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helix station dossier
Mar. 1st, 2020 03:31 pmThe Helix station's blueprints reveal that it was built to suit its name, as the facility seems to be laid out in a vague spiral shape, with large domed bays connected by tunnels. There are sections of the station set aside for dorm-style crew living quarters. There's a large cafeteria which apparently doubles as a meeting space, a recreation bay with a gym and space for games and general hanging out, a small medical bay, a mechanical bay that seems to be the command center for the station, a launch bay for the subs, and about a dozen various laboratory and storage bays. One of the larger bays is labelled "nuclear power", which is where that plutonium gets put to use.
The station was built to house roughly 100 crew members, though the blueprints for one of the housing bays comes with a note explaining that this section of the lab was badly damaged when residents in town decided to launch nuclear warheads to defend against an approaching World Eater.
As far as tech goes, since none of us are quantum physicists, they have the equipment on the station capable of:
- tracking portal activity (who/what comes through, plus sciency stuff like energy fluctuations, signatures/coordinates of universes it's contacted in some way, etc.; she includes some sample data*)
- navigating the portal (this is how Pluto "special orders" items)
- tracking seismic, weather, and other geological data (like what the lake gets up to and stuff)
- very roughly tracking the World Eaters (only works if they're within a couple hundred miles; Robin would know first if one showed up in the area, says the notes)
- a bit less roughly tracking the forest spirits lurking in the lake (of which there are *many*, apparently; Pluto writes that this is a defense more than anything, as they do get attacked sometimes)
- deploying the ferry (evidently it's the Market that puts the ferry in the right spot to catch newbies each month, who knew)
- sending telegrams to the lighthouse
- repairing/engineering pretty much any kind of tech you could imagine (largely unlimited portal access can get you a lot of great building materials)
They also have all the equipment you'd need for harnessing nuclear power, like a nuclear reactor and proper storage for radioactive materials, etc.
*To folks at least somewhat versed in quantum physics, the readouts from the portal will suggest that the portal is sort of like trapdoor in the floor of the multiverse. Portals of this nature are *meant* to be stable pathways from point A to point B, but this one is broken beyond repair. It's somehow been rendered unstable, meaning two things: 1) the portal is a one-way door, and things can only come through it *into* this world, not out of it; and 2) the non-Beacon end of the portal is erratic and ever-changing, so much so that it appears to be more of an open tear that just sucks in random bits from other universes.
As for the Helix station's history, it's pretty straightforward! Plans for the station began relatively soon after the incident of the portal's creation in 1969 and it was intended originally for studying the portal. The project was spearheaded by the local university, and construction finished in 1972. Although the station was built to house a much larger crew, the original crew was just barely 50 strong, and those numbers dwindled to about a dozen by 1979, when Dr. Solis and Sheriff Hobaugh fired the warheads at the approaching World Eater. All but three crew members died then, perhaps due to the now-collapsed portion of the station though Pluto writes that no one's really sure what *exactly* happened down there. The three remaining crew members took a submarine to the surface, and the station was left barren until a couple of years later, when the submarines returned with a new 15-person crew made up of folks that came in through the portal and had lanterns. The numbers continued to grow very quickly over the next ~5 years, when the station was packed to capacity, and at that point the now-established Night Market decided they needed to be way choosier about who they brought aboard, as living conditions were abysmal with a crew of almost 100.
The history write-up concludes there, with just a couple extra lines about how it's been business as usual since then, with the Helix crew working to understand the portal and the World Eaters and even their own lanterns. Plus they've had to make a *number* of serious upgrades to the station, and apparently much of their time is spent on repairs and salvage missions.
The station was built to house roughly 100 crew members, though the blueprints for one of the housing bays comes with a note explaining that this section of the lab was badly damaged when residents in town decided to launch nuclear warheads to defend against an approaching World Eater.
As far as tech goes, since none of us are quantum physicists, they have the equipment on the station capable of:
- tracking portal activity (who/what comes through, plus sciency stuff like energy fluctuations, signatures/coordinates of universes it's contacted in some way, etc.; she includes some sample data*)
- navigating the portal (this is how Pluto "special orders" items)
- tracking seismic, weather, and other geological data (like what the lake gets up to and stuff)
- very roughly tracking the World Eaters (only works if they're within a couple hundred miles; Robin would know first if one showed up in the area, says the notes)
- a bit less roughly tracking the forest spirits lurking in the lake (of which there are *many*, apparently; Pluto writes that this is a defense more than anything, as they do get attacked sometimes)
- deploying the ferry (evidently it's the Market that puts the ferry in the right spot to catch newbies each month, who knew)
- sending telegrams to the lighthouse
- repairing/engineering pretty much any kind of tech you could imagine (largely unlimited portal access can get you a lot of great building materials)
They also have all the equipment you'd need for harnessing nuclear power, like a nuclear reactor and proper storage for radioactive materials, etc.
*To folks at least somewhat versed in quantum physics, the readouts from the portal will suggest that the portal is sort of like trapdoor in the floor of the multiverse. Portals of this nature are *meant* to be stable pathways from point A to point B, but this one is broken beyond repair. It's somehow been rendered unstable, meaning two things: 1) the portal is a one-way door, and things can only come through it *into* this world, not out of it; and 2) the non-Beacon end of the portal is erratic and ever-changing, so much so that it appears to be more of an open tear that just sucks in random bits from other universes.
As for the Helix station's history, it's pretty straightforward! Plans for the station began relatively soon after the incident of the portal's creation in 1969 and it was intended originally for studying the portal. The project was spearheaded by the local university, and construction finished in 1972. Although the station was built to house a much larger crew, the original crew was just barely 50 strong, and those numbers dwindled to about a dozen by 1979, when Dr. Solis and Sheriff Hobaugh fired the warheads at the approaching World Eater. All but three crew members died then, perhaps due to the now-collapsed portion of the station though Pluto writes that no one's really sure what *exactly* happened down there. The three remaining crew members took a submarine to the surface, and the station was left barren until a couple of years later, when the submarines returned with a new 15-person crew made up of folks that came in through the portal and had lanterns. The numbers continued to grow very quickly over the next ~5 years, when the station was packed to capacity, and at that point the now-established Night Market decided they needed to be way choosier about who they brought aboard, as living conditions were abysmal with a crew of almost 100.
The history write-up concludes there, with just a couple extra lines about how it's been business as usual since then, with the Helix crew working to understand the portal and the World Eaters and even their own lanterns. Plus they've had to make a *number* of serious upgrades to the station, and apparently much of their time is spent on repairs and salvage missions.
