤔 Because Palmer has given him a lot to consider. "Turn themselves invisible. Doubt it. They probably just change the refractory index to make them 'disappear'. Or could have a perception filter. Which would make them less invisible and more unnoticeable until they want to be seen."

This is when the Doctor's intelligence works against him. There are just some things he refuses to believe for a variety of reasons.

"They use technology to do it. Some sort of personal cloaking devices. I saw those in action when I ran into them in the convoy battle. I wanted to look at one of their machines, since I'm a mechanic, and see if I could figure out how they worked. Maybe reverse-engineer it for Nexus use. But they made sure to clean up after themselves."

Palmer's thoughtful, his 🤔 mirroring the Doctor's. He's thinking, which isn't something he does that often.

"I think it's fair enough that they want their own territory, especially since they have nowhere to live back home. But they didn't promise not to change the amout of land they claimed, or stop murdering trespassers. What is your sense of the ceasefire terms?"

"They use technology to do it. Some sort of personal cloaking devices. I saw those in action when I ran into them in the convoy battle. I wanted to look at one of their machines, since I'm a mechanic, and see if I could figure out how they worked. Maybe reverse-engineer it for Nexus use. But they made sure to clean up after themselves."

Palmer's thoughtful, his 🤔 mirroring the Doctor's. He's thinking, which isn't something he does that often.

"I think it's fair enough that they want their own territory, especially since they have nowhere to live back home and they're in the middle of a war. But they didn't promise not to change the amout of land they claimed, or stop murdering trespassers. What is your sense of the ceasefire terms?"

"Cloaking devices is what I was talking about. Just because I use more scientific terms doesn't mean I'm less correct."

Or that Palmer is wrong. But 'cloaking device' just sounds too sci-fi for the Doctor, so he wouldn't use that term regularly.

"I don't know anything about it much. Other than what you've said. Mostly, I'm becoming more and more convinced that I just need to talk to them directly."

His emoji returns to that puzzled expression. He's mostly good at controlling it. Experience helps.

[Also, Twevle's thread with Loki is still in progress, so IDK IC what he might've learned from that yet. oops.]

Palmer uses sci-fi lingo mostly by habit. It's something he's used to, and it's one of the ways he understands things like this.

"If you're sure you can convince them not to attack you, talking to Pelsor directly ain't a bad idea. The others listen to her, so maybe if you get her to come around the others will follow. But that's a very big if. She's only listened to Reynard and Loki so far, and we don't know why they got a pass. You're gonna need a plan to get in there and a plan to get them to listen to you."

Palmer has no problem with Loki, even though he doesn't necessarily agree with him. He thinks Loki had a good goal - he probably wanted everybody to let the Fallen stay partly so Ghost could be rescued. Loki did leave a lot of unanswered questions, though.

"There's a lot of things Loki didn't tell us at that meeting when he brought back Blaze's head. Why Pelsor was willing to listen to him, for example, and where Reynard fits into all this. He didn't let the Fallen in, but he did help them, and I bet he talked to Pelsor. Watching us fight like it was a game or something."

The Doctor is listening carefully. He appreciates Palmer's opinions so far. And is glad for it. "Getting in undetected won't be a problem."

He doubts any other universes have anything like the TARDIS. And when you can control the whole of Time and Space, getting into and out of places is easy. And Psychic Paper. It's a thing, he can probably make it work on them.

"But I'd rather not do it that way, if I don't have to. And I have two uncanny abilities: Getting people to talk and getting people to do what I say."

Both of which means people listen to him, right?

"Everything is a game to Reynard and he doesn't seem to care who gets hurt in the meantime. Loki, from what I've met of him, got put in the middle of a situation. I don't get the impression he wants to be the representative, he just did it because there was no one else."

But now the Doctor's here, so...

"If you've got a way in, that's good. I'd give better intelligence if i could, but I've never been in the Fallen camp and I doubt I'd be allowed in alive. If you make it clear you're not human and were not involved in either side during the winter, that could also help, though we were warned they tend to lump Nexus-dwellers together as enemies no matter who they are."

Palmer scratches his chin, and ⛔👨 symbols appear.

