((If I included this, you're either reading my for-myself notes, or I copied too much. Doesn't matter either way.
"Any admins free to help a Tajaran-on-training become a Tajaran? Notes should have everything, but for convenience: All-52 fur, eye-and-hair color should be fine as-is, I'll do the styles myself in a mirror, and here's the application: http://www.hypatiastation.net/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=2588"))

((If you think this is beyond excessive (it would have been more excessive, but then you said you'd rather see them daily :P) consider it a lesson: Do not give people tasks without a max-length, lest you get someone like me.
I have, however, tried to trim away anything that doesn't 'add to' the rapport.

There is, of course, no reason Fahd'd do triple-Rs in a written report, but plenty of reason why he'd stick to third-person.
Not even sure if it's meant to be written in-character, but mreh, it's more fun this way, and I could use the excuse to actually 'get into his head' more than I would normally.
...Actually, on second thought, let's do both: Presumably, the report isn't just to see if I'm willing to jump through some hoops to get white-listed, it's also to see if I suit the server.
So, I'll do a shorter OOC report on the server and community and such, and a 'proper' IC one on what Fahd goes through))

((OOC report first - for the IC one, go to the large 'divider'. Probably don't need the parentheses, but it makes it easier to tell where it begins and ends.
With two reports in the same post, that might definitively be useful (though less so if it's not a full two weeks anymore)

The station is... Well, hard to nail down, is the best way to put it.
I've covered it in the Application threat before (probably a few posts up), but essentially going into this I'm not at all certain how I'm expected to act - this is not a normal SS13 server, it's also not strange in the same way that the server I came from was strange.

But mreh, I'm always negative, and never satisfied until I've a backup plan for everything (which is nigh-impossible when dealing with people, because to plan for everything you need to include the worst-case scenario, with people that means 'Everyone actively works against you', and I can't outwit 15+ other players)
The server looks fun, I'm just stressed.

It's late, I never even joined, if I start now I'd leave in an hour or two (making a bad first impression)
Mreh.
Maybe tomorrow.

...Nah, screw it, it's even later, but mreh, let's get a couple of hours in (now hopefully the info on how trials work isn't outdated... Let's send an a-help once my flavour-text's done)
Of course, I wrote that before spending two hours being distracted without making any progress on the character :P
There's a lot of stuff to read and re-read.
Make that three hours: Was trying to find a good example of Tajaran eyes, found some comics and interesting bios instead.
I'd have stopped after the first comment since it's kinda redundant, but it seems useful for future 'admins' to know just how easily distractable I am.
Make that four, it's two AM, and I'm changing my mind again: Tomorrow it is.

Not entirely sure what to put in the flavour-text, usually there's not limb-specific fields.
On one hand, that's great, it means people can have things like scars across their torso that AREN'T visible through several layers of clothes.
On the other, if I'm going to try to make it so that every body-part has the appropriate info, especially if I don't know what the game adds automatically, that'll be a lot of (largely redundant) text visible if I ever strip and someone examines me.
For now, I'm mimicking the text found in some procedural-appearance games, even if that'll be just as redundant here as it is in those games.

Wrote a post in the introductory thread, probably made a fool of myself, I don't really care, I did tell them I was a nerd so they shouldn't be surprised.

No admins on, can't request to become a Tajaran - and not sure if I even want to, if the round doesn't last that much longer - so let's try a random-generated gardener or something. I've got multiple slots, after all.
Did just that, or specifically a gardener-chef (not like it's the first time I've played one of THOSE) called 'Alfred Blackburn' - I actually got the last name randomly for a miner-character I slapped together while uncertain about which job to take, and decided arbitrarily that they're twins (30-year old ones, with very specialized skills)
Sure, by the time I was finished, there were admins on I could ask, but I tend to get rather stuck in the decisions I make, and I'd already decided to play Alfred.
I don't intend to keep the characters, as least not in their current form, but I might re-use the idea of the Blackburn Twins later.

Haven't even played a single Tajaran round, and I'm already screwing up and using third-person pronouns as a human.
Not sure if that's a good thing or not.

Managed to make a bad first impression: Used 'Cya' in IC chat - I'm so used to using that as if it was an actual word, it didn't occur to me that it's (of course) text-speech. Not the first time that's happened.
They started ranting at me about it too - not sure if I just didn't communicate the idea of 'Yeah, guys, I know' or if they weren't listening, but they kept going on about it after I pointed out that I'm not new to roleplaying, I'm just not very observant.

I'm regretting both playing as a 'temp' character and playing as a chef.
Partially because I got really tired of playing Chef after a while (I forgot how stressful doing both hydroponics and the kitchen is, given you've gotta constantly watch for customers. I'm usually hiding behind the excuse of 'hey, not my fault, I'm just the Hydroponicist - I'm only in the kitchen because the idiots at CC didn't send any chefs', which while a bad excuse, at least is one. This time I needed to seem at least mediocre, ideally good)
And partially because I ended up 'missing out' on two great opportunities to introduce Fahd to the other players: First, there was some EVA training thing (Fahd's great with EVA, sure, but I'd still have him decide he could use a refresher, just so I could get him visible) and then there was a psych-exam.

...And apparently, while at the psych-exam I didn't just miss my new co-worker getting injured (not that strange an occurrence, and even less so since an admin'd hinted about wanting to end the shift)
No, I in fact missed out on a 'complaint-form'-worthy neglect of duty http://www.hypatiastation.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2589
At least it seems likely that's what it was - the report doesn't have a 'time of event', so it might be an entirely different criminal chase.
It doesn't matter that I missed it, but it is yet another 'rare occurrence', and this time one I can't really comment on from my own point of view.
If this is a normal round, I'm wondering what your server's secret is, since most places there'd be only one of them during a half-again as long a shift.

!!Lots of mechanic-talk ahead. I like mechanics, even if I also like roleplaying - skip the next 'paragraph' (more like 'wall') if you get tired of people talking about mechanics on a roleplaying server!! (Don't expect it to be a problem for Aranya, or if it is I expect they would know what they want to skip without my advice (this is pushing the limits of my english-grammar knowledge: Talking to hypothetical future readers about someone I know will also be reading this document. We didn't cover the appropriate pronouns in english-class, strangely enough) But anyone who, like me, goes snooping in other people's threads... Might not be as patient, given it appears a common problem over in the Ban Appeal board)
Did learn something though (and if you read everything new on the forum, you've seen me comment on some of this while trying to ask about the new cooking thing):
You can add an entire 50-unit Hot Sauce bottle to a chilli-based donk-pocket.
If you try to eat it, you will take damage (duh)
If you try to eat it slowly enough to avoid damage, something makes it still count as so much food that you'll go from hungry to 'unwillingly biting' without finishing it off.
Next time I'm a chef, I might try it with something like Nutrients mixed into bread or such (though I had trouble enough getting nutrients to add to my wish-soup (wanted some skrell-safe food. I don't think we had any Skrell, mind. So, figured if they were going to be so picky, I'd boil some water, call it soup, and add enough nutrients to make it food-worthy) so possibly just sugar or something equally easy) - could declare it lembas bread, if it works as expected with regards to serving-size, and if it doesn't it'll still be really healthy food.
Though, the new cooking-devices, while fairly simple and probably not as prone to 'fryer-science' as Gibbed's fryer (though it's not like I even tried recursive-frying, or implanting honk-devices via food), seems to open for some 'gimicks' to chefs.
I already kinda have a style just from how I do Hydroponics (short version being that I focus on bio-mass and flour), I might go all-in on the soy-beans (multi-harvest plants with large produce-quantities and a high bio-mass value, and which can replace expensive meat in a lot of recipes. Those are desirable both IC and OOC, for pretty much the same reason (just with a 4th wall in between) and I figure anyone with above-apprentice Botany skill knows that kinda stuff) and chilli (same thing but less so, plus it's a condiment AND can mutate): A shift with only Wish-soup out for example, (but still letting people custom-order, of course, because that's more fun) but with the soup 'spiced' with a bunch of nutrients, and maybe some of them (marked appropriately, or at least sorted) with some hot-sauce. Claim it's 'vegetable stock' or some such, not entirely sure what exactly adding nutrients would be the equivalent of.
Heck, while I'm not sure how to put liquids in (like I said, the one time I tried, I added a 50-unit condiment bottle, and I suspect the code was specifically that the resulting pocket 'contains bottle named 'Hot Sauce', which contains 50 units of Capsacain', so it was basically treated like a solid object containing 'reagents') I can 'cheat' a bit with the ice-cream machine and/or condiment-master (even if it won't reflect right on the resulting item-name - maybe I can cheat by using papers with custom-names to trick the system, pretend they're packaging or something. It's not like it's 'meta-gaming' to want to be able to make salty bread, for example, or candy made out of sugar - it'd be a crappy chef who didn't know how to do that)
So, if I can come up with a 'theme' that the chef wants to run, I can now (hypothetically) do things like rum-cakes, and I was already doing things like lime-flavored chewing gum and chilli-flavored chocolate (just like my experiences with 'real' chilli-chocolate, no one actually wanted that one)
Apparently my plump-helmet waffles 'tasted good', which is one of the few compliments I felt was given without me prodding - strange, I feel, given I didn't expect them to be eaten; They were made as a kind of 'private joke', since it sounded suitably-DF-like, and I made other less mushroom-based food for actual consumption. I suspect plump-helmet waffles taste quite strange, actually.
And apparently, from what I read on the forums, some people are getting tired of everyone being too afraid to make enemies: Well, the character, while intended to be temporary, could probably be expanded into someone who'd be a good excuse for people to get annoyed, even while he's trying to just do his job.

