Scrapper Needs Better Acronyms

IHQ Laboratory

Enterable only through the airlock that connects this room to the Med Bay, the laboratory is filled with all means of scanning and testing equipment. The room is large and has a catwalk-like floor that forms an open upper level, allowing for more room to be used for experiments. Both the upper and lower levels have shelves filled with equipment lining the walls, and tables all around are littered with burners and containers ready to be used. As this lab is new, not much of it has been used yet, but it would seem that it is already destined to be cluttered.

Contents:

Fleet

Obvious exits: West &lt;W&gt; leads to IHQ Med Bay.

Fleet is injured. Probably in a freak dancing accident. It's a minor but annoying shot to his upper left chest. He arrived in medical looking for repairs, but oddly, there wasn't anyone on duty. However, after hearing some sounds, he decided to peek his head into an area that he usually stays out of: the laboratory.

He's doing that now.

Scrapper is making noises in the laboratory! He looks like a horrid black repaint, because Rodimus Prime blasted out all his photons. Scrapper seems to be playing Jenga with some crystals, but just as Fleet pokes his head in, the tower collapses, startling Scrapper an causing him to look around - and over at the door! Scrapper points rather rudely and exclaims, "You have a broken shoulder! What happened?"

"Erm. Freak dancing accident," Fleet answers softly. He looks at the pile of crystals and smiles faintly. "My, uhm, apologies for the interruption. I'll go back to waiting."

Scrapper's optical band narrows, and he waves a hand dismissively. "No, no, I need more help with... this than I have right now, anyway. So just sit down on the uhm... floor, some of the chairs here are weaponised, I wouldn't trust them if I were you, and I'll get that shoulder looked at in a jiffy."

Fleet looks warily at the nearest chair, frowning. He approaches one and continues to look at it suspiciously. He then crouches down and examines it up close. Then he shrugs, straightens, and sits down on the floor. "All right, sir."

The chair looks to be a perfectly normal chair. Scrapper may have just been working in the laboratory by himself too long. However, he does examine Fleet's injury, probing it with a few tools that look vaguely dental in nature. Scrapper grumbles, "I think all the normal help is busy rebuilding Cybertron. Not that it's a bad thing, but... and oh slag. That reminds me. I need to build a casino after this is done."

"Casino?" Fleet asks, a confused frown touching his expression as he looks up at Scrapper. "What for?" He looks at his shoulder and peers at the dental tool being poked into his shoulder.

Scrapper replies, "Oh, so we can sucker aliens out of their money without having to punch them first. Y'know, for variety. Oh, and so I can build a giant roulette wheel and make Autobots fight on it. Obviously." Scrapper measures out some lengths of wire, cuts them, and replaces some of the damaged connections in Fleet's shoulder with a few neat, quick splices. "That feel better?"

Combat: Scrapper expertly repairs Fleet's injuries.

Combat: Scrapper is able to repair some of Fleet's internal systems damage.

"Oh, obviously," Fleet murmurs softly in a tone that suggests that he may be humoring the Constructicon. Crazy Constructicon, just nod and smile, smile and nod. As the repairs are done, Fleet moves his arm around, testing the shoulder. "Ah, yes, much better."

Blast Off has arrived.

Blast Off strides haughtily into the room, peering at people critically.

Scrapper is black, because Rodimus Prime shot all his photons out, and he otherwise looks kind of busted and has that burnt smell. There is a pile of weird crystal and black shards next to some odd metal on a table near him. He seems to have just fixed Fleet's shoulder. Scrapper tries to pat Fleet on the now-fixed shoulder and explains, "Great. You can help me build the Atomic Radius Adjustment Device or ARAD, now that you're feeling better! I'd ask you for a hand, but I already have a spare." There is also a Rodimus Prime hand sitting on the table.

Did someone mention suckering aliens out of money? ... Must of not been loud enough, as it didn't attract Swindle. Instead of it's Blast Off that happens to make his way through the hatch from the medbay. "Ah, busy in here as usual, I see." Just in time to catch the 'spare hand' line. "An Autobot's hand, Scrapper? I would of imagined you turned that into a cup holder or something by now."

