Log:The Principle of the Thing

2013/04/26 	 Anthony Quinn Ten Pleiades Toby 1

Thrusting up into the sky Quinn Tower is an impressive edifice. Nearly two hundred feet wide at the base it reaches over six hundred feet in height, making it the second highest building in the Downtown area. Rather than a simple block of concrete the tower is constructed of bright glass with a more organic feel to it. From the base one side tapers in until the building is perhaps a third its width, then the building flairs back out near the top in both directions, cantilevering part of its structure slightly over a park far below.

Although it is nearly as tall as the nearby Corporate Tower it tops out at ten floors less due to a slightly greater height of each floor as well as the soaring thirty foot height of the ground floor. Employees for Quinn Industries as well as the other businesses which rent space on some of the lower floors stream in and out of the six double doors that line the curved front face of the building twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days a year.

The elevators are controlled by keycards and only allow general access to the first eight floors as well as the thirty eighth floor. The thirty eighth floor being a restaurant with an impressive view of Colonial bay is open to the public and the eighth floor opens out to the lobby of Quinn Industries which occupies fifteen floors of the building. The six floors below that house the offices of various companies that have rented space within the building.

It's a fairly normal day in the Quinn Tower, if by normal you include visits by Starguard couriers, Ten getting her staff checked out, and a wandering Toby. Ten and Quinn are up in a testing room when Q's cellphone beeps. The ring tone is the one assigned to company business.

"Put it through, Raziel," Quinn says, speaking to his Fetch. He waits a moment for the connection to be completed then says simply, "Quinn here."

Ten doesn't really listen, since she's paying attention to the report on her staff.

"Security here, Mr. Quinn. We're reading movement in the basement on the motion detectors but nobody has scheduled access to that area." The caller says, "Is this an authorised presence that was missed on our notification list or should we send a team to investigate?"

Quinn glances over toward Ten for just a moment and figures with her here there's no reason to sending down a security team. "That's all right," he says to the security guard on the phone. "We'll go down and check it out." He turns his attention to Ten for a moment and says, "If that's all right with you?"

Ten nods. "Sure. Trouble then?" She picks up her staff.

"Yes, Sir." The caller acknowledges, "The cameras in the area are still non-functional, Mr. Quinn. We put in a works ticket this morning when that power surge fried them but maintenance hasn't gotten around to it yet."

Anthony shakes his head as he stands up. "Probably not," he says, "or else I would be suiting up. Maybe someone went through the wrong door or something." He heads out to the elevators with Ten in tow.

Ten says, getting into the elevator, "Maybe suiting up wouldn't be a bad thing. This could be someone trying to lure you into a trap or something. Though likely I'm being paranoid."

Another beep out of Q's cellphone. Same ringtone, so company business, but this time the extension number is the reception desk.

"Put them through, Raziel," Quinn says once again before responding with "Quinn here."

"Reception here, Sir. Sorry to bother you but a courier team has arrived from Starguard with a package. It requires your signature, Sir."

Quinn seems to be thinking of telling the courier to wait when Raziel chimes in with, "The couriers would be Miss Pleiades and Miss Toby, sir." Given that Anthony says, "Ask them to wait for a moment and I'll be right there."

The receptionist answers, "Yes, Sir." and relays the message to Pleiades and Toby.

Ten says, "Should I go on ahead to the basement? Though I guess I couldn't tell who is and isn't supposed to be there."

Pleiades nods to the receptionist, "Um, OK, thank you." She looks at her surroundings carefully, alert for trouble.

Toby offers a nod to the receptionist, and begins to idly spin around in various ways as she waits on no particular axis, waiting for Q's arrival. She looks a tad bored.

Anthony shakes his head. "You shouldn't be able to get in anyway," he says. "Not without breaking down doors at least." A few moments later Quinn and Ten arrive into the lobby. "Hey Pleiades. Hey Toby," he says. "Would the two of you mind going with me to check something out?"