However, he nods in respose to the Doctor's comments on Reynard. He's not a fan of the seasonal spirits or the crows, though admittedly with the crows it's a bit more petty.

"That's kind of what I've heard about the seasonal spirits in general. Their values ain't human, even the nicer ones ain't exactly trustworthy, and I'm not sure ordinary lives matter that much to them." Palmer's careful when he says unflattering things about the spirits. You never know who could be listening. "

Palmer's relieved that somebody else is going to try and talk to the Eliksni, somebody more straightforward about his intentions than Loki.

"When Blaze is back, I'll see if I can learn more about the Fallen camp through Ghost. Then, if you've got a way to stay in touch or want to arrange a meeting, I'll pass on what I learned to you."

The Doctor grins. He would point out that 'see, he can make people tell him things and do things for him', but that would kind of ruin his magic.

"I don't want you to jeopardise yourself in any way. But if you do learn something more, I would be very interested in getting more information."

Preferably before he does something stupid. Like sacrifice himself for the whole of the Nexus.

"I was going to ask Blaze and Ghost for information when they come back. Things like what the Fallen's social structure is like and what their code of honor is, little pieces of information that will help you know what they're like before you talk to them."

Palmer's not about to sneak into Fallen territory. He knows they hate humans, and doesn't have a death wish.

"I was involved in the convoy battle, so I'm not a neutral party. I'm willing to do what I can, though."

The Doctor nods in acceptance. "I think any information is better than none, so don't limit yourself to the more detailed questions. You might skip out on information they do have. Just have them tell their stories and listen."

It's how he does things, mostly. The Doctor has actually gone into situations with less information than he currently has and has turned out okay.

"It sounds like you've met other aliens before," says Palmer, impressed. "I've met one before, back on my Earth. Unfortunately, it was, as you put it, hungry. I was almost on the bad end of the cutlery."

Palmer's willing to give the Thing that it wasn't necessarily evil, but it's still very dangerous. "The aliens I've met here are more friendly. The Fallen are the first ones who were hostile, but in a different way from the Thing. The Fallen hate humans. I don't think the Thing hates anybody. Just wanted to eat me, and then everybody else."

The Doctor hums. "The Thing. So you know Kinner and McReady. Interesting."

There's a lot of that group around. Or he's just lucky. "Well, you're not on Earth now. So technically, you're the alien. Actually anyone not original to the Nexus is alien to it. I wonder what the locals have to say about everything that's been happening..."

He's going off on a tangent, best to stop him, before he decides to remove everyone. 👽👽👽

"Kinner yes, McReady no. Wait. You know Kinner?" Palmer grins. "Well, his fish shop is famous. We aren't members of the same team or anything. Kinner's world and my world have different versions of the same alien. It attacked me, but I escaped."

Palmer's thoughtful. 🧠 symbols appear above his head.

"Y'know...I don't know if the Nexus has natives. That's an interestin' point. There are people who've been here longer than others, but far as I know nobody's from the Nexus. There's the animals, but a lot of them are from other worlds, too."

The Doctor nods - time and therefore Nexus threads are - timey-whimy. "Seems he didn't escape. Still trying to work out how he's alive here, yet knows he died in his world."

Sure the Doctor can pull it off, but he's a time traveller, so...

"It used to have a lot of natives about. Might be difficult to tell them apart from those who've been here a long time now. But they used to wander around the flats and shops."

Those were the days when the Nexus was pretty much the plaza and nothing else. The Doctor sighs he misses the 'good old days' when the Nexus was smaller, but simpler. 🌱

"Kinner's not the only one. There's quite a few people who died back in their home worlds. Cricket, Blair, Rilio..."

Palmer knows he's not dead, but the specific way Kinner died was eerie to him. 👽🐺🍴😨 Except in his case, he was attacked by a dog, not a cow.

"I might've met a native to the Nexus, but I've never asked. Did something happen to them?" Palmer knows relatively little bout Nexus history, but he's curious. "All the people I've met are from other worlds."

Palmer wonders if there were hostile invaders in the Nexus before the Fallen. They're the first people he's met who refused any form of interaction with the Nexus and its inhabitants as a whole.

"Are the Fallen the first hostile species to appear here?"

