But before you decide what you're going to ask Bill, or do to him, maybe you should take stock of yourself.

Who are you, and what three skills are you best at?

I am Sam Heffen. I drive cars, trains and rockets.

>>14967711
I think you mean rocketcar trains.

>>14967711

My best skills (apart from driving things) are grandmaster-level chess playing and interior decoration. I also have a red belt in karate.

>>14967711

Sam Heffen. 52 years old. Ex-astronaut, ex-airforce, flew two shuttle missions. Took up rally racing after he gave up the shuttle program. Worked as a high speed rail operator post-shuttle program, on the Sacramento to L.A. route, mostly to keep himself in rally cars.

Healthy as a horse, fit as a fiddle, and too damn old to have been partying like that.

Too damn old to be hallucinating that he is speaking to a talking chimp, too.

What do you do, Sam?

>>14967729
Realise I'm supposed to be driving a valuable shipment of military supplies this morning, worry if I've been drugged by terrorists.

>>14967729

Hallucination or not, my mother taught me manners.

"Got a spare glass a' water?"

If any glass is present, drink until sated, then drink some more. I'm old enough to not bothering with hangovers anymore.

>>14967729
"Hey, Bill, I don't mean to be rude or anything, but what is going on?"

>>14967731

You worry that you've been drugged. You were chosen to help move a load of high priority material with military applications to Travis Air Force Base, in large part because you already had all the clearances required to help with that kind of thing from your shuttle days. You were unclear on the specifics of what the shipment was, but they issued you an NBC suit and checked you out on it "just in case."

You're seriously worried something went wrong. Badly wrong.

Bill watches you, and then says, "Hey, relax now. Take your time. I know you must feel like shit right now. If you need to use the john, it's down the hall."

>>14967736
>>14967752

Bill nods, and says, "Right, water."

He goes down the hall, and you can hear him puttering around in what you guess is the kitchen. He comes back with a glass that's more like a tankard, filled with water. He hands it to you, and you drink.

You give him a perfunctory thanks, and ask what's going on.

Bill says, "Yeah. I'm an inventor, and back home I was working on muon-catalyzed fusion engines in pico-scale containment vessels. Endless energy if I could do it, right? Well, I did it. Turns out there have been other people who did it too. None of them were well prepared enough before they figured it out though, myself included, and the local Illuminati picked them up, and me in turn, and disappeared them, and I, to this place. Wherever it is. Whenever it is.

"It's not just the physics nerds like me, either. It's anyone who offends the Illuminati, from any of the many worlds that can reach this place, that ends up here. They're not total monsters. They've left us comfortable, but cut off from everything."

Bill shrugs, and says, "Anyway, I found you in the new arrivals area and brought you home. Can I ask, what did you do to piss them off? A human friend of mine recognized you as an astronaut; our first one if she wasn't thinking of a double of yours from her world."

>>14967788
"I had... something to do today. Something important."

Ask about y'know, the Chimpanzee thing.

>>14967788

Go to toilet.

Piss profusely. Check self in mirror - bumps, marks, notches, what have you. Mostly just to make sure that I have all my parts and that I don't look like an industrial hamburger accident.

we need to know the limitations of our new found captivity, ask if Bill will take us on a tour of this place and possibly introduce us to anyone who might be valuable in figuring out where we are and if they might be useful in helping us escape if and when we decide to leave

>>14967809

This sounds silly. If Bill's telling the truth (and we have no cause to disbelieve him for now), then whoever put us here clearly has vast means at their disposal - I'm not saying I would never want to escape, but clearly we should take things easy.

>>14967797

Bill says, "Whatever it was, you can bet they've stopped it from happening."

You stare at him for a long moment. Finally he says, "You can't get over that I'm a chimp, can you?"

You admit it. "Not yet."

Bill says, "I'm a Pan Sapiens; wise chimp. An artificial species, which on my world was created by humans in the late 1920's. My world followed a different timeline from yours; actually, as far as we can tell, only about a third of any of the parallels in our sample ever developed uplifting technologies. My homeworld was the earliest to do so, so far, largely thanks to some improvements to x-ray technology that allowed them to get early protein crystallization techniques, and thus discover the DNA helix and," he cuts himself off. He smiles, and starts again, "I'm sorry. I'm rambling. What else do you want to know?"

