text / audio | un: newt

[groupiedrifter]

Alright, let's not be total wallflowers at prom here, if we're going to be stuck together for the foreseeable future, I think it's only right that we (read: I) start getting to know all of my fellow space cadets. If we're ACTUALLY in space and this isn't some humongous simulation. You guys saw how easy it was for this place to manufacture a hyper-realistic simulation earlier, right? Yikes, big yikes.

But if we ARE in space and we're going to be traveling around, that's actually kind of AWESOME.

No offense to anyone who didn't want to actually be here of course, but you're nuts if you're not a LITTLE curious about the vast expanse of outer space. C'mon. OUTER SPACE! How incredible is that? And here I thought me coming face to face with aliens back home was INCREDIBLE, now we've got ACTUAL OUTER SPACE??? Pinch me I'm in a simulation. LOL.

Sorry I'm rambling, my name's Newt. Dr. Newton Geiszler, but but that sounds so much more boring and overcomplicated than 'Newt', so just stick with that. Worked as a xenobiologist on earth (is there multiple earths or what??? a lot of you are crazy unfamiliar with Kaiju, which is wild to me), helped giant robots fight aliens, the usual. Likes are rock music, playing instruments, tattoos, science and tech, dislikes are bossy pushovers who complain about those things.

Speaking of which, my really good pal from home's name is Hermann Gottlieb, and you should call him Herm to make him REALLY feel at home. :)

It's nice to meet you guys on the NEWTwork. ;P

... Actually—

[Suddenly, the text turns into audio, in which a higher voice with some focal fry bleeds in-]

—can I just abruptly switch to an audio function?

[A pause, and then an excitable:]

Holy shit, how awesome is that?! This is amazing; we've made some pretty monumental gains in technology back home, but we're still working on finessing the finer aspects of neuralogically connecting to networks like these for the general population. I'd love to take one of these apart sometime and see what makes them tick. Good to have an idea of what to expect, in case we need modifications or repairs done at any point.

Anyway. Uh. Hey!

... This whole voices-in-your-head thing can't be good for my train of thought, but geronimo, right?

[If anyone listens beyond that, they may catch the accidental thought-to-audio that follows:]

Wha — oh, dammit.

I sure hope this is the last nosebleed, because I would rather not worry about having accidental brain damage from drifting with aliens.

Comments

[coordination]

It's not like I'm down on Earth much anymore, either way. Or that there's a need for mobile suit combat anymore. For now, anyway.

[ The only thing that makes him impatient to be here. He knows it's important - he has a goal, something to accomplish here. But he had important work to take care of at home, too, ensuring that their fragile peace wasn't ruined. ]

Jaeger? What kind of unit is that?

[groupiedrifter]

Jaegers are our mobile suits. Usually around, uh — 260, 300 feet? They're equipped with individual AI's, but two pilots get hooked up to Pons and work in unison to pilot them. They're pretty awesome, I'll admit it; I'd never wanna have to pilot one, but they're sure cool to watch.

[He supposes... they won't need them anymore. Wow.]

[coordination]

300 feet? Damn...

[ He sounds ... awed, honestly. Even the Destroy units that the Earth Forces unleashed were only just under 200, and those were insane enough to behold in comparison to the standard size of mobile suits. ]

What is a Pons supposed to be?

[groupiedrifter]

Well, it's — a neural bridge. A means of linking up between brains.

In my world, the mobile suits we've developed are piloted by two people whose minds are working in tandem. It's called drifting, and it's essentially sharing minds as you work. Without that, there would be an overload; the human brain isn't designed to carry it on its own.

[Which is why he was 50/50 on whether he'd die drifting with a Kaiju.

It worked out, though. So suck it, Hermann.]

[coordination]

Huh.

[ That sounds a lot more ... advanced, if some kind of neural connection is involved where the mobile suits are concerned. ]

Two pilots controlling one machine sounds like it could get messy, though.

[groupiedrifter]

It can be messy, yeah. But only if you have two incompatible people attempting to work together. If you're not collaborated, not working in the same mind-space, then it won't work and you'll get gutted out there. But that's the thing — you don't just throw any two people together. You pick them very carefully, and when those perfect people are together, they're the most well-oiled machine you'll ever see outside of actual well-oiled machines.

[He quiets, surprisingly somber.]

... We had a great team. The best.

[He honestly hadn't even know just how extensive the loss was, until the full swing of celebrations — when they had raised a glass to everyone they'd lost. A lot of people were laughing, but a lot of people were also quietly excusing themselves to the side to dab at the corners of their eyes with their sleeves.]