Finally joined as Fahd, as a Miner.
Of course, he was not given robotic limbs... But mreh, the flavour-text refers to them (and is now less redundant) and I don't need their mechanical 'benefits'.
I might ask next time, though. (later-note: Nah, 'not possible' says the badmin)

Forgot to rrrol my Rrrs, apologized, everything seems fine now.
Probably accidentally knew too much about an antag: The captain was revealed, over the comms, to be a 'ling' - I forgot that it had not been revealed what a 'ling' is, and asked if the real captain was still alive.
No one called me out on it, but that might just be because they were equally used to knowing that.

Didn't get to do much more, since writing the report takes a while (especially given I write two :P) at least now at first.
But I did get the rust polished off my mining.
Other than the Rocky Debris being so common now - it's a real nuisance now, rather than being so rare Archaeologists have trouble finding any. Might start just breaking them and screw the archaeologists - at least in the middle of the path.
Found a typo, mind: If you use 'Set Pose' while unknown, then instead of 'He/She is typing at their PDA', you get 'They is typing...' - as opposed to 'They are' - presumably fixable by moving the variable one word over (so, right now the gender-specific variable is 'He'/'She'/'They' 'is', while it needs to be 'He is'/'She is'/'They are')

Spent a round, well part of one, observing.
Mostly because I was getting tired and wanted to be free to go to sleep whenever, but also partially just because four hours (spread over two half-rounds) was getting a bit tiresome; Like I said in the thread, I am not used to 'live' RP (though not entirely new to it either), it takes more effort from me than the play-by-post stuff I usually do.

I do not envy Frost, though I don't know what is on her laptop.
For all I know, 'Lilian Frost, psychiatrist' has a very exiting job, it is merely not visible unless you can see the laptop's menu.
If there is nothing there, however, she is spending an awful lot of time just sitting around - I am not certain I'd have the patience for that myself.
Was hoping to see her talk to some people, her character and her job seemed a good combination to get 'inspiration' for how to improve my own roleplay.

People at least seem to constantly talk to each other, which is good, though a lot of the more talkative members are Engineers or Security... And I'd probably never play engineer on Extended, unless I had a specific idea to make it something more than sitting around waiting to fix stuff.

I'm seeing a rather low amount of people talking to themselves/doing emotes without people around, but that's to be expected - I do it, but I'm weird, and it does make me have to pause at inappropriate times to write something no one will see/hear.

Kinda regret choosing to turn on Antag-vision; It's just as useless as I expected, with no antags around (I just wanted to see how it worked), and it means I can't jump in as a mouse or such to mess around a bit and 'spice up' the others' game.

...Half the crew is hanging out in the bar.
Again.
I mean, yeah, I should probably spend more time there myself (so I can actually roleplay, rather than being too busy to do so, and not meeting anyone either), but it means I can't get hints on how to roleplay while working - because, ya know, no one's doing so, they're all roleplaying while focusing on roleplaying.

Seeing a LOT more repeat players (compared to what I'm used to)
I think 4-hour shifts instead of 6 isn't just good for me (even if it does mean I finish even less of what I start) but also helps others keep the interest.
As an example, I think Fallen was in three shifts straight, even if he did get knocked out of the game towards the end of both the first two.
On the upside, I might manage to learn to recognise more than two or three names - I am bad with names.

Couldn't make up my mind whether Fahd the Chef would be further watering-down people's knowledge of him, for when he eventually manages to get into Science jobs.
So, Miner it is.
It was SUPPOSED to be my first full round (I've usually ended up doing half-rounds, starting at around 14:00 station-time. Two of the half-rounds were consecutive, so essentially one round with a break in the middle, but still)
But I got sleepy and decided to leave - gambling on it not counting against me, especially given the job was so unimportant (there was even another miner there)

Now IC:))

*************************************************************************************************************************

[The report appears to consist of hand-written text scanned unto a computer. And possibly then printed out for ease of reading. The hand-writing is uneven and the lines of text 'curve' slightly across the page. On some of the pages, spirals have been drawn in the margins, starting out 'dry' as if someone was trying to 'wet' a pen that'd been laying out a while.]

Hypatia Station
First shift, first day, a while into the shift.

Fahd's not entirely sure what he's supposed to 'report' on.
There are cameras everywhere (well, he assumes so, anyway. He has yet to arrive) and he's using NT-supplied equiment with the tracking turned on as always.
So, Fahd recommends that if someone is reading this, they instead put it down and go look for the records so that they can actually be competent at their job and not blame Fahd's untrained rapport-writing for their failures.
But, he supposes it might be for psychological-examination reasons, or some such - and he is sorry if him displaying knowledge of this complicates someone's job, he did not intend to do so, he merely wishes to be honest.
On the topic of 'being honest', Fahd is starting to feel strange conversing with rapport-readers in hypothetical situations that might be entirely off the mark, and thinks the rapport is quickly losing any semblance of professionalism: So, he'll pretend reporting is perfectly normal from now on - though it might be advisable to add classes on rapport-writing to the curriculum for new workers.

Fahd is not at all surprised that he has been given a clear message that he is not permitted near any scientific equipment - it was not a science-specific ban, but it does not matter whether he is permitted to become a captain or Head of Security.
He'll just have to prove himself - he got the impression the station merely does not trust newcomers, they may open up when he has been there a few weeks and shared a ['drink' is crossed out] toast with them.
Strangely, he could not find a Hydroponicist job-listing - not even as an existing worker.
His initial hypothesis - and he wishes to stress that he's not a psychologist, so this hypothesis is made with no professional backing whatsoever, he merely wishes to keep up his good work-habits for when he gets his coat back - is that they folded it into the Chef job; Certainly, a lot of 'skeleton crews' have combined chef and gardener before.
Alternatively, he did see someone marked as a 'gardener', but they were given the pay and 'rank' equal to the assistants, so either Hydroponicists are not nearly as well-appreciated in these parts or it is merely the assistants to the true gardeners (like a medical-intern is not a nurse)

He is about to arrive, he will elaborate later.

