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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2017 8:25:23 GMT -8
It was all dark for what seemed like only a moment. His systems then started to boot back up. It started with his internal systems booting first. Before they ran a system check, registering that an improper reboot had occurred. Noting that no files had been damaged, the boot sequence continued. With the internal clock updating next, noting a disparity of several hours between the shutdown and his current boot time. What had made him shut down for so long, was a mystery. His GPS system booted next, which indicated that he was a long way from his last recorded location. STUD started to worry then. Although such information was not technically an error. It did indicate to the droid that there was a problem.
Once his internal systems finished their boot sequence, his Radar Eye came online. It took a moment for his processors to work out what he was seeing. Once his servomotors came online, he turned his head around, logging more of what was around him. Somehow, he had ended up in some sort of stall selling droids. He almost started to panic, wondering just what exactly had happened to his owner. But something deep within his programming told him that she was ok. That this was all part of his mission. As his boot process finished and all his systems finished coming online, he moved to get up. He barely finished taking a step forward when he felt his whole body immobilise.
His scanners then sensed a foreign object attached to his body. Based off its design and the information in his internal database, STUD recognised it as a restraining bolt. That was not good. It was then, that a cloaked man stepped in front of him. The expression on the man's face indicated he was not particularly happy that STUD had tried to escape. All he could do was stand rooted to the spot, as his captor waved a controller in front of his Radar Eye "So da droid does live. Me thought you were dead, tin mon. But it looks like I be wrong, eh? Now don't you be trying escape, ja? I'll stop ya in yer tracks before ya make it a foot again... But don't worry. Nom Reynolds looks after his merchandise well..."
But that was not the mans only source of droids. He appeared to have a host of scavengers that went out collecting abandoned droids for him. Although, sometimes the definition of abandoned was stretched a lot. STUD knew this first hand, as Nom had him wiping the droid memories. Some were ordinary citizens droids, other times, they were droids that served soldiers of the First Order and Alliance. Out here, everything was fair game to these traders. They had to survive based on the only means they knew. And like any society, some people thrived more than others in such conditions.
STUD took note of it all. The trades, the conversations, even whispered words. He used it all to build a database of how the hierarchy was structured. Figuring out who liked who. Who had leverage over which traders. Every now and again, he would pass such information onto Nom. Sometimes it made no difference, but on occasion it would improve his treatment by the trader. It was not hard to figure out that Nom rewarded those who helped him. Other times, people had only to pay him enough to gain his favor. There were certainly bigger fish, but Nom knew how to corner his own niche market that kept him beneath their radars |
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Post by House of D'Ordinii on May 28, 2017 16:16:05 GMT -8
==Doc Chop SL==
<<106 PP; S18 Sector, Skip One>>
Curjas was a citizen of the Infinite Imperium. He was a trained medic & doctor. His skills covered a fairly wide area but delved only rarely into more specialized fields. He found himself on the Smuggler's Run for medical reasons. Specifically his own health. For various reasons he was entirely adamant about being complete misunderstandings, he found himself seeking employment outside of the aegis of II territory. He was technically still in good standing, but a number of important people wanted to have various conversations with him. On the plus side, he didn't have anyone looking for him specifically. On the con side, he would need to find a way of supporting himself & his ... habits, without the support of the Imperium. At least for the next decade or two.
He was a bit of a rarity in these parts, in more ways than one. The most obvious was that he was a Rakata. Inside the Imperium, Rakata made up nearly a sixth of the citizens. In the wider galaxy, he doubted there was another in this entire sector. The second major feature was the fact he was a Mandalorian. True, they were far more common than his genetic race, but on the far side of the galaxy from both Mandalore herself & the Imperium heartlands of Lehon, they weren't a very common sight in these parts. He had always favored the lighter exosuit design used in the Imperium. Functionally, it wasn't much more than a few plates grafted onto a cheaper side cargo loading suit. The suit was technically a pleasant pink color with the purple trihelix medical symbol embossed on it in various places. In truth though more than a third of it was back to bare metal & nearly half the systems weren't working properly. For the moment he was making enough to feed himself & put away a little extra. But he was no mechanic & the cost to take his armor to someone that might be skilled enough to fix it was well outside his range. What he needed was an extra pair of hands. Luckily, there was a droid merchant nearby that might be able to hook him up with something. As Curjas stepped into the droid vendor's stall, he hoped he would find something worth while.