Fleet straightens, stands up, and frowns at the hand on the table, but doesn't comment on that, because that might be considered alt interaction. So instead he focuses on the metal pieces and shards. "... Atomic Radius Adjustment Device?" He pauses a moment. "You're... not going to ask to use me as a test subject, are you?" He looks towards Blast Off as the shuttle arrives and inclines his head. "Greetings, Blast Off."

Scrapper explains, "That is Rodimus Prime's hand, I'll have you know, and soon, it will be the pointer on on a roulette wheel, but that's not important right now, because... what am I saying!? Of course that is important! But." Scrapper shakes himself. "Right now, I am working on the ARAD. Hmm. I need a more cryptic abbreviation. And some numbers in there. I was going to /test/ it on the Autobots, because if it works /improperly/ it'll probably just blow things up, so win-win, right? Blast Off! Excellent. What is the wattage on your lasers, anyway?"

Blast Off nods a bit to the Seeker in return of the greeting. "Fleet." He is a Seeker, right? All the jetcons look a like after a time, he really never bothered to keep track of who was a Seeker and who just an aircraft chassis. His attention to pulled back to Scrapper. "My orbital cannons, you mean?" Followed by a quick but thorough rattling out of schematics, from memory. Shouldn't really be a surprise, Blast Off is quite finicky when it comes to the functionality of his weaponry, being a 'sniper' and all.

Fleet listens to Scrapper describe the test, and the probably failure of said test. He hmms. "Well, in that case, I'm glad it won't be tested on me." He pauses. "So what /is/ it supposed to do?"

Scrapper whistles lowly. "Now that is some wattage! How long can you manage sustained fire, and what's the heating value?" He pulls out a set of rather confusing schematics for something that looks a bit like a large artillery piece. "Basically, it decreases the space between the elctron and the nucleus, effectively contracting the size of atoms, shrinking whatever it shoots. However, it also does a subspace mass shunt trick to prevent the target from becoming ultra-dense and imploding into a neutron star. Because uh... you wouldn't even want to be on the same planet if that happened. So, the upshot is: tiny Autobots that you can just step on, if this works right."

Fleet rubs the back of his head, frowning. "Why don't we just go with the explosion option, then?" It doesn't occur to him that there may also be practical application to shrinkage.

"Depends of the firing mode," Blast Off replies. "Full bombardment only fires for a few clicks, but it expends all its destructive energy into the one shot, so that's all it needs. In contrast, a lower energy output does less initial damage but can be held by by drawing out the energy output into an even length, allowing for sustained firing and 'sweeping' tactics." A pause. "I do, however, need to get the barrels double-checked and occassional retooled to prevent warping after intense firing periods."

He cants his head a bit to the side as Scapper explains his proposed invention. "So a shrink ray, then?" Then turns to Fleet as he replies, "Not an explosion. Implosion. Instead of the force being propelled outward like a blast shockwave, it collapses in upon itself, to the point it could potentially tear a gap in the fabric of space-time and create a black hole. You -do- know what a black hole does, right?"

Fleet sighs and rubs his forehead. "That's not really the point. The point is why don't we just shoot them? Besides, it was Scrapper who said if the gun doesn't work, they'll just explode." He hesitates, then looks back and forth between Scrapper and Blast Off. "Erm. I'm asking too many questions, aren't I?" he asks softly.

Scrapper wrings his hands together and explains, "Neutron stars are kind of nasty pieces of work, and yes, I said they'd explode, but what I meant is, they'd, er, explode into neutron stars in the case of failure, taking out the whole planet they're standing on and possibly the whole solar system they're in, and while that's /cool/, that's not really something I want to be right there to see. Shrinkage is a much safer effect, I feel, and will consume less power."

"Besides," Blast Off adds, "Exploding is rather common for weapons. No one is going to be expecting a shrinking ray."