[The new page looks machine-typed then printed (possibly then scanned back in CC-side, depending on the version you're viewing) and has a few reddish-brown finger-tip-shaped stains that smells faintly of capsacain and fertilizer. It does not look like it belongs in the stack/file]
Shift Report, Non-Essential Crew, Cook.
Alfred Blackburn
Monday, 7th August, 2575 ((To be honest... Might be a day or two wrong. It's not like it matters, I just wanted it to look nice. So, don't try to match it up with anyone else's reports))
Sorry if that's wrong, don't remember exactly what sis said it should look like, looks right enough.
Arrived on the station, was pretty empty, went to start the farm.
Lots of new stuff in the kitchen, looks pretty cool.
Farm's kinda small, though.
Did my usual thing, making soybeans for the cow-machine, forget the name but it's the machine that eats plants and makes fertilizer, meat, and milk. Oh, and leather. It's a machine that does what a cow usually does.
Anyway, usual thing, soybeans... Right, and chilli for some flavour.
Then just threw out a bunch of the usual stuff, wasn't space for as much as I'd usually do, had to make do with just one or two spots of soybeans and chilli (rather than a good row of each to get a fast start on organic meat)
Not sure what kind of meat was left behind, smells good enough, hopefully no vegetarians come by since it's not the cow-machine-meat I usually use.
Some power-problems, couldn't open the shutters for a bit, eventually couldn't use the seed-vendor once bins opened up.
Kinda hard to do the kitchen, the garden, and keep an eye on all three places for people to come wait.
Wouldn't be worth having a waiter either, there just doesn't seem to be enough people.
Made sure to wash my hands frequently, and more or less remembered to change between my kitchen-overcoat and the garden apron, they're both easy enough to shrug off and tie loosely on.
Wasted some meat trying to figure out the new machines, they don't seem to have any heat-dials or anything, it was all left raw in the middle, fixed it later by just pre-cooking anything that needs to be cooked all the way through.
Tried out the candy-machine with some recipes I've seen mass-produced, lemon-suckers and chilli-chocolate and such.
Chilli-chocolate wasn't very good, and that's coming from someone who loves chilli.
...If you get any reports of pepper-spray in the garbage, that's probably my fault, call it a failed new recipe.
Pretty sure I accidentally dumped a full bottle of hot-sauce into a chili-pocket I had made for myself (chefs get hungry too), and I couldn't let it just lie in the kitchen once I gave up on eating any more, not everyone's got my belly for hot stuff.
Got enough produce, and not enough eyes for all the places, so let the plants wither out, got some good shrooms for it too, the kind for food I mean.
Ended up with burgers towards the bar, candy and other non-filling snacks towards the main hallway, and some veggy-food towards whatever the other room is, with some other food pre-made and stored in the kitchen itself.
Figured that'd let people who're in a hurry get what they want, and everyone else can actually make an order, though I might start just leaving the pre-made food out too so I don't need to watch for people waiting, even if it means no one hanging out and talking to each other.
New chef came by after a while, went to bed, left them in charge.
Barely had my clothes off in the dormitory when I was called down to a psych-exam (Something-Frost. Lillian, perhaps)
She's probably got a report on that.
Had to run for the shuttle after that, almost waited too long, got on with half a minute to spare.

[The next page is Fahd's writing again]
Arrived on the station two hours into the shift.
Everyone was in the bar, which he is quite unsurprised by, but for once they had a reasonable excuse.
Turns out, the captain was going to have a party (he did not ask specifically what kind) that was going to start in 'a quarter of an hour'
Chaplain jumped the bar, even though everyone was staring at him - Fahd didn't notice if he took anything, but presumably he did.
Fahd spent a while talking to people, but wanted to get started on his job before the shuttle came - not a good start, spending his first shift partying with the captain.

There were further delays regarding Fahd doing a random self-scan with the device in standardized general-purpose medkits - he was going out without a 'buddy' in case of accidents, he felt he should make sure he had not hurt himself on the trip there and not noticed.
They appear to have been miss-calibrated, as they detected the bottled water he had drank earlier as a 'foreign substance'.
As he is merely trained in mining-and-science related injuries, Fahd did not know what to do with a scanner-result that claimed he was not just poisoned with a substance that for all intents and purposes seemed to be tap-water, but also healthier than the baseline.
The nurse who helped him resolve this said she would send in a complaint about over-sensitive scanners, so Fahd will not double the paperwork by doing so himself.

The captain was, from what Fahd could tell, revealed to be a supposed 'Ling'.
He is not entirely sure what it is, but apparently it means the party is cancelled.
Though, the captain later spoke through a wall-mounted comms from the brig, calling out people for not having attended his party, and acting generally strange.
In hindsight, the captain had admitted during the party-planning that he was not a true captain - he claimed to be a 'Drill'-something, which he claimed was another term for a miner.
Fahd has met a lot of miners, though this shift he was alone, and he has not heard that term before.
It may be a local term.

He did not get the chance to do a lot of mining, as writing this has taken about, and he's sorry for not timing exactly, half an hour.
Fahd is not a very fast writer, and the asteroid does not have very convenient desks.
The minerals are not quite the ones he is used to, and the stone appears more solid.
It will not be a problem, but it does mean he expects some temporary delays at times, as well as an increased risk of miss-configuring the machines.
He is not certain whether he should leave the debris for the archaeologists.
For now, he will.

No further events happened before the shuttle was called.
Fahd believes it was called for the purpose of collecting a broken IPC ('Fallen'), as the nurse had requested one previously and it was called when she commented over the radio that it had yet to arrive - he does not know whether CentCom heard her the second time, or whether someone with shuttle-access did it station-side.
The nurse asked for volunteers to help get this 'Fallen' to the shuttle, and Fahd volunteered.
She left to get a prisoner, presumably the captain.
Fahd accidentally opened the body-bag containing it, as he held it wrong while dragging, but gives his word he did not see what was inside.
It was quite heavy, however.
Everyone appears to have made it on-board.


Friday, 11th August, 2575
To avoid having to explain, in the future, that he is educated beyond that of a simple miner, particularly in terms of recognising potential dig-sites - and also to explain why he may at times hesitate as he tries to remember procedures he has not used in months - Fahd has requested that an arm-band with the science-wing logo be added to his work-clothes.
This, together with his request for Tajaran-suitable boots, is likely pushing the limits of what he is permitted to request, and Fahd acknowledges that.
If he feels it necessary to add anything else, he will accept having to give up one of these quality-of-life requests.

He heard radio-chatter that implied the station had been damaged, again.
No one wanted anything from Mining, other than science which Fahd is unsurprised at wanting 'everything shiny' - he has worked there, he knows exactly why.

Fahd took the time to explore the outpost this time.
Nothing has changed, other than finding some strange box marked 'Industrial Suit Control Module'
He thinks an Industrial Suit is the proper name for the miner's EVA-suit, but he does not know what there is to control.

...CCIA agents came aboard.
They appear to have a reputation, as the crew guessed 'Jackie', proper name 'Jackson Jamison-Johnson', before he had even spoken.
'Commander' Kaplan appears to lack respect with the crew, as they snorted at his title - though apparently he is 'merely' a Security Commander.
Fahd does not think Kaplan is with CCIA, but is not certain.
Mikhail Haff referred to himself as working in the same line of business as 'Mr. Johnson', so he most likely IS with CCIA.
Overall the station-crew appears to have a rather casual relationship with command - if this continues, Fahd believes he will have no trouble fitting in, as long as he avoids being made an example.
Of course, he doesn't mean that he intends to disrespect or disobey command, merely that he has, in the past, failed to meet the standards command has set.

Xeno-biologist said that when she screamed, people should come running, as she would probably be injured.
She later screamed, and people did not come running until urged to do so - by her and by Fahd.
Fahd himself was on the asteroid, so could not take initiative on helping her on his own.

There is some truly excessive amounts of rock suitable for a dig-site.
He's given up on keeping them around for xeno-archologists, except where convenient.
It is painful to hear the crunch of potential fossiles, but he is certain nowhere near all dig-sites would have been studied as is - besides, it is not Fahd's problem, as long as he avoids potential anomalies.
Especially as he has yet to acquire the means to test out how many contain fossils, and as such it might, as previously considered, merely be the nature of the rock-type.

Fahd went up towards the research-outpost to look for diamonds, when he suddenly felt very happy.
He does not mean in the natural way, either, as there were nothing to attach said feeling to, no justification for it.
This continued to get... 'Better', as he tried to continue to mine.
As far as Fahd knows, there is no 'harmless' illness with that sort of symptom, so he headed back to the station.
He was also seeing things out of the corner of his eyes, but with so many moving parts on the outpost, this might have been entirely because he was getting nervous.
Hrmmm... No, med-boys say it's nothing, though Fahd's not entirely convinced given the lengthy wait (as in, it could have metabolised)

Chief Engineer said he'd let Fahd have a jetpack, after he suggested it might let him more efficiently find diamonds.
By the time he'd gotten it, and gotten it recharged, the shuttle came.
Then he discussed how to attach a control-panel to the suit for the next five minutes before feeling he really should get to the shuttle.
((A control-panel that appears to be bugged, given the erors it gave. I'll check next time))
Someone was giving non-consentual hugs in escape, but he believes it was merely horse-play, not intended as harassment.
Frost, the psychiatrist, talked to Fahd for a while, then admitted she had been considering giving him anti-depressants, but decided against it.
Fahd wishes to stress: He is not depressed. He is in fact happy. He knows the secret to hapiness, even.
But he is usually happy in a calm and consistent way, and he surely never feels like the asteroid is looking PRETTY - that may be a slight exaggeration, but the point remains that he doesn't have to be depressed to be concerned with abnormal emotions.



Tuesday, 15th August, 2575
There are a whooping three crew marked as active, though Fahd of course has not yet arrived to see how true that is.
He is... Not entirely certain why two detectives and a full medical team (chemist and two actual medics, as is the minimum) were the only ones assigned - he's concerned he has been given incorrect instructions, with the station in fact not being operational, as it seems exactly what Fahd would have expected a 'proper' investigatory team to be, if CC did not know what to expect. Perhaps lacking a proper security for protection, but that's about it.
Apparently, no, it's just coincidence. Strange.