[coordination]

[ There's a short stretch of silence when he says that, Yzak noting and immediately recognizing the tone in his voice. Proud, but somber. While Yzak is lucky enough now to have his own team safe and sound in the aftermath of the war (clearly due to his AMAZING command on top of the fact that of course them being on HIS team means they are PERFECT like he is), things were different in the first war.

When he was just a solider, his team was a mess. He and Dearka were insufferable, instigative assholes to poor young Nicol who always tried to keep the peace and Athrun who did nothing but get under his skin and keep things from them (for a good reason, but as if Yzak would have been understanding of that back then). A broken, dysfunctional team beneath a commander who didn't care about them or their lives because his goal was for humanity to completely destroy itself. ]

That's something we have in common, then. [ He says, voice also slightly less rough than it usually is by default. ]

Hopefully that continues here.

[groupiedrifter]

... Thanks. I hope so, too.

[He sounds pleasantly surprised by the less rough response. That kinda thing, it reminds him a little of Hermann. Rough most of the time, but then you get that little sliver of something else.]

You got a name, or did you like 'Mr. Shrieky'?

[coordination]

[ Enjoy that brief moment while it lasts, Newt, because when Yzak hears 'Mr. Shrieky' again IT'S GONE. ​]

YES I have a name! Yzak Jule!

Major Yzak Jule. [ He adds with a small harrumph and a lot more pride, as if to nullify the Mr. Shrieky thing, for he is a man to be RESPECTED!! ]

[groupiedrifter]

Cool, cool. Yzak. I'm Newt, as you know from my thinky thoughts.

Great to meet you, dude! Even if you could double as a banshee.

[He grins, and that grin is just about palpable through the words he'd said. This poor soul, he doesn't quite realize Newt never respects someone for their authority. Just ask his principal, or the officers that pepper sprayed him at rallies, or the one that arrested him for disorderly conduct at a concert, or the numerous professors who tolerated him only because he was the smartest in the room, or-]

So, you pilot those big mobile suits, right? What's it like?

[coordination]

[ Newt will hear a rumbly growl at the banshee comment. YOU'RE PLAYING WITH FIRE, BRO!! ​]

What's it like?

[ A pause. Hm. ]

On one hand you'd rather not have to be piloting one at all. [ Because it means you're at war, or about to be at war, desperately trying to prevent things from getting worse. That's never fun. ] On the other, when you have to be, you need to be good at it. And obviously I'm very good. [ Skill is needed to make sure you survive, and Yzak has a great deal of pride in his skills, even though he wouldn't consider piloting fun. ]

It's much better to stick to space, though. Despite newer models being better adapted to function on Earth.

[groupiedrifter]

Space definitely doesn't have the whole 'gravity' problem, which has caused the PPDC grief for years. As it turns out, it makes everything a hundred times more difficult when you're dealing with 2,000 tons of moving machinery.

... I've always wondered what it would be like, though. Being in the cockpit of one of those things. I'm betting your interior's a lot different than ours.

[coordination]

The PLANTs we live on also don't have deserts [ SOMEONE!! HAD A BAD EXPERIENCE THERE!!! Earth overall was just a pretty Not Great Time for him, in retrospect. ]

If your machines are fitted with an AI and require two pilots, then probably.

...

Though there was something similar in development by a different organization, once. [ But major details on that aren't something Yzak knows because spin-off OVAs. ] But it had nothing like ... Pons, was it? Or 'drifting'.

[groupiedrifter]

... Man, I went to a concert in the desert once. I've never been so sunburnt in my life.

Also, dehydrated. Never go party in a desert without water.

[newton please that is not remotely related to robots]

So you guys pilot with manual controls? The Jaeger Pilots have manual controls kind of, but they're upright and rigged in; they move their whole bodies in tandem in order to get them moving.

[coordination]

I plan to never go to a desert again at all, if I can help it.

[ Yzak is more than happy to take this tangent if it means shit talking the desert. He barely had a choice back then, falling to Earth near Gibraltar and getting put under temporary command of the Desert Tiger himself in North Africa. His Gundam was not properly calibrated for usage in that kind of place, much less Earth's atmosphere. ]

We do pilot them manually. And without any sort of upright set up. It takes movement - foot pedals, joysticks, throttles, a control panel. But nothing like you described.

[groupiedrifter]

[He grins, leaning his cheek against his palm.]

Now you've gone and jinxed yourself. We're totally gonna have a desert mission now.

Ours is pretty complicated, it's true. You've gotta enter the drift together to even get the thing moving in tandem with your controls; if you're not neurologically linked up and sharing half the load, you'll literally fry yourself and probably have lasting health problems.

[coordination]

UGH WE BETTER NOT!!!

[ He will have WORDS. ]

That sounds dangerous.

