Talk:Doug's Projects

A Better Man

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A New Base

SCUBA gear might be hard to come by in Elma, but a resource-gathering mission to Olympia might yield results.

Outside of using alien tech, using pre-fabbed components like shipping containers seems like the best bet to me, too, and probably the only low-tech means of creating habitable space underwater available with Doug's limited resources, plus, shipping containers are readily available, especially since there is a train yard nearby and with Doug's other weird hoarding behavior, adding a bunch of metal boxes to his collection probably wouldn't set off any alarms...until they started disappearing.

--Dieter the Bold 14:41, 15 June 2014 (MST) Sounds good. Doug will start slow, and he'll use his scout drones to search out SCUBA shops in Gray's Harbor (Hoquiam/Aberdeen/Ocean Shores/Westport) and Olympia. He'll make sure he has his welding techniques and everything down. Double-check his air-pressure and partial-pressure calculations correct. Test out fully pressurized rooms vs. snorkels to the surface, where to run a splice of power lines, internet, sewage, etc. Once he's got the testing out of the way, then a site will be decided and construction can begin.

--Melonberg 23:38, 22 June 2014 (MST)Yeah, a resource-gathering mission to Westport/Ocean Shores would be an even better idea. Easy to accomplish recon would reveal to Doug that Ocean Shores might be easier/safer to scavenge in, because there seems to be trouble on SR 105 (Westport highway) out of Aberdeen; Stafford Creek Corrections Center is just off the highway about 5 miles outside of Aberdeen, and it looks as though the inmate population has taken control of the road. There are alternate routes into Westport, however. But depending on how much of a do-gooder Doug is, now he knows that a population of about 2,000 inmates may be free to prey on a local community. As for the construction side of things, I imagine Doug's Basic Tech skill will be getting a workout...

--Dieter the Bold 20:09, 27 July 2014 (MST) Now that all the immediate extra-terrestrial threats to Elma have been fought off, Doug is going to focus on scouting a route out to Westport/Ocean Shores and trying to get a census on the mutated population of Stafford Creek Corrections Center.

--Melonberg 20:46, 7 August 2014 (MST)There is an easy "back road" to Westport that doesn't go past the prison, but adds a bit of travel, and goes through lots of heavily wooded areas, so any expedition might face a lot of mutated animals. Ocean Shores is on the other side of the harbor, and would require travel through Aberdeen and Hoquiam.

Alien Machine Interface

With a little more time and using better diagnostic equipment than Marie's initial look-see at the chewy caramel center of this infernal brain-prober, the nature of this device might seem rather benign...until one remembers that it was crafted by furtive little alien hands to further their diabolical agenda!

At any rate, the more in-depth study would reveal that the neural projection capabilities are localized and low-power; they look to synchronize with and stimulate only the occipital cortex, left and right temporal lobes and auditory cortex (where the brain's centers for receiving visual and auditory stimuli are processed). The low-power component means that the input they send to the brain is ephemeral at best; the power output (and mechanism of transmission) is not capable of promoting axial or dendritic growth in any way, meaning the device cannot "burn in" memories or images. The input is as long lasting as a memory of seeing or hearing something with one's human eyes or ears. If the wearer focuses on something "seen" or "heard" from the machine interface, they can remember it, of course, but these memories would be subject to the same natural decay and whatnot as homegrown memories. The machine interface's receptors (pickups) are also localized, and pick up specific patterns and wavelengths of neural activity from the motor cortex and other parts of the brain involved in balance and spatial relationships. This is how the interface interprets the user's commands. Using the interface to control a drone would be far less clunky than the peripherals Doug is currently forced to use, as it would be far more intuitive and put the user "in the scene."

But that probably means very little to Doug; I imagine it would be about as appealing to Doug as riding around in a luxury sedan upholstered with the tanned hides of missing children.