He has taken tools for self-repair - as a reminder, Fahd's left leg and right arm are bionic replacements, of the 'robotic limb' kind - as well as to allow him to work the mining-equipment.
The outpost, of course, has all tools required.
However, only just enough, with perhaps one additional wrench, so either he has to monopolize them himself (though this shift there were no other miners), or he has to leave them where he found them and take significant detours anytime he needs to make adjustments.

He has also changed out his mining-outfit for a nicer black suit he found.
The mining-outfit did not seem to stop being dirty no matter what he did, and is quite unsuitable for anything other than mining.
He expects the suit to get dirty, yes, but as he will be wearing an exo-suit, he does not expect it to get dirtier than if worn by a lawyer (who would, of course, stand a great risk of bumping into bloody defendants and victims)

The library had package wrappers and no librarians.
Fahd does not remember any on the outpost, so he brought it with him - if he finds some on the outpost now that he is reminded of the need, he will no longer take any in the future, of course.
He will most likely not use it, but it is more likely to be used than in the library.
He also used two sheets of paper for personal amusement - he does not know the cost of paper, but intends to pre-pay for a bunch (not sure exactly how much, he'll decide when he sees the cost) so that it does not have to show up as a charge against his in-case-of-wasteful-use deposit (which, of course, is not intended for cases like this where he takes something the station has in abundance, intending fully to repay, but lacks a proper place or price with which to do so)

Fahd has... Some trouble remembering that mining is in Cargo, and not through Science.
Old habits, he supposes.

The shift is nearly over, and there are no one who could use the metals.
He apologizes for inefficient work, but will of course go straight into the next shift without the usual downtime.
Until the end of the shift, he will familiarize himself with the new lap[the writing stops mid-word]
Apparently, the super-matter's broken, they're sending the crew home early.
He's not sure whether the station will be out long, but he'll use that as an excuse to TAKE his usual downtime.
At least until he receives some sort of indication it's safe.
After the 'happy happy, joy joy' scenario last time he was on the station, he is not willing to risk the super-matter being insufficiently fixed.

Sunday, 20th August, 2575 4:08 am
He was tempted to request being assigned as a gardener, or possibly even a chef.
However, it did not seem a good idea - no chef to use the produce, and he does not want the stress of being a chef quite yet.

Fahd was given an exo-suit - he has renamed it Excavator #1 as per last station's procedure, he is not certain what the procedure is now.

There were a few miscommunication and confusions and such, by virtue of there being more than one miner, and Cargo referring to both as 'miner'

The chaplain wanted people to join in prayer, which Fahd had promised Frost to try to attend - he must admit he does not truly believe, but it might be an interesting view into an alien culture; As a reminder, he is not human, and while he is likely more familiar with humans than the average human is with Tajaran, he has not had much opportunity to study their culture in depth.
Besides, when the psychiatrist says it will be good for his mind - a statement made to the general crew, mind - Fahd feels he should believe her.
He did, however, feel rather silly being the only other one there - so, priest, Frost, him - when he is a 'man' of science.
While he does not believe, he did pray from an honest heart, so if the psychological profile does not show the right change, that is a flaw with Frost's plan and not Fahd's use of it.
He tried to ask some questions, it did not produce any results - in the future, he may attempt to get Frost to assists in such religious studies.

Fahd is feeling very sleepy all of the sudden, he will have to end his shift early.
There does not seem to be a need for him either way.

((15, June
Allright, so, given the whole 'I'd prefer frequent updates to a wall of text' thing, it's easier if I stop having them split first by OOC/IC and then chronologically, and instead do it the opposite way from now on.
Still haven't gotten any response as to the previous stuff, so any advice you've given later obviously doesn't apply to this, nor anything before.

Was taking a break from SS13, for various reasons, which will happen a bunch in the future too (for me, SS13 is a game you easily get burnt out on)

Considered knocking Fahd's age up a couple years retro-actively, but eh, let's wait with that.
It's at 25 at the moment, which seems a bit young for someone with essentially a doctorate, but I figure I could just NOT consider it a doctorate; If what he has now is, in fact, 'certification' (hence why he specifies 'certified xeno-anomalist', which at the time was just meant to sound more vague and give me more leeway on how much schooling that'd be) then I could just add a few years later on (you've said more or less that not everyone has their character age, but that still means it shouldn't be a problem to have him age at least a bit before I decide whether to stop changing his age) and declare him a proper doctor.
Obviously, I'd need a whitelist for one, and a lot more time for another, before I even considered it 'time' - and even then it'd be more fun to keep it in reserve for something memorable.

Ignore the in-game time, turns out the website isn't 'cannon' anymore :\
I'm still going to put the labels on, so I can tell where the logs begin AND later go back and see how long Fahd's supposedly been working there, but they're entirely wrong))

Friday, 22nd September, 2575 11:09 pm
Fahd, again, considered requesting to work in the garden.
He decided on continuing going for 'hard labor' as a miner, a decision partially helped by looking at the crew-list and seeing a lot of un-specified asssisstants - if even one is working in the garden already, Fahd neither wants to intrude on them, nor have them get in his way.

It would appear, however, that the assisstants aren't working that hard; One was taking a nap in the hallway (Fahd WAS going to get a rolling-bed to get them to a bed, but when the Med was asleep on his chair too, he decided the station could sort itself out, Fahd was going off into space. Well, into space unto an asteroid anyway.) and another was busy running around, occasionally stopping to stare at Fahd.

He is fairly certain he won't accomplish much worth noting, but hopefully he'll make the job easier for the next group of miners.

Fahd tried, again, to figure out how the box labeled 'Industrial Suit Control Module' is supposed to be used.
He thinks he is making progress; It appears one of the plates can be popped open with minimal force, if you use a crowbar, and inside are several strange and seemingly-modular devices, and some standard power.
It appears to be intended to be worn, but it certainly doesn't fit Fahd - more than just pinching his tail a bit; He literally can't fit, between feet being too long and there not being space for both a leg and his tail - and he can't get it to fit into the 'Suit Cycler' to modify it.
He likely has to give up and declare it a human-only device.

The new mining style he's started using, in the absence of proper tools (Fahd wishes to make it clear, he feels drills are the bare minimum of what NT should provide its miners) or exo-suits, is actually working remarkably well.
He'd estimate he can break apart three times the rock in twice the time.
While makes tunnels slower to make, of course, and the extra 'area' doesn't necesarily match up with where the veins are.
Fahd still thinks the more 'spaceous' tunnels and the greater efficiency at gathering 'common' metals and minerals is worth it - especially given it gives him more room to manouver around dig-sites, leaving plenty of work for the archeologists.
He doesn't think it's worth teaching other miners though, unless they are exceedingly green; Fahd only took so long to learn it himself because he is used to better tools that wouldn't benefit (essentially, it is a technique to compensate for a tool far more inefficient than the user is capeable of taking advantage of. If the tool is less inefficient, the technique doesn't do much, leaving you with three times the rock broken in just-under-three times the time. Which wouldn't be useful, for the reasons Fahd mentioned)

No diamonds yet.
Fahd is wondering whether there are any diamonds at all on this asteroid.
...A thought occurs: Perhaps the 'compress' function on the smelter, could turn some coal into some?
If so, he'd have loved to have heard about it.

Not much happened, just like Fahd predicted.
It's about 'ten-to-four', he's not had his break yet, and he'd never get back if the shuttle was called while he was way off (or at least wouldn't have time to finish his work first)
So, Fahd's going back, smelting stuff, then going to the bar for his break - shouldn't be long until the shift's over.

Turns out, no, the compress-function just crushes the coal-ore, giving a useless pile of rock-ore debris.
It did seem beyond even humans, to turn coal into diamonds with a simple structure like that.

The disorganized fashion of ending the shift did not impress him.
And he already wasn't very impressed at hearing the 'cleanup crew' keeps walling up the library for some undisclosed reason (it didn't seem an important one either, as the engineering-bot ALICE opened it up without problems)

((Apparently, there was some plasma-grief?
Not sure what happened, I wasn't anywhere near the right places to see.
But it seems 'Fidiculous' wasn't impressed by the way the admins handled it.

Same day, felt like doing another shift:))

Saturday, 23rd September, 2575 4:09 pm
It's the weekend, so of course Fahd's working.
Not that he minds, and it's not like he doesn't take other days off, it's mostly just amusing.
Arrived early, even - well, early for him, at least.