Ten smiles to Quinn. "like you couldn't afford a few doors if I did."

The building's lights flicker briefly, and the display screens do the classic losing-sync and rolling effect so beloved of Hollywood. Then everything returns to normal a moment later.

Pleiades blinks, "Um, sure?" She holds out a small package, "Uh, could you sign for this first?"

Quinn shrugs his shoulders slightly and flashes a smile to Ten. "Sure, I could afford..." he starts before the lights flicker. "Ok. That's no suppose to happen."

Ten says, "Ok. So some real trouble then. I suggest you *do* suit up...."

Toby seems to snap out of the boredom and return to her normal floating stance as Q asks her and Plei to check something out. Then, she seems to become fascinated with the lights flickering and the sync-rolling-effect. "...Well, maybe this won't be such a boring day..." Toby offers, preemptively making one part of her glowing holding field bright enough to provide light.

Quinn quickly snatches up a pen from the desk and scrawls his signature over the form that came with the package. "Have to go back upstairs for that," he explains to Ten. "I'll just rely on the three of you to keep me out of trouble," he says with another smile. He grabs up the package and heads back to the elevator double time. "Follow me," he says.

Ten follows.

Toby also follows.

Pleiades follows along, breaking open the chamber on the back of her gauntlet to check her load of magic bullets, then closing it again with a *ka-chunk*

The building's Q-Drive looks a bit like something out of a Star Trek episode, although on a considerably smaller scale. Workstations are set up in a ring formation around a slender metal column that stretches from floor to ceiling. Breaking the column in two is a clear sphere about the size of an exercise ball which contains the swirling energies of the Q-Drive. The energies are, unsurprisingly for those who have seen Quinn's armor, a pale blue in color and seem to be composed of patterns that writhe and twist as complex multidimensional geometries rotate around axes that don't exist in three dimensional space.

Entering the basement the group sees they are not alone. There three, ah, now four, figures in there. The reactor is glowing bright, delivering full power. Enveloping the entire reactor is a corona of released energy that is being sucked into a wavering unsteady looking rift close by the reactor. The fourth figure came through the rift as the characters entered. One of the strangers is a slab on a man. His muscles have muscles. As is clear as he is dressed in a circus strongman outfit. Another looks like a 18th century highwayman complete with tricorn hat, flintlock pistol and cutlass. The third is small and nerdy looking but with an expanded skull, wearing a lab coat and thick hornrim reading glasses. The final stranger is a remarkable beautiful woman, late twenties at a guess, wearing a leotard. She is hovering, fairy wings buzzing quietly behind her back.

The woman was facing the door. She obviously spots your arrival.

Ten immediately extends her staff and attempt to coil it about the highwayman, as the one who has the most overtly deadly looking attack capability. "Now I really don't think you four should be here..

The highwayman didn't spot the arrival of the hero group. So Ten's instant grab catches him by surprise.

Ten keeps the staff coiled about him but doesn't squeeze - still she hopes it may act as a deterrent. "Now - care to explain what you're doing here?"

The woman frowns as Ten snakes out her staff and grabs the highwayman. Not the lack of any expression of anguish from him is indication that the grab is not damaging. "Visiting. We are peaceful explorers." The woman says, "If we are unwelcome we will leave. But if you are willing to permit us to stay Doctor Fixit must be allowed to stabilize the rift id we are not to cast adrift from our home reality."

Ten looks at Quinn. "Your home, and you're the science guy. So your call."

Anthony immediately activates his force field at the sight of the four people, the air around him taking on a faint haze. Rather than attacking, however, he raises up his hands. "It's all right," he says to the woman. "You just happened to come through at a rather sensitive spot, so please forgive my companions."

Pleiades watches warily, her gauntlet in a guard position.

Ten says, "Should I release him?"

Quinn nods to Ten and begins to head in the direction of the white and nerdy gentleman. "Can I do anything to help you with stabilizing your rift?" he asks.

