@leo.fitz ― 4 NOVEMBER 2511

[retravel]

Hi everyone,

If you don't already know me from the safehouse or the guide, I'm Fitz, one of the arrivals from the first transport. Prior to being here, I was a weapons and technology expert at SHIELD. Now, I’m a Pulsar engineer and, more importantly, an agent of Morningstar.

Recently, @ojiro.juniper approached me with the clever idea to kickstart some research and development efforts. We’re working on a way to bankroll this, and we’ll let you know how that develops in due course. For now, regardless of where discussions have evolved on the nature of organisation and leadership, we need your assistance with some big endeavors, both for the Displaced and Morningstar.

1. As some of you may know from the raids, Morningstar has a cache of unidentified weapons in its local store. We don’t know what they do, how they work, how dangerous they are, and so on, but I want to find out. So, let's discuss a plan: Any thoughts or ideas for how to approach the cache and suss everything out safely would be welcome.

Reckon we’ll need at least one colour-coded spreadsheet. [ ***NOT JOKING ]

2. We could use a team of engineers for ad hoc projects. Presently, I’m exploring tech that could counter both the UNA and the creatures that keep popping up, as well as give us more freedom to act whenever trouble comes our way — all by my lonesome.

If this sounds like something you’re interested in, whether or not you have the technical know-how to get to work immediately, or you want to learn on the job, let me know. Can’t pay you in anything except snacks, but I can assure you they’ll be bug free.

3. Hi, this is Ojiro. In addition to the above, I also need an engineer for personal reasons, and I will pay you. I need someone with a lot of experience with tech as advanced as the standard here, preferably lots of hands-on engine work. Message me if you're interested!

Cheers.

― Fitz

[ Check out here for more deets on the cache and here for some OOC knowledge of what Fitz is working on personally. He’ll share details of the latter strand of work with any individuals wanting to form a geek squad c: For #3, interested applicants can just private message Ojiro on this post! I'll be throwing together a plot engagement incorporating what characters ICly suggest in the coming weeks! ]

Comments

[saviorexe]

I have to keep focus on both of them at once, and by way of multitasking I suppose that makes it more difficult. But as long as that focus is unbroken, they've managed to stay solid.

Not that I've stood in place for hours at a time, testing this theory.

[please don't suggest that he does that.]

[retravel]

[ oh, markus, you beautiful naive sweet baby android ]

A timed trial could be worth a punt.
Practice with intentional distractions, too. Daisy would know better than me, but I helped design some of the powers' training routines at SHIELD not so long ago.

[ a few years now, actually. ]

[saviorexe]

[silent weeping.........sleep is for the weak]

For powers similar to what the Displaced have?

[He's just curious, mostly.]

[retravel]

Yeah, once the chemical activant hit the States en masse, formerly dormant Inhumans with powers like our own started popping up everywhere. That's how Daisy got her vibration abilities.

They call her Quake back home.

[ she's probably one of the more powerful individuals. ]

It was her idea to start the Secret Warriors Initiative, a project with the aim of helping people protect themselves — and others. At her request, I designed a containment module and practice materials to handle everything from metal to electricity manipulation. Once made rapidfire targets and combat sims to challenge our speedster. That was great fun.

[saviorexe]

[Oh. That's well beyond what he expected to hear; metal and electricity manipulation, speedsters. Quake. What a name.]

Quake. I like it. Sounds intimidating.

[Gonna have to ask Daisy about that sometime soon woah!!!]

You make my practice sessions sound like small potatoes in comparison. [Not untrue.] I'll step up my game, then. Ask Daisy for suggestions, and taking yours about distractions into account.

Also, this chemical activant you mentioned. Do you think a similar exposure might have happened to the Displaced? Or has that already been considered?

what's science pls @marvelstudios

[retravel]

Oh, very.
Glad to hear you’ll be stepping it up.

[ a light tease and challenge.

there’s a pause before he answers the rest. as a rule, fitz avoids powers chat, particularly in public. he lost his right to be curious about such things after what he did in the framework, and daisy had been quick to counter him last time he decided to weigh in on the nature of what they've become. ]

The inhibitors put on prior abilities suggests a more bespoke, man-made intervention, but then the Inhuman "trigger" itself was created by manipulating human genetic makeup to insert latent superhuman potential, in the first place. A combination of insertion and mutation could be in play, I suppose.

