DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Fun & Games ETD: Escape the Dream Episode II: Last Stand of the USS Rubicon

The last thing you remember is the violent shudder of the Kepler breaking apart, the transporter beam's golden light, and Commander Vance's voice cutting into static.

You don't wake so much as you reassemble. Your atoms scream in protest. You are on the transporter pad of the U.S.S. Rubicon, but the world is silent and dark.

The great warp core hum is gone. In its place is a deep, bone-aching quiet, broken only by the frantic sputter of the transporter console behind you and the dim, rhythmic pulse of red emergency strips along the corridor ceiling. The air is freezing and smells of ozone, scorched metal, and the sickly-sweet tang of a coolant leak.

A calm, synthetic voice echoes from the walls, the ceiling, everywhere at once: "Core Breach Protocol initiated. Containment failure in T-Minus 59 minutes, 30 seconds. All personnel: evacuate immediately."

The console screen tells the story in cold, green text. A system log shows the evacuation order, a massive power surge, and the final line: TRANSPORTER BUFFER FUSION. MATTER REASSEMBLY COMPLETE. You were in the buffer. You were put back together after the ship was abandoned.

A wall-mounted schematic flickers. Most of it is grey and dead. One icon pulses with a stubborn, green hope: an escape pod, in Primary Docking Bay 3. A route is highlighted.

You rush into the corridor. The instant the last of you crosses the threshold, a deafening hydraulic SHUNK roars behind you. You spin. The massive emergency blast doors to the transporter room have slammed shut, their red "SEALED" lights glowing like malevolent eyes. Simultaneously, every red emergency light along your highlighted path ahead winks out, plunging the way forward into an absolute, suffocating black.

The ship's AI, VIKTOR (Virtual Intelligence Kernel for Tactical Operations and Reasoning), politely informs you: "Emergency lock-down engaged. Primary power to Deck 4 terminated. Manual reactivation required. Please proceed to the Engineering Auxiliary Control room. Core Breach in T-Minus 58 minutes, 15 seconds."

The countdown begins.

It is pitch black.

Like the click!

I feel on my person for anything I might have, PADD, phaser, lowlight goggles, torch.

In the dry run, Miales asked something similar:

My reply was:

You pat yourselves down instinctively. Your uniforms are intact. Rank pips. Comm badges, though when you tap them, they chirp once and return nothing but dead air. No ship, no frequency, no one listening.

Beyond that: nothing.

No phasers. No tricorders. No medkits. No palm beacons. Nothing on your belts, nothing in your hands, nothing in your pockets.

And now, standing here in the dark, a detail from that transporter console nags at the back of your mind, lines of green text you maybe didn't fully process in the rush to move:

TRIAGE PROTOCOL: BIOSIGN PRIORITY ONLY
INORGANIC PATTERNS: PURGED TO PREVENT CORRUPTION
EQUIPMENT RECONSTITUTED: NONE

The transporter had just enough power to put you and your standard uniform back together. Your gear didn't make the cut.

You are alive, clothed, and empty-handed on a dying ship in the dark.

VIKTOR's voice echoes from somewhere ahead: "Core breach in T-minus 57 minutes, 40 seconds."

Recall as much of the ship's layout as I can, including Jeffries tubes as conduits beween decks. Recall that marked route to Primary Docking Bay 3. Make a quick plan. Firstly do I need to to restore power to deck 4?

You recall that there are indeed conduits, but the route wasn't really "to scale" and you didn't study it enough before moving into the suddenly-dark corridor.

It seems there's only one direction to go from here, though, and restoring power seems like a good thing to do whenever you find a place to do it.

So the initial plan is to move as quickly as I can to the Engineering Auxiliary Control room. Taking small steps to my left until mu hand reaches a wall, I feel my way along the dark corridor trying to remember the way. Just to lighten the atmosphere, I whistle a little tune.

You take slow, careful steps, one hand sliding along the cold bulkhead, boots scuffing softly against the deck plating as you move through the absolute dark.

The ship is silent in a way that feels wrong. Not peaceful. Not empty. Just, simply absent.