Ten releases the highwayman and snaps her staff back to staff form. She leans back against the wall, as if relaxed now, though in fact she stays wary.

The woman nods, "Probably not a coincidence. Your reactor uses dimensional technology? Please, no details. I wouldn't understand them. But it acted like a homing beacon for our search rift. Introductions are in order. I'm Fairyflight. This," she points to the muscled guy, "is Slab. The person your friend grabbed is called Toby. And Dr. Fixit I've already named."

Pleiades waves cautiously, "Um, Hi? My call-sign is Pleiades. Um, So you're from another dimension?"

The nerdy guy, Dr. Fixit, nods to Quinn. "Yes. If you can modulate the output of your reactor to match the phase of our rift generator I can form a stable rift."

Ten says, "Hey, I'm Ten."

Toby relaxes her guard a bit as the people explain their presence, and Quinn seems alright with them being here. Toby seems to become a bit transfixed on the reactor, growing closer to it, and examining it. It might not-wait a second, /another/ Toby? Toby turns her attention to the other Toby, "...Oh, um...huh...My name is /also/ Toby."

Quinn nods to Dr. Fixit as he moves to a bank of controls for the Q-Drive. "All right," he says. "Just give me a second to try and match frequencies and I'll try a harmonic reinforcement."

The highwayman is adjusting his hat. He looks at Toby coldly but remains silent. Fairyflight smiles, "I'm afraid Toby is not the most social of people. He does have a tendency to sulk. As you can see right now."

"Really?" says Quinn as his fingers dance over the keyboard. "Around here we have people lining up to be grabbed by Ten," he quips.

Fairyflight turns her attention back to Ten. "By your reaction I assume you still have people with bad intentions on this reality's Earth?"

Ten tilts her head. "And you don't?"

Toby hmms at the other Toby, and shrugs. She goes back to paying more attention to the dimensional-power-source-Q-reactor-y-thing.

Fairyflight chuckles, "No. Not for over sixty years. Not since the discovery of the Goodness principle. Occasionally people are born lacking inbuilt morality. But they are usually identified when young, and the condition can be treated. I'm a therapist involved in that work myself."

Fairyflight adds as a seeming afterthought, "If you have people with bad intentions do you still have.. uh, what's the word.. Ah, prisons?"

Ten frowns. "Sounds a bit like mind control to me. I mean, sure, there are sociopaths who really seem to but surely even people with a sense of morality sometimes act against it...."

"Mental conditioning isn't too bad." Toby notes, looking to Ten, "I mean, as long as everyone's happy, right?" Toby then turns to FF, and hmms, "What exactly /is/ the 'goodness principle'?" Curiosity fills her voice as she speaks.

Fairyflight says, "All social constraints are a form of mind control. Peer pressure. Laws. However, the Goodness principle is not something that needs to be imposed. It's a way of thinking logically and objectively. Usually one or two sessions of conversation with the subject is sufficient to show them the right path."

With Quinn's invaluable assistance the rift is stabilized after a short period. "Thank you. Your reactor is not known to me." Dr. Fixit tells Q, "Can you explain the technology?"

Ten shakes her head. "I don't believe it. I mean - sure, I believe that the world would be a better place if people just behaved well. But you can hardly stop all bad behavior just by accepting such a thing!"

Pleiades frowns as she listens.

Quinn nods to Dr. Fixit as he makes a few more minor adjustments to the drive. "It works through drawing energy from a semi-adjacent hyper-dimensional m-brane," he says. "The power is transferred through n-space via a Calib-Yau manifold and then transformed."

Fairyflight smiles, "Our reality is proof that such a principle is possible. I would be willing to provide a demonstration. If your Earth allows I would visit one of your prisons and show it in practice. To make it a real test, the prison such be one containing the very worse and most powerful of the anti-socials."

"Why don't you explain it to /us/, here and now? We aren't really criminal, but, we also aren't perfect." Toby asks, tilting her head slightly. Toby stretches, and lands on the ground-apparently growing tired of sitting in her bubble of pink energy.