[ thought 2 text ]

Forcible change to the genotype could result in our powers all on its own. Given that we showcase profoundly different phenotype manifestations, even in our small sample size, this theory has potential. Equally, an external activant, which would be known as a mutagen, in this instance, could also be responsible — perhaps even ionising radiation, which we were likely exposed to on our voyages through spacetime, is the culprit, but it seems a shade more intentional, if I'm to allow myself some bias here. Course I've actually never thought to measure our radiation levels.

[ a beat. ]

That's a yes, it might have happened. Not sure anyone's looking into it. We're rather short on geneticists.

@clarke.griffin

[strove]

Katelin and I had a few paths in mind, and Jyn brought another to my attention. Katelin hasn't shown up to work in a few days. [So. It's just Clarke, who was never as advanced as anyone else here. Could never really be.]

So far, if anything's happened to our makeup, it's not obvious in our blood as is, but we haven't done any testing involving power usage.

So, what we want to do:

1. Test blood while someone's power is active, especially if it appears to temporarily alter their genetic makeup.

2. Perhaps do thorough tests on our blood versus everyone in this world. I think it may be especially telling with people like Markus and Connor.

But I can't do it alone. I don't know how.

[saviorexe]

Wanting to take more of my blood, Clarke?

[Can you hear the vaguely teasing intonation? But more seriously (and noting the bit about Bobbi, worrying in its own right, has she left, too?)-]

I wouldn't say no to either. And we both know that I have a personal vested interest in #2.

[AKA sign him up???? Anything to help unravel the mystery of his android-to-human transition pls]

[strove]

I know.

I'll come calling once I have someone who can back me up. Right now I would just sit around with a vial of blood with no idea of what to do with it.

[saviorexe]

I'm not much help in that regard. But once you do, let me know.

With new faces coming in, there might be a chance someone has the knowledge you need, if you don't have anyone in mind already.

[Since they're skirting around the issue of Bobbi not having shown up to work, according to what he can read here.]

[strove]

I could reach out and ask. Hopefully my intentions make sense.

[Clarke remembers her first request for blood.

And the fact that people felt they needed to say no even if she wasn't forcing it on anyone. Thanks Thor and Loki.]

[saviorexe]

Framing it as wanting to know what's been done to us, specifically in regards to how our powers manifest? I'm sure that won't be a hard sell, Clarke.

[retravel]

[ Fitz has been pointedly keeping Bobbi's disappearance quiet, so he avoids more detail than strictly necessary. ]

I called her in sick. Bad flu.

[ That is to say, yes, she's gone. Team SHIELD follows protocol. ]

I like where your head is at. Anyone whose body has changed or seemingly been created fit-for-purpose is of particular interest. In theory, finding bodies capable of handling our powers would have been difficult, so I agree that Markus and Connor are of particular interest. I'm consistently surprised baseline humans have yet to exhibit any signs of bodily degradation as a result of our abilities.

This is more my partner's area than my own, but I've looked in depth at the biology of powered individuals, in particular, before now, so I could help identify potential lines of inquiry in Kat's absence:

Genetics is an inherently comparative field, so gathering samples from local volunteers and looking at the results side-by-side with our own is essential. Other DNA samples would be worth considering: Hair, nails, cheek swab, etc. And you'd want a large sample size of our lot as well.

If we can find a contact with the resources and skills, we could sequence our genomes on blood samples alone.

Checking our hormone levels could also be a good shout. Any differentiation from the norm could be telling.

[ THROWING BIO SPAGHETTI @ THE WALL. it helps that he was the mad scientist who gave a robot made human superpowers last time. ]

[strove]

Hormones. Good idea.

[In all of that, it is sadly the hormones that she grasps the best from what she knows about lab tests. Clarke has been learning on the job, but she's still insufficiently prepared. She sticks to technical things, preparing gels and has done well on that, but discerning data is out of reach.

It's where Katelin was helping.

Emphasis on was.]

I'd prefer to put feelers out among us and see if anyone has that skill. Hafid says he knows how to do anything, so maybe he's a secret geneticist and hasn't revealed it yet.

[This is both derisive and sincere, an even split. If he knows, she needs to work wtih him on it.]

I'm better at asking questions than answering them, so I'm afraid that some of our progress has been limited by my own skills.

And I can't do more without someone like Katelin at my side.

[retravel]

Been known to have them now and again.