You whistle.

The tune sounds small in the corridor, thin at first, then strangely clear. With no ambient hum of warp systems, no life support drones, no crew chatter, the sound carries farther than it should. It echoes down the passage and comes back a fraction of a second later, distorted by distance and odd acoustics.

Two steps later, your shin collides with something low and solid.

The impact sends a metallic rattle skittering across the deck in several directions, tools sliding, rolling, and clinking into the darkness.

Feeling downward, your hands find the edge of a fallen maintenance tool cart, tipped on its side across the corridor as if abandoned mid-task during the evacuation. Its surface is cold and lightly dusted with something fibrous. Insulation, maybe, or debris shaken loose during the power surge.

Scattered across the floor around it, your fingers brush over loose equipment:
a heavy wrench,
a compact driver,
a smooth plastic cylinder that feels cracked along one side,
and a slim, pen-shaped object with a ribbed grip.

Somewhere further down the corridor, faint and intermittent, you hear the distant fizz-pop of sparking circuitry.

Take all the equipment, who knows when I might need it. Much as possible try to keep my hands free, so will tuck what I can into uniform/belt. Feel around the pen just in case it is a torch. Then proceed in similar fashion.

You feel around the pen-shaped object and find a button on its base.

As you press the button, the other end of the object emits a purplish light, although the light barely reflects on the nearby walls. However, as you sweep it across the walls, you see bioluminescent arrow shapes, pointing down the corridor to the right. In between a pair of arrows you can see a shattered wall panel, with wires inside it emitting small blue sparks, but the arrows point past it.

Let there be faint light! Good enough.

Wondering how that panel might have shattered...

If it is made of glass or similar, carefully ease out a shard as I may want to cut something later. Taking care not to get close to wires that might be live. Hmm thought the power was off.

Head in direction of hopefully helpful arrows.

You move past the sparking panel, collecting a shard of glass in case you need it later. Seems maybe there was supposed to be battery-powered lighting as a backup for the power mains.

You keep following the arrows until you reach a sealed doorway, labeled in raised letters that glow in the UV light: Engineering Auxiliary Control.

Next to the door is a numeric keypad.

On the opposite side of the door, on the side wall, is a bulletin board. It includes a crew birthday roster (and you can dimly see that VIKTOR's March 1 birthday is circled), and a flyer for the Golden Ratio Nightclub - Where the Sequence is Always Hot! The flyer's background shows a spiral galaxy, the white dots glowing eerily with your UV light.

Peer closely at the keypad. Does it look as if it has or needs power? May have to rewire that broken panel maybe? Is there any indication which keys might have been pressed previously.

Thinking that Victor's birthday and the flyer could be a memory hint, so maybe 31 or 301 initially and maybe 11618 at the end. Hmmm...

The keypad does look like it's got an independent battery power source for the door, and unlike the panel earlier in the hallway, appears fully functional.

There's no obvious way to tell in the dim light which numbers were pressed more often.

You attempt 3-1, and 3-0-1, with no success, just a simple ACCESS DENIED message in red.

1-1-6-1-8 results in the same message, but also an audible harsh tone and additional text Entries paused for 5 seconds.

You remember the golden ratio is irrational and wonder if typing 16180339887... would at some point unlock the door, but think better of that idea.

Look at the stars. Does the shape they make suggest a number? if not try 3111618 & 30111618 one the seconds pass.

The two attempts both fail, with the delay increasing, first to 10 seconds, and then to 15 seconds.

You study the stars again, looking for a shape.... which is essentially just a spiral. But your eyes also detect other shapes. Squares in a particular pattern lining up with the spiral shape!

And interestingly, the ratio of the size of each next square with the prior one is really close to that 1:1.618 value...




There appear to be two versions of this pattern, starting in the center of the spiral galaxy and spiraling outward away from each other. Could the "Sequence is always Hot!" line be some sort of dance move stepping in those squares on the dance floor?

Is the number pad in this format?

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

The numbers are arranged It doesn't look like there's any way to reproduce that pattern of squares on the keyboard.

But something about that spiral galaxy shape and the ratio of square sizes seems very important.

