232 lines
13 KiB
Markdown
232 lines
13 KiB
Markdown
### The disaster that started it all
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(I intended to post this on Reddit but the internet went down just a few
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moments before I finished this and it didn't went up until we lost the
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connection with that world due to this nuclear revenge)
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TLDR: Crappy management, tried to screw our research, treated us like
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trash and then asked us to conduct research in one of the most dangerous
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worlds in an unsafe way, telling us "find a way to get money out of the world
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if you want to be safe". We pack all staff and equipment of the research site
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into the capsule before heading out. The capsule arrives into the world
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safely and then loses contact with its homeworld. We now get to conduct our
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research according to our terms and the crappy management is left with the
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task of explaining to their company how their largest research center ended
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up turning into an empty and desered warehouse.
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---
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I was working for a long time (over 20 years) in a research company as an
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interdimensional explorer. It was not a great job in terms of salary and
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benefits but everyone at this site got to do what we were so passionate
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about and even get paid for that, so it looked like a dream job for us.
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The business model of our company was to explore other worlds, find a way to
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mine and transfer materials from them to Arepol and then develop and sell
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products based on these materials. Initially, we had a few factories but over
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time we discovered sources of such rare and wonderful materials that we no
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longer needed the factories to maintain the profit margins. The company
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sold these factories off and transformed its business into a blueprint and
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raw materials supplier. Business was booming and before long the company was
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pretty huge, with the research center I was working on being the largest
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scientific research site in the entire Arepol. This will be important later.
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But despite the insane profit that grew steadily since the company sold off
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the factories (there were more and more factories entering the market in
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Arepol so the demand for the materials and blueprints always exceeded supply
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by a large margin), the salaries of the researchers that ran the show stayed
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the same. We didn't complain as we all were "research nerds" that had almost
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no life outside of the lab.
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Almost all of us constructed a bunk of sorts to get their sleep on site, so
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not only the company got more research hours out of us (overtime was unpaid
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but we didn't care about that and management didn't care about limiting us to
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"sane working times" as the labor law demanded) but also no expensive
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appartment was necessary to make a living (again, technically, this was
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against the law but nobody in the research lab complained to the authorities
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and the managemet also kept silent about that).
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Additionally, we got to explore, design and make wonderful meals out of all
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the exotic meats, fruits, vegetables and other ... er ... edible stuff ...
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for us, so nobody felt the need to eat out in the expensive Arepol
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restaurants around or waste time commuting from areas of Arepol where food
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was cheap and plentiful. The company didn't care about catering to food
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business. All those pesky regulations about healthy food and stuff, along
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with the fact that tastes differ, made it a real pain in the ass to design,
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develop and market a new meal product, especially when made from exotic
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sources.
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But we didn't care about the rules and regulations (and the related
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expenses). We simply developed a range of instruments to make sure our
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"extraarepol" food was safe to eat and had no adverse effects on
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productivity. The management was happy we didn't demand a 16 times salary
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increase to match the Arepol's living expenses and we enjoyed the
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independence this arrangement gave us.
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My job is exploration of the new worlds, using avatars driven by a sort of
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virtual reality equipment. Basically, I go out into the wild, search for
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interesting stuff and bring it back for analysis. After my colleagues
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complete their analysis, I go out again to get different interesting stuff
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for further analysis. Rinse and repeat.
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This might sound boring but these worlds have physics that almost always
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differs from the physics of Arepol, my homeworld, in weird, wonderful and
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sometimes even utterly crazy ways. This made the job much more interesting as
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one got to wonder what we are going to discover next. And challenging,
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because I often got to solve new and interesting puzzles, sometimes in
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cooperation with my colleauges.
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When I started, all the exploration was done remotely. The datalinks between
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our base and the avatars were riddled with all sorts of problems such as
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lost and/or laggy connections, excruciating time delays and stuff like
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that. Many times we simply lost contact with the world after our single
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avatar died in it before we could understand even the basics of its physics.
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But, one day, one of our team members discovered that one of the materials we
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were mining allowed us to construct what we called "reality bubble".
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Essentially it was a region of space with Arepol physics inside a world with
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completely different physics. The material made this bubble stable and its
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stability didn't depend on physics of the containing world. The material in
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question was cheap and plentiful and didn't have much use in Arepol.
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Soon we had "base hull", a fairly big, yet compact shell with facilities
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for on-site research and reliable remote communication, that we could send
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into the destination world. This got rid of most of the problems with remote
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exploration as we no longer needed to run interdimensional connections
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between the avatars and our research facility in Arepol. This translated to
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faster research and no more lost worlds. The management was exstatic and gave
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us a generous budget to further this line of development.
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We added living quarters into the base hull so a team of scientists could
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be present directly on site (getting rid of the time delay) and hibernation
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units so if the team ran out of resources, they could simply hibernate
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themselves and wait for another team to rescue them.
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So now I often get to physically travel with a science team directly into the
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world in question. During each of these many, several months long
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expeditions, I got to know many of them at the first name basis.
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This new development was like on cue because very soon (literally days
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after the first few base hulls were successfully brought to other worlds and
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back), we discovered "the father of all challenges". A strange world with
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complex structure and weird physics. First efforts showed a lot of promise.