He went into the office (the one no one ever seems to use) on a curious whim.
It appears medical records of all crew are kept there - Fahd feels this isn't very wise.

Apparently some 'James Goode' broke an agreement.
He's no clue what agreement that was.
((Though, he was later re-named, so technically it isn't cannon anymore :P))

More buckets for the bucket-bots, more ore for the ore-machine.

Almost forgot to pull his mask up over his face before the airlock got too depressurized.
That would not have been fun.

Fahd thinks whoever built the mining outpost and hollowed out the initial space needs to start using Meson Goggles: There were diamonds within easy sight of the airlock.
Sure, that's not their job to get, but diamonds should be considered important enough to get by whoever sees them.

While there was a captain on-duty for once (Captain Janette Nash), the crew seemed as 'informal' as always.
Normally he doesn't mind, but a more formal crew would not have people flashing him (Fallen, the bloody scrap-bucket. Far as he can tell, it was some personal grudge and not a malfunction, as he was 'cleared' by the RD. Still painful, no matter the cause) or wasting his time with claims of being his mother (it was a male human, but even if it'd been a female Tajaran Fahd isn't so dense as to not be able to tell when someone's joking - it just wasn't very funny)

Apparently Bjorn (Bjørn?) and Fuji know each other, and Fuji likes coffee.
Fahd is certain he'll never have any use for this information, but may be getting a bit... Silly, from perhaps not taking as many breaks as he should, so it seems like a great idea to write it down for later.

((Man, not sure why, but the Rrroling Rrrs thing really makes me 'empathize' with Fahd when it comes to struggling with the foreign language.
It 'helps' that I spent a few years as a non-native english-speaker in an American high-school where no one felt like listening closely enough to understand me.
In other words, I'm really feeling the whole 'soul-crushing exhaustion' everytime I want to have any lengthy discussions.
Luckily, so far no one's gone 'Hrmm? I don't understand you. Speak properly' - that'd give me flashbacks :P))

Fahd thinks he needs a break, but he does not think he can take one.
He'll get food.
Maybe he'll stop trying to compress iron and smelt coal.

Chef seemed... Distracted.
Had to try fairly hard to get their attention.
They've only made juice beforehand too.

He found a sealed-off structure inside the asteroid.
The drill on the exo-suit did not have any significant trouble breaking through.
There wasn't anything of use inside ((Actually, there was an alien, but Fahd fudged things a bit to cover that he destroyed it utterly :P Apparently they don't leave corpses when 'drilled'))

((I should not have pushed myself, I've not done anything meaningful for the last hour, just hung out waiting for the round to end.
Pointless, not fun, not worth it.

Ten minutes left, BYOND has started fighting my net and is being overal difficult, I'll take this as an excuse to leave (or, rather, to not re-join) - Fahd was waiting in the escape anyway, I figure he just fell asleep in his chair, and will easily be dragged onboard by some helpful person))

************************************************

((19/06
Not really intending to write a lot of 'raport' material, but last time I launched the game with that 'goal' I still ended up with a page or more :P

I did a fair amount of non-Anomalist science stuff, but I figure there's two 'excuses' for that:
1) It's a sub-set of Scientist, so Anomalists are still scientists, just focused somewhat on a specific task.
2) Fahd's supposed to be studying human technology - I figure as long as I treat it as something he's not supposed to do (and that he's therefore quite bad at), and IC pretend that it totally is something he's supposed to be doing (might need some LOOC to avoid them thinking me misplaying OOC, if it ever comes up), it should be fine.
After all, half the 'fun' of science is haphazardly trying to use the deconstructer (I've got places to look for the 'guide' to doing it, but mreh, I only look there if I get stuck. No fun then) - and besides, xeno-anomaly would leave me on the asteroid (just like with the miner) so I would never meet other people if I never touched the research-machine.
))

Friday, 20th October, 2575
Fahd is about to arrive on station as a Xeno-Anomalist.
Again, Fahd, the certified Xeno-Anomalist with several years of hard work (for NT) behind him as, among other jobs, a Xeno-Anomalist, who was hired (presumably, given the education he was given) for his talents and existing education within subjects useful for studying xeno-anomlies, has been finally permitted to work with anomalies aboard the Hypatia station.
He is, to put it lightly, happy about this.

Of course, that still means he'll need to swing picks and drag rocks around, but at least they'll be interesting now.
No more digging out entirely-predictable iron and coal and making the same steel alloy he has walked across every day of his life since joining NT.
Well, for the sake of 'accuracy', there's the occasional time the Hydroponicists go mad and start converting the station to a wooden design against the Captain's orders (or at least, back with his old station there was that. It has yet to happen here, but with the way the crew act, he thinks it's a matter of time)

He still intends to take a 'semi-break' one of these days as a botanist (even if he has to accept the 'humiliation' of being an assistant. They seem nice enough here, it might not matter ) but he can't afford the reduced pay yet; There were a LOT of required equipment and fees to transfer, especially relating to getting a new hub-side room for in between shifts.

Of course, coming on an hour-and-a-half into the shift and then spending half an hour writing this report does mean Fahd perhaps isn't going to have time to get that much work done.
As per usual, he doesn't 'clock in' until he's actually ready to work, though he'd claim he's spending a lot less time 'getting ready' - in part because there's more tools available, admittedly, so he doesn't have to search for a roll of wire for self-maintenance.

Chef started arguing with QM over not getting enough meat.
Everyone joined in, generally with claims that the shift's half-way over so it doesn't matter or that he can just get farm animals (he's not sure how that helps, since there's no animals on board and the entire problem is the QM refusing to order meat) - Fahd's not a fan of that attitude, it means that if the crew spends half the shift hungry and a chef comes on, there's still not going to be enough food.
Eventually Fahd got tired of it, told the chef to go argue with the QM in person - it really does not seem a matter for the crew, but for just the QM and chef. At worst, one of them are neglicient in their work, at which point that's a rather different matter.
Someone, he didn't quite catch who, agreed with him, adding that any further discussion would be considered abuse of the comms.

Fahd neglected to join some unspecified party in cargo, having just barely finished his raport.
It seemed no one else ended up going either.

The captain and someone else came by - he was a bit confused as to why, as they did not want to talk to him, but apparently they found a headset.
Ah, actually, they did need to talk to him - they needed encryption keys made.
He's not sure that's legal, but it's the captain, so he figures it's special circumstances and all that.
Unfortunately, the machine seems to refuse to do the kind of scan he'd need in order to try making a modified copy, and Fahd's certainly not had enough practice with it to have the design memorized.
There doesn't even seem to be a lot of records of them in the machine's logs either.
This somewhat makes sense, of course, as otherwise every curious person with science-access and a bit of electrical knowledge could listen in on Command (and it'd be a hassle to catch them, if they don't speak on the channel) - But Fahd assumes there's something he's not understanding, as the captain seemed to want a scientist specifically.

He was going to spend the time getting familiar with existing technology, as there (as mentioned) was not enough time to set up a proper dig-site.
Unfortunately, it appears Xeno-Bio is now restricted to xeno-biologists.
Sure, that's a good thing, but Fahd's fairly confident that after several hours, all slimes are dead - he wanted to just grab the phoron he knows they keep there.
The area 'above' it, though, is fairly nice - He's not sure if he just forgot it was added, it HAS been a while since he was down here, or if it's something that wasn't around on the old station, but it's nice to have somewhere for xeno-botany, in case any archeologists come around.
He did get some work done on trying to figure out the electronics of the headsets - only in broad terms, mind - but it was cut short by the shuttle.

He forgot to mention it at the time, but there was a radiation warning when he started working on the encryption keys.
Due to some confusion as to the nearest maintenance hall, Fahd spent about five or six seconds from the 'we're now entering the radiation' radio-message (as in, not the 'we're aproaching' one, but the one for actually being in radiation) and to when he was inside maintenance - possibly another second or two to close it behind himself.
After a trip to medbay, he doesn't seem to have any further symptoms, and he does not know how precise the warning is - if it was delayed, he spent far more time in radiation, while if it was early (which it should be, in his opinion, precisely so there's a margin) he might not have spent any time unprotected at all (in which case the symptoms were merely because even maintenance isn't entirely safe, which he already knew)

((I Think I'll start having Fahd hold some paper and a pen when I'm doing these raports.
I don't think it's worth the hassle to write them in-game, especially since I'd need to change how I word them if I expected other in-game people to read them, but it'd at least give me an excuse to actually USE the paper-bins and PDA-pen.
Plus, it seems better than the PDA-related action-posts I've been doing, since it's mentioned at the top that it's hand-written (in bad handwriting :P) rather than PDA-written.))
Saturday, 21st October, 2575
He suspects he might need to change his diet away from so much vendor-candy.
Perhaps later, once he finds a chef that can make good food rather than piles and piles of burgers and bread - there's plenty of 'filling' cakes, for starters.