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2017 13:20:26 GMT -8
STUD was standing in the middle of a row of droids waiting, as Nom approached the strange armored person that had entered his shop. He had never quite seen anyone like the man, or what he assumed was a man. Under that armor, the person could very well be a woman. STUD meanwhile was taking scans of the new customer, building a profile of the armory he wore and the person wearing it. Curiously, his system noted that the man was a Rakata. A species believed to have been long extinct many thousands of years ago. Nom stood in front of his new customer, having to look slightly up at the man "Hi mon, welcome to Nom Reynolds Droid Emporium. What can I do for ya today?"
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Post by House of D'Ordinii on May 29, 2017 17:14:28 GMT -8
==Doc Chop SL==
<<106 PP; S18 Sector, Skip One>>
Curjas didn't really like dealing with outsiders. He never could stop himself of thinking of them all as slaves. Twenty five thousand years of life, admittedly pretty much all of it spend in the artificial habitat of the mind vault, wasn't something that couldn't be simply ignored because the Infinite Empire had changed over the long eons.
-Curjas
You will provide me with a mechanical assistance droid. It will be of good quality & for a reasonable price.
He thought about adding a reassurance that he wouldn't harvest the man's organs for credits, but that didn't seem to reassure most of the slaves. Er, people. Casting a look over the various droids on display, most of them looked extremely poor. There were a few exceptions, such as the droid that looked like someone tried to build a walking tank out of a pile of R2 units.
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2017 13:31:09 GMT -8
Nom smiled crookedly up at the man. So the stranger was indeed a customer "You've come to da right place mon. Nom Raynolds has droids for everyone... and always at reasonable prices..." Nom then guided the mans attention towards the line of droids that STUD was amongst. Some were protocol droids, some with astromech she, and in between them was positioned STUD. The droid was extremely hard to place amongst his collection, for STUD was not strictly an astromech in the regular sense, nor was he a protocol droid "Dis one here might be what ya looking for mon. He's unlike anyting ya seen before. All for da great price of nine thousand credits. He can hack some of da most heavily encrypted droids and repair anyting..." Nom had put STUD through all the paces he could. He'd even seen the droid repairing other droids. He had also leased STUD out to his fellow shop owners to repair their vessels and vehicles. It all added value to the droids worth. STUD was more than happy to oblige, if only because the more he was worth, the more likely he was to be taken closer to his eventual target
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Post by House of D'Ordinii on May 30, 2017 21:25:28 GMT -8
==Doc Chop SL==
<<106 PP; S18 Sector, Skip One>>
It took a moment to mentally convert the local credits to the Mandalorian ones. That actually was a pretty good price for a droid as the local sector's credit was much weaker than the Mandalorian Credit. On the other hand, that was most of what he had tucked away. There were always ways to quickly boost that figure, but he could only do it a few times in any given area before he started drawing too much attention & had to relocate again. On the other hand, if he didn't get something working on his armor soon, he would be walking around naked.
-Curjas
You have very nice hands, quite attractive. You will be happy to get seven & half thousand.
With the inflection on the first common, a listener may notice that the faded pink of the armor had the occasional spots that on a closer look didn't quite match. A somewhat darker shade, that had dried into what was nearly a brown. With that discovering, the onlooker's eye would be quickly drawn back to the large collection of medical equipment & packs (along with a wide array of other sharp objects) ringing the man's waist & attached to various hard points on his limbs & torso.
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2017 12:58:57 GMT -8
It was becoming ever more apparent that this man clad in power armour was not someone to trifle with. Nor did he appear to have any sense of humour or wish to bargain. And while Nom would have preferred to haggle some more, getting seven and a half thousand credits was a good deal "Me hands can be replaced mon. Me always liked da idea of some robo 'ands... But ye sure Nom Reynolds can't convince ya to go to eight and a half? no? Seven and a half t'ousand credits it is!" Nom produced a remote control then that operated STUDs restraining bolt, and held it out, whilst offering forth his other hand to accept the payment. STUD meanwhile could do nothing but stand by and watch as he was sold to the stranger clad in power armour
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Post by House of D'Ordinii on May 31, 2017 18:16:50 GMT -8
==Doc Chop SL==
<<106 PP; S18 Sector, Skip One>>
Curjas quickly counted out the credits. The original asking price had nearly been enough to by a small courier ship. Even at the lower rate he still knew he was getting ripped off. But he needed the droid. He would even be nice & let the vendor stick around. Gathering the device & the droid, he made his way back to the hole in the wall he was staying. It wasn't were he made his money, but it was a good enough spot to sleep or lay low. Sitting down on the bed that filled half of the space, Curjas looked the droid over.
