morally_cryptic | for soresumaster

Some of the pieces that it's connected to shift along with it, just as smoothly.

"So far so good," Obi-Wan says, taking a half-step to the side to look at it from a different angle.

He nods and keeps picking and choosing pieces to move and manipulate, relying as much on the Force as regular old human inspiration.

Eventually he'll figure the exterior is open enough to try doing the same to the inner shell.

Unfortunately, the inner shell is far more stubborn; it wiggles, and creaks, and refuses to move. Obi-Wan reaches out cautiously with the Force, and prods it gently.

"Damn."

Anakin sighs and leans back. "Well, it was worth a shot. Could always go back to the lightsaber idea."

He's not entirely serious.

"Why don't we step back, and see if we can get any scans now? We have both of the shells cracked, we ought to be able to get something."

"Good point. Artoo?"

The little droid is all too obliging to start re-scanning though Anakin's fairly certain some of those beeps and whistles were him chastising him for not thinking of Artoo before the lightsaber.

A little smile plays about Obi-Wan's face for a moment; he may not understand Anakin's affection for the droid, but their interactions never fail to entertain.

The droid was practically a wedding gift, Obi-Wan. Even if Anakin hadn't poured quite a large measure of himself into upgrades and tweaks, he'd still treat Artoo like a family member. ~~Not that Obi-Wan has any reason to know that though sometimes this writer wonders why Obi-Wan never wondered why specifically a droid belonging to the former queen of Naboo ended up in Anakin's hands.~~

For his part, Anakin pays fairly close attention to Artoo as he re-scans the probe and tries to keep up with his various beeps and chirps as he goes through the chore. "Well it sounds like he good news is he's getting a lot more information this time."

So far as Obi-Wan is concerned, Anakin has always had a slightly peculiar interest in, and attachment to, all things mechanical. Since he's hardly the first, or only Jedi to have that sort of talent, it's just one more of Anakin's little quirks. ~~And lbr he loves Anakin and his little quirks.~~

"That's excellent news!"

"Not so good news is that he's not sounding real chipper about it."

And Artoo didn't tend toward pessimism.

On that note, the droid finishes his scan and spins around to project the new information before the two Jedi.

It takes a couple of minutes to take it all in, but Obi-Wan's eyes widen a little as he does.

"Oh, that is not good," he says. He continues, raising his voice for the techs to hear him: "Put the hangar on lockdown. Full quarantine."

"Great," Anakin groans, putting a hand over his eyes. "Whose bright idea was this again?"

Though he has absolutely no moral high ground here. If he'd been the one to find the probe he still would've tried opening it whether Obi-Wan was there to suggest it or not.

"The Council's, as it happens," Obi-Wan says with deceptive mildness, as people rush to evacuate the hangar and enact the quarantine procedure.

"You're on the Council, Obi-Wan, that doesn't actually shift the blame very far."

Which is more diplomatic maybe than making any of the unfortunate remarks regarding the Council's collective wisdom that sprang immediately to mind.

"No," he agrees. "It doesn't."

Fine, Obi-Wan, take all the wind out of his sails by agreeing.

Anakin just huffs and faces the probe again. "So what do we do with it?" He's not convinced that trying to close it back up again will actually solve the problem. He's not even convinced it will close back up again at this point.

He lives for your juvenile pouting, truly.

"Perhaps we can disassemble the entire thing a piece at a time, disabling them as we go? If we used magnetic shields we could contain the probe in a vacuum, and then use remote tools and the Force to take it apart..."

Anakin wrinkles his nose. He'd prefer to have his hands on a device he's working on even if he can see how that'd be problematic in this case.

"Shields are a good start. Still wish we knew were it came from..." not that knowing would change what they had to do but it might help them in neutralizing the probe's contents.

Then, "Artoo, connect in to the Temple's records and see if you can find anything similar."

"Good idea. I'll update the Council, Anakin, you get the shields up," Obi-Wan says. "Ah, and, Artoo? Start with the oldest records you can access; this thing is very old."

Artoo gives an affirmative beep as the droid rolls away to find a dataport to jack into and Anakin just throws Obi-Wan a salute as he moves to deal with the shielding. "Maybe Master Yoda will have some ideas."

Since he's quite old himself.

"I'll send him a personal message as well as the rest of the Council," he says. Good thinking he doesn't say, but it's entirely possible that the Force might carry the sentiment to Anakin anyway.

[ooc: it's gonna come back to bite you]

Anakin nods distractedly as he continues setting up their equipment, keeping one mental 'eye' on the probe in case anything there changes before they're ready.

[ooc: no. it's not. it's not enough. (.-.) ]

Obi-Wan sends an update, and everything they have so far learned to the Council, marked as urgent. Though of course, hopefully, the full quarantine of the hangar would have already clued them in that something is wrong.

Hopefully.

"Okay," Anakin glances back over at Artoo but the droid is still apparently in discussions with the Archives or whatever it is droids do when it comes to this kind of research, "guess we should go ahead and get started."

They can always change tacks if Artoo or the Council suddenly show up to give advice, right?

Right.

In the meantime, in cases like this 'tis better to beg forgiveness than to wait on permission.

The low tone indicating establishment of vacuum and low temperature sounds, and the probe hangs in the magnetic shields holding it away from everything else - and hopefully keeping its contents from activating.

"So." Obi-Wan frowns at it, and starts to slowly pace around. "You're more the expert than I in these matters; where should we start?" Not that he's bad at machines, but as he has often observed, Anakin has a gift.

for soresumaster

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

So, this is Anakin and Obi-Wan. How disastrous should we make this?

coinflip says a lot disastrous

Excellent. How about a biological von Neumann probe?

all i know about them i just learned in five minutes on google but okay!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

WOULDN'T change. oops

no worries

obi-wan you really have to quit with that habit of not saying praise when you mean it

he already complimented Anakin once today isn't that enough??????

/facepalm

he is Obi-Wan's Most Important Person but does he ever say so? No.