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This world promised a revolution in manufacturing as its unusual physics
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allowed construction of materials that could not be made anywhere else. To
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add to the lure, we discovered resources in it that allowed design and
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development of even more lucrative products and materials. The proverbial
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cherry on top was that most of these raw resources had to be processed inside
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this weird and wonderful world.
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Then things went south. Our company was bought out under suspicious
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circumstances and the management replaced. For a few months things looked ok.
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But then the new management decided the company needs to "reduce costs",
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"increase safety" and "comply with the laws". They turned this unwanted
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attention to our research center.
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First the management argued "you cannot live inside the facility, you
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must have an appartment and live there". We complied by starting a "research
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program" with the affected team members living inside the half-constructed
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base hulls. This turned out to be good for our research because now the teams
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could find out what equipment they miss and get it installed while still in
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Arepol, greatly reducing the costs of the expeditions. That drove them off
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for a while.
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Then we started development of a new base hull with a tether connection to
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Arepol that would allow quick evacuation of the resident team should things
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go awry. This is when the management jerks decided to mess with our research
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again by reducing our research budget and telling us how to do our job.
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So the tether connection equipment of the hull did not have a lot of
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robustness to begin with (designing a robust interdimensional portal
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is not exactly easy, especially when the world at the other side of the
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portal has weird physics). Additionally, instead of installing a dedicated
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interdimensional transmitter and receiver into the base hull, we were told
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to "just run a cable through the tether portal".
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We were even denied our request for a small liquid fluoride thorium reactor
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core because "who has money for that when the power grid can handle the
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load?". Of course we told them that the portal is way too hungry for the
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power grid but their response was "don't teach a former power company CEO
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how a power grid works!" The meeting then ended with "if you want money you
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can become a tycoon of that strange world but good luck finding anything
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useful for OUR world there".
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So, run this thing on commercial power lines and ignore our concerns about
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their capacity? And cut the budget to prevent our base from becoming long
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term self-sustainable, because reasons? Are you really wanting to turn us, a
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group of veterans with interdimensional exploration as their hobby into
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yet another dormant cocoon lying in the bowels of the world which was
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nicknamed "scientist eater" because of its reputation? Not going to happen.
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The revenge started small. The rudeness of the management turned everyone on
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the research site against them and the company, so it took little persuasion
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to bring them all onboard. All the scientists joined their forces and
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whatever little money they had stashed away to prepare for the "grand
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disaster" the management was asking for.
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Almost a year later, at the Christmas time, when everyone in the management
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went to vacation (this was a public secret that the management is not working
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during these holidays), it was time to go nuclear. In a matter of days,
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everything on the site was dismantled and hauled them into the new
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interdimensional base hull. The only equipment left behind will be the
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equipment of the Arepol side of the tether portal. All the scientists
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(several hundredths of them) then headed towards the hibernation units,
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leaving only me and a handful of people in charge of the operation.
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They all knew this is an one way trip. They sank their tiny salaries and
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savings into piles of batteries and tanks of Quirium, stashing them inside
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the base hull since I enrolled them in my scheme. They put every bit and
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piece of information about the strange world that is going to be mine and
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their new home for the foreseeable future into the control computers of the
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base hull.
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And, as we predicted, that happened. After the base landed safely
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into the world, the tether portal died. A quick look at it was all we needed
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to do to know the power failure was the culprit. Actually, we were pretty
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surprised that not only the portal lasted for the entire time of the
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journey, it seemed to be pretty stable. So stable in fact that I was even
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hoping for sending a "Screw you!" message to the management once they return
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from they holiday, before cutting the power and closing the portal for good.
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Must have been the fact that without all the equipment on the power lines
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there was much more power available for the base's journey and the tether
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portal. Likely enough power to run it at a stable configuration.
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But only a few days after we landed, the portal suddenly went down. The power
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company decided to cut the power to our site after a few days of cranking the
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power load near the maximum of the grid. I was grinning when thinking about
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the massive electricity bill our greedy management is going to receive for
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our site.
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The few scientists who did not hibernate before the trip assembled and
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configured an avatar deployment system with three avatars. I better be
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careful with these because if I get them killed all, I might as well go to
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deep sleep myself. Yes, an avatar detection equipment was also set up for
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this occasion, but that means I will get connected to an avatar at a random
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and potentially hostile place and will be required to find my home base
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before continuing the quest.
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So, now all the scientists are catching their Z's in the hybernation chambers
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and I am sitting here, slightly disappointed that I won't get to see the face
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of the management jerks once they find all the equipment and staff gone but
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nevetheless excited. And feeling a massive weight of responsibility on my
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shoulders. The fate of my fellow colleagues are now in my hands. Can I bring
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them out of their sleep and, possibly, bring them home? Of course I can. I
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am a veteran interdimensional explorer!
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---
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It turned out the company had many more research centers. After the discovery
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of this new world, all of them were thrown into the project, asked to build
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base hulls and then move themselves inside, doing research. But since these
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teams lacked experienced interdimensional explorers, once inside the world,
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they ran out of avatars and resources and were forced to hibernate.
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Competitors of our company then tried to send rescue missions to rescue our
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lost teams (and get their hands on their research) only to lose their teams
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too. Eventually, scientists that were still in Arepol started to quit their
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companies immediately once tasked with "on-site research of the scientist
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eating world"
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---
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