crystal;

[grindset]

FORM: sending crystal
SENDER: Viktor
RECIPIENT: all
NOTES: crowdsourcing ideas For Science. strongly encourage hijacking/chaos/making it weird.

Good afternoon. This is not an urgent message. If you're engaged in anything serious, please accept our apologies for the interruption... and... and be safe, wherever you are.

[This is not a common voice to hear over the crystals—nor does the speaker emerge from Research's rooms very often, at that. In fact, even after a year and a half, there may yet be some people he's never really spoken to. He sounds slightly nervous, somewhat less so as he goes on:]

But those who can spare a moment... you are invited to imagine, [softly clearing his throat,] to imagine a ship... only, unlike the ships you might have seen to date, this one was built to traverse the sky. And this flying ship, it is yours—and now, you must finish outfitting it. Add any contrivance or convenience you might wish, whether practical or extravagant, for personal comfort or professional efficiency. Cost is of trivial concern, and the laws of physics yield to your every whim. Whatever you imagine can be realized.

So... what do you add to it? What does it do?

Comments

[roseandthorns]

Hello. Thank you for your inquiry. As requested, I shall respond. I believe a training room with a 1km track, stationary weights, ropes, and a rock wall would be quite beneficial to improving morale and keeping up with necessary daily training. Also, a kitchen with the food's macro and micronutrients, kilocalorie count, and protein percentage clearly being labeled. This is all. Thank you again for your inquiry. How do I turn this thing off--

[grindset]

[This inspires his eyebrows to reach a new altitude.]

You can disable it the same way it was activated. That same twisting motion. But, before you go, ehh... out of curiosity... how large were you imagining this vessel to be?

[roseandthorns]

Same... Twisting... Motion. Understood. Thank you for your instructions. I was not told a size. I was told that money is not an object, which is correct, it is a social construct denoting value of labor or objects. Regardless, it seemed that it would be large enough to house an army, correct? Perhaps the size of a Lucite Silver Army Carbonne-Class Vessel.

[grindset]

[Fascinating.]

For the purposes of this exercise, there's no correct answer—what it's meant to carry is completely up to you. However... I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with that particular class of vessel.

[roseandthorns]

[An awkward shuffling, controlled but labored breathing.] Pardon the interruption. It is difficult to hold this while running. The Carbonne-class vessels were the crown alloy of the Lucite Silver Army's naval armada. Measuring four hundred and fifty meters in length, with a span of two hundred and ten meters at waterline. They were powered by three Aluminas cores. They housed multiple garrisons, supplies enough for a year at sea, weapons enough to wage a war, and communications arrays to send and receive orders back to Steelclad. They were all destroyed.

[grindset]

[Viktor's focus drifts to no specific object, eyes flicking here and there, as he listens. Weapons of war not being among his favourite subjects, the iris of his curiosity shrinks.]

I'm... sorry to hear that. [No he isn't.] Why are you running?

[roseandthorns]

[A laugh, one that came between controlled breaths.]

I have consumed 3,462 kilocalories today. My surplus is still at 500. I need to burn that off before lights out. Therefore, I run.

[grindset]

That sounds...

[Now he pauses, as though searching for a way to phrase this politely, but really he's processing it, and the result sounds like tentative approval:]

...very efficient. Provided you can measure your intake accurately.

[roseandthorns]

It is a work in process. I do not know how the food here is fundamentally or biochemically different than that from Covalte. As such I am using baseline calculations from Covalte, and monitoring weight differentials week to week to calculate if I am over- or underconsuming. By keeping my diet the exact same and only changing one meal per week, I can slowly test out which foods are different in caloric density and which are the same.

[She sounded pleased, but a little frustrated.] It should only take... Two to three years to finalize the list with 85% accuracy. Weight is not the most precise way to measure kilocalories.