"Ah," Fleet says softly. Then he considers the implications of what Scrapper said and how it applies to weapons failures, and decides that he doesn't want to be on the same planet that Scrapper is doing the test run on.

Time to take the Invictus on a little scouting mission.

Scrapper continues to explain, "Anyway, that's why I needed that nitinol. It's a memory metal - at a certain temperature, it changes shape, and if you deform it while it is in one 'mode', when it returns to the other mode, it'll be fine. So by modulating its temperature with a heating and cooling system running through the barrel, if the shrinkage effect hurts the cannon itself, I'll be able to just chill it back to proper shape and size."

Blast Off nods his head a bit. Some of the more intricate technical aspects are a bit above his understanding, but he gets the general idea. "In other words," he's explaining more to Fleet than anything else, "the weapon will have less downtime due to wear and tear caused by its own effect or the heat of energy expendature in firing, since the barrel can be returned to its proper state without remachining it as typical for large scale artillery pieces after extending periods of firing."

Fleet actually got that part, but he finds it pretty beneficial to be seen as dimmer than he is, anyway. He dips his head and smiles very faintly. "Ah, thank you." Then he looks around the lab. "Is this to be a large scale artillery piece? It's a shame we can't use the shrink ray on itself to make it more portable!" Fleet is not seriously suggesting this, but his deadpan tone could be easily confused. Scrapper rubs his chin, and he looks very, very torn. He starts to speculate, gesticulating, "First, we'd need to construct an exceptionally perfect mirror, and..."

Backfire has arrived.

Blast Off sees almost everyone dimmer than himself, remember. Or in the case of some Constructicons, just more sane. He *achems* a bit as Scrapper starts to wander on his train of thought. "Prehaps that should wait until after you've gotten the device to actually work, first." Then after considering a moment, "If you happen to have any of that 'memory metal' left over, prehaps I could get some barrels made out of it? It would cut back on the maintenance needs of my weaponry, and thus the worklord of technical staff so they can dedicate time to," he gives an exaggerated wave of one hand towards the work area, "more grandeur endeavours."

Fleet realizes he shouldn't have said anything. He also strengthens his resolve to be off planet when all this goes down. He smiles very faintly and points out, "Last time we had one of those, it caused something of a mess and Galvatron tried to use it to destroy the universe. Perhaps you should just do things the old fashioned way, with the usual oversized doom weapon?" He's standing and talking softly to Scrapper and Blast Off.

Cackle has arrived.

Backfire stumbles into the IHZ Laboratory, obviously lost and puzzled to be faced with yet another room ... not being an exit. "Blasted Intel types, have to have a maze along with their dimmed moody lighting." he quietly mutters to himself, padding to a stop a few feet away from the others. Crossing his arms, the Seeker simpleton remains in the back and quiet.

"Did someone say DOOM WEAPON?" Perhaps Cackle has superior audio sensors. Or perhaps they're just very selective. Regardless, as Fleet mentions the 'd' word, a purple cyber-jeep comes rattling into the Lab, transforming up into everyone's favorite Decepticon femme! (Besides Catechism. And Fusillade, and...well, it's a long list). "You'd better not try to DO SCIENCE without my expert contributions! Doom weapons are my specialty!"

Scrapper is a terribly shoddy black repaint right now. This is totally Rodimus Prime's fault. On an unconnected note, Rodimus Prime's hand is also sitting on the table, but that is not important, because there is also nitinol, weird crystal, mysterious black shards, some schematics, and other random components on the table. Scrapper is explaining to Blast Off, "If there's leftovers? Oh, sure. My usual rate is in severed Autobot body parts, but - whoa. Another Seeker and a... who the slag are you?" He stares at Cackle, whom he not yet met.

Blast Off snorts slightly behind his mouthguard. He's not one for taking trophies... But now that he's better suited for actual engagement in direct combat due to some much needed physical upgrading, that could very well change... Oh great, its the idiot. Ignoring Backfire, he instead nods his head a bit to Cackle as she rolls in, having already fought alongside her once.