>>14967816
silly, maybe. but I want this quest to turn into an excuse to recreate BJ and the Bear, only piloting a transdemensional rocketcartrain while screaming "Right turn Clyde!...er Bill!" while he punches elder god worshiping cultist Illuminati agents!

Equip nearest lamp of +2. Engage Bill in untrained melee combat. Gain experience. Loot. Wonder what a chimpanzee was doing in my living room.

Such is life in Australia.

You were too disoriented to notice it before, but you're in a modest trailer. Bill shows you the restroom, and gives you plenty of time to clean yourself up.

You drain a snake and then give yourself the best visual inspection you can. Between a hand mirror you found and the trailer's bathroom mirror, you do a decent job. Nothing's missing that you hadn't already lost. All your fingers and toes are where they should be. Nothing wrong with you, except you feel like you've been through a heavy night of partying. You have a set of bruises on your right arm, and little needle marks. Someone shot you up with something, several times.

There is a set of clothes, slacks, socks and underwear, tennis shoes, and a button-up shirt, on the counter by the sink. All your size or close to it. Since you are much taller than Bill, you guess they're meant for you.

You splash water on your face, flush the toilet, and get dressed.

The first thing you do when you get out of the bathroom is to ask about the needle marks.

Bill explains, "Everyone wakes up like that when they arrive. Most of the biologists and doctors agree it's a series of vaccines so that new arrivals aren't killed by bugs from other worlds. Anyway, do the clothes fit ok? I guessed your sizes a little."

"They're fine. Not what I normally wear, but fine."

"Great. If you feel up to it, I'll show you around."

rolled 55 = 55

Huh

>>14967809
>>14967816

You rub your bruised arm, and say, "Yeah, I'm up for it. I want to see how small this cage is."

Bill winces, and says, "Small. Come, you'll see for yourself."

Bill leads you out into a little shared garden area bordered by several other portable homes. He trots along in the morning sunlight, never dropping to all fours (though it would make it much easier for him to get around). Even though you're taller and have better hips for upright walking, you're still feeling crappy enough that keeping up with him is a challenge.

You're breathing hard by the time you leave the trailer park. You passed twenty other little shared gardens like Bill's on the way. Looking down either side of the park's border fence (a simple one, meant to keep animals out), you guess there's room for three hundred or so mobile homes like Bill's.

You're at the top of a large hill and it is a clear day. You can see all the way down to the sea. Fields dot the gentle slope down, and on the shore you can just make out someone shrimping with a net. There is some presumably native foliage, tough pacific island plants; bread fruit trees and palms, lots of different shrubs, and who knows what else.

Bill says, "Before you ask, it's an island, not a peninsula."

What do you do?

lets go meet our neighbors and find out why they ended up here to see if there might be a common thread to all of our internments

>>14967976
try to remember why I was incarcerated in the first place.

>>14967906
First of all, ask "How many people asked that question?"

Then ask him about where this island might be, as a guess, and try to remember what had me incarcerated in the first place. What was I transporting, exactly, and who was I transporting the cargo to?

>>14967976

Bill leads you down a dirt path, into the fields, and says, "Just about everyone is working on growing or gathering food. We've got some engineered yellow rice that has most of the vitamins you need, and that's what the main crop is, and a secondary crop of sumpseeds for calories and proteins. We supplement it with fish and wild fruit. We've got a little crop of weed; we make rope from the hemp, of course, but it is mostly recreational."

He says, "I'm nominally in charge of keeping the power plant and water distillation plant running. Almost all of it is black box technology, all I really do with it is double check that the atomizers and filters on the water plant are running correctly. I honestly spend more time fixing leaking plumbing than anything else."

You reach the rice fields. Bill waves to a couple of planters working the field and calls out, "Hey! Take a break, he's up."

The planters look up and you see that they're both women. Both fairly good looking women, about twenty years your junior, if you had to hazard a guess. In fact, they're either twins, or they're both the same woman.