--Dieter the Bold 14:41, 15 June 2014 (MST) Doug's trying to dance on the knife's edge. He knows alien tech totally outclasses Earth tech, so he's got to find some way to safely co-opt it. He's going to continue pursuing this line of research with the hopes of boosting the outgoing signal to act as an override. Good old Human willpower will overcome these alien invaders! So very careful and slow training in using the Interface will commence. Doug will actually have a fun time (not that he'd admit it) devising tests to make sure he isn't being unknowingly influenced and then doing his best to forget about the tests so his reactions will be honest. Think playing chess against yourself and rube goldberg machines set to go off for (seemingly) random reasons and then dial it up to 11. Feel free to surprise me and other players with these things, and then slip me a note saying it was actually a test Doug set up before and successfully forced himself to forget about.

--Melonberg 23:30, 22 June 2014 (MST)That last part sounds hilarious. If I can find a way to do it, I would love to slip that in. Maybe you could shoot me a tame example of the kind of shenanigan Doug might try to pull on himself (just so I understand your logic and intent), and maybe I can get some inspiration and run with it.

--Dieter the Bold 20:13, 27 July 2014 (MST) Now that we have a spare helmet from the Gray in the Water Treatment Plant, I want to start taking it apart and trying to understand how it operates. Goals: determine abilities to transfer influence through helmets or make attacks with them and how to block such attempts. Secondary goal: Boost power to maintain supremacy of drone control vs other helmets.

--Melonberg 20:48, 7 August 2014 (MST)If Doug gets a little bit of help from Marie in understanding some of the deeper programming bits with the helmets, he feels certain he can keep anybody else from taking over control of his stuff, making Janice's act of stealing drones from him a one-off event that won't happen again.

Alien Fabric

Microscopic studies of the material would reveal it is a very tightly organized, dense weave of unidentified fibers that have some interesting properties when subjected to the spectography and EM radiation testing you specified. The fibers have certain qualities of terrestrial fiber optic materials in that they dissipate and diffract light energy, which might make the fabric resistant to high energy lasers. The fibers also dissipate heat rather effectively, which in addition to improving resistance to high temperatures and fire, also reduces the wearer's thermal signature. With proper channeling and capacitors, waste body heat from the wearer can actually be collected and stored to power low-draw electronics.

--Melonberg 15:57, 24 June 2014 (MST)Marie has recently run into some problems with power supply for the alien alloy. If Doug presented his findings about this material's ability to generate charge, it may help her research into making certain applications of alien alloy mobile rather than tethered to a generator.

--Dieter the Bold 18:35, 29 June 2014 (MST) Since Marie hasn't made her Projects public, I have no clue to make any suggestions to her.

--Melonberg 07:03, 29 June 2014 (MST)Additionally, Jules Saint (who was rescued from the Pershing compound) was being forced to work on this stuff. He didn't have a lot of time to research, but he might be able to lend some insight, or be able to help in your research.

--Dieter the Bold 20:16, 27 July 2014 (MST) Good point. I'll try and track Jules Saint down and see if he can help me decipher the suit's workings. I'll also give him a recon drone slaved to a laptop that only has its sensor system operational, so he can visualize the fabric in various spectrums. Goal: Find out how to detect stealthed fabric. Secondary goal: Come up with fluids that can be aerosolized and offensively deployed to reveal stealthed fabric for those without sensors.

--Melonberg 21:05, 7 August 2014 (MST)I think you may have misunderstood the "light diffracting" quality of the alien fabric; they do not promote invisibility to the mark one, mod zero eyeball. They might, however, dissipate high levels of "light energy," as in they might provide extra protection from laser weapons (if you had them). The fabric does, however, provide some stealth from more advanced types of detection, such as Brock's thermal scope. However, an aerosolized weapon (such as a modified smoke grenade, of which there are plenty in the armory of Bunker November) could feasibly defeat both those qualities of the armor, if the smoke was impregnated with certain particulates that would adhere to the alien fabric. Talking with Jules Saint would also tell Doug that he is interested in getting Marie (or even Janice, now) to help crack the nanotech stuff the aliens have; if they can figure out that, he says it might really open up manufacturing capabilities. Without it, he fears the resistance will never have the machinery, electronics and chemical processing capabilities to build anything the eggheads research.