You focus again on the squares overlaid on the galaxy, envisioning yourself dancing from square to square... each one 1.6-ish times bigger than the last...

Was hoping someone else might chip in an idea

Weez? Miales?

Definitely need some help here. Escape rooms are for teams!

There is a big hint in in the Acro results thread

At the moment still inundated with visitore. One lot left yesterday, niece arriving any minute.

Really, I've been trying to come up with something. Brain cells are in the dark, like the ship. Might be some small blue sparks flashing there too.

Try dancing on... er poking 1 1 2 3 5 8 to see if your pal Fibonacci can help.

Your mind goes back to primary or secondary school, thinking about when you learned about the golden ratio. While it was used in man-made objects like the Parthenon and Great Pyramid, it appears a lot in nature, like the spiral galaxy on the poster, seeds and petals on sunflowers, branches on trees, leaves on pine cones, pineapples, succulents... You try to remember why, and it boils down to packing efficiency, which relies not only on the layer you're packing on, but the one below it.

You recall playing around with squares and finally it hits you! The Fibonacci Sequence! Starting with 0 and 1 it goes on adding the previous two numbers to get 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, and so on. And indeed, the poster has two corresponding sets of fibonacci squares, assuming starting squares of "0" and "1" adds a 1-length square next to that... and putting a square of length 2 next to those two 1-sided squares.... a square of length 3 next to the 1- and 2-square... a square of length 5 next to the 3- and 2-, and so on. And as the numbers get bigger, the ratio of side lengths get closer to the Golden Ratio!

Sure enough, when you type 1-1-2-3-5-8 onto the keypad, it gives a pleasant sounding chime. You hear the sound of pressure equalizing nearby and the door slides open, revealing a frost-rimmed control room reeking of ozone.

The room is freezing. A terminal displays 'STANDBY'. A large hand-crank is sheathed in ice. On a counter next to the terminal is a data pad.

After recovering from the shock that the sequence actually worked, look closely at the data pad.

There's a message on the data pad:


When you attempt to navigate away from the page to find out more, the pad seems to lock you out.

Look around. Is there anything of interest.. like a manual? Can I recall any reset or work arounds for the Pad?

The room is still somewhat dark, with the dim red glow from the terminal's STANDBY message providing a little more illumination to the naked eye, with your UV flashlight able to look more closely at a few more items in detail when needed.

You do find a charred technical manual next to the terminal, but it's too dark to read very efficiently. As if to remind you of the time pressure, VIKTOR announces fifty-four minutes remaining.

You can see an open panel on the wall with wires within it, but it's too dark to make out their colors. You can make out a little bit of writing on the insulation that look like the greek letters from the datapad, but it's too dim to distinguish a Ω from a Φ.

There's a second terminal in the room that appears operative, a small display terminal mounted in the wall. It alternates between a screen showing "Running Diagnostics" and when complete, an error message: "Plasma Conduit 7B: Overload. Recommend Manual Inspection." Near this display terminal on the same wall is a schematic of the ship, and brief inspection shows a glowing UV-reflective "you are here" dot, and a brief scan of maintenance crawl spaces accessible nearby, including a series of straight lines and right angles at junctions leading to "Coupling 7B" not too far away.

No matter what you try with the data pad, it seems to require an access code to unlock it. You do notice as you hold it in your hand that the battery is warming its back panel case, one of the only warm things in this otherwise frozen room.

Memorise the route to Coupling 7B and head for the entrance to the crawl space.

You squint in the dark and try to trace the lines routing to Coupling 7B. On the map it looks like "Forward, Right, Forward, Left, Forward."

But you can't find any ventilation path here in this room. Perhaps it's through that other closed door.... that doesn't seem to have a way to open it from inside, unless it's that frozen hand crank...

Use the warm pad to try and unstick the hand crank, constantly applying pressure.

Initially, the hand crank doesn't budge, but the warm heat from the data pad softens the frost, and the constant pressure finally breaks it free!

You turn the crank, which appears to close an emergency power circuit somewhere. The terminal beeps and hums to life. Overhead light strips flicker, lighting the room!