Bill grins at you as they approach. "Hey, I didn't catch your name properly, but last night Sophie there said you were Sam Heffen, an astronaut. That right?"

"That's right."

"Great. Hey Sophie, Sophia, let me introduce you to Sam."

Sophie grins and says, "So I was right, astronaut?"

This is amazing, more please if you may.

Introduce yourself- and confirm her suspicion. Then ask- If you are going to be here a while, what can a vehicle driver like you be good for around here?

>>14968002
>>14968033

You decide collaboration is the best bet for figuring out some kind of logic behind your abduction. You say, "That's right. I flew two missions before they retired the shuttle."

Sophia says, "That's being pretty modest for how you handled the ISS crisis."

You blank. You did go to the ISS, but nothing unusual happened on your trip.

Sophia says, "It didn't happen to you?"

"What? What are you talking about?"

"The rogue satellite killer that was hacked out of China's network, the one that rammed the ISS?"

You blink. Obviously you missed out on something extremely dangerous earlier in your career. You just shake your head.

"Oh. So what did you do after the shuttle missions ended?"

"Took up rally cars as a hobby. Retired from the air force and learned to drive a train. Look can you tell me more about what happened to my, uh..."

Sophia says, "Your double, from my world? Sure. The ISS was a shattered mess, and he decided to try docking anyway to rescue the survivors. You, I mean, he, saved five scientists, made field repairs to the shuttle, and managed to land the overloaded shuttle back in Edwards safely. He was a hero; he became a senator and was assassinated by some lunatic a few years back."

It's mildly disconcerting to hear someone talk about a life you could have led being snuffed out like that. You look back at the sea and say, "Hey Bill, how many people ask the question about the island?"

"Everyone I've had the pleasure of showing the view to the first time."

You ask the two women, "What did you two do to end up here?"

They answer in unison, "I was a longevity researcher."

Bill says, "The most common element between us exiles is that we all made a breakthrough that would make for a paradigm shift in the world, somehow. What were you involved in before they grabbed you?"

You can't help it. You're pissed off about this. "I was just running my train. I had a priority freight load bound for Travis AFB, but I was just a train engineer. I wasn't even active military anymore. I didn't even know what the load was!"

Bill says, "Relax. We've got time here. Plenty of it."

>>14968158
I think we should investigate a bit more in this parallel worlds thing, see if we can get some more answers.

>>14968144

You try to relax. You're pissed, but that's not really important. You don't want to sound like a petulant child, and you came close there. You take a breath, and say, "Right. Ok."

Sophie, or Sophia (you're going to have a hell of a time learning to tell them apart, you can already tell that), pats you on the shoulder. You smile at her, and hope it doesn't look forced. Then you say, "What kind of job do you think an old rocket jockey would be good at here? I didn't see any rockets."

Bill says, "No race cars or trains either."

Sophia adds, "I wish we had a plane."

Sophie asks, "Can you navigate by the stars?"

You nod. You learned how to do that when you were in the Air Force. Navigation by the stars alone isn't that hard, it just requires a good head to memorize the constellations, and a clear night sky.

She says, "How do you feel about being a boat navigator?"

>>14968202
"...call me Ishmael! But seriously, if you have a boat then why are you all still here?"

>>14968227

An unfamiliar voice says from behind you, "Because we don't have a seaworthy boat yet. We are divided on the issue of it."

You turn, and get a good look at the speaker. He's a little younger than you, but his care is careworn. A leader type, perhaps.

He introduces himself with a deadpan, "I am Piet Mulder, nice to meet you, Ishmael."

Bill says, "It's Sam Heffen, Piet."

Piet simply says, "Yes, I know, I heard Sophie talking to entire park last night. Astronauts know many things besides star navigation. Can you tell me, though, how you would budget the labor force so that we could build a boat and still have enough food if our gaolers ever decide to fill all the trailers in the park?"

>>14968281

>...his face is careworn...

>>14968281
"Uh... no."

Seems this guy have a need of confirmation of his use...

Also, this again:
>>14968188

Uh.. Ask how they know that there is some illuminati behind this. How would they know if they didn't know before? Did a representative show up or something?

