post_apocalypse_story/ra (first time Emily witnesses contact with Earth).md

Outline:

• Emily walks to the main control center
  • it has also been used as a general hang-out spot bc it has a rather nice view of the biotope and the sky
• Emily and Lena sit down at a desk with a view of the biotope and have a meal
  • the meal gets interrupted by the equipment in the control center coming to life (fans coming on, some control panels lighting up, boot-up/status/ready beeps)
    • a status light on the wall, that Emily had never seen on, lights up (could be something like "LINK")
    • short dialog, could be something like this: "That’s them." "Earth people?" Lena nods and gets up.
• Lena tells Emily to follow
  • They walk over to a control panel with an embedded terminal
  • Communication with Earth ensues
    • bittersweet dialog
      • Emily is conscious again
      • Lena is going to die
      • They talk about what will become of Emily
        • Emily doesn’t (yet) want to leave the moon - she’s afraid of leaving her entire world behind
        • The decision is made that whatever preparations can be done, should be done, just in case

note: need to check mice eating behavior when fed, might want to add a section where she actually handles and feeds them Emily closes the cage and put the whatever they feed the mice back into the cupboard. She does something related to taking care of the mice, steps out into the hallway, and starts walking. The entire habitat is eerily quiet. Apart from her steps, just the hum of the electrical systems and the quiet whirr of the air circulation are audible.

3 - 5 - 2 - 1 - Enter. The keypad beeps with every button press. A computer voice announces "Access authorized". The door to the main control center module slides up and she steps through. The module contains one large room with rows of integrated computer equipment desks arranged need a fitting description of what a mission control rom looks like. The wall to the left that most of the seats are facing is completely taken up by a panorama window into the biosphere, an even larger module with a ceiling of glass and support beams completely taken up by plant life, trees, small animals, and a big pond. The wall to the right holds a large status panel with some seven-segment displays for information and lots of big status indicator symbols.

Emily walks down the shallow stairs towards the panorama window. In front of the window are tables and chairs that were moved there recently as the room had become more of a general hangout spot for the remaining people when they were still around. Lena sits at one of them, preparing something while waiting for her.

missing dialog about food and starting to eat

They get interrupted by all of the equipment in the room suddenly coming alive. All of the computer desks that weren’t perviously active turn on. Some of the status indicators on the back wall start blinking. A large, green triangle with the letters LINK next to it flickers and then lights up. Emily looks at it in confusion. "What does that light mean?" She gestures towards it. "That’s them." "Earth people?" "Yes", Lena replies while quickly finishing her meal, "they said they’d try to get a phone connection going." As if on cue, the phone on the large center console begins to ring. Lena gets up and walks over, Emily follows her. note: might need to imply that Lena is very sick Lena sits down in front of it, picks up the receiver, and presses a few buttons. The speaker on the console starts crackling and hissing. Through the noise, they hear a faint voice. Lena leans over to a microphone and talks into it: "We can’t hear you, one moment." She flips some switches on the console. The speaker cracles some more, then a loud pop, then silence. The smell of magic smoke is in the air.

Lena turns to a terminal and starts typing. note to self: missing establishing connection note to self: add some data corruption

MOON-01 > This hasn’t been maintained in forever. I think the phone just went.
EARTH-53> You may wanna check the modules under P2 for burnt components.
MOON-01 > I know.
MOON-01 > We have another problem somewhere along the line. There’s apparently more noise than signal.

Lena opens a cover with a small label "P2" and pulls two cards out of their sockets and inspects them. One has a big black burn mark right in the center. "Emily, can you fetch me this module from another phone?"

"And?" Michelle asks Jack as he looks up from the terminal. "Weak signal - and they need to fix their phone." James asks "What about that plan B of increasing the transmit power?" "Meh." Jack doesn’t seem too enthusiastic about it. TODO: Dialog. They decide not to increase the power before double-checking that everything is aligned properly. Sure enough, they’re off by a bit. Request for comment: Does this make the story more interesting or is it confusing? I originally didn’t want to do perspective changes within chapters, and I still might not, but this was too good of an idea not to write it down.

note to self: After fixing the alignment, pick up on the moon and continue.