The Quiet Before The Storm

You arrive at the South Pole.  It’s not the best place to work.  But when your 6 month tour of duty is done, you’ll be at least $50,000 dollars richer.  And the company that hired you is paying for everything while you’re here.   On top of that, it’s all tax free.  The military men here may or may not be so lucky.  While they're not receiving the same pay as you are, they are leaving in just over 2 weeks from now. 

You've were dropped off during an early break in the spring storms.  You had helped move the equipment and supplies inside just in time to avoid the next storm.  You were given a brief tour, a couple of safety tips, a meal and then shown to your room.  The only down sides so far was the cold and the fact that all rooms were double occupancy.

There are 2 NASA scientists on the flight, one male and one female.  The female, Sally Wicston, seemed to spend most of her time fretting about her 2 pallets of ‘NASA Equipment’.

The flight also dropped off 2 Navy officers, 2 scientists, and a pallet of equipment.  The officers and these 2 scientists are here to test new arctic gear before purchase contracts are finalized.  The officers and scientists were as sensitive about their gear as the NASA scientists are about the NASA equipment.

The next day had been mostly safety training and how to use the various facilities of the instillation.  Even the guests, those not working directly for the station’s controlling organization were required to attend to safety and training sessions.  Your instructor was Bernard.  He is quickly and easily identified because of the platinum necklace he wears.  It contains 3  1-caret diamonds which he proudly declares represents him keeping his wife and 2 children next to his heart.  He also wears a wedding ring on his left hand that contains a half-caret diamond and another ring on his right hand that holds 7 half-caret diamonds.

The rest of the week was devoted to taking readings from existing equipment and inventorying the new equipment and supplies.

The following week was spent unpacking, assembling, and testing a couple of new instrument packs and equipment for your various experiments or activities.  One was a new type of Deep Space Scanner that the station personnel would be helping to test for NASA.  When the NASA scientists finally fired it up, there were some anomalous readings that should not have been in the data from the first test scans.  But, since nothing could be verified during the storm, that problem was set aside till later.  The NASA scientists spent their time running diagnostics and fretting over schematics.

You spent the next 5 workdays dealing with your equipment and/or experiments.

Late afternoon on the 5th day, the storm breaks up and the skies begin to clear.  Bernard says at the evening meal, “This is the break in the weather we need to allow us to continue checking the new scanner from NASA.  We will be heading out in the morning to help the NASA scientists set up some test equipment.”

It’s probably about this time that the Navy officers tell their scientists that they’re going to do some field training and testing but the scientist can’t come because they can’t keep up. (ooc: If you want to word it differently, go ahead.)

You spend the evening relaxing and watching movies and news for the first time since the storm began interrupting the satellite feeds.  Various interesting news reports include:

   1. On the lighter side, for the last few weeks, people have reported seeing lights in the sky over China, London, and Denver.  We’re even hearing of reports from several other countries.
   2. There have been reports of numerous Crop Circles appearing in fields in England, Chile, South Africa, and within 500 miles of Yellowstone Park.  The circles first appeared 5 days ago.  All were discovered on the same day and no new circles have been reported since.
   3. Interestingly, there were 3 reports of people who went missing on the same day and same area as the crop circle sightings.  Eye witnesses claimed that the persons just disappeared in a wave of light.  The reported disappearances all happened within 50 miles of Yellowstone Park in the United States of America.

Game Time: 2012 Dec 11, 7:43 PM.


(OOC: I'm going to break the intro into 2 parts so you guys can have a little bit of time to introduce your characters to each other and to the story.  So, go ahead and make posts about your first few days here.)

Jim nods and smiles as he's taken through the safety routines for the first few days.  ["Always the same things. Always the same cautions"] he thinks to himself and starts to daydream. He thinks back to all the places he's been in the past two years, mapping places that couldn't be tracked by satalite.

["I don't need fancy equipment. I got my tools. This is going to be a piece of cake. In the meantime, I guess I'll start my work now with this base"]

Over the next few days free, Jim introduces himself to the crew and any guests while mapping out the base and near surroundings.

Bear looks down at the hand of who looks like maybe one of the NASA scientists and then shakes it firmly. "Nice to meet you, Dr. Eyke. Jim Bear. Friends call me Grizzly." He puts his notepad and pencil in his right pocket on his jacket and looks the doctor over. 

"You aren't dressed like the other scientists. Are you with them? Or with something else?. Sorry, if I sound so up front. Just going crazy wondering around this base. I'm dying to go out and start surveying the land."

Jim then reaches in his pocket and brings out a pack of gum, taking one for himself and popping it in his mouth before asking, "Would you like one? For later, that is," he says while looking down at the cigar.  

"Yeah, well see.. The thing is, I'm not really affiliated with anyone here. I'm actually working on behalf of my company. I'm actually a cartographer. I've been doing this for the last few years. Basically, we nowadays just use satellite images and Computer Assisted Tools to map out the world for GPS, Sat-Nav, Trail Maps, and Atlas'. But, there are some places that are either too hard to see, or are very uniform which prevents getting a sound image of the land layout. That's where I come in.

Like the cartographers of old, I actually go out into these places and map them first hand. Living off the land and surviving the harsh environments give you such a rush! I'm taking it you've been globe-trotting since you said you've been to many places. So you probably know the rush as well. 

Anyways, so yeah. That's why I'm here. I'm planning on taking some images and sketches of this sector, then maybe next month I'll go to a few other spots our sats couldn't get to. But until then, I have to put up with these scientists telling me what I can and can't touch and God! it's just a pain in the @$$. It's cool though there's someone else here who isn't walking like they got an icicle up their backside."  

OOC: You're doing fine.  Keep on role playing.  I'll try to keep the game moving along.  I'm going to get the next scene out in a day or so.


The door behind you closes and the stairs echo the sound of someone descending.  The crunching of snow signals foot steps approaching.  Bernard steps up beside you as he lights his cigarette.  He takes a short buff and says, "So, what do you guys think of our nights here.  The never-setting sun sure messes with your sleep cycles the first week or so."  He takes another buff as he admires the view of the fresh snow on the ice pack.