Nerds of a Feather Learn Together

[chefbayardee]

Who: Open to everyone!
When: Consistently in the evenings of May 9th-12th
Where: Curti Center Library, a larger conference room.
What: The howling hordes of airship pilot- and engineer-wannabes gather in one poor, poor place. And other nerds could probably study there, too.
Warnings/Notes: Feel free to write your own top-levels like with Makoto's birthday.

Wholly out of the blue, a message pings into your iMog slate, through the Kali Shashidhwaja Linkshell. When you open the notification, a horrible sound plays, and the text message's contents burst onto the screen in an explosion of confetti.

So I might've raided the Curti Center's library for everything on space, airships, piloting, and magitek. I also might have conquered conference room 3A in the library for the next few evenings. Come keep me company!

Please. It's quiet and lonely and I'm scared to leave by myself.
And I have cookies! ლ(❛ω❛ლ)

For whatever reason, you decide to head on over to the Curti Center, and you're met with a large conference room, with piles of books on the table divided by a few trays of cookies, and a few dry-erase boards because chalk is for bohemians. One, clearly at Hunk's corner of the table, has a sketch of an airship with arrows and chicken-scratched notes pointing to seemingly-random areas, as well as a blue-marker doodle of a bizarre creature circled multiple times and surrounded by question marks.

Another board across the room is partially taken up by a chart titled SKILLS! and broken into three columns: PILOT, MECHANIC, SCHOLAR. Hunk's name is written beneath each, but maybe you should write your own- there's a reason you're here, after all! And resting in the marker tray are about seven pamphlets on the Vaikuntha Pilot License Examination.

Oh, and there's a moogle sitting sternly upon the lectern next to the door, munching on a kupo nut as he gestures towards the bowl next to him, with "Donations" scribbled onto a piece of paper taped to the side.

Go wild, but shhhh! You're in a library!

( Potential baby top-level ideas include "asking your study neighbor what in the world something means," bellowing "HELLO YES I AM PILOT," and "I wandered in because free cookies but I don't want to be here and can't leave without causing a scene, help." )

Comments

[chefbayardee]

Hunk just chuckles, because of course she's been focused on the iMog slate. It's not like she'd have much else to hack. Aside from... maybe the Curti Center systems? But that wouldn't be the best idea, something about biting the hand that feeds you. But he's smiling.

"Y'know, one of my friends back home is a hacker. She's brilliant, but..." Hunk looks towards Futaba, trying not to say that the resemblance was hilariously uncanny. Instead? "...Everyone hits a wall. We worked together on a lot of projects, and I'd round out a lot of her ideas."

He didn't want to say that his experience with alien technology could help compared to her past-Earth grasp of computers, since that'd be a little condescending. Instead? "Want a second opinion on anything?"

[promiselisting]

Biting the hand that feeds you and being way too noisy when you're trying to give the impression of being a (mostly) normal teenager. She's not Ryuji, gosh.

"Guess it couldn't hurt," she says, turning around and leaning on the table, fishing among her things for her tablet.

"I'm kind of at the point where I could probably try to start actually mess around with things, if I wanted?" Trying to actually break through to important information. Jailbreaking the iMog Slate, stuff like that, "But there's still parts of the code I don't quite understand yet, and I don't want to break anything I won't be able to fix."

Or draw any unwanted attention. Would suck if extra security was patched in right as she was about to make a breakthrough.

[chefbayardee]

"So do you think you can change anything that you can fix?" Hunk strokes his chin like a detective, before looming over Futaba's tablet. He's upside-down, so he's not going to be able to learn much, but it's the thought that counts. Doesn't want to mess with her personal space with all these people around, after all.

"Do a minor change, like the color of your name. Or maybe try and recreate that squeaky-voice glitch that happened a while ago in a closed video call." And he giggles at that, because it was actually pretty funny once he realized what was going on.

"Is the code you don't get a lot of weird magicky magitek crystal stuff? Or is it commented in Zora or something?" He wanted to help, but he also trusted Futaba to figure it out. So he'll just try and poke her thoughts in new directions.

[promiselisting]

"Not actually, although did you know that Moogles even when typing Moogles end just about every other sentence with 'kupo'?" It's the most unnecessary thing she hates it, why would you even type out your verbal tics.

"The magitek crystal stuff isn't helping though, I'm pretty sure. I guess since magic powers everything here, they have to have extra code to make sure it translates properly."

As she mentioned to Connie, translating magic logic to code logic was probably a small feat in and of itself. Taking his advice though, she does see about maybe changing her display name....

[chefbayardee]

"Of course the Moogles do the kupo thing over text." Hunk sounds at once both amused and deeply offended. While it was cute and endearing, it was inefficient and unnecessary. And they could just do it sometimes!

But he resists that strong, schadenfreude-laden urge to place palm to face at the Moogles' expense. Barely. Instead he quirks an eyebrow at the mentions of magitek crystal stuff. With a light whimper, Hunk decides that while Team Punk would've been great and he missed his pal a lot, just Hunk would have to do.

"Right, so it's just a matter of figuring out how they do that translation. Or how those crystals even transmit information- the Dream Width doesn't seem hospitable to satellites, so..." One of Hunk's hands scratches at his neck, while the other starts to gravitate towards her iMog slate. "...can I see some of the code?"