Besides, where else is he going to get the energy to jog through the halls all day?

He'd reccomend the size of vendor-given coffee-cups be increased to hold twice the volume of the coffee - to more easily allow additions to sweeten the harsh taste.
There's plenty other crew who want milk and sugar in the coffee, Fahd's not alone, and he personally gets annoyed at not being able to fit a cup of hot chocolate into it.
As a temporary measure, he can just pour it back and forth a bit in what's left of free space, but that's tedious and imperfect.
Heck, he's seen other crew (not Fahd, he knows too well how poorly cleaned they can be) use chemical beakers for mixing their drinks, for lack of a better means.

Library's boarded up again.
Well, he says boarded up, more like walled up, since it looks like the same RCD-made metal walls as the rest of the station, just sandwitched by doors on either side.
Head of Security was in the back room - Writing something, he's not sure what.

Fahd figured he'd try to examine various strange items around the station, especially those less expensive, to see if he could find a way to 'improve' other more commonly-used ones.
Not strange as in alien, just items with uncommon purposes, like a snorkel for helping someone breath underwater (something not usually needed, in space), which might not be so commonly thought about in normal research (and so might hold some secrets no one's had an epiphany about yet)

Captain Cyrus Ambrose apparently has a sister on duty.
He's not sure what her job is - she was announced as an Assistant - but that might be useful to remember.
At the very least, the captain probably expects him to remember it on the basis that they're the captain and presumably important to all the crew (while Fahd must admit he honestly doesn't even know this captain by sight. But then he IS one of the newest crewmembers himself)

The RnD records does not appear to contain 'blueprints' - it's the wrong word, but Fahd's forgotten the right word. In his defence, he has to know the right words in two languages - on motor-controlling electronics.
And Fahd's head is too full of mining after the last few weeks to remember it himself.
The station does have several such devices, though, so he spent a while taking them apart to see how they're built.
He doesn't think he'd be able to build anything too advanced until he finds some proper design-records, but a simple 'rotating metal on a stick' might be doable.

At a whim, he tried to use the 'stock' knife from the autolathe as a basis to design a sword, using his memories of alien swords.
The simulations showed his design would be quite impractical, however, and while that sounds rather accurate to what he recalls of the swords, it also means it's not worth the disk-space to store it.

Geneticist wanted to start modifying 'volunteers', see if they could be given 'super-powers' (their words, not Fahd's)
He suspects no one was surprised.
The captain shot it down fairly quickly, though - Fahd tried too, of course, but he never expects to be listened to.
It's more a matter of principle, not being able to let people keep on being a danger to the station like that.

He managed to finish the design just as the engineers told him the station would 'temporarily' lose power, so he was able to 'flee' out to the asteroid.
It's not a bad design either, though he still feels he could have made it more efficient if he had a pre-optimized motor to work with - his solution's rather crude, and doesn't have as much force as he'd like.

There were mushrooms growing in the outpost sample preparation area.
The cleaning crew are not doing a good job, leaving so many spores around to contaminate any attempt at growing seeds from plant-fossils - he's glad he's not actually an archeologist, even if he's close enough not every boss seems to get the difference.

((It IS more fun to be a scientist, by the way, even if I have to stretch the 'Anomalist' job a bit - but, again, I use it as a 'speciality', and besides, if I wanted I'd just switch it back to generic 'scientist' and probably wouldn't have any trouble saying I specialize in anomalies. Having the ID say 'anomalist' seems more apropriate, given his background.
Besides, his skills are set up (as best as I can) for reverse-engineering alien tech, which is almost exactly what the mechanics of research are (how else do you explain having to 'figure out' how to make things like nano-paste, and doing so by deconstructing objects?)
If I seem defensive, it's because I know some people on other stations that'd have problems with it, but you lot seem fairly calm - so, I figure if I explain what I was thinking, then if you do have a problem with it you'll go 'dude, I get why you think it's ok, but stop that. Now.' without any temp-bans or whatever

On another note, man, I miss the old chat that auto-scrolled to the end at every update.
It was a pain to try to scroll back up to read old logs, but now I've gotta fight it to have it stay at the bottom.))

The captain came by, wanted to know about machine parts (manipulators, matter bins, that sort of thing)
Apparently his work with the drill impressed them - either that, or they found something Fahd'd missed - as they seemed quite pleased.
Wanted him to take the machine apart and rebuild it, which he's not sure why they thought he had the knowledge to do.
((I know how OOC, but I've always felt it's kinda meta-gamey for a scientist to do so without an engineer's help. On other servers I do it, because why not, it's a quality-of-life thing that doesn't really hurt anyone.
On here? Not worth it, might as well keep immersion un-broken and accept I can't store ALL THE THINGS without a bit of inconvenience.
Though eh, I figure if they're playing Captain and haven't gotten headbanned, they probably know what they're doing - there's usually only three ways people 'captain': Amazing, terribly enough to deserve at least a temporary head-ban, or invisibly/absently. Given they went into science, they're not the latter, and given they were indeed the captain, they weren't headbanned yet - so I don't know if I'm just taking it too seriously.))

Fahd, clumsy as always, hurt himself trying to catch a dropped glass.
Not on the glass, mind; He had been flexing his claws to see if he could fight without dropping a held object (turns out, nope, that's not something he can do)
So, since it's not exactly in a Tajaran's feral 'panick' instinct to SHEATHE the claws, he ended up dragging some rather sharp claws across his chest.
In honesty, he had in fact switched out his jumpsuit for a pair of shorts from the 'Athletics' locker up by the pool - so, while he still wore a jacket, he had nothing between himself and... Well, himself (well, his claws anyway)
((In actuality: I didn't notice I was in Harm mode (probably hit a hotkey and didn't notice) and 'used' the empty hand on myself instead of the glass of irish cream.
I really did choose to go with a shorts suit too, over an hour before this happened - haven't even done so before on the station - so it was a funny coincidence :P))
He's not impressed by the rigid by-the-book chemist; He went to the chemist to try to get some adhesive medical strips (it wasn't a very significant cut, but it still hurts, and it'd only take a moment to help Fahd)
Instead, he was ordered into the sleeper-device, declared healthy, and told to leave.
Fahd'll just get some from the science-outpost medkits, even if it's a waste to use them when he was right next to the medbay.

Engineers wanted 'better' building material for some sort of cooler - he assumes it's an engine-part, but with the shenanigans going on this shift (mime grabbed a chair and a fire-extinguisher to do some rocket-chairing outside RnD, gave the HoS some excersise chasing them down) he wouldn't be too surprised to find they meant one for keeping their drinks cold.
He's fairly sure the parts are safe, but he's not overly comfortable having to provide parts for such a device without being given proper time to refresh his memories on the exact diagrams and such.

Mime went from 'lovable rascall' with their rocket-chair antics, to violent maniac.
They tried to grab the engineers' bag, the engineers hit them with somewhat excessive force to get their stuff back, and Fahd more or less ignored it since he had a metal wall keeping him from either helping or get hurt by it.
By the time Fahd had finished gathering the stuff he'd just made and gone back to the desk, the mime had apparently got a hatchet somewhere and hacked at the chest and arm of one of the engineers.
Unsurprisingly, the HoS had to yell at Medical a while to get them to help - though at least in that case, the chemist ISN'T suited (though they still really need to get better at responding, as even terrible help might at least stop the bleeding)

No chef, and the shutters are down so no 'temp chef' assistants climbing over the table.
He thinks they've got donk-pockets on the outpost, he'll go eat those.
He is getting sleepy, and has barely done any of the work he was supposed to - but he'd claim that he did not waste company time, as he had to fix the apparent mistakes of whichever moron reset the database.
It appears the outpost also has a bed - good to know, and quite tempting, but ultimately he'll be fine for another hour-and-change.
No donk-pockets, unfortunately.
[The next page appears machine-typed in an all-caps font, as one might use for ease of reading, and has the stamp of one of the hubside geneticists]
THE FOLLOWING PAGES SHOULD NOT BE SHOWN TO MR. ZAKI, FOR REASONS RELATING TO HIS MENTAL HEALTH.
REPEAT: DO NOT SHOW FAHD ZAKI THE FOLLOWING PAGES UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESARY.
SEE NEXT PAGE FOR SPECIFIC REASONS AS TO WHY.
[On the other side of the same page:]
THE FOLLOWING PAGES HINT AT FAHD'S DEATH, AND WHERE RECOVERED FROM HIS PARTIALLY EATEN CORPSE.
AS PER USUAL PROTOCOLE, INFORMATION RELATING TO THE DEATH OF SOMEONE REVIVED WITH CLONING TECHNOLOGY SHOULD NOT BE SHARED WITH THE VICTIM, AS THAT WOULD RISK CAUSING LASTING MENTAL TRAUMA.
HE IS TO BE TOLD HE DID NOT WRITE ANYTHING MORE, AND WAS FOUND IN THE BED IN MAINTENANCE.

