Meridia's Metroids

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[meridias-multimuse]

If it wasn’t obvious, I’ve basically gone back on hiatus.  I can’t promise that I’m going to be coming back, either – staying off tumblr has reduced my stress tremendously.  I’m still actively RPing on the RP Nexus Discord server, so feel free to stop by if you want to join in.

PS: The server is 18+, but please don’t take that to mean that it’s a smut server.  It’s just a place for adults to RP without having to worry about minors.

[meridias-multimuse]

I’m definitely feeling a lot better than I was when I went on hiatus.  I’m probably going to be back soon-ish, although I don’t know whether or not I’m going to be continuing any ongoing threads after such a lengthy absence.

[meridias-megamuses]

Going on a mental health hiatus.  I’ll be back when things are better.

[meridias-multimuse]

I’m really not trying to ghost you all, I swear.  I think it’s time for me to admit that I’m just not going to be spending all day, every day on tumblr and replying to things at lightning speed anymore, though.

A lot of it boils down to the fact that I’ve gone from playing one tabletop game every Saturday to playing multiple games throughout the week and GMing a game every Sunday.  Hell, just GMing one game takes up about as much of my time as playing in all the other games combined.

I’m still always around on Discord (Meridia#5737) if you want to bug me, though, and I’ll be posting replies here whenever I have the time and energy for it.

[meridias-metroids]

spartan-joe371​:

“Sounds like we’re dealing with some sort of AI,” Joe commented.  “Definitely not a UNSC Smart AI.  Dunno how advanced Federation AIs are, but given that and the mechanical voice, sounds very much like we’re dealing with a machine.”

The fact that this AI didn’t have the sophistication of a UNSC Smart AI was curious to Joe, but then again, the Covenant’s AIs weren’t that advanced either and UNSC Smart AIs were made via human brains.

“It depends on the model.  The Aurora Units that the Federation uses today are incredibly advanced, but the hodgepodge of AI systems that they replaced weren’t all that bright,” Samus relates, pressing onward through the bunker.  They come across a doorway that leads into what is clearly a living space, but the room’s interior looks like nobody’s used it in months.

“Weird that whoever lives here would be ordering supplies.  It doesn’t look like there’s been anyone here in a long time,” she remarks, taking a moment to sweep around with the X-Ray visor in search of any hidden features.

[meridias-metroids]

spartan-joe371​:

The fact that Joe was mistaken for Samus Aran was curious.  The Feds were actually planning on cloning Samus? Questions for later.  The focus was on the turrets.

Joe quickly whirled around and opened fire on the turrets behind them.  He needed to take them down quickly.  Joe charged up his Arm Cannon and unloaded on the turrets nearby him.  Since he had gotten that Diffusion Beam upgrade, the blast radius of his Charge Beam was large enough to engulf a couple of the turrets, though whether or not it destroyed them was up in the air.  Thankfully the Ice Beam was part of Joe’s arsenal, so he could at least freeze the turrets to eliminate with his missiles if that failed.

“I’m beginning to get a picture of what our perp’s like,” she says as she rockets the turrets ahead of them.  Once encased in ice, a couple of shots from the Nova Beam are all it takes to put them out.  Meanwhile, the turrets behind them proved to be of equally flimsy make -- they were run-of-the-mill auto-turrets, as opposed to the heavily-shielded mega-turrets that had been guarding the door.

“What do you think, Joe?  What’s smart enough to crack the encryption on a Federation supercomputer, but not smart enough to tell the difference between two different people wearing similar suits of power armor?”

[meridias-metroids]

spartan-joe371​:

Joe nodded, following in alongside Samus.  He kept his Arm Cannon at the ready and one eye on the suit’s sensors.  If anyone tried to ambush them, the Power Suit should alert him to their presence, though autoturrets popping in from behind would still be a problem, especially since cover only rarely existed in corridors.  Joe knew he’d have to rely on dodging and the Power Suit’s durable energy shields to make it through here.

As they’re proceeding down the door, a voice coming over the bunker’s PA system gives them reason to pause.  “Well, if it isn’t a pair of uninvited guests,” a robotic voice greets them.  “Looks to be one Samus Aran and...make that two Samus Arans.  Didn’t know the Federation had finished that cloning program -- they’re ahead of schedule.  Too bad I’m about to scratch out their prototypes.”