But the terminal's not the only thing that got power. That broken panel you saw apparently also got energized, and are creating sparks as the powered wires occasionally come in contact with each other. You can clearly see the wire colors and symbols now: Blue (marked Ω), Yellow (marked Φ), Red (marked ⚡). There are three ports in which to plug the wires, numbered 1, 2, and 3.

Plug the yellow wire into 1. If nothing happens then blue into 2 and red into 3.

You try to plug the yellow wire into port 1.

It doesn't seem to fit, as it's a larger wire than the others.

Maybe you shouldn't trust Ensign Vilks. Or maybe he meant something different.

You wonder if the charred technical manual has any information, and in fact a dog-eared page seems very relevant. It says:

Emergency Power Restoration: Auxiliary Nodes

A diagram shows:
WARNING: Sequence must be Plasma (Ω)
FIRST, then Data (Φ). Ignition (⚡) is
ALWAYS final. Ω -> Φ -> ⚡.

Maybe Ensign Vilks meant yellow into 2 first, then blue into 1 and finally red into 3

Good thought!

You may never know what Ensign Vilks meant, but putting yellow into port 2 first, then following up with blue in port 1, and saving red 3 for last appears to match the technical manual, despite the Ensign's misgivings.

As the red wire clicks home, the sparking stops. A solid, healthy power thrum vibrates the deck.

The door in the room opposite where you entered whirs open.

Lights fully activate outside.

VIKTOR announces: "Partial power restored. Security clearance Level 3 required for Primary Docking Bay. Proceed to Security Office."

Find out where the Security office is. Head there taking all useful items with me.

You ponder the usefulness of the locked-out data pad, deciding it's served its purpose as warmth to thaw the stuck alternate power crank.

You flip through the charred technical manual containing the correct sequence, despite Ensign Vilks' mistaken suggestion, and find a few other useful pages, including a section on the ventilation system that you think may be useful later, given your earlier desire to manually inspect coupling 7B.

Your pen-shaped UV flashlight no longer seems mandatory to carry with full power restored, but you hold onto it just in case. As for the other items from the maintenance cart, you aren't sure whether you'll need a heavy wrench or compact driver, but find enough space on your tool belt to keep them as well. The cracked plastic cylinder appears to be a spent glow-tube, and you decide it is unlikely to ever be useful again.

A map on the wall just outside the door which just opened shows the path to the Security Office. Unfortunately, a collapsed ceiling girder has sealed the main corridor, making it entirely impassable except for perhaps a tribble. The only way forward is a narrow maintenance ventilation shaft, but its intake fan is visibly jammed with shredded insulation and debris. A small control panel with four colored buttons (Red, Green, Blue, Yellow) is set into the wall next to it. A maintenance log on a nearby screen reads: "July 12: Serviced Ventilation System 4C. Standard clearing cycle applied."

Look back at the manual on the ventilation system for anything useful.

You flip through the manual's section on ventilation and see a paragraph labeled "Standard safety/clearing cycle for a jammed fan" which seems relevant.

The instructions below it say to follow the sequence Cool (Blue), Reverse (Red), Go/Power (Green) to avoid electrical damage.

Handwritten in the margin next to that are the notes, "For a persistent jam, kiddo: Green starts the dream, Red's a scream."

Try green, then red.

You press Green, then Red.

The fan grinds horribly for a second, then stops. Nothing else happens. The jam persists.

Press the order from the manual - blue, red, green

You wonder if, perhaps, the handwritten wrong instructions are from Ensign Vilks, and resort to the official instructions.

As you press Blue, the fan whirs gently.

Pressing Red causes it to spin backwards forcefully, ejecting debris.

Pressing Green engages the primary motor, and the fan spins cleanly. The shaft is now clear.

Well done Weez! Teamwork!

Squeeze through the ventilation shaft but only after pressing blue to disengage the fan

You squeeze into the ventilation shaft and move forward until you hit a T where it branches off in two directions.

Go right.

You go right. After a bit more moving forward, you hit another T junction.