>>14968298
>>14968303

You say, "Uh. No." Not without knowing how long all that stuff takes, anyway.

Piet doesn't say anything, and Bill breaks the silence by saying, "He was the president of South Africa, and fairly well placed in the Illuminati."

Piet finally shows some human emotions and bitterly says, "For what little good it did me, though I was not as well placed as you keep making it seem to all the newbies."

He sighs, and elaborates, "I was on the periphery of the inter-dimensional operations. Almost everything I did was local, and most of it was at their direction. I ended up here because I made a series of bad decisions that culminated in the conspiracy deciding I was of more use here, imprisoned, than at home, trying to get the planet free of their tendrils."

You ask, "Yeah, about that? How does it all work?"

Piet says, "Trans-dimensional travel is tightly controlled technology. I never knew the specifics of it, but I can tell you what I was told. The overview of it."

He crouches in the road and starts sketching a circle. He says, "Here is your home universe. It was made when branes collided; it and many, maybe infinitely many, other three dimensional universes were birthed in a big bang."

He continues to draw circles, seemingly at random. "They sit in a super dimensional space between the branes. Some are very 'close' and can be jumped to for a cheap cost in energy, if you know how."

He then says, "Someone, somewhere, figured it out, and began making a map of the energy costs for getting between different universes. They made a lot of money doing it, because there are lots of dead worlds, and worlds where humans never developed, and worlds where humans died off and left all their treasure. They began manipulating their home markets and governments, and then when they had control, they started doing it to worlds that were not de-peopled. They are still doing it. Fool that I was, I thought I could betray them and stop them from doing it to my world."

Bill says, "At least you had good intentions."

Sophia jabs, "I hear that's what the path to hell is paved with."

Piet says, "And here we are now."

>>14968434
"Right, I think I've watched enough shows on SyFy to get about half of that. So then, boat. What is the plan? Getting off the island?"

>>14968455

Piet says, "The plan is to survive. We have a hundred and eleven souls here, with you included. We have housing capacity in place that could support 1,200. The water plant could make enough for them, and the crops they would need, if it had more power."

Bill says, "I think they can control the output on the power plant remotely, so water probably won't be a problem."

Sophie says, "Even if they don't, we can start rationing what we have."

Piet explains, "Yes, right now we have just enough power to maintain the population. Power is not the problem, it is food. We have a small surplus of food, enough to support another twenty people this growing season. That would have been be good enough last year, but the gaolers have been increasing the rate that we are getting newbies. If it holds true, we will have forty new faces at the end of the year, and unless we all work on getting enough food, we will have a serious problem."

Sophia says, "You know, if we built a boat, we could go fishing with it and make up the lost man-hours in the fields with fish."

Piet snaps, "I know that is what you say, but if we lost the boat we would lose the food, and all the work and materials and people on it. We can be safe if we just work harder on the farming."

>>14968507
"I'm not arguing, boat and fishing seems like a good idea. Although while I'd gladly be a navigator, I got no idea how to make a boat myself, besides, shouldn't just fishing close to the shore suffice? And is it really that sparse with arable lands?"

>>14968507

"Merely being safe does not suffice, and even if it would be enough, it would be a false hope. Survival is not good enough when it is completely contingent on the good will of others."

>>14968575

Piet seems tired. He says, "Yes, if we already had a boat, I would be less opposed to it. But we would need to build it, and no one here has built one before. The time and effort we would spend would be better used to expand the fields. The only arable land is what we can make, and we only have metal shovels and some make-shift tools. Everyone else is out planting, or gathering, or digging the next set of ditches for flooding a new field."

Sophie says, "Or we could build a boat and some people could leave. That would free up capacity for new people, and if the boat people were successful they could get help."

Piet says, "I doubt there is anyone else on this world. Perhaps an Illuminati outpost somewhere, but that would be it."

Bill says, "Wouldn't they have a trans-dimensional transporter in their outpost?"

Piet looks a little uncomfortable and finally says, "Maybe. I don't know. I never even saw one. Look, that is not the issue, the issue is we won't have enough food."

You ask, "You think they would let us starve?"