As expected, several more auto-turrets swing down from the overhead and lock onto the two power-armored fighters.  Samus is already tracking on a pair of turrets ahead of them, the end of her cannon opening up so that she can fire off a salvo of ice missiles.  “Check our six!”

[meridias-metroids]

spartan-joe371​:

Joe nodded and gave the scan an attempt.  Joe knew that he couldn’t just plug in an AI here and let them bypass the security systems, but frankly if the Scan Visor didn’t work it’d be unlikely that a UNSC Smart AI could bypass that encryption.

Thankfully Joe’s armor had been upgraded with the latest UNSC decryption protocols, and between that and the Scan Visor’s innate skills at decryption, Joe managed to make just enough progress to open the lock.  Whether or not he did so without tripping the alarm, however, was another thing altogether, since it was unlikely that he could access these security protocols without warning the people inside.

“That should do it, but we should be careful going in there.  No telling what’s waiting for us inside of there.”

“Good job,” she says, glad that he was able to get the door open.  She uses her own scan visor to trigger the opening mechanism, and holds her arm cannon at the ready as the blast door slides open.  “Looks like there’s room enough for both of us in that corridor, but mind your six.  Turrets could swing down from anywhere.”

Steeling her nerves, Samus begins descending into the bunker’s access corridor, keeping her head on a swivel.

[meridias-multimuse]

I’m going to be doing my best to just keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep doing replies, answering asks, and so on.  Quality is going to be down, though.  Please be patient with me.

Additionally, please refrain from making any suggestions about taking time off, slowing down, and so on.  Without going into the details, it is important that I keep myself occupied and moving forward in order to keep Very Bad Things from happening.

[meridias-metroids]

spartan-joe371​:

“Could try and bypass the security protocols,” Joe suggested, approaching the door.  “Haven’t met a security protocol the Power Suit couldn’t bypass by now.  The Scan Visor should be able to open the door.”  That is, unless the door required a physical lock, which wouldn’t surprise him if that happened to be the case.

“It’s worth a shot, but if this person is a skilled enough programmer to hack a secure Federation research database, the odds are that the code on their locks is pretty solid,” she says, switching over to her scan visor and zeroing in on the lock.  She waits as the progress bar slowly fills, but shakes her head when she gets the final report.

“No dice.  Your suit’s software might be more up-to-date than mine, though,” she suggests, stepping back from the door.  “Why don’t you give it a try?”

[meridias-metroids]

spartan-joe371​:

Joe’s instincts quickly caught up to him.  He flung his hands out and activated one of the Forerunner upgrades he installed into his Power Suit.  A Hardlight Shield came up and shielded Joe from a few of the shots as he got back into cover.  While technically the Power Suit could survive getting hit by these weapons, years as a Marine and a Spartan drilled into him to take cover or die.

Once Joe was in cover, he readied his Arm Cannon.  A Super Missile should suffice to break one of the Mega Turrets.  Charging up his Arm Cannon’s Power Beam, he fired the Super missile at one of the Mega Turrets, hopefully blowing it up with the attack.  If not, he needed a Plan B, one that hopefully wasn’t just “shoot it until it dies”.

That’s apparently a lesson that Samus had never learned, given that she seems to be using a combination of agility and shield-tanking to manage the attacks.  Fortunately, his super missile is more than enough to completely destroy one turret while also weakening the other enough for Samus to finish it off with the Nova Beam.

“If this asshole didn’t know we’re here before, they do now,” she says, before moving up to the door.  Now that she’s close enough she can scan it with her X-ray visor and look for any kind of structural weakness.  “Might be able to melt the lock through the door with the Nova Beam, but that is just as likely to fuse the door as open it.  Any suggestions?”

[meridias-metroids]

thestupidmeanone​:

Okay, ice works too. Church won’t judge; that was probably faster than frying them anyway. He finally skidded to a stop, hands on his knees as he caught his breath. Running in this shit wasn’t easy.