Ten thinks. o O (That sounds like a bad idea too, assuming it is mind control. But hard to object to now Toby's been foolish enough to suggest it.)

Dr. Fixit listens, and then nods, "Ah. Yes. I understand. It intrudes into the sub-space of the local dimensional group. That's how we were able to open the initial rift. That rift only lasted a fraction of a second, but my readings to the energy fluctuations make establishing this second rift possible.

Fairyflight nods, "I'd be happy to. But if you are not anti-social it won't have any perceptible effect. If you pour a cup of water into an ocean what will you see? Pour the same cup of water into a dusty field and you'll see a wet spot."

Quinn nods once again. "The transfer is done through a series of Einstein-Rosen bridges," he says. "Each bridge last for about a picosecond but be altering its fourth dimensional vector we can regulate the subjective time allowing for a greater or lesser flow of energy without altering the frequency."

"Wait a second, why is that the other Toby over there is anti-social if this 'goodness principle' fixes that kind of thing?" Toby asks, resuming her flight again, and looking rather suspicious now. "And furthermore, why would you /bring/ someone like that here, to a different dimension?"

Dr. Fixit nods, "That is brilliant." he says in admiration.

Ten says, "I'm sure we could find plenty of antisocial sorts without going all the way to a super-prison. But anything like that would require their permission.... I daresay there are those who would be open to treatment, if their criminal ways have brought bad luck."

Quinn says to Dr. Fixit, "From the conversation out friends are having I'm assuming that your culture has eliminated scarcity? It would seem to be the only way for a philosophy to eliminate all or nearly all conflict."

Fairyflight says, "Perhaps I can make this offer to those who can give such permission. You spoke of super-prisons. Do you have the same as our reality. Many normals and a very few relatively with superior talents?" She turns to Toby (hero), "The Goodness principle doesn't turn people into happy sociable zombies. Toby is one of the examples of the therapy. He will not commit any acts against our regulations but retains his original personality. He is still in therapy as it happens, and as his therapist I prefer to have him close until the treatment if concluded."

Ten nods. "Here too the majority don't have powers."

Dr. Fixit answers Quinn absently as he studies the reactor, "Uh, I've never experienced scarcity myself."

Toby thinks. o O (Well, not as bad as it could be. But...to make them feel at home in society is one thing, but to force them to 'accept regulations' is another...)

Dr. Fixit pops back through the rift for a second, and then returns with a hand held device. "Could we leave the vicinity of the rift. I want o get a reading of this reality's co-ordinates and the rift introduces too much interference."

Pleiades continues to watch the warily. She comments in German, "Panzerfaust, stay ready, Hammer Knuckle stance." Her gauntlet replies, "Jawohl mein Kameradin."

Ten tries to catch Q's eye. She's doubtful giving them a fix on this dimension is such a good thing - particularly in light of their dubious claims.

Quinn glances over toward Ten for a moment. "That...probably wouldn't be such a good idea," he says. "You have to understand that we still have conflict here, so people tend to be a bit nervous about people arriving from other dimensions. If you wanted to go and wander about I would have to contact people who are basically paid to be suspicious and paranoid and they are going to want to ask all sorts of questions before they start letting you do things like that."

Toby shakes her head, "...Forced to accept the 'regulations' without any say in them? Not /that/ I don't agree with. I can understand molding someone's personality to be acceptable enough for them to fit into society but..." Toby shakes her head once more, "This...this /is/ mind control. So...yeah..." Toby doesn't look amused or sound amused with the ideas of Fairyflight has offered.

Fairyflight nods, "I suppose if you haven't yet discovered the Goodness principle it's only natural for you to be cautious. If you don't want us to wander around in your reality, then come to ours. A more congenial environment than a power room would be pleasant."

Pleiades hmmms, "What are the time-space dimensional coordinates of your home?"