Bill responds, "When they dropped me here, they left me 30 man-years of food, tools and seed, a couple of crates of clothes, and a whole trailer park to myself. Within that first year they added 43 people. We had to be self sufficient. I think the message is pretty clear."

Piet says, "I think they are monitoring us by satellite. As soon as they noticed we were starving, they would help. But I know they are paranoid, and that they would not help until they were certain we were dying."

>>14968669

Sophie grins at you and says, "And that's why we need a boat! A big one, so we can get somewhere where we don't have the threat of a power outage killing us all."

>>14968712
"You really want to take that chance Piet? Hoping for gifts from above instead of making an investment?"

>>14968719
"I don't think a big one is a good idea, unless we get a master shipwright to this island. For now I think something that floats and can be steered should suffice."

>>14968742

Annoyance flashes across Piet's face and he says, "No, that is what I want to avoid. Even if they do give us relief, they will not do it until they are sure we have lost people. I do not want that. If we are careful, and if we work hard now, we will have enough food from farming alone for all the new arrivals we expect. If we gamble on a boat, any size of boat, we are giving up a sure and steady expansion of our farming for it. We are risking starving if something goes wrong."

Sophie says, "The Polynesians crossed the Pacific with stone-age technology. With a navigator I think we could too."

Her twin responds, "I think Sam's right that we should start small on the boats. The Polynesians learned how to build big enough boats to make those trips."

Piet says "And I think we should not gamble."

Bill shrugs, and says, "And now you've heard the last month of night-time debates. Ever since the arrival rate increased, we've been trying to figure out how to cope."

>This thread.

>>14968797

"I'm an astronaut, Piet. All my life, I've wanted to travel and explore the unknown. And now you're telling me that I'm stuck on this dirtball, without even a bicycle. Your concerns are sound, but you're mad if you think I'm going to spend what little I have left of my life farming ... especially when there's an entire world out there."

"Boats are relatively simple constructions. A keel to support it, planks to hold it, tar to keep it and oars or the wind to speed it. Everything else is, at worst, details."

>>14968816

Piet says, "I am telling you that I think it is risky, and that with the rate of newcomers increasing it is perhaps a risk we cannot take right now. If the rate slowed down and we had a bigger food buffer, I would agree, instantly, that we should experiment with small boats for fishing."

>>14968822

Sophie (or Sophia? You're not sure), says, "That's the idea! We wouldn't have to invest much time into a little one. If we collected the materials, we could work on it at night."

Piet says, "And burn calories we can't afford, and tire yourself out."

Bill sits down on the edge of an irrigation ditch and says, "It is a pretty lean existence. I hope you like rice and fish, Sam."

>>14968865

"Hahah, I hate to repeat my self, but... I'm an astronaut, Bill. Do you have any idea what we live on while we're topside? Piet, the reason I object so strongly is because you make it seem as though we will never get to that point. I say, let us make it our priority, our goal, to leave this place. I will be the first to admit that it is a daring and risky undertaking, but I am no stranger to the possibility of death ... I am an astronaut, after all."

"Last but not least, Soph's right. Presuming that these are live waters, fishing is almost stupidly easier than farming. And before you repeat that none of us have experience building boats, I know of a sure-fire way of gaining experience in the fine art of boatbuilding. It starts with "we" and ends on "build a boat"."

>>14968934

You're feeling well enough to walk around the island a little and scout out likely-looking trees. You meet most of your fellow inmates, and talk to them a little. Many, under different circumstances, were brilliant innovators. Some still are, but you can tell the monotony of the island has dulled everyone to varying degrees. Piet's stance, hidebound conservative use of limited resources, is more prevalent than you would have guessed.

The other problem you see, the one Piet didn't come out and say, is that a good half of the island's population is older than you. They're all healthy, but age takes its toll no matter how healthy a body is, and many of them can't perform the hard physical labor that ditch digging, or boat building would require. They mostly work as planters.

Still, you guess there's a good twenty people (all five chimps on the island, yourself, Sophie and Sophia, and a dozen other younger doctors, scientists, two artists, and a programmer) that would be both willing and able to contribute significantly to the boat team.