Backfire OooOoooOooo's at the severed hand of Rodimus Prime. "Uhh, did you have any plans for that Scrapper? I could -really- put that to use ya know." he babbles, already starting to daydream of punching fools in the mouth with his Prime-Hand. "Uhh, aren't you supposed to be like ... green?"

"He says he wants to use it for a roulette wheel pointer," Fleet says softly, then steps away from the center. Where all the sciencing will happen. "If, erm, you need my assistance, I'll be..." and he trails off. Because he'll probably be running.

"Engineer first-class Cackle, you char-painted peon! Honestly, it's bad enough you've stolen Commander Scrapper's chassis layout- but you interfere with his workbench, too? Out of my way- there's REAL work to be done here!" And so, Cackle- shrill little thing she is, attempts to shove Black-Repaint-Scrapper out of the way- which, given her meager strength, and Scrapper's constructicon-ness, is sure to go well. "Mmmf. Move, slaggart!"

Scrapper waves dismissively and explains, "I'm going to use it as a roule... slaggit, Fleet! Get me the extra large spool of bailing wire as punishment for finishing my sentences while not lime green." Then, he stares at Cackle for a moment, before shouting angrily, "You nickel-plated ninny! I /am/ Scrapper! Rodimus Prime shot me, and Mixmaster's been too busy to make another batch of lime green! Now get out of my way before you try to read the plans backwards." He tries to shove her right back.

Combat: Scrapper compares his Strength to Cackle's Strength: Success!

Fleet made the mistake of actually listening. :(

The yellow and cyan Seeker shrugs, then starts to check around the room for likely places for any bailing wire to be stored.

Blast Off lets out a bit of a sigh himself and makes sure he's not standing right near the two of them, if only for the sake of not wanting to be in the middle if they start slinging MAD SCIENCE around. "Well this is certainly going well," he drawls out somewhat sardonicly.

The bailing wire is fiendishly hidden in the most unlikely spot ever: the drawer labeled 'bailing wire'.

"A roulette wheel pointer? What sense does that make?" Backfire questions, backing away from the knock-off Scrapper and Cackle.

"You're-?" Cackle says, optics going wide. "But he's Gr- oh. AGH!" Scrapper's shove easily topples the frail femme- but she's soon back on her feet! "Ah! My apologies, Commander Scrapper- and that is a DEVIOUS disguise you have concocted, no doubt to FOOL the imbicile Autobots into believing you are in fact NOT Scrapper, which...uh...no doubt serves some greater strategic purpose. Hail Meg- GALVATRON. Hail Galvatron." she clears her throat- and, her toadying done, Cackle's optics fall to the stuff on the table. "What're you working on?"

Blast Off says, "It's mad science. Since when does that make sense."

Fleet locates the bailing wire after passing by the draw with the label several times, never suspecting that anything in this lab is in the place where the labels say they are. Finally he returns with it and then scuttles off to the side once more.

Scrapper rubs his temples and makes a mental memo that Cackle doesn't have very good listening comprehension. Didn't he just say that he's a dreadful black repaint because Rodimus Prime shot him? Scrapper explains AGAIN, long-suffering, "It's an Atomic Radius Adjustment Device, but basically, it shrinks things." He takes the bailing wire from Fleet and tries to hand him some nitinol pieces and a part of the schematics, explaining, "Have Blast Off cut these out, since they need to be laser-cut, anyway, and Cackle. Get me the vacuum tubes for a F-18."

This is a terrible, old engineering trick. Now to see if she falls for it.

"But couldn't you just use a regular old pointer for that ... what advantage does Prime's hand add?" Backfire continues to question, obviously out of his forte when dealing with SCIENCE and SCHEMING. "Wait, this isn't some of that magic crap that Blueshift is always going on about?"

