This is the setup for the crew visiting Aquatika, an ocean-world who's setup plot ran on June 13th, 2026.

… And so the people *required* to be here are the cargo staff, engies, and pilots that will be assisting. The plan is for two pilots to tandem-lower the sub down to the ocean. Once it's in the water and verified that it's not leaking, cargo and engineering will help get it running. The cargo guys will help inspect for damage and issues – really the same things that are bad for a pressurized cargo pod are also bad for a submarine – and the engies will need to get the motors running. They are relatively primitive and most of the staff should be able to figure out how to work on them easily enough!

In addition to those gathered, all the flops are here (both kids and flop family) except perhaps Lil Miss Juni who likely isn't interested in the presentation. It's likely Jesse's family is here along with all the Flints. Anyway, at the front of the room are two otters. One is a rather large female; she has the kinda diamond-shaped sea otter nose and is wearing some grey “urban” camos with patches that mark her as an Aquatika marine, Aquatika being the place we're going. The other otter up there is a male in a tidy jumpsuit with a lab coat on over it. They're preparing a presentation to display on the big screen on here as people arrive.

Ash is here, of course. Ash seems to be one of the few people on the ship with any maritime experience at all, so probably looks a little bored.. or at least not uneasy.

Tainary has NO water experience, so she's .. paying far far too much attention to the guests. She's seen otts before, but never under circumstances like this. She is curious about the submarine, as well.. Why not just pump air into it while in space, and make sure nothing leaks out? Seems safer.. she'll have to ask about that later.

Ib is, perhaps surprisingly, not as uncomfortable as you might expect. He's not as blase as Ash is looking, and he's paying attention, but there's no lashing lemur tail behind him. Seems to be a matter of course for him!

The kids, of course, have never seen otters before, and Lizzy seems amused by their big rudder tails. All four of them (Littles and Flints) are watching in rapt attention.

Ria sits with Dani and Ib, and pays close attention, but this too seems relatively mundane for her. But of everyone here, she's had the most time to plan and research things so that tracks.

It should be mentioned that Andy and Peter are there as well, and both are bright-eyed and attentive. If anything, the elder wah looks more excited than his brother!

The dapper otter steps forward and smiles, “Hello, everyone, I'm Professor Collins and this is my associate Colonel Bauers.” The tall ott nods her head. The professor ott is about a foot shorter than the marine ott, with dark hair cut short and a pleasant expression. The marine ott looks a bit more serious; but her short hair is dyed a faded purple as it peeks out slightly from her cap, so she must have some personality bottled up in there somewhere. Collins continues, “I'm the chief geologist for the Aquatika project and in charge of deep-water extraction. The submarine you're carrying there is 'mine',” he says, even making the air quotes. “I'm going to go over what to expect on the planet, then I'll turn it over to the Colonel to go over the gear and safety procedures. It is a mysterious, beautiful planet but there's a lot of danger associated with a world that has no above-sea land so one must be prepared to deal with all kinds of circumstances.”

The two otts step to the side a bit so the screen behind them can be easily seen. Collins starts, “Aquatika, as mentioned, has no continents. There are occasionally iceburgs or ice drifts near the poles, but even those are rare and tend to be seasonal. It is very rare to find a planet that is both surface-habitable and entirely covered in water; that said, the surface is a little unpleasantly hot. It feels a bit like the tropics on a particularly humid, awful day. The water is also quite warm and, in places, very shallow. The shallowest is perhaps around 30 to 40 meters deep; deep enough that it won't save you if you're stuck without a boat, but shallow enough that pressure suits aren't required even at the bottom of it. The first settlements on Aquatika are in these shallow waters, making it a reasonably safe tourist spot. All structures are designed to be completely submerged; it's actually easier on the buildings for them to be 'short' and under water entirely rather than break the surface and subject to wave impacts and such.” He'll show some slides showing the 'city'.

The city is a series of sometimes domes, sometimes things that look like a bunch of large pipes welded together to make under-water buildings. Most of them are connected to each-other though some pictures show residents moving between structures by way of the water. Whether this is required, or for fun, or just otters taking otter-powered shortcuts is uncertain. Also, there's other sea-mammals that live here as well, not just otters, but it's certainly majority otts. Collins continues, “This planet is *extremely* siezmically active and earthquakes are common. There are underwater vents that are part of why the water is so warm, even in the deep areas. These verysame vents make for some incredible agriculture opportunities and we have several large farms for both fish and vegitation at some of the 'medium' depth areas. As for our starport, it's actually on a specially designed platform. Your ships will have to be secured to the platform – somewhat unusual for space-craft but the platforms are designed to tilt and move rather than buckle or break in the event of earthquake or resulting tsunami. There's very good reasons we avoid surface structures.” The ott takes a breath and smiles, “Any questions so far?”

Ib shakes his head, although Andy raises his hand: “What is the main source of transportation between settlements?”

Ash headshakes, “Sounds pretty straightforward… Ambitious, and I'm not sure I like the sound of underwater pressure domes in a highly tectonically active environment, but so far everything makes sense.”

Tainary also has to ask, “So noone's set up any floating islands to enjoy sunlight and fresh air?”

Ash eyeraises