[The edges of each remaining page is stained with dried blood. They are, of course, back to Fahd's terrible hand-writing]
He couldn't find a suit-modifier like Mining has, but he managed to squeeze into an unmodified suit - they're not as solid, for various reasons but mostly because no one's made a suit that is both resistant to so-called 'Anomalies' and hard enough to withstand mining accidents - at least without also being hideously expensive.

The chem-master doesn't appear able to analyze the vendor's instant ramen.
Ramen-pills aren't very tasty either - though more portable, it might be useful for stations without on-board Hydroponics.

The 'middle outpost' - that small one-room building between the two outposts - got his hopes up with its promises of donk-pockets.
Turns out, for no discernable reason, it's miners-only.
It doesn't have any mining equipment, it barely has anything, so he's not sure why.
It seems to be a backup shelter, in case the main outpost gets vented or such, which makes it all the stranger that it's not open to scientists (who also go out on the asteroid)

Of course the first artifact Fahd finds is on a tiny free-floating chunk.
It's fairly close to the asteroid, so he thinks he can manage it, but this is such a dumb risk.
He's going to try anyway, of course, he just wants to be clear that he's well aware he's being dumb.
It's getting close to shift-end too, but he really wants to actually finish an anomalist-related task.

The anomaly is some sort of large cylinder.
He'll [The text ends abruptly. This last page is particularly bloody]

((So, yeah... Did not expect such a deadly artifact.
Don't even really want to tell you what happened, more fun not to :P
Not... entirely sure if I should keep going with xeno-anomalies, or start going more the archeology route - I guess I can try a few more anomalies, especially now that I know what to prepare for.

In hindsight, it was kinda fore-shadowed, with the clumsyness and going out unto a dangerous asteroid and so on.
None of that actually affected the odds in any ways, it was entirely coincidence, but if it was a movie I'd roll my eyes and say they went overboard on the fore-shadowing :P))

((22/06/2015))
Friday, 10th November, 2575 10:11 am
New day, nothing special to note enroute.
Scientist, still getting his requests for additional equipment denied (understandably, mind; He's making them because they would benefit his work, and assumes that they would be (and, apparently, are) denied if it's too much of an expense. Gloves resistant to electricity would be useful, however), and so on.

He still has no clue how to use a laptop to do anything useful - as far as he can tell, there just aren't any useful programs anywhere on the station.
The trouble is, he's seen people use them before, so surely there's something he's missing...?
The entertainment channel would be useful (to take breaks at-location rather than waste time traveling), except there's never anything on it.

Decided to replace the usual botanist's bandana (quite useful for keeping hair out of one's samples) with some rusty-brown vendor-bought thing called a 'Pirate's' bandana.
He's vaguelly aware of what a Pirate is ('vaguelly' more because his knowledge is contradictory, than because he's not seen frequent reference to them) but he's not sure why a rust-brown bandana should be symbolic of them.

A 'droid' got attacked out on the asteroid by some unspecified hostile 'synth' - it was easily dispatched, he's told, but given the lack of info it could be anything from... Hang on, slimes...
They've got it handled, and Fahd'd need to design a crowbar to even get out - no power, as per usual for the first few hours of a shift.

Fahd laid down for a quick fifteen minute nap, woke up half an hour later to the RD yelling at him.
He is, to put it like this, feeling foolish.

((Man, it's hard to stay immersed when other scientists are around.
'Not enough material research', 'just put random things in', etcetera.
I'm not sure if I just care too much, or if I keep bumping into the 'bad' players
Of course, it's also possible that they have the opposite view of me in terms of what kinda roleplaying matters the most - in other words, it's possible that they just don't consider giving fluff to the mechanics to be worth the effort (it CAN be a bit hard to give a good explanation to the Destructive Analyzer - in my case, I kinda 'cheated' by building one aspect of my character around the 'reverse engineering' interpretation, where you take apart superior (human) tech to learn to make/improve it), and concentrate their roleplaying work on conversations and events. While I rarely HAVE any conversations or events, so most of the time I'm roleplaying in the context of needing to do something in-game))

Found a... Seemingly non-reactive crystal, that set off the A-S Counter something crazy.
He didn't manage to document much about it, so he might as well copy it: "Crystal formation - Pseudo organic crystalline matrix, unlikely to have formed naturally. No known technology exists to synthesize this exact composition."
He's wondering whether this is the same kind of telekinetic crystal he's seen before - he hopes so, there's something strangely... Pleasant, about those. But it won't matter if he can't get it to turn on.
Looks too big, though - those where small enough to hold in both hands, this he has to drag along the ground.
He gives up - it's weird-looking, but he can't as much as scratch it.
It'd be one thing if he just didn't understand it, but this doesn't look like there's anything TO understand.

As usual, he is '110%' healthy - he's a bit confused as to why, since he thought it had initially been because of food in his system (which would make some sense; he is healthy AND able to repair himself if damaged, so more than 'merely' perfectly healthy) but this time he's not had anything to eat in an hour.
Though, given that when he did eat, it was a mildly alcoholic goop (tried cooking ramen in coffee and irish cream instead of water, ended up with a mess. Tasted well enough, mind, as long as you've the stomach for it) it's possible the 'repair material' is just sticking around in his system for longer.

In the interest of providing a set of 'secondary' data on the new equipment, Fahd used the RD's notes on the chameleonic equipment to make his own set.
Some of it seems rather dangerous, though he's not actually tried firing the gun (or using the suit in space)

His second find of a 'proper' anomaly appears to be activated by ordinary atmospheric conditions.
Unfortunately, it apparently causes chronic bouts of paralysis - as in, he had to stuff it in the first safe isolation chamber and run back to medbay - for the sake of clarity, he did in fact write this after the fact; He is not enough of a fool to stand around writing. Specifically, he stopped about halfway through the first line, and is now writing from just outside medbay.
It was a bit fun to be the center of a 'medical study', for a few minutes at least - the CMO and at least three other medical personell kept wandering by and wanting to know what was going on.
Took a while to get them past the whole 110% healthy thing.

((30/06/2015
First shift was as Alfred Blackburn, as an Assistant Gardener.
Mainly because there was, as far as I could tell, only half an hour left
Nothing of use happened, other than some minor event (spam messages) I probably missed the context for, and a bit of yelling at bots for horrificly mutilating mice in the chapel (I seem to keep getting into disagreements with the bot-players :P)
31/06/2015
I considered removing the flavor-text about his limbs being bionic (maybe claim he hasn't gotten new ones after he 'woke up' after the deadly artifact a few shifts back), but mreh, I kinda like having something memorable (even if it doesn't mechanically work), and one admin (I forget who) basically suggested I'd use the flavor-text (which I'd already done) when I brought up not being able to choose bionic parts with the Trial system (which implies it's alright)))
Monday, 1st January, 2576 10:01 am
Still plenty of people in the kitchen; Fahd doesn't think it's worth bumping elbows there in order to take a break.
He'll just have to be extra careful with the artifacts for now - or suck it up and stop being so jumpy.
Perhaps he can find a way to create a vacuum in the testing area - he's going to be wearing a space-proof suit for most of his work, he can handle wearing it the rest (and if he can't, there's a whole seperate station where at least half the space (well, perhaps a bit less) contains ways to relax and/or take a break)
If it seems like the report's getting a bit too 'casual', Fahd apologizes; Fear can do that to one, and he's still not certain exactly how to be 'safe' when the local 'xenos' left air-activated devices (he much preferred when gloves and being careful not to jostle it was enough) - last time it was just 'relapsing paralyzis', or whatever the medics ended up calling it (they went through a few versions), this time it might end up being lasting brain-damage.

Though, he's prepared for it now, and won't risk testing an artifact that activates prematurely.