What, no blinker fluid?.. then again, most people on this side don't HAVE blinkers, so it'd be painfully obvious. Emitting a sigh of his own, he makes a brief glance in Backfire's direction. "It's a -giant- roulette wheel as a trap. The severed hand of their own leader pointing out Autobots' demise is emotionally damaging."

"An Atomic Radius Adjustment Device- why, you mean a SHRINK RAY?" Cackle says- veritably pouncing upon the schematics, poring over them with maniacal intensity. "Of course! It's a simple principle- contract the orbits of the electrons between atoms to the point where the target is reduced in size- it's part of the basis of some of our own size-changing technology, such as in Lord Meg- err, uh. In Soundwave. The guy with the tapes in his chest. He's still around, right?" Cackle traces one finger over the lines of the schematics, and absentmindedly comments: "We won't need vaccum tubes. They're terribly primitive technology. We'd be better off with fiber-optic quartz relays! Oooh, do you have a pen?" she glances up at Scrapper, ever eager.

Backfire scratches his headplate, then asides to Blast Off. "Dunno about you, but the only part of that I understood was 'pen'."

Scrapper sputters and flails his arms, "Because a pointer hand is awesome, that's why!" Then, he nods slowly and says gently, "Yes, Soundwave is still very much alive, and he has even more cassettes now. Though some of them... ehm, you'll see. ...and /pens/ are a primitive technology, Cackle. Here. Use this light marker." He tries to hand her one. It will never be seen again after this episode.

"I know what a quartz relay is, at least," Blast Off replies dryly, not admitting that most of it went over his head too. Really, half of what he does understand is just from listing to Swindle blather about things he's found, or ripped people off with. Fortunately a distraction is presented in the form of parts and some blueprints. Shrugs a bit, and goes to work. Technical labor may not be his big deal, but laser cutting at least puts his Improbable Aiming Skills to some practical use.

Fleet hands off the bailing wire and looks around. Big crowd and... hey! Another Seeker! Fleet takes this moment to move out of the room before there's too much sciencing going on.

"Ah! A light marker works just as well!" and Cackle seizes the implement from Scrapper's hand, at which point she begins to scribble technical notes all over the blueprints- ranging from: 'reverse the polarity' to 'add spiky bits here.' This is how Science is done, after all. "The real key, of course, is the means to make such a change PERMANENT, so we may crush the PATHETIC autobots beneath our big stompy feet." Cackle pauses, and then hmms, grabbing for a blank sheet of blueprint-flimsy. "Should we start designing specialized stomping-feet?"

Scrapper is happy that Blast Off, at least, is using his magic aiming abilities to laser cut nitinol to exacting specifications. Scrapper says, hands behind his back, "Do a partial subspace mass-shunt, so that they can't blimp back up to normal size. Trivial, really."

Blast Off pfffts. "Stomping is so last century. Instead stick them in a weapons-proof display case forced to hold rediculous poses for people to mock their out of scale blockiness and lack of effective articulations."

Backfire slinks away while everyone else is preoccupied, because he knows all too well ... that when he's in a room full of SCIENCE types. They usually experiment on him. As quietly as possible, the seeker simpeton makes his way for the exit to finally get out of this blasted dark and gloomy maze!

Fleet moves west to the IHQ Med Bay.

Fleet has left.

Backfire has disconnected.

Cackle hmmms, and taptaptaps her light marker on the tabletop- she shoots an odd look over at Blast Off- and then looks o'er to Scrapper, too, admiration writ on her faceplate. "Ah! I see. That would work...but you'd need to key into their particular molecular resonance- unless you had some sort of scrambling device?" she scratches at her helm briefly, optics flicking over the table again- and she brings her pen about to poke at one of the bits of ore. "What's this for?"

Blast Off walks over and sets the laser-cut parts on the workbench. "Prehaps we should give some to Swindle to sell to some human brats as toys. I hear their offspring are quite capable of breaking things that shouldn't be breakable, and the irony of a bunch of Autobots busted by the very squishy organics they wish to preserve is amusing."