Fairyflight comments to Toby (hero), "You have criminals, is that the word? Anyway, you have criminals here, correct? Do they get given a choice as to whether your laws apply to them or not? With the Goodness principle, agreed, people who have been treated not not break the regulations. They do not want to break the regulations. It may be different to your ways but is it any worse? I would suggest it is better."

Dr. Fixit does indeed reel off a set of dimensional co-ordinates that boils down to 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.

Pleiades grins sheepishly, "Ah, I guess you wouldn't use Space and Dimension Patrol Agency coordinates would you."

Dr. Fixit looks blank at the name dropping. "Our co-ordinate system is zeroed on our home reality. A more meaningful set of parameters would be the reverse translations required to open a rift from here to our home reality. But to determine those I need," he lifts the device in his hand, "a set of co-ordinates for this reality."

Pleiades nods, "I can give you that, in our system." She reels off the SDPA coordinates for Earth.

Dr. Fixit shakes his head, "That is as meaningless to me as the co-ordinates I said are to you without a means of converting from one system to the other."

Ten is doubtful about going blind to another reality too. But Dr. Fixit has been through the portal and back again, so what better way to check what's on the other side? Without giving a hint of her intention, she anchors her staff, extends it to throw herself through the portal and glances about to get the impression of whether what is on the other side matches the story given, ready to snap herself through again at an instant's notice.

Toby doesn't like the sound of going to that reality. So, she offers, "I like being in this room, so technological...t

Throwing herself through the rift Ten emerges in a luxuriously decorated laboratory high up in a building. There are windows on every side, so she can see mountains, snow-capped, in impressive ranges all around, with a high-tec city nestled in a valley floor. There's a couple more people on this side of the rift, both obvious metas, who are caught by surprise.

Ten says, "Hey there," to the surprised metas and snaps back through the portal.

Ten reports. "Looks rich and high-tech through there. If dull."

Toby (stranger) has a hand on the hilt of his cutlass. Fairyflight snaps, "No." to him.

Ten eyes Toby and Fairyflight. "What, he objects to my peeking? You had a peek here."

Quinn gives a nod to Ten as she returns. "Makes sense," he says. "The rich and high tech, part, that is. Not the dull part." He looks to Dr. Fixit. "You don't have a lot of artists?" he asks.

Ten asks Toby (stranger), "What do *you* think of all this?"

Fairyflight looks at the group, "We'll return to our reality. I'll have the rift opened again in a twelfth of a rotation and we;'ll return. That will give you time to decide if you trust us. And you'll be able to speak freely with us not here."

Ten thinks. o O (So, I get a peek and suddenly they want to go? interesting....)

Toby looks to the not-pink Toby, curious of his response.

Fairyflight tells her people to go back through the rift. Neither Toby (stranger) or the muscle man have said a word, not do they look at if they are going to.

"Hang on," Quinn says to Fairyflight before she can leave. "Just a really quick question that might have some bearing on our discussions. What was it that Toby did that required therapy?"

Ten nods to the muscleman. "And what's his story?"

Fairyflight says to Q, "Nothing. We catch the level of anti-social behavior that requires therapy before such people actually commit acts. In Toby's case he has been borderline since he was young but the trend became more pronounced recently."

Quinn nods to Fairyflight and says, "All right. Fair enough. But if left untreated what would have been the likely outcome? Petty theft? Assault?"

The muscleman grins, "I'm an observer. Nobody expects me to be smart enough to put two thoughts together. So they speak fairy freely around me, assuming they can talk over my head."

Ten thinks. o O (Yeah, I do that sometimes too....)

Fairyflight sighs, "Assault very probably. Possibly worse."

Pleiades frowns, "Wait, if your people embrace the Goodness Principle, why would there be a negative stereotype of muscular people being dumb?"

"Because that principle only makes people follow laws, right?" Toby asks

Quinn nods to Fairyflight once more. "I suspected it would have been something like that," he says, "but I needed to be sure. Truthfully I suspect that some of my friends are a little nervous at the idea of preemptive intervention but if the reason is strong enough we do various things like that ourselves."