He thinks he misunderstood something; The first shuttle he could find to the station was a good half hour after the one he'd intended to take.
It's possible someone lied to him about the first one, but it doesn't seem likely - generally, he'd expect a more blatant brush-off, rather than the 'sorry, this goes to place-that-isn't-right (He's forgotten what they said, sorry), try the next one' he actually got.
As a reminder to the reader, to avoid needless acussations of laziness and disloyalty, this time hurts Fahd, not the company - at least outside of the 'damage' of a slightly-unpredictable work-force, but as Fahd works alone (as a general rule, with the occasional exception), he does not expect his delay will have any effect other than the half-hour of no work (which, as mentioned, will hurt him and not the company)
((In reality, I just got distracted and/or busy :P There's always so much I remember last-moment before joining, given the 4-hour presumed playtime))

While he remembers: He shaved his goatee (well, technically, shaved it down to fur-length, but the thicker face-fur's hardly noticeable), so his older photos might not be perfectly matching.
He still expects to be easily recogniseable though - he does not consider the goatee the most recogniseable part of him (most didn't even see it until he mentioned it)

He'd like to request that scientists be given the same kind of jetpack-integrated hardsuits as the C-E was using to fly around his shuttle.
Of course, they would need to be modifiable for his non-human biology, so it might not be practical, but it would certainly make excavations near the edge safer.

The xeno-archeologist had apparently found some strange gas-tank - he'll have to read the study later, to see if it is merely from another company (in which case it's still strange) or if it is indeed an alien design (gas-tanks, as a consequence of their purpose, would tend towards the same design as what humans have ended up with)

He found some sort of strange pod - with the gas-tank, it seems this chunk of asteroid came from a space-faring race.
However, before he could get it open, he noticed gas-leakage from said pod and 'stored' it some distance away from the outpost - as he mentioned, he will not take risks this time - and so he did not get to sufficiently test it.
He suspects the issue was shoddily-modified gloves, so he will get a new pair and be more careful with how he 'modifies' them this time - this problem would, of course, be solved with proper Tajaran-suitable gloves.

Large diamond vein, right next to the walkway between outposts.
Of course that happens when he's decided he doesn't actually want a diamond drill (TOO effecieint; If he doesn't pay attention, it's too easy to dig too far)
The miners don't seem that interested anyway - he's not entirely sure they're still on active duty.

The archeologist ('Farideh Ultime') seemed to know what she was doing, even if she was showing signs of mutation (radiation-induced, perhaps?) and ended up breaking the airlock.
Gave Fahd some useful tips, and in general seemed to know their way around the outpost.
He suspects he made a bad impression.

Talked to Charlie Harding for a while - apparently Fahd's weird by Tajaran standards (he'd argue it's actually just the local Tajarans who are weird - he's not that different from the others on his old station)
Something about the others being terrified of humans (he's not sure why, but it's possible their tech would be somewhat more intimidating for the less educated) and being overly 'submissive' (paraphrased, anyway)
He ended up having to run off to save a chemist (Fahd didn't quite catch what was wrong, since he was too busy yelling at the doctor to stop answering Fahd's 'thinking out loud' rethorical questions and go help him - Fahd's fault entirely, he admits, but it's a hard habit to break when you spend so much time by yourself)
((I don't think it's a sign I should change how I play a Tajaran, but I suppose I should try to be less 'casual' - so, not actually changing anything meaningful, but give him a bit more nervousness when caught breaking into the kitchen and such, and maybe try to be more agressive with his 'everyone's equal' attitude.
I think I've been slipping too much into 'almost human', I need to push it back into an 'alien' mindset, even if there's no specific issue.

On a side note, I think I could play Fahd face-to-face now :P
Not 'LARP', I just mean like table-top roleplaying face to face.
Got an idea for the 'rrroling' Rs and the non-native accent and everything :P
Third-person's been second-nature for ages, just gotta remember to switch back and forth between Fahd and Not-Fahd whenever I start or end the game))

Power was out on the research outpost with twenty minutes left of the shift, so Fahd figured he'd get an early start on his paperwork - the main issue isn't the trouble getting out, but rather the risk of not getting back in when the shuttle is called, as there wouldn't be time to wait for help.

((Heh, 'Tom Blackburn' arrived - a shame it wasn't last shift, when the male half of the Blackburn twins was on :P
Not relevant to anything, it just amuses me to see someone else with that last name, even if it WAS a randomly-generated one and so probably part of a rather limited pool))

Blue alarm was set off near the end, but no one wanted to tell Fahd anything about the dangers he could expect - he's not a fan, he'd really prefer to know what to prepare for.
He means, it's not like telling him is pointless; He's a scientist, he can try to throw some inventions together if he knows what he needs to 'solve'.
With limited information, he prepared for a potential humanoid hostile force (this seemed the most likely and yet the most dangerous), with a make-shift stun-gun (he does not expect it to handle more than one, maybe two, uses, but he doesn't need it to) and some handcuffs.
He understands, of course, that this goes against the normal rules for what he's permitted to have - but with limited information, the safety of the station requires him to assume every able body needs to fight (and so, as an able body, he needs to be ready to fight)

Maintenance Drone 799 has been following Fahd around at random points during the shift, and he's still not sure why - he'll bring it onboard the shuttle, see what it does there.
Assuming it'll not somehow wriggle out of his grip in the remaining few minutes.
Turns out: The answer's 'Run around, beeping at everyone' - at least the humans found it 'cute', so it turns out to be worth bringing it aboard.

((04/07/2015
Net's too bad to play (power trouble too, I think something might be wrong with the 'infrastructure' somewhere down the line) (Tried playing yesterday too, couldn't find any 'free' spots I wanted to play, given there were like five scientists and three chefs, plus a few miners. I think they even had two mimes, though I might be misremembering since I don't actually care about mime-population counts) Correction: Net fixed, I hope. Let's try it. Actually, no, doesn't work >.< Seemed to clear up, but if I'm lagging THIS badly just trying to get my character set up, it'll be unplayable in-game - no point in playing if I'll just barely get past the bridge before giving up and declaring it too laggy to play.
/Actually/ actually, fixed it, I think @_@ Dunno. Don't know anything anymore, man.

I'll cut back on the name-dropping, given the whole 'you mention a lot of names but in a way that implies you know them', or however you worded it; Don't want these reports to start turning into gossip.
This technically belonged back before last report: Every name mentioned there was on purpose, such as wanting to give 'credit' to Farideh Ultime for being better at stuff than me :P ))

Saturday, 3rd February, 2576 7:02 am
He's paid his bills, the quality of his work is degrading, and he is tired of running around on the asteroid.
For a few days, he'll be working as a chef ((Because then I can actually get my face seen by people)) - sure, it's no vacation, but it's a different kind of hard work.
Hopefully no one yells at him for not being a very good chef - in his defense, a chef that does their job at all is at least in the top 30% of chefs, in his experience.

Having to change clothes constantly is a hassle, but at least the two aprons are easily exchangeable.
He knows a lot of chefs don't bother, but that seems kinda unhygenic (but then a lot of chefs don't bother with the garden at all)
((By which I mean, my 'rule' for myself is I change if I'm planting or doing heavy garden work.
Too lazy to change everytime I go harvest, which is true of Fahd as well, but presumably that'd not be all that 'dirty' work, just tugging off fruits and such. No digging, essentially.
))

The station was filled with mice.
Normally, Fahd doesn't care much either way, but these were especially hungry - so, out came the mouse-traps and the throwing of rolling pins (he threw his knife at first, but accidentally launched it out of reach)
The mouse-traps seem to have worked, even if he keeps stepping on them himself (but then his new boots are quite hard)

Not much worth mentioning happened; A bunch of farming, a bunch of people came by for food, nothing really unexpected (other than the whole 'mice' thing)

He did get to slaughter a cow though - he thinks he screwed it up, big time, and isn't too big a fan of killing cows in the first place.
But eh, his work (the anomalist work, anyway) involves killing uncount amounts of rogue droids and monstrous creatures, so it's not like one more life on his conscience is going to do much.
((RD was walking around in psychadelic jumpsuits again... I don't really mind, it's not like it's hurting anyone, but it might be something an admin might 'take advantage of' with some CC people wondering why there's the blatant use of illegal tech. More fun to disobey the rules if they're enforced now and then.))

For a while until the round-end, he talked to doctor Isabella (RD of the shift) - or at least he assumes she was a doctor.
Friendly woman, though she clearly doesn't know good cooking; She complimented Fahd's work as a chef, and while he's already implied that most chefs are lazy and/or incompetent, he's fully aware that his own cooking is terrible too.
His attempts at making a cheeseburger ended with a microwaved coated in melted cheese - in hindsight, the meat was probably warm enough that he could have let it melt without further cooking.
Anyway, the subject of Fahd's usual work as an Anomalist came up, and she promised she does not give orders.
They'll see if that holds true in the future.

((07/07/2015))