Scrapper beams as Cackle finally notices the ore. "Oh, that? It's a shape memory alloy. If the ARAD gets warped out of shape by its own beam, a simple temperature change will reset everything back to normal, making it go longer without requiring maintenance. See, that's why the cooling and heating lines are included. But now that Blast off has the pieces cut out... we can put it together!" Can they build it? Yes they can!

"Aha! Of course!" And as Blast Off finishes cutting the parts, Cackle eagerly seizes them from Blast Off's hands and begins to fit them together- small arc-welders in the tips of her fingers proving themselves quite useful! Though what she's constructing may be SLIGHTLY deviating from Scrapper's original blueprints. These are called IMPROVEMENTS. Really.

Blast Off twirls the laser-cutter in one hand before replacing it on the storage rack. "You're welcome." Helping satisfies the part of him that wishes to interact with other Decepticons more, while the part that must remain the professional soldier is content in that it's at least helping with something aiding their cause in eliminating Autobots. So it's a bit of a win-win either way for him. "I wonder what would happen if you trapped a tiny Autobot under a pail with a tiny explosive. 'Grenade in a closet' effect and all that."

Scrapper muses, "You know, you actually have a fine scientific mind, Blast Off. Always thinking about the important questions in life." Tiny Autobots in buckets with grenades are an important question? They are now! He's unperturbed by Cackle 'editting' his plans. Nothing she's doing seems like it will RUIN the shrink ray FOREVER, so Scrapper will live. He works to the plans, though, working on the heating and cooling system.

"Hmmm. Tiny explosives, eh? I'll have to get to work on- OOOH! I know!" Cackle looks up from her welding, "We could make entire tiny deathtraps! Or, a MAZE! Filled with deathtraps! And a robot snake or something to chase them through! And we could all watch in amusement as they struggle! BWAHAHAHAHA!" And with that, Cackle drops her shrink-ray parts and starts drawing up a maze- complete with 'spiky bits here' added all over the place. Blast Off chuckles softly to Scrapper. "Just a passing interest in how weaponry can affect the target beyond 'blow a hole in it'." Pauses to watch Cackle scramble off on a different yet related tanget. "... You know, that's not a bad idea. Would certainly be entertaining. Or you could wire a couple up like puppets, so they only punch and kick when you push the right button, and then make them beat each other up."

Blast Off chuckles softly to Scrapper. "Just a passing interest in how weaponry can affect the target beyond 'blow a hole in it'." Pauses to watch Cackle scramble off on a different yet related tanget. "... You know, that's not a bad idea. Would certainly be entertaining. Or you could wire a couple up like puppets, so they only punch and kick when you push the right button, and then make them beat each other up."

Scrapper looks over Cackle's maze, and he mutters, "Needs more Zone Defense." More loudly, he concludes, "Looks like the actual device is fitted together... I'll aim for a test run in a few days. Right now, though, I need to draft up plans for a casino." He moves to leave.

"Of course, Commander Scrapper!" Cackle says, cheerily cooking up one death-trap after another- in half-finished designs, at least. "This SHRINK RAY is bound to ensue our victory! What could possibly go wrong, hm?" Looks like it'll take a few days to find out!

Blast Off just nods a bit.... and edges away from Cackle to leave himself. She's starting to weird him out a little, and he has to work with nutballs like Vortex on a regular basis. "I shall.. just leave you to pursue your efforts."

================================= Decepticon ================================= Message: 2/140                    Posted        Author Shrink Ray Completed              Thu Apr 08    Scrapper -- Scrapper is still a rubbish black repaint. He reports, "With the help of Fleet, Blast Off, Backfire, and Cackle, I have constructed an Atomic Radius Adjustment Device or ARAD. You may colloquially call it a shrink ray." He does air quotes. "I /hope/ it works, because if it doesn't... uh, let's not get into that. I'll be testing it out in a few days. I got a territory to govern now, I guess, and that's kind of a pain, so I can't test it any sooner. Scrapper, out!"

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