Not like piloting a machine like that isn't dangerous for a bunch of other reasons, obviously. But to need that just to get it to move...

How common are compatibility issues between pilots?

[groupiedrifter]

Usually? Not a lot of issues. But that's because they have a particular system they use to find their partners. If you're drift compatible, you usually learn fairly early on. Which... is a good thing, because once you're plugged in, you share the same headspace. Your thoughts are theirs, your memories are open season, and you feel what the other feels.

... But when you're connected and aligned, it's probably really comforting, to not feel alone in the cockpit.

[coordination]

[ Feel alone in the cockpit. Like the first time Yzak sortied again, completely alone after losing his entire time within the span of two battles. One killed, the other two assumed killed, and then the only one that returned got bumped up in rank and left him behind anyway. There were a lot of battles after that that felt that way. The silence that stretched where there was once the sound of Athrun defending himself from Yzak's cursing and accusations, Dearka's voice egging him on, Nicol trying to defuse the situation.

Maybe Newton makes a point with what he says there. Even though it's only something Yzak can imagine since their mobile suit cockpits are only built for one anyway. ]

Sharing thoughts, memories and feelings?

[ He makes a small humming sound. ]

That sounds pretty invasive.

[groupiedrifter]

It can be, yeah. It's not like you see their every single waking moment or anything, but if you're trying too hard to conceal something, you'll mentally dredge it up for the other to see. Kind of like trying to lie on a lie detector, but you're getting worked up, so you suck at it?

It's why you have to be a perfect unit. If you can't synchronize, you can't drift.

[He hesitates, something twisting unpleasantly in his stomach. He looks at the spot on the handkerchief he'd just used, painted in drops of blood. Sometimes, he swears he can see the blue afterglow imprinted in his eyes; he can feel that terrifying rush of emotion, see himself cowering in fear from Otachi's long, illuminating tongue. I found you, Newton Geiszler. He swallows hard, and pushes back the strange, unpleasant thought of, drifting with a Kaiju is like riding a rollercoaster. He loves rollercoasters.

Stop, what? No, it was fucking scary, Newt. Get a grip.]

In a way, it makes a relationship you can't have any other way. A kind of — sharing of lives from a perspective no one else can see? But you know, it's probably healthier to have your own thoughts to yourself.

[coordination]

I'd say definitely rather than probably.

[ Yzak's thoughts are nobody else's business unless he decrees it! Still, considering that kind of setup, if one were looking for something so powerful that it needs two pilots, it could be worth it. There's really only one person Yzak can think of who could even possibly pair up with him, though - he didn't go out of his way to specifically ensure that Dearka joined his team as his adjutant for nothing. ​]

Ah—

[ That thought leads him to another, though. One less alien-invaded than what's going on in Newt's mind right now. ]

You said the human brain can't handle all of that on its own. It makes me wonder if that limit would apply to a Coordinator or not.

[ He says that, goes silent for a second, and then adds: ]

Coordinators are human. But genetically enhanced.

[ It's still pretty strange remember that, right, you have to explain this kind of thing to people, because odds are even if another world had something like him, they might not even share the same name. ]

[groupiedrifter]

... Genetically enhanced?

[Well, that's something his little science brain is gonna fixate on.]

What do you mean?

[He's picturing people with lizard eyes and mutated tails. Which is probably way off base, huh???]

[coordination]

[ Wow Newt excuse you you're talking to one. Even though this is through audio so honestly for all he knows Yzak could have lizard eyes and a mutated tail. ]

I mean genetically enhanced. You know, stronger and faster, able to learn things easier and at a quicker rate. We don't really get affected by most diseases, either.

[ "We" he says. And of course there are some exceptions to all of those things - he remembers how weird it was that a comrade of his caught some kind of cold once - weird enough that it was the ~talk~ amongst the cadets, anyway. ]

If you're asking about the process, I'm not a scientist so don't have those kinds of details. All first generation Coordinators were born with those genes due to said modifications happening within the earliest embryotic stages. Us second generations were born inheriting those genes without the need for that.

[groupiedrifter]

[There's only one purely scientific, logical response to this, Yzak, and he says it with conviction:]

So you're basically mini-Supermans.

[coordination]

[ Oh that comment is going right to Yzak's ego. ]

We are capable of a lot.

[ He doesn't even try to hide the pride in his voice there. Still, there's always this weirdness about it. In two wars started from the differences between Naturals and Coordinators, Yzak absolutely was one of those who went into things viewing himself and his people as superior, better, looking down with disdain at the Naturals. He's better about it now, but it's still a little difficult to navigate for him since he doesn't want to be total asshole, but also, Yzak is Yzak and he thinks he's hot shit and will always make this known. ]