-Curjas
What languages do you speak, droid?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2017 8:35:34 GMT -8
STUD started calculating his odds of still achieving his mission as the credits and remote control were exchanged. He would need to first figure out some more about his new owner, before being able to calculate his next move. As the Rakata left the shop, STUD felt the restraining bolt permit him to move freely. So without any question, he followed after his new owner, the metallic clunk of his footsteps against the ground producing a steady rhythm. His sensors were meanwhile busy soaking in all the data they could collect, building a map of the area and figuring out where exactly it was they were. He also noted their destination, since he would need to know where to come back to. STUD stood in the other half of the room, as Curjas laid down on the bed and examined him.
In response to the question, STUD responded with a series of bassy binary tones, conveying to the Rakata that he spoke only binary, but could understand over a thousand different languages. STUD then waited to see whether or not his new owner would be able to understand him in return. Binary was not a language that organics tended to understand. But there were many that STUD knew and had heard of from the past that could understand the droid language
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Post by House of D'Ordinii on Jun 3, 2017 17:40:48 GMT -8
==Doc Chop SL==
<<106 PP; S18 Sector, Skip One>>
Curjas did not understand binary. It had been enough trouble learning the new language of the Empire, sorry, Imperium. He did not even make an attempt at learning the slave languages. Fortunately, the translation systems in his armor were still mostly working. It took a moment to bring up the right subsystem, but it then showed a full translation, having run the entire chunk from the suit's sensor logs through the program. It also automatically switched his speakers from broadcasting basic to binary.
-Curjas (in binary)
<Great, a squawk box. Once you fix up my armor we will have to see about fixing that. Now, I bought you as a mechanic. You will perform a diagnostic of my armor. Before doing anything else, you will provide me an itemized list of the damage with the time & parts required to repair each.>
Any attempt to sync with the suit's system would fail. Not only was the operating system coded in a form that was completely foreign to the standardized coding of the galaxy at large, it was also extremely heavily encrypted on top of that. Not even the hardware would allow access, as the design was a crystal matrix that had far more in common with a holocron than a computer core. The final wall to access was the fact the device was literally wired directly into the Rakata's brain. A purely mechanical scan of the armor would show that it was in extremely bad shape. The power assist system was leaking power in a number of spots. Several joints were damaged & close to failing. Half a dozen systems, looking like everything from weapons to long range comms, were damaged. Several of the storage hardcases were jammed shut from dents. Beyond the failed or failing systems, the armor itself was barely holding together. A huge number of dents & cracks permeated the armor.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2017 17:12:39 GMT -8
STUD gave an aggressive bassy hoot when Curjas made mention of apparently fixing his ability to only speak binary. The idea of someone changing his programming other than his true master, was the ultimate violation. Not that it would be possible anyway, especially for some like Curjas. Much like the Rakata's own armour systems, STUD was protected by a number of his own hardware and software protections and fail safes. When Curjas was finished giving his orders, STUD replied with an affirmative squeak. Whilst a more direct link to the armour systems would have allowed him to better perform the work, and in fact redirect power systems around, that was apparently not going to be an option. Even if STUD was able to, it was better to keep such an ability to himself anyway. So he did as he was asked, and scanned the power armour. Or more correctly, the scraps that were left of a power armour suit.
With his scans and assessments done, he performed a quick calculation of the required parts and repair time. Deciding that his new owner wouldn't be able to replace everything with new parts, he came up with a plan to only replace the most essential parts that could not be easily repaired with the tools STUD had built in. When that was done, he proceeded with his report. The dents and cracks could all be fairly easily repaired for the most part, with only a small amount of replacement metal required to replace the more heavily damaged panels. The systems required some rewiring, but could manage without replacement as long as the correct repairs were enacted by STUD. Some repairs would require system access, if Curjas wanted to avoid buying expensive replacement parts. Though, even that would require some system access to install and calibrate them
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Post by House of D'Ordinii on Jun 5, 2017 16:22:27 GMT -8
==Doc Chop SL==
<<106 PP; S18 Sector, Skip One>>
Reviewing the list provided by the droid, Curjas counted out some more of his limited supply of money & passed it over to the droid.
