driftfleet | video + text + action

Entry tags:

video + text + action

Who: Peggy Carter & YOU
Broadcast: Y, fleetwide.
Action: Aboard the Starstruck, if you like.
When: Today.

[ a video feed flickers to life, and fights for a moment to adequately focus on its subject. peggy carter sits in the kitchen aboard the starstruck, cup of tea and her elbow and half a biscuit in her hand. dabbing at crumbs, she sets her food aside and offers the network a bright smile. ]

That message -- the ominous one, in the bizarre language? It put me in mind of the sort of cryptograms and puzzles you might see in the Sunday paper. [ her expression is cheery enough, although she's not being wholly honest about her interest in such games. she won't be the one to say the words bletchley and park.] I loved them. Them, and crosswords. I thought maybe some of you might like them, too. [ ... ] We could do a few together. I'm not saying we all join a club, exactly, but back home they were always better solved in good company.

Let's start you off with one that's easy enough. But there's no shame in needing a hint, if needed. For what it's worth, the text I'm attaching is, in its deciphered form, English -- not yet certain how the augments' translation will handle it. We'll see.

BLSTKBC YLBSFKGISRX XL QIYT SL SFVBWIKAKJR STR QKBZ VX V XSRVZU EIFELXR — V ELKBS LB OTKYT STR XLIA QVU NKM KSX KBSRAARYSIVA RUR.

[ -- and then an afterthought: ]

...By chance, has anyone been brewing their own beer?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Good work, Winn. [ she doesn't mean to sound matronly. and yet. ] I'll ascribe you a few bonus points if you can tell me what it's from.

[ apart from simply being an apt description of exactly what they're doing right now. ]

[ he likes the matronly, he misses it in his life. ]

Uh, the description of this week's fleetesode?

[ an almost laugh. something between a bark and a snort. ]

It should be, shouldn't it? We could all use a bit of steady purpose.

[ he'll take it! she gets a smile in return ]

A bit, a ton, potato-steady purpose. [ he shrugs ] It's a great idea, thanks for this. [ he knows she didn't do it for him but he's enjoying it so it's only right to thank her, ok. ]

Next time, I'll have to draw up something a little more complex.

I'll keep an eye out for it. So, where's it from?

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. She wrote Frankenstein. I never much cared for the book itself, but that sentiment always stuck with me.

Yeah, books, movies, TV - it's all been kinda fuzzy in my head since I got here.

[ just one of the many joys of the atroma. ]

But I definitely feel that quote.

Feeling a little pulled in all directions, hm? Unsteadily so?

Yeah, I guess. [ he nods. he's been struggling to find a purpose since he lost the ability to hack his way to a solution, but it's more than that now. even if he does find something he can do - he feels like the atroma will just strip him of that, too. he feels powerless. ] Right now the 'ask Peggy how is she' thread is pulling like really hard.

[ hah. ]

Another puzzle that's easily solved, then. I'm well, thank you. [ a little less inclined to ever have children ever ever ever, thanks to a young natasha romanoff. but well all the same. ]

Happy enough to leave that last planet behind.

[ it's a good thing he didn't have a run in, he struggles in that department already, and his girlfriend already breached the topic. ]

If anyone doesn't agree with that I'm deeply concerned for them, that place was creepy.

How unfortunate for us that we should look upon the stars as a more hospitable backdrop. [ sometimes you just can't take the pre-lunar-landing sensibility out of her. ]

[ look up to this point he always preferred being planet-side, even on sucky planets like the toxic moon and the faction system, but this one...this one was just too much. ]

Well, they make a pretty backdrop, at least.

I won't argue you on that point. [ ...swinging it back around, though: ] Have you always liked puzzles?

[ or maybe he doesn't like them at all, but she's going out on a limb here. ]

[ he prefers that topic anyway! ]

Yeah, always loved challenging myself. [ he nods with a smile, it's part of what drew him to coding. ] And I'd be really surprised if you weren't always the same way too.

Something like that, yes. [ she'd certainly excelled at the desk job before she took to active service. and breaking german codes was a hell of a lot more challenging than the daily crypto-quote. ] Newspapers can only take you so far, in the end.

One of the many charms of the digital age - you can find tons of challenges online.

[ but not one of them even tickles the toes of figuring something out that actually saves lives, even if it's not super complicated (though so much of it is). ]

And yet I suspect it makes the answers easier to find, as well. [ a tremendous boon, perhaps. but it does make her feel made ever so slightly redundant. ]

Well, yeah, but you have to want to cheat and go looking.

[ which, people do. but not their kind of people. ]

I imagine by the 21st century, ciphers have gotten to the point where the human mind can't keep up. It's all computers, isn't it?

It's still a human being programming those computers. Building a decryption software is a pretty great puzzle.

[ -- a long beat, like she's weighing something in her mind. or steeling herself against a distasteful request.

ultimately: ] Could you show me?

[ oh, the things he could show her if he didn't have an augment in his head. but this, at least, he can still manage, thanks to his phone. he can't program worth a damn on the network, but on his own system, he's still in control.

which is why he's currently working on an operating system for a computer he built himself. but that's still going to take a while and will be far less advanced that the system on his phone, as frustrating as that is. ]

Yeah, but it'd have to be on my phone. [ and he can't begin to explain how humiliating having to add that provision is. ]

Doesn't matter to me. [ she mistakes his embarrassment for something else. ] I'll learn however I can.

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