The muscleman replies, "I don't see any correlation. As your friend correctly points out, the Goodness principle merely prevents those treated breaking regulations."

Pleiades says, "There's no regulation against prejudice?"

Ten says, "Hm. And what's the correlation between goodness and regulations? That depends on how well-founded the regulations are, surely?"

Fairyflight says, "No. Just against acting on that prejudice. The therapy doesn't, and is not intended to, change a person's personality. Merely to prevent them from performing certain actions."

Dr. Fixit makes his way back through the rift, followed by Toby (stranger) and the muscleman.

Toby nods, and sighs, shaking her head. She doesn't really know how to respond, it would seem.

Ten says, "Still sounds like some sort of behavioral conditioning to me, not application of reason as you suggested."

Fairyflight says, "We'll open the rift again at the time I said. If you want us to leave you alone, at that time, just tell us so."

Fairyflight steps back through, and unless someone intercedes, the rift shuts a few seconds later.

Ten says, "Hm. What do you make of that?"

"Well, it was interesting, at least," Quinn says. "I'm not a hundred percent sold on this Goodness principle, but I think I'm a lot less suspicious of it then you are."

"...Nothing good. Especially with the kind of conflicting statements Fairyflight made..." Toby offers, shaking her head.

"What conflicting statements were those?" Quinn asks. "It actually sounded pretty internally consistent to me, although I have to admit to being a little distracted during some of it."

Ten says, "I don't know. Maybe ti's a good thing. Something about it - and that world - just leave me cold, though. And the way they suddenly seemed to want to go back immediately the instant I had a peek suggests they have something to hide."

Ten shrugs. "Maybe I just feel that if they're on the up and up they could have been a shade less creepy about it."

Pleiades nods, "They just rubbed me the wrong way somehow. What they were saying was too easy."

Quinn shrugs his shoulders slightly. "Or your sudden jump through the rift made them nervous about us," he says. "That is just as likely. Yeah, it does sound a bit creepy, but that might just be a cultural thing. It didn't seem like they were trying to hide how their Goodness Principle works. More that it just wouldn't do anything to us, which makes it sound less like mind control in my opinion."

"...Like, they said that the conditioning stops them from acting on stereotypes, yet, there they were, acting on the aforementioned stereotypes..." Toby offers. "...And if they're doing what I think they're doing...It's hard to believe that it /doesn't/ change the personality..."

Quinn shakes his head to Toby. "I doubt she meant it prevented them from taking any form of action with regards to prejudice," he says. "She probably just meant it kept people from taking significant action based on prejudice."

Pleiades hmmms, "They kind of sounded like a cult."

Ten says, "Oh, perhaps they found my going through a bit creepy. But notice that I didn't go till after they suggested we all go through on *their* terms."

Quinn nods to Ten. "But did you see anything that would indicate that they were planning to trap us on the other side?" he asks.

Ten says, "My suspicion is that perhaps they genuinely mean well or some of them do. But with people being mind controlled - well it may make it hard for them to judge what's going on in their society. For that matter, what good are intentions if there's technology which could prevent your acting on those intentions?"

Ten says, "I didn't see anything. Well, other than a couple more metas. But all they'd have to do is turn of the power and we'd be stuck right?"

Toby shrugs, "I don't know, they just...it just doesn't..." Toby pauses for a bit, to figure out how to say what she means, "It just rubbed me the wrong way, I guess..."

"Would we?" Quinn asks Ten. "What if Lorelei was with us? They have no way of knowing our capabilities. It seems like homing in on a multidimensional signal and then assuming that those people generating it can't move between dimensions is not much of a plan."

Ten says, "All I'm really saying is, I don't know. Nothing they did exactly makes me inclined to trust them. Nothing but a feeling really makes me inclined to distrust them. But if they're coming back in a month or whatever and expect us to decide then on the same lack of information we have now... well, we still can't be sure of them."