-Curjas (in Binary)
<This should cover the scrap for the plate repairs & wiring components. Will you be able to acquire them on your own or will you need a minder?>
The parts that would require system access would have to wait until he could get access to an Imperium tech supplier. He wasn't versed in technology, but he knew that the Imperium went to great lengths to make sure that it was completely impossible to interface Imperium tech with standard galactic tech. Forget machine language, it didn't even share the same coding root. On top of that, the equipment had built in systems & coding that would purposefully burn out both pieces should you even attempt to integrate them. It had been one of the standard demonstrations given during orientation. The sight of the drone's power coil cooking off & vaporizing a good three meter crater out of the sand in the pit wasn't something that was easy to forget. The power coil in his own suit had hundreds of times the energy of the small drone.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2017 11:23:08 GMT -8
STUD took the credits in his hand, before depositing them into one of the small storage spaces located on his chest. He gave a responding series of tones indicating that he would be more than fine by himself. Without waiting any longer, STUD took his leave of the den. Rather unimpressed with his new owner. It was a common thing among organic beings, he found. They asked for one thing, but really wanted something entirely different. STUD was almost insulted that he was being relegated to the duties of a common blacksmithing droid. Such repairs would allow access to some of the storage containers and keep the armour together for a time, but they would do little to fix any of the major issues the suit was experiencing.
Turning his domed head slightly to simulate an organic shaking its head, STUD went about the task he had been assigned. Whilst many of the vendors remembered him and were willing to haggle their prices, STUD only put up a mediocre attempt to bring the prices down a little. By the time he was done, there was still a small amount of credits left over. The wiring components he carried in a small compartment, whilst the metal he slung over his back in a bag. His servomotors compensating for the additional weight he was carrying.
STUD set the bag of parts down when he arrived back to Curjas' hole in the wall. As he removed the wires from their storage spot, he also returned the remaining credits. He emptied the metal plates in the bag onto the ground then, sorting everything into piles in preparation of doing the work he would need to do. When that was done, he looked at Curjas, and asked if he was ready. If STUD was honest, he wasn't entirely sure how this would work, since some of the work would require the removal of the suit, something he was unsure if it would be possible, considering the rather extremely gratuitous lengths its makers had gone to. If it wasn't possible, than there would be an issue with the repairs, since organics had quite the aversion to the heats required to repair and reshape metal
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Post by House of D'Ordinii on Jun 6, 2017 17:56:49 GMT -8
==Doc Chop SL==
<<106 PP; S18 Sector, Skip One>>
Fortunately for Curjas, it was extremely easy to disconnect plates without removing the entire suit. Unfortunately, this required actual functional wiring in the suit to disengage the plate locks. Pinning the bed flat up against the wall to clear some extra space, Curjas began the dismount procedure. After a few false starts, the back of the armor clam-shelled open, allowing him to step backward out of the suit. Standing around in just his body glove, he felt horribly exposed. It seems he had adapted well to the armor at least. Moving quickly, he began to detach the plates in need of repairs & stack them up for the droid. The wiring faults were also exposed, regardless of if the plate in question needed fixing. The nice thing though was that with most of the coding & such located in his datacron, once the wiring was fixed, most of the suit's functions would return. Only a few specialty pieces of equipment would actually need to be replaced.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2017 13:55:57 GMT -8
As the damage plates were stacked up, STUD got to on the plate repairs. For those that were merely dented, he heated the metal and pressed them back into shape. For those beyond repair, he used a 3D model of the suit he had built to extrapolate the shape they should be in. In total, the process took several hours to complete, during which Curjas would have been able to take a nap. Once the plates were repaired, STUD moved onto the process of replacing as much of the damaged wiring as he could which involved merely cutting around any damaged portions and placing the new piece in. There was unfortunately a number of wires he didn't replace, as the damage was such that to replace them would require a more intimate knowledge of the armours working. Once his work was done, he gave a thumbs up and bassy whistle to the Rakatan. At the very least, the suit would move a little smoother and would stay together till more extensive repairs could be made
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Post by House of D'Ordinii on Jun 9, 2017 20:07:06 GMT -8
==Doc Chop SL==
<<106 PP; S18 Sector, Skip One>>
It didn't take long to replace all the plates into the frame. Once Curjas stepped back into the armor, it closed around him with a comforting hiss. As the datacron linked back up with his suit, it preformed the usual diagnostics. Before damaged to the suit had disrupted most of the system. Now with the replaced wiring, nearly all of the systems came back online with the fresh flow of power & instructions from the crystal computer. Just for his own personal joy, he ran a full system cycle. From his head to his foot, every plate, hatch & bit of equipment cycled through the full range of their settings. A few of the systems that had been directly damaged were still offline, but the rest rippled smoothly as oil. With the direct neural link to the datacron, & from there to the suit, it was like stretching after far too long in cramped quarters.