That night Piet calls a full meeting. You can see the different groups cluster. Piet's supporters, the people who have clustered behind you and Bill, and the neutrals who just want to be able to not worry about political bullshit at all.

Under the flickering porch lights of several trailers, you describe the likely-looking trees.You'll need light to work on them at night, and that means doing work in the trailer park. Some of the neutrals complain that the noise will be annoying. You assure them you'll work in an empty part of the park. They worry about the extra calories your team will burn. You reassure them.

This goes on for some time, until finally you've got the majority of the community agreeing to try out letting you build a single boat.

Make two 3d6 rolls please. Describe what you do to build the boat, and what you do in your free time (between working on the fields, the boat, and your sleep requirements you get about an hour to yourself a day).

rolled 100 = 100

gonna bump before catching up

>>14969085

Discussion with Piet should be a priority; he's our opponent (for lack of a better word; I'd like us to keep friendly with him). This is partly to try and convince him of our point of view, partly to get a feel for both him and the people he represents; we can't go at this alone.

I get the feeling that Piet has something he's not telling us; I can understand it if he feels cautious about it, whatever it is. Rather than try and sneak about behind his back, however, I'd like to try and gain his confidence, by being upfront about things myself.

Discussion with Piet should be a priority; he's our opponent (for lack of a better word; I'd like us to keep friendly with him). This is partly to try and convince him of our point of view, partly to get a feel for both him and the people he represents; we can't go at this alone.

I get the feeling that Piet has something he's not telling us; I can understand it if he feels cautious about it, whatever it is. Rather than try and sneak about behind his back, however, I'd like to try and gain his confidence, by being upfront about things myself.

(repostan, forgot roll)

>>14969273

bzzz roll one

rolled 1, 2 = 3

>>14969196
Hot Damn!
A nat 100. Tell me you will use it, OP!

>>14969085
>Describe what you do to build the boat, and what you do in your free time
Go over and over the plans of the boat with engineers and inventors to make sure we don't make any mistakes in the planning department.
We can't afford to have the boat sink because of some stupid mistake. Sam should know how it is, being astronaut and all that.

Other than that, we could spend time talking with people and learning new skills.

>Describe what you do to build the boat
Honestly, I have no idea how to build a boat.
Bit before we even begin with building it, we must plan it. We should seek out people who understand how boats work, who have made stuff in their life on their own. Maybe they would be old and couldn't help with psychical stuff .
Collect tools which you will need. Set up a work schedule.
After a thorough plan, we set up to work.

rolled 5, 5 = 10

>>14969291
>rolled 1, 2 = 3

Well, damn.
No boats for us then.

>>14969282

Sorry for tripleposting; can't seem to delete things. Or roll dice.

>>14969291

rolled 6, 6, 5 = 17

>>14969307
>>14969315

Dammit you people
email:
dice+3d6

>>14969357
Oh, wow

OP, use this

This guy made mistake by rolling 2 dice instead of 3
>>14969291
>>14969299

rolled 3, 3, 4 = 10

Er, you rolled 2d6 instead of 3d6. Use dice 3d6 in the email field. Anyway I'll take the first three dice from the 1, 2 and 5, 5 roll for your first set of 3d6 (so that's an 8), and roll a second 3d6 right here.

>>14969375

So we're basically going fucking nowhere, chief.

>>14969375
well 18 ought to get us something anyway

waitin on OP

rolled 2, 3, 4 = 9

>>14969357

Ok, so 8, 17, and my 10. That will do.

The first week you work on the boat starts swimmingly enough. The most dangerous part of the task, cutting down and moving the logs, happens without major incident. Your team discusses how they will approach the design extensively, and a simple dug-out design is settled on for the first model. It should allow for more productive fishing, and for setting nets.

Michael Totse, the artist, remembers an old glass buoy design that the Japanese used for their fishing nets prior to world war 2. He figures out how to copy them, but at the end of the week has an accident while he is blowing glass and badly burns his face. With medical supplies being rudimentary at best on the island, he is prescribed lots of rest, and enough weed to keep the pain from being overwhelming.