[ Jemma would have more. He tries to ignore that line of thought. ]

That sounds like the right move.
I'll ask around the workshop, too. Hopefully, we'll have more than a single pair of trained eyes on this.

[ Fitz doesn't trust himself with that data, not yet. Better Bobbi — or someone else known to be good. ]

You'll get word if she returns.

[ She. Bobbi. 'Cause he already trashed their kitchen with his tantrum, moving to the acceptance phase shortly thereafter. Hope in this means you lose someone twice: First, when they disappear and again, when they fail to return. ]

[strove]

[Clarke doesn't want to draw attention to how she's floundering at work without Bobbi. It's hard to realize that as a very real thing, what with all the questions she asks and with none of the answers available. Incomplete as a student of medicine, hoping to make herself useful.

She's a leader, not a scientist or a doctor. It's where she's excelled, and that's had to change in being here.

And she feels bad for it, too. Bad that it isn't as useful of a skill. It's the same way she felt when they did the Nightblood experiments, when they took it to actual testing. The very same.]

I might need to catch a bit of that flu myself.

[That's all she'll say.

Besides, it can easily be read as "that'll sell it."]

shhhh it makes perfect sense

[saviorexe]

[He's going to have to trust Fitz's word on that. Markus doesn't have a mind skewed towards the same kind of understanding of genotypes, mutagens, radiation, etc.; not even close.

At least his friend explains it in a straightforward manner, easy to comprehend.]

Right. So slot it in the "maybe" category.

But it's a theory that would help explain why synthetic life goes organic in this world. Hard to force change to someone's genetic makeup in an android body.

ty for the support in these trying times

[retravel]

Absolutely.
You know, this is relevant to one of the things we first spoke of together.
There's the possibility that the new organic bodies are the optimum hosts for superhuman abilities.

[ weird flex??? but relevant?? ]

Actually, in Prompto's research into cloning, he found reference to projects on swapping consciousness. Lost to the censors on the whole, though, it seems.
But it could explain part of what happened to you. Part of it, anyway.

[ the same thing he'd done for AIDA ]

puts a gold star on you

[saviorexe]

[Swapped consciousness. This is the part where he wonders if it's a copied consciousness (worrying; existential crisis potential), or a simple transference (also worrying; less existential crisis potential, though), assuming the theory holds up. It also raises once more the question of what's happened to his android body, but Markus has asked himself and others this so many times that it doesn't bear repeating. Not right now.]

A consciousness swap would be from organic-to-organic, I assume. If they've perfected how to consolidate the whole suite of my programming and memories, pure data, to fit into the anatomical framework of a human mind? That'd be research well outside of the realm of cloning. And probably very illegal and hard to stumble across.

[Given, you know, this world's history of AI.]

[retravel]

[ is this a sim is this a dream are they all clones STAY TUNED ]

Agreed.
But not impossible, so we add it to the list.

[ a neverending list of questions, lines of inquiry, and conspiracies. ]

[saviorexe]

The list keeps growing. Hope you’ve been keeping track.

@john.jaqobis, slow mo interrupt a week later

[stabilis]

Sorry if this is old news, but do you look the same? Your android body and your bio body.

[saviorexe]

Yes. Completely identical.

[When his skin’s appearance is “on”, of course, but that’s a needless complication that doesn’t need to be thrown out there right now.]

Even the eye color, which was a newer addition, [“””addition”””] and not a part of my original design.

[stabilis]

[ cool............ ]

So I know whatever or whoever brought us here could've made some blueprints the old-fashioned way — studied your inorganic body, copied the details over, etc. Which we should be able to reverse engineer, theoretically.

But we just saw our dreams rewrite history. Or whatever mechanism we were interacting with, if it wasn't us. I'm not saying we ditch the useful scientific theories, but now that we know our brains impacting reality is on the table? It could just be another reflection of that. That's how you're used to looking, ergo.

[saviorexe]

[Markus isn't sure if this theory is better, worse, or so nebulous that it can't quite slot into either category.

But with the dreams now something to take into consideration, it is viable.]

That would account for my eyes, at least. And when we were dreaming, I was in an inorganic body; how I'd prefer to be, so maybe you're onto something in regards to the subconscious melding this reality.

But then back to the million dollar question: did this change my original body, or supplant it somewhere else?

["Where the HECK is my android body" -still Markus' mantra]