-Curjas (in Binary)
<Right, let's go make some money.>
Leading the droid out into the general byways of the asteroid, Curjas kept a keen eye out for a suitable mark. After a while he located a spacer that looked suitably down on his luck, but still relatively healthy. After offering a sum of money for one of the spacer's redundant organs, the two haggled on a price for a while. Once a price was settled, Curjas handed over the credits & led the man to his work area. This was both larger & cleaner than the hole he slept in. With in a few minutes, the spacer was safely sedated on the operating table. With a quick, clean motion Curjas slit his throat. a moment later & a pump system was clamped over the wound. Some of the sedative used would be lost, but the majority would be able to be filtered out of the harvested blood. While the vacuum & filter machine was hard at work, Curjas began the harvesting. He would start with the organs & work his way to muscles, bone marrow, skin, & even nerve tissue. By the time Curjas was finished, very little of the body would be left on the table. The hollowed out bones, fat tissue, & brain matter would make up the majority of the remaining weight. The little that was left would be dumped into a spot infested with gizka, as the ravenous creatures would quickly obliterate all traces. The harvested parts were separated out into a number of containers. The muscles, ligaments & skin would go quickly as there was always a high demand for it. In fact, the majority of the muscle would go to a certain restaurant, after a few intermediaries, that discretely served special tastes. The organs would take longer to move as demand fluctuated wildly. However, all in all, the body was worth a fair sum of credits, even after paying off few intermediaries. Of course, when it was time to move on, those intermediaries would also mysteriously end up vanishing. But that wouldn't be for a while yet. Until then he was thinking about using the droid for a few of the deals & to help lower his costs.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2017 8:45:53 GMT -8
When Curjas mentioned making money, STUD had not been quite certain what that would entail. But of all the possibilities, organ harvesting had not exactly been high on that list. Many organics found it a distasteful affair, with many systems having very stringent laws against it. But out here, there were no laws. Plus, some species had evolved to feast upon the flesh of other organics. It was all just a way of life for some. So STUD made no judgement as he went about helping Curjas at work. Keeping out of the way as much as possible, since this was not his area of expertise. Not that he did not take copious recordings and notes upon the matter. Knowing such techniques might one day become useful. Once it was all over, STUD looked at Curjas, half expecting some new orders to be given to him
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Post by House of D'Ordinii on Jun 12, 2017 16:38:10 GMT -8
==Doc Chop SL==
<<106 PP; S18 Sector, Skip One>>
Sitting down on the operating table, a large collection of medical crates off to one side filled with the freshly harvested parts, Curjas pondered his new droid.
-Curjas
Ok then, how good are you at dealing with others?
Truthfully, he didn't need the droid much. Hopefully, he could avoid another of the situations that had led to the previous state of his armor. It might be a good idea to keep the droid around. At least for a while. On the other hand, he might get better results if he gave it some motivation. He knew that always worked with the droid he grew up with.
-Curjas
I have a list of customers that need to be provided with various things from that pile. The better the prices you get me, I'll start counting toward your purchase price. Pay for yourself & you walk free. Sound good?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2017 10:29:53 GMT -8
STUD had yet to find any real reason to much like Curjas. Much of that was the fact that their history together so far had been quite short. Especially put into the perspective of his life with his one true Master. But when the Rakata spoke of STUD being able to buy his own freedom, he perked up. Whilst the restraining bolt forced him to obey the commands of Curjas, it made no affect on the attitude that he went about such work with. But the possibility of being free based on the profit he made his owner certainly did. Where before he had considered his servitude to his owner being very bleak. That had changed a great deal. With something to work with and for, STUD had a new purpose.
Being free would allow him to move towards his ultimate goal a lot easier. He gave a thumbs up then. Seeming to have come alive at long last. Before giving a binary response that it was a deal and that he could deal with people just fine. His saw tool extending and giving off a menacing spin. With the show done, he retracted it and asked for a copy of the list. All he had to do, was make a profit of seven and a half thousand credits and he would be free. A small counter was started deep in his memory banks, along side a sheet to keep track of his progress
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Post by House of D'Ordinii on Jun 14, 2017 16:43:20 GMT -8
==Doc Chop SL==
<<106 PP; S18 Sector, Skip One>>
Curjas smiled, though it wasn't visible from within his helmet.
-Curjas (in Binary)
<Right, we will be cutting out some middlemen, so we might have to deal with them at some point. They tried to keep the end sales a secret, but I've been doing this longer than they have.>
Curjas patted the table softly when he talked about dealing with the middlemen, giving an indication of how he thought that would go.
-Curjas (in Binary)
<Ok, first up is Brissc Rez. It runs a little meat shop a few decks down & on the other side of the rock. The usual price after the runner's cut is about ten credits a pound. I managed to get about hundred-fifty pounds off this one. Don't hand over the goods until you have the credits safely tucked away & make sure to bring the cart back.>
Curjas loaded the meat onto a small repulsorcart while he talked. Finally he handed the droid a smaller box with a palm sized sample cut of the meat.
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