text; un: durante

[followyourstar]

So...

I know this is going to be a bit of an ask, but I know we have (more than) a few people here who are good with technology and this is the quickest way to get ahold of as many people as possible, so I figured I'd go for it.

Anyone here good with prosthetics? And it's not for me, before you ask! Just wanted to get an idea what people are capable of before I make any requests.

Oh.

On a completely unrelated note, I'm also looking for a volleyball net and a ball. Might not make any use of it until some of this snow melts though, unless people want to try playing inside somewhere?

Comments

text: un: tangofoxtrot

[fleetcaptain]

I might be able to help you adjust the settings, but if you're looking to build one, I'd be out of my depth.

Given sufficient resources, though, I could probably make a volleyball net.

[followyourstar]

Sorry, I actually am looking for someone to build them for the moment. But that's not to say having someone I can call to help with settings or maintenance won't be of any help, either. Turns out having one yourself doesn't automatically make you good with them.

You sure? I've heard one of the buildings around here might already have one stored away. Not that I'm not grateful! I've been meaning to ask for one for awhile.

[fleetcaptain]

Understood. I've had a few crew members with unique prosthetics, so I've learned enough to understand the general mechanics and run some repairs without breaking anything. But I'm not going to win any awards for biomedical engineering. Happy to help if ever I can, though.

That may be a simpler solution to the problem of not having a volleyball net. But it doesn't do much to address the unrelated problem of me having some nylon cord and too much time on my hands.

[followyourstar]

No, that's perfect, actually. I'm not looking for any modifications anyway.

If that's how you feel, then I can't exactly deny you, can I? Especially not if I'm going to get something custom-made (not that I know how customizing a volleyball net would even go?). What do I owe you?

[fleetcaptain]

In this context, I think "custom" is largely synonymous with "does not conform to the International Volleyball Federation's regulations for competition volleyball net construction." But assuming you're not a strict adherent to tournament rules, it should get the job done.

[ Pike wouldn't even begin to know how to estimate the value of a volleyball net that is much more work than a manufactured net while also being objectively worse at its job. He thinks making a modified snake knot/bull hitch paracord net is its own reward. Being an Eagle Scout just does things to your brain. ]

Don't worry about it. It'll be good practice if the next Aldrip reset sends us back to the Paleolithic era and we're back to stone tools.

[followyourstar]

...There's an entire federation dedicated to volleyball?

[fleetcaptain]

Well. Yeah, but you generally have concurrent citizenship with the United Federation of Planets.

[followyourstar]

Planets...

I've heard about several worlds with methods of transportation that can fly, but this is the first I've heard of people communicating with different planets.

[fleetcaptain]

Well, you never forget your first.

In my world, we've had contact with our nearest neighbors for over a century now, but there's still a lot of space left unexplored, even within the quadrant. I also haven't communicated directly with a planet, so much as the beings that lived on it. But we did make contact with a sentient dust cloud once, so I can't rule that out as a possibility.

[followyourstar]

I feel like I should find the sentient dust cloud stranger than the fact that space travel is so common for you. Although...

Hm.

Just out of curiosity, this whole "multiple worlds" thing we have going on here in the simulation... Do you think it's closer to what you're experienced with, with talking to people from other planets, or is it closer to something else?

[fleetcaptain]

It's more like something else, but it's a "something else" I have some limited experience with.

We've made contact with many planets, but in a handful of cases, we've also made contact with a variant of our own planet from another reality. Sometimes the realities are branching, like where a binary choice caused one reality to split into two (say, a world where the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, and one where he wasn't). Sometimes they're parallel, meaning the realities are so different and so far apart that they don't interact with each other at all. And sometimes they're entangled, meaning they interact and affect each other in any number of ways.

I think most of us are from different realities that would have been parallel, except that someone decided to throw us all in the same drawer like a bunch of old charging cables.

[followyourstar]

That's about what I figured.

[So many iterations of Earth... People ahead or behind different times... Multiple versions of the same person, some of whom look nothing alike...

Sounds like Mirror Worlds all right.]

Maybe not exactly what I figured. Some people have such different circumstances going on that it's hard to imagine those worlds are parallel to anything at all. But it makes sense.