Richard Castle (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
writeswrongs) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
outer_divide2014-06-01 07:52 pm
writeswrongs) wrote in outer_divide2014-06-01 07:52 pm
001 ♖ [video]
[The man on your video screen is wearing a tux. He's not James Bond though.
In fact he's a writer from New York City, who was on his way to get married (for the third time) when he blacked out while driving and woke up in a pod. It was by far the oddest experience he's ever had, and Richard Castle has had many odd experiences. At first he thought he was in some kind of government facility, that the SUV with the black out windows that had been tailing him had put him here where some kind of weird experiments happened. Waking up in a pod in your boxers is enough to throw anyone. He'd put on the clothes he'd been wearing, found in the footlocker next to the pod and managed to locate the rest of his stuff. His cell phone was deader than dead, of course, so he couldn't call Kate. It seemed, other than the creepy pods filled with what looked to be people, nobody was around keeping him in one place. He wasn't a prisoner, so he decided to explore.
Stepping out of the hatch, he observed a completely different world. It was not New York. It was possibly not even Earth.]
Uh. I take it this isn't the Hamptons?
[What the hell has he gotten himself into now?]
In fact he's a writer from New York City, who was on his way to get married (for the third time) when he blacked out while driving and woke up in a pod. It was by far the oddest experience he's ever had, and Richard Castle has had many odd experiences. At first he thought he was in some kind of government facility, that the SUV with the black out windows that had been tailing him had put him here where some kind of weird experiments happened. Waking up in a pod in your boxers is enough to throw anyone. He'd put on the clothes he'd been wearing, found in the footlocker next to the pod and managed to locate the rest of his stuff. His cell phone was deader than dead, of course, so he couldn't call Kate. It seemed, other than the creepy pods filled with what looked to be people, nobody was around keeping him in one place. He wasn't a prisoner, so he decided to explore.
Stepping out of the hatch, he observed a completely different world. It was not New York. It was possibly not even Earth.]
Uh. I take it this isn't the Hamptons?
[What the hell has he gotten himself into now?]
[Video]
Ah... no. I have to say you're the best dressed wakeup we've had in a while, though.
[Video]
[His eyes travel past the man on the screen to the metal panels behind him. He seems to be where Castle just came from.]
So where exactly am I?
[Video]
Ah... well, the good news is that once we get Salvation patched up, we can probably get you back on the road with no time lost. The bad news is that you're probably going to assume I'm insane or you are when I tell you where you are now.
So, uh, do you read much science fiction at all?
[Video]
[Castle speaks tentatively. Speaking of his wedding, he hasn't found Kate yet. He has a sinking feeling that he won't, but he's going to have to try.]
[Video]
She was also programmed to retrieve and heal up any poor bastards that were unlucky enough to fall through one.
[The swept hand he gestures with is normally part of a bow, but serves well enough to include both himself and Castle in the category of poor bastard.
Re: [Video]
So you're saying that's what happened to me? I fell through some kind of rift?
[Video]
[Kaidan rubs at one temple for a moment, as if chasing away a threatening headache.]
She crashed into this planet a good century back or so, roughly. A little over a year ago, the pods started waking some of us up, and people like me have been running repairs ever since, so we can all go home.
[Video]
[He might be able to take all of this in, once he gets beyond his initial shock.]
[Video]
As for the insane... well, maybe. But I've been here for over a year and I'm pretty sure this is more than just head trauma or psychosis can explain.
[It might, he hasn't quite been able to reassure himself out of wondering, be Indoctrination. If it is, he's screwed regardless.]
[Video]
It sounds like you have some kind of experience with space travel.
[Video]
[More informatively, Kaidan scrubs a hand across his stubble, quirks his mouth at the thought of how very not ready for inspection he is at the moment, and identifies himself.]
Major Kaidan Alenko, even if the rank doesn't really count for much here. Systems Alliance SpecOps, first biotic division. Which... probably means nothing to you. But it boils down to spending a lot of time travelling in space.
[Video]
I'm Rick Castle. Of Earth.
[Video]
[Kaidan looks wryly accepting about this. Dimension-hopping space ship, after all.]
For me, it was 2187 when I was last back where I ought to be. We've had interplanetary spaceflight for a bit over a hundred years, interstellar for, uh, forty, at this point.
[Video]
[Video]
Most of us are from some version of Earth, or have heard of it, I'd say. But yeah, there's others where they're so far future that Earth's been abandoned, or there are realities that have never heard of it. I'm... not actually sure which class Verdana fits into. It was part of an interstellar civilization, but that's crumbled -- just Verdana now, and maybe the sister planet they were fighting with, but there's no contact one way or another there.
Re: [Video]
So we're just kind of stuck in the middle of nowhere with no way to leave. I mean, nobody showed up with some sort of spacecraft?
[He realizes that sci-fi is about to become decidedly un-'fi' for the foreseeable future.]
[Video]
But the way we leave is by getting Salvation repaired, which has been a bit of an, uh, ongoing project for me and a few others over the last year or so.
[Video]
[Not that he'd know anything about it. Castle wasn't a particularly mechanical person.]
[Video]
[Kaidan trails off, trying to ratchet back across nearly two centuries to find a reference that should work. Inspiration dawns palpably, as he thinks back to Classic Movie Night and comes up with something roughly in the right era.]
Think like the Wright brothers being handed an F-14 Tomcat and being told to get it running. Then multiply that by a hundred.
[Bless you, Top Gun.]
[Video]
Got it.
[Finally someone here who can give him references he's familiar with.]
So. We're kind of screwed then?
[Video]
[Kaidan looks sheepish for a moment as his attemts at realize have instead gone too far the other way, and without his crewmates to poke him in the shoulder and tell him to lighten up.]
Ah, no, definitely not screwed. We've had a year to work on her, after all. So, uh, yeah. There are a few things up and running that I don't want to discuss the specifics of on an open network, but if you want to talk about it I can fill you in. Bring beer.
[Video]
[At least somebody is.]
I'd love to bring beer. If you know where to get some.
[Video]
[Kaidan does pause for a moment to reflect on just what turns his life has taken. He shakes his head as if to clear it.]
Yeah... I could use that beer. There's a bunch of bars in Poseidon, if you can get someone to give you a lift into town. There's one called Callahan's that's owned by another of us from the Ship, so she might even give you beer on tab at first.