The Doctor waves him off a little to slow him down. "I don't know everything. I travel the whole of time and space, things get a little confused for me. And I've been away a long time. But there were natives here, when we all first started showing up. If they're not here any longer, I can't say."

He closes his eyes in thought. "First hostile species. I suppose you could say that. I mean, we've had hostile individuals show up before. But an entire species? No, this would be the first..."

He pales slightly. 😱 "Could mean the barriers between the universes are breaking down further..."

And if those disappear completely.... it would be bad.

"I've never met one, at least not someone I knew was a Nexus native."

Palmer nods, sharing the Doctor's concern. 😱 If one group of Fallen could find their way in, so could others. Or worse things, from other universes.

"The good news is we're only dealing with one group of the Fallen, not the entire species. There's a lot more where these ones came from, probably. The way Blaze talked about them, though, they all share a similar culture and attitude at least towards humans."

Palmer doesn't necessarily want to assume things about an entire species, but when he talked and listened to Blaze during the expedition, he got the sense that what they saw was typical of the Eliksni species and their culture, not the House of Winter alone. He is curious about the other Fallen Houses, though, and what makes the House of Winter distinct from the others.

"The ones we met are from only one House, but there are certainly others. Blaze, when I talked to her, thought they followed her to the Nexus."

"Still, so many all at once is not a good sign."

He sighs and pulls a hand down his face. "Too many things all at once. The question is: are the emojis a fluke or a distraction?"

Because they could really go either way at this point.

"If members of one House got in, others could follow, too." Palmer can't help but worry.

"I don't think the Fallen have anything to do with these, uh, emojis, though. It was probably an accident."

Palmer was hoping the Nexus would return to normal, but it seems something's always going on here, for better or worse.

"Well, I was thinking bigger than that. Like if they could get in as one group, species from other universes could get in as one group. And one species from my universe would be very bad if they came here."

Destroy everything not like them. He really hates the Daleks. 😡

"Uh..." Palmer would say that the creature in the image doesn't look dangerous, but he knows from experience that something doesn't have to look dangerous to be. "I'm guessing there's worse out there. A lot worse. At least the Fallen were willing to draw a ceasefire, eventually."

The way the Doctor's talking about them, he can guess they're creatures to be feared.

"If I can ask, what is this species? The way you talk about them...they sound extremely dangerous."

He offers a sad sort of smirk. "They're called the Daleks. And they are. Mutants in a tank. They've had all emotion removed except for hate. And they destroy anything that's not like them. My people, the Time Lords, fought them because they had learned how to time travel. Their plan was to destroy my entire universe, then break down the barriers between other universes until they destroyed the whole of creation."

His expression morphs to anger the more he talks. But he stops there, because well, this is why he had originally come back: to drink himself into oblivion and forget about what he did during the Time War.

Palmer nods, accepting the information. So his suspicions that the mysterious gargage can creatures were dangerous is correct, and going by the Doctor's description they make the Fallen look reasonable by comparison. No emotions except for hate.

"Well, I hope they stay out of this place. One dangerous alien species is enough." He changes the topic to something a bit lighter, since he recognizes the conversation's gotten very dark. "I run a mechanic's shop here. Gear Today, Gone Tomorrow. We've just reopened. I was looking for tools when you found me."

"Mechanic's shop." The Doctor looks around. "Are there... things to fix here?"

Timey whimy. Technically the last time he was here was in his future, so there were a few cars and motorcycles about. But the last time he was here in linear fashion, well... The Nexus was far more home-spun back then.

"I mean, the place does seem bigger, but..."

He shrugs. Sometimes he hates time travel.

"Yep. I sometimes repair vehicles or objects for people. There's enough work here to keep me taken care of. I take jobs on pretty much anything, though I might have trouble with alien technology without pointers."

Palmer can't really fix things he's not familiar with in his world, though he will give an honest effort. He'll try and repair anything he's paid to.

"I haven't been here too long. Well, longer than McReady, but he's pretty new. So I'm still learning things, and the Nexus surprises me. Safer than going back home, though."

There's a reason he hasn't left, even though the Nexus isn't as safe to him as it used to be. 🐕🐕🐕

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