Left

You turn left and proceed down the tunnel, eventually arriving at Conduit 7B. It is intact and cold, so perhaps whatever error message appeared is no longer relevant. You see a ventilation panel nearby and exit the crawl space.

You find yourself in an elevator lobby on Deck 4. The elevator door is open, but the car is dark, its control panel dead. Behind a broken wall plate, a nest of four identical black wires hangs exposed. A portable circuit tester lies on the floor. A standard Starship Safety Poster on the wall shows a color-coded diagram:

Deck 5
Relay Configuration: Red (+), Black (-), Yellow (Data), Blue (Ground).

The ports on a nearby circuit card show +, -, D, and G.

Pick up the circuit tester. Use it on the first black wire, hoping to establish if it is negative or positive. If no result, try the next. The plan is to identify - and +, then trial & error the last two.

You realize the circuit tester doesn't display positive or negative. But it does display a color for each of the four wires in order:

As you touch the probe to each wire, the tester beeps and displays a color: Wire A: Red, Wire B: Black, Wire C: Yellow, Wire D: Blue.

Insert A into +, B into -, C into D and D into G. Hopefully the order doesn't matter.

Fortunately, there were no conflicting instructions from Ensign Vilks or any other anonymous crewmember, and the diagram seems conveniently, and simply, accurate.

As you make the final connection, the elevator car lights up with a hum. The panel beeps. Deck 5 - Security Sector is now selectable.

Thanks Weez. Enter and Select Deck 5

You select Deck 5, which brings you to a corridor connected to the Security Office.

The Security Office is in disarray. In the center, a Keycard Fabricator hums, its screen flashing:

AWAITING LEVEL-3 PRODUCTION INPUT.

REQUIREMENTS:
1. BLANK
2. CONDUCTIVE INK
3. ALPHANUMERIC COMMAND CODE

A sealed, armored box labeled 'OFFICIAL INK - DNA KEYED' blinks with a red lock light. A child's crayon drawing of a dog named 'ROVER' is pinned to a board, with a crew ID number (1021) scribbled in the corner. A Security Directive on a monitor states: 'All command codes must incorporate authorized personnel's numeric identifier.' There is a broken bio-scanner on the desk, with its prismatic lens having fallen next to it.

Look around for any blank cards to utilise. Noting the number 1021 as the likely candidate for the numeric component with maybe ROVER as the alpha part. Need to get into the armoured box for the ink. Maybe the bio-scanner contains a DNA record? Have a look at it. Can the lens be fixed?

You search the room. In a drawer marked "Spares" you locate a blank white keycard!

You investigate the official ink box. Unfortunately, it seems to require a biometric scanner, and any authorized individuals who could use it have likely evacuated by this time. You realize you may need some other source for the ink.

The lens doesn't look like it can be fixed, but you do recognize it as having been made from a synthetic crystalline compound that can be ground into a powder.

So if I can utilise the lens, I maybe need sometthing liquid as well as something to grind it with. Look around again.

Your intuition serves you well.

As you clear the clutter near the lens, you discover a heavy steel pestle being used as a paperweight on top of a stack of incident reports. It looks perfect for grinding.

You also noticed a handwritten note taped to the back of the keycard fabricator so it's not visible unless you're behind the desk.

If the DNA-lock triggers again, grind a synthetic lens into the suspension fluid. It creates a high-conductivity slurry. Note: This makeshift ink lacks the biometric signature. It will bypass standard doors (Level 1 & 2), but high-security Level 3 locks will likely reject it without a secondary override.

With this newfound information, you look through drowers and cabinets and find a small, glass dropper bottle labeled Conductive Suspension Fluid.

Use the pestle to grind up a lens. Add the powder to the fluid.

You create the makeshift ink according to the suggestion and add it to the keycard fabricator.

You load the blank keycard.

It blinks, awaiting the alphanumeric command code.

Try Rover 1021

There is no space on the entry pad, but you try Rover10.... and get no further as the machine beeps at you.

Try dog1021

The machine beeps at you again.

You think back to your original guess, Rover1021. People always use their pets' names in passwords.