[promiselisting]

"Are the crystals being used in transmitting information? I thought it was mainly used for energy purposes," she comments thoughtfully. That might explain some of the bits she was having trouble with. It might also create some potential points of vulnerability, depending on how the different logics translated to each other.

She hands the tablet over, but definitely stays hovering nearby to see what he's doing. "I'm really hoping this isn't a case where I need to figure out how the magic works here logically. If it even does. It's gonna take so much longer if I do."

[chefbayardee]

"The bright side is that you might not have to- Magitek is pretty easy, and we know a few mages already. We just..." Hunk trails off, eyes growing a little wide. "Wait, this part of that algorithm kinda reminds me of some Galra tech." He furrows his brow and just stares, before turning his gaze back to Futaba with a glimmer of surprise.

"But I mean... I think the crystals can transmit data?" He takes the tablet, closes his eyes, and just sighs before shaking his head. "The asterisks are crystals that hold our jobs and unlock magic, so we might need to figure out how to decode that." But Hunk remembers what he read of the Arness Crystal Research Facility and its contributions to Magitek, and the fact that nobody actually knows how they work.

"Or it's just magic. No rules or reason." While Hunk's eyes were closed, the shifting of his head and flippant tone made it obvious that he was rolling his eyes from behind their eyelids. As he opened his eyes, they immediately began to scan the code and, like he'd split his brain down the middle, Hunk continued speaking.

"They say they don't know how crystals work, but they're used to power everything, probably even Mognet Central. I think either they're winging it or someone knows something." The eyes roll again, because this seems pretty typical, but then he looks to Futaba with a smile. "What do you think?"

[promiselisting]

"If they're winging it that might explain some of the glitches we've been having," she comments, thoughtful, "Though you might still see that on websites and programs back home. Even if they don't completely understand it though... there's gotta be somebody who has a better idea of what's going on than most."

Or at least enough to be getting along with. Even though Morgana didn't understand everything about Mementos and Palaces, he was still the party's expert on them.

"You said you've seen something like this before?" Might be a decent starting point.

[chefbayardee]

The idea of Moogles winging the Mognet made a lot of sense, in the sort of way that made Hunk's eyes close, so they didn't roll right out of his head. Finding someone who knew more about it would help, but they had no idea where to look- their own Moogles weren't exactly useful in that regard. He'd have to shelf this until later.

"My friend Pidge, she's a hacker, too." Hunk smiles and nods at the admission. "We used data on troop movements and did some hacking into their communications to put together a tracker that told us where our enemies were on an intergalactic scale." While there's a hint of excitement, it's overridden with a bit of melancholy- it's clear he missed his friend.

"I think part of this is built on similar algorithms, so you might be able to trick the system into thinking you're not you if you just change that variable," he points to the screen, even smudging his fingertip against it for emphasis, "to the fake ID. Then, reverse those two," and then another finger joins the first as they point to two nearby items, still smudging the screen.

"But you might not want to try that until you're sure it'll work," and he winces, removing his fingers from the screen. "We don't know what'll happen if it's wrong. Maybe the Slate starts shooting magic lasers." The idea has Hunk looking at Futaba completely seriously, and a bit worried.

[promiselisting]

Okay Hunk, why are you looking at her like that? Okay no, she's pretty sure she knows why he's looking like her that. She's seen a similar enough expression on Sojiro's face more than a few times.

Which... honestly she doesn't know what to do with? But we can at least try to keep things in perspective here, hopefully. She raises an eyebrow. "Do you seriously think they'd be able to hide something like that in here? We're starting to talk nanotechnology, here."

"Your friend sounds pretty cool though?" Hacking - at least in her time period - ended up, like so many other online activities, generally being a boy's club. Maybe she'd get to meet Pidge someday? Although that likely would mean Pidge coming here and... while Futaba's selfish enough to secretly hope for some more of her friends here, she can't do the same for people from other worlds.

[chefbayardee]

Hunk wanted to mention something about nanotechnology, about how it seemed totally possible, and that since they had no idea what crystals and magitek were capable of, they could totally have nanomagitek. But then she complimented Pidge, and it got him thinking about her, and, well.

"Yeah, I... I really miss her." Then he sighs, closing his eyes to restrain the parts of him that are scared of the unknown, that want to break down and kick and scream and cry. He didn't need to show that right now. Futaba was his friend, and she needed his help and support. And besides, Pidge would have full confidence in him, and he can't slack off for when she does show up with the rest of the team to rescue him and Shiro!

Futaba, on the other hand, gets to deal with an awkward silence as Hunk powered through his worries.

"But I think that any tests you run, you should be outside, so if it shoots lasers or blows up or something, you're not trapped." And then he laughs sheepishly, because that sure got heavy. But they're still playing this by ear. And like any neurotic, his mind switches gears to the consequences.

"There are people who disappeared, right? They had iMog Slates, so can't you get one of those and run the tests on there instead? Then you wouldn't lose yours." It'd track back to a ghost, and maybe get the pressure from whatever prompted those drawings off her back, too. But Hunk wasn't saying any of that, because that'd be way too much heavy stuff way too fast.