Still in the basement, in the harsh service lighting, instead of being decadent and heading to a conference room for the conversation. Curious choice of venue. But as it happens also very lucky. The rift re-opens, just a couple of minutes after closing, and a bulky cylindrical object is pushed through on a wheeled platform. The instant it's through the rift closes again. Then the object arrives the basement sensor system immediately sounds an alarm, "Warning. Radioactive source detected." On the side of the cylinder is a display panel. The display shows '00:00:08' and then '00:00:07'.

Quinn nods to Ten. "You're right," he says, "we can't be sure, and people have been in this situation many times before. What if the people who made first contact with the Fae decided they weren't sure and so severed all... Oh, Hell."

Ten says. "Can anyone disarm a bomb?!"

Pleiades shouts, "Panzerfaust! Sword Breaker!" A runic triangle forms beneath her as resonating shockwave builds around her gauntlet. She punches the device.

Ten prepares to throw herself on the bomb in case the answer is 'no'. she has no idea how indestructible she is, but if she has to do it she will.

Toby prepares to cover the bonb as well. She's never survived getting exploded to little bits, but, the guys at Prometheus labs will find /some/ way to put her back together!

00:00:06

00:00:05

Quinn immediately flicks on his force field as Pleiades tries to smash the bomb. It won't shield him from radiation but at least it will prevent him inhaling any radiological substances if it should coming flying open.

00:00:04

Ten says, "Anybody?!"

With his field still on Quinn grabs hold of one of the high voltage lines that runs from the Q-Drive and rips it loose, looking at the bomb as he decides where best to apply the cable in an attempt to short out its electronics.

The timer ticks down to 00:00:03 by the time Quinn acts. Arcs of lightning flare in crawling snakes over the bomb case, leaving red-hot trails of semi-molten metal behind. The timer freezes a moment later 00:00:02. But the smoking hulk of the bomb warns that while the explosion won't be nuclear, the heat is going to set off the conventional explosive primer any second.

Ten jumps atop the conventional bomb.

On that note, Toby rushes forward to try to help contain the blast...Position herself between the bomb and the reactor.

Quinn throws himself atop the bomb as well, bracing himself as best he can to direct the shock away from the generator while he tries to overload his force field.

The bomb explodes. Really a damp squib in comparison to what it should have been. Ten feels it, she certainty does, but she contains the blast and prevents the basement from damage.. Oh, and the other people in there.

Ten says, "That could have been a lot worse...."

Toby nods to Ten, "Any way we can stop them from trying to send /more/ bombs?"

Quinn dusts himself off when he finally recovers from the blast. Given his force field and heightened resiliency it is relatively quick despite his proximity to the explosion. "Try and give people the benefit of the doubt..." he grouses as he marches over to one of the consoles and begins to rapidly type in a series of commands. "This should prevent any more contact from them," he says. "Glad that Ten kept me from letting them step outside."

Ten shrugs. "Maybe my time at Starguard has paid off. Made me a little more wary of alien invaders and whatnot..."

"Makes me wonder though, what was so...special that they had to try to blow us up?" Toby asks aloud, not to anyone in particular.

Ten says, "I'm guessing it was a join-us-or-die thing."

Ten says, "Perhaps my peeking was enough to suggest to them we weren't buying it."

"Possibly," Quinn says. "Equally likely that they would have been able to use the blast to home in on our dimension and with the Q-Drive non-operational they would have been able to reopen the rift."

Pleiades shakes her head, "They were planning this from the start. They had the bomb ready to go. They probably were planning to use the bomb to cause a dimensional rupture, allowing them to invade."

Ten says, "Anyway: I think we agree: they're bad guys. And not being blown up is good."

Quinn nods to Ten. "Agreed," he says. "Bombs bad."

Toby nods to Ten, "Yeah...I just wish I could get the full story behind what they were up to...Maybe there were just planning some type of invasion or something."