Try 1021Rover though maybe this isn't the spot for Rover to go.

The beeps always seem to occur after the 7th character. It seems exactly 7 letters (or numbers) are needed.

You keep thinking your original guess was really really close....

Rov1021.. Rover21.. Rover10

You keep at it. R0v3r... woof... anything you can think of.

Fortunately, unlike the door lock, there's no increasing time delay and after a dozen or so tries, you find out that "Rvr1021" is the magic combination. You were sooooo close with your original guess. You kick yourself for taking so long.

But you've succeeded!

The fabricator whirrs and dispenses a glowing hexagonal Level-3 Keycard. VIKTOR announces: Keycard authenticated. Proceed to Primary Docking Bay 3.

It seems your adventure may be over!

Or not.

What was the latest countdown? ...

Trying to ignore the countdown. Panicking won't achieve anything. Either I'll make it or not. On the other hand not moving slowly.. head for Primary Docking Bay 3

You exit the security office and move past the elevator into a hallway.

At the far end of the halway is a heavy door sealed by a magnetic lock.

But between you and that locked dor, there is a holographic laser grid flickering, filling the corridor.

There is a control terminal to the side showing the grid pattern, but not how to get through it.

Do I think this holographic laser pattern is dangerous? I study the grid pattern. Remembering I an not a contortionist, can I see a way through it? Are there any controls on the contrl terminal by which I could shut it off or change the pattern?

You don't think it's as dangerous as that path Indiana Jones had to navigate in that "Golden Idol" experience you had on the holodeck a few months ago. But something tells you that the locked door at the other end won't open if you don't follow the right directions.

The terminal does not appear to have any sort of shutoff command, but there's a small "info" icon that you can press, which pops up a message, "Security Grid Alpha. Deactivation path mirrors standard maintenance access route for Plasma Conduit 7B".

Now you wonder how many paths there are to conduit 7B and whether mirrors means mirror or copy.... decisions, decisions.

I would go with copies. What is the shape of the grid pattern? (Or is it just a bunch of squares?)

The grid pattern is a bunch of squares, large enough to stand in. Entering a square crosses a beam on its edge. It's kind of like a large tic-tac-toe grid. All the same size, not different squares like the Fibonacci galaxy poster you saw a short while ago, but it may require a different kind of dance move.

So a 3 x 3 grid? Like:
Where is the door? Top of the grid in the middle?

If so try entering middle square bottom row - move one square right - move two squares up - move one square left

The 3x3 grid is about what you see.

Your attempt at navigating it works as far as "entering middle square bottom row, move ones square right, move two squares up..."

The first square is fine.

The second square gives an annoying musical chord sound that nobody should ever be forced to hear.


You think you're on to something, though...

Back to the start - middle square row 1, move left and listen

Bzzzt. Your original move to the right and then turn left one square seems the way to start.

You wonder if you only get three tries and you need to get this last try right....

So try middle entry, one square to right, one square up, one to the left, one square up.

I did misinterpret what you said on the original attempt and got the discordant noise, thought when you said the second square, you meant the second square I moved into.. not the second square of the two moves up

You move through the grid. The lasers flicker but don't alarm. You reach the other side and the magnetic lock door, and as you enter the final square you hear an audible click and whirring noise.

There's no keycard reader here, just a manual wheel.

Releasing a pent up breath.. turn the wheel carefully.

With a solid clunk, the magnetic seals disengage. The door slides open, revealing the vast space of Primary Docking Bay 3.

You stand before a wide service chasm. A retractable walkway is stuck in its housing on the far side. A control box on your side has three unlabeled sliders. A damaged voice log plays on loop: "...and if the bridge fails, align the harmonics. The resonance frequency is in the log... it's the same as my old cabin's combo, for pity's sake..."

There is a keycard reader next to the sliders.

Try the key card I alread have in the reader

You scan the keycard. The sliders light up and you can hear the sound of a three-note chord filling the room. Not a nice sounding one, though.

OK, am thinking that each sound is linked to a slider, which means that none are in the right place. Is there any way to tell how many positions the sliders can be moved to?