Piet is not impressed, but is gracious enough to admit the accident just as easily could have happened if the artist were making more drinking glasses instead of fishing net floats.

You spend your spare time actively seeking Piet out and talking to him. You start to get a feel for him, and he begins to appreciate how infectious the positive attitude that the boat builders have is. He tells you that the entire community is livelier than it has been in months.

It dawns on you that part of Piet's problem with the boat is that he's become very risk-averse since his imprisonment. Something he admits during a late-night conversation drives that point home for you, "Back home I took risks and shortcuts to try to expose them to the public, and I paid for it. I don't know who they replaced me with, but I'm sure they found some parallel from another universe who was willing to be their puppet in my place. If I had to do it again, I would do it the slow way of planting small bits of evidence for reporters to find, instead of giving them scoops that would never be printed."

>>14969507


The second week sees your team finishing the dugout and the equipment that goes with it (oars, large nets, rudimentary navigation tools, and a cone anchor for hanging out at sea for extended periods of time). You triumphantly haul the finished boat to the beach.

Almost everyone has knocked off of work to watch the boat's launch. Someone in the small crowd asks, "Hey, what did you guys name it?"

Everyone on the boat team looks to you and Bill. Bill looks at you and shrugs.

Thanks a lot Bill. No pressure here.

***

Pick a name, and roll 3d6. You and one other person can go out. The chimps are not good swimmers, but Bill is game anyway. Some of the boat team members have experience with small craft. Sofia and Sophie have used canoes before, and one of the scientists, Greg Cooper, used to kayak. Another man on the boat team, Mirza Yousuf, is an excellent swimmer but not well versed in boats. The others have a smattering of small craft experience and are average swimmers at best.

You are an excellent swimmer, and a decent hand at using a canoe.

rolled 6, 5, 1 = 12

>>14969542
(I hope someone comes up with good enough name)

>Sofia and Sophie have used canoes before, and one of the scientists, Greg Cooper, used to kayak.
Take whoever is the most fit, healthy and/or young

Don't forget to take some floaters or something in case the boat does go down so that no one drowns.

Check the weather conditions.

6+3+2=11

You decide to name the boat Hope after a childhood friend of your's who had always managed to inspire you in difficult decisions.

Also pick the scientist who has done kayaking. Be extra cautious and don't over do it, get the boat back safely.

rolled 1, 5, 2 = 8

How about "Free Spirit"

>>14969675
Smells like... "Free Spirit"

*rimshot*

You call back to the inquisitive person, "It's the /Free Spirit/."

Earlier you discussed with the team about who would copilot the dugout with you. While Bill wanted to try it, even he agreed that he was a less than ideal candidate for a maiden voyage. Sophie and Sophia had equal amounts of experience in canoes, but had seldom gone canoeing in the sea. Greg, on the other hand, had been in seagoing kayaks many times, and was a good swimmer.

Even though the dugout would probably handle more like a canoe than a kayak, you judged Greg's sea experience to be more valuable for a maiden voyage.

You and Greg push the heavy wooden dugout into the water, and hop in. You paddle through the surf, past the shallows, and out to sea proper.

Greg inhales and exhales deeply as you get out of the shallows, and exclaims, "Man I've missed this! I used to do this all the time out in Santa Cruz."

You navigate the currents around the island safely, and Greg declares them to be fairly safe. There's one treacherous spot on the far side of the island, but since there's no good beaches there no one is likely to even approach from that way. You cruise back by the beach and wave to the crowd, and you hear a small cheer from them.

You and Greg then take the /Free Spirit/ out to sea, trying to guess the best place for fish. You cast nets, and begin the smelly work of bringing in as much of a school of fish as you can safely fit in the dugout.

It is late afternoon by the time you return, and everyone has returned to their jobs. That night everyone celebrates the successful catch with a bonfire on the beach, and all the fresh fish they can eat. Even Totse joins the party, though he's not up for much else.

>>14969943

So, what's next for you?

rolled 5, 3, 3 = 11

>>14969951
Smoke weed every day.

But seriously.

How much fish do we get now? How does the food look like now?