“Very… funny…” he managed between pants. Good to know someone was getting a kick out of this. “That was… a total… fluke…”

“I’d get on your case for running away from a couple of splinters, but a corrupted swarm of those things destroyed the GFS Tyr and killed its crew to a man,” she says, the missile launcher system retracting into her cannon.  “That, and I keep forgetting that you’re not actually a Marine in there.”

“Anyways, we can come back to that topic later,” she continues, her helmet suddenly vaporizing to reveal her head once more.  She’s been cooped up in her ship long enough that her armor is beginning to feel claustrophobic.  “How’d your meeting with the Sentinel go?”

[meridias-metroids]

thestupidmeanone​:

“Shit, shit, shit, shit–”

This was definitely a downside to working here, wasn’t it? Next chance he got, Church was practicing at a fucking firing range for a hot minute.

When he spotted Samus sprinting in his direction, cannon glowing with energy, he abruptly turned to sprint to the side, giving her a clear shot at the Splinters. Hopefully, they would stop paying attention to him when she was spraying plasma in their general direction.

Once Church is out of her line of sight, Samus grinds to a halt and levels her arm cannon at the oncoming splinters.  One carefully-placed diffusion missile -- she really seems to like those -- in the middle of the group flash-freezes the trio and ends the threat to her companion.

“I can’t leave you unsupervised for fifteen minutes, can I?” Samus asks, amusement just oozing over the commlink.

[meridias-metroids]

spartan-joe371​:

Joe heads over to the scrap and looks over the area.  “Raiding a hidden bunker to get what we’re after…” Joe shook his head.  “I’m willing to bet the bunker’s defenses are online and are probably going to be shooting at us once we get inside.  We’d best be ready for anything.”

“Well, let’s see if we can’t get a look beforehand,” she says, switching over to her X-ray visor to try and pick out any defenses before they go active.  It proves to be a fruitless endeavor, though.  “Nope.  All the ionization coming off the wreckage around here is throwing off my visor.”

She hefts her arm cannon and gets ready to vault over their cover.  “Alright, then, we do this the hard way,” she says, before clearing the scrap and beginning her approach.  As expected, a pair of turrets -- Pirate make, judging from their appearance -- swing down from their armored alcoves with shields already deployed.

“Mega turrets!” Samus calls out, quickly sidestepping as they start peppering her vicinity with accelerator shots.

[meridias-metroids]

spartan-joe371​:

“You’d think with all the crap the Chozo made the Power Suit immune to with upgrades they’d take the precautions to resist something as mundane as acid,” Joe commented, falling in behind Samus.  His shields were tough, but not invincible, and he didn’t want to risk his shields taking too much damage on their approach.  Joe made sure to call out when Samus was entering acid terrain, not wanting to get caught in that mess.

Getting through the scrapyard like this is a slow process that involves several close calls.  But after what seems like hours of wandering Samus takes a knee behind some scrap and motions for Joe to join her.  “That’s the place, alright.  I noticed it the last time I was out here, but didn’t think anything about it at the time,” she says, peering around her cover.

If you didn’t know what you were looking for, it would be easy to miss what Samus is talking about.  The entrance of the bunker is rather cleverly concealed by the natural contour of the scrapheaps, such that it would be almost impossible to spot from above.  “I hate digging people out of bunkers, but somehow I don’t think we have any other option.”

[meridias-metroids]

thestupidmeanone​:

Oh, son of a bitch.

Church wasn’t going to hang around to find out if his armor could hold up against the claws and teeth of space bugs, so he did his best to sprint across the Temple Grounds, cursing the whole way. Maybe if he got far enough, they wouldn’t consider him worth their time.

It’s probably for the best that he doesn’t -- experience shows that Federation Trooper armor doesn’t fare well in those situations, as the crew of the GFS Tyr found out when they came to this planet.  Then again, that situation might have ended differently if the Marines of that time period had better guns.

“Huh?” Samus says, turning around and looking towards Church as he sprints toward her in a dead heat.  Not surprisingly, he’s being followed by a bunch of hungry bugs.

[It would seem that wherever the doctor goes, trouble is close on his heels.]

“Guess I’ll have to bail him out again,” she says, powering up her beam cannon and running toward the problem.

[meridias-multimuse]

Barring some sort of disaster tomorrow morning, I should be around and working on replies in the evening.