Ask if anyone has charted the island. Has everyone been deep inside it?
Maybe we'll find a bunker a la Lost...
Comment how this situation reminds you of that series and thinking about that awful show makes you depressed

>>14969951
Let's make a couple of more of these canoes so that we can bring in fish in better quantities We seem to be able to fix a crew for at least three two-man boats, while still leaving fit people for work on land.

Also, try and experiment with stabilisers on the sides, so far our dugout is very rudimentary, and could tip over.

>>14969951

Mingle. Talk with people, look for anyone with new ideas on what to do, where the island should go. The older population must have some ideas, maybe an Anthropologist who made a breakthrough on how early humans settled islands, or got around.

>>14969951
organize the work parties to build 3 more of these fishing canoes

Talk to people about weaving hemp to make rudimentary sails

Assess the feasibility of making pulleys, the strength of the hemp rope, and how it withstands exposure to seawater

Propose using the fire method for making the dugout canoes as it's easier (basically keep the sides wet and burn the inside of the tree out, fire does the work for you and also hardens the wood, indians did it like a boss)

look into storage and freezing, a million pounds of fresh fish today is a million pounds of rotten disease tomorrow unless we have large enough refrigeration units to freeze the stuff

propose using fish carcasses/remains as fertilizer for the fields, another indian trick

suggest all this shit to Piet, but allow him to propose the ideas to the group so he doesn't feel threatened by us

what's going on here

has OP died?

is Bill fellating himself?

can we have delicious sophie/sophia twincest yet?

>>14970221

Cooled storage is hard in temperate climates (which I assume the island to be). However, if we have pottery or some other earthenware, simple refridgeration becomes as simple as digging a hole, putting the claypot down, filling it with sand to the brim of the pot and pouring water over the sand, and then keeping the entire setup in the shade.

>>14970221
Seems Sam Heffner has indian roots...r

>>14970613
The important question here is: is it twincest if it is the same person from different universes? And do we care?

>>14970822
I'm just hoping that on an island full of super geniuses we have at least one freakin HVAC guy

rolled 66 = 66

so whats up OP?

>>14971677

Just got pulled off on another project for awhile.

>>14970071

As the party winds down, people start to break off from it and head back to the park. You don't keep track of who goes back with whom, but you're generally aware that some folks are going to keep the festivities going in private.

You're too physically tired for that, but too mentally excited to go to sleep. So you sit by the bonfire with most of the boat team, and a few others. Yousef passes a joint to you, and you briefly relive your college days.

You pass it along to one of the newbies that came this week, a nice woman who came up with a technique for making a democracy's elected candidates basically tamper-proof against lobbyists.

You muse aloud that this is a little like the tv show /Lost/, and suddenly you have everyone's attention. YOusef break the silence by saying, "I've never heard of that program. What is it about?"

It turns out no one is familiar with /Lost/. As you describe the show, down to the doomsday computer and the conflict with the Man in Black, Piet grows more animated than you've ever seen him. He exclaims, "You had an agitator! A rebel against the conspiracy! Those things in that show, they're Illuminati symbols. The dual nature of man, the use of technology to prevent it from spilling out! Your world was free of them! He was trying to warn you!"

Yousef says, "Well, so, you are not the only person who was pissing in the wind Piet. But how does that affect things here?"

Piet says, "It makes all the difference if they realize that Sam disappearing was important. And they may, My world's Sam was on a list of people we should risk opportunistic action against. If that list was given out to all low-level Illuminati, the rebel would have a chance of realizing the conspiracy did it."

The newbie woman next to you asks, "And what could the rebel do?"

Piet's face falls. He admits, "I don't know. But something."

You ask the obvious question. "Why was I specifically marked like that? And why didn't you tell me earlier?"

Piet shrugs. "They may have had trouble from one of your parallels. I don't know. I never told you because it didn't seem important here, that's all."

>>14972565
"So I got picked out because someone like me did something dangerous to the illuminati several years ago in a world I have no connection to? Damn... talk about being cursed by destiny."

Secretly wonder why we were picked now, and why we are the only one of us.

>>14973053
Also I'm about an hour late and heading to bed. I understand if you won't continue tonight, OP, but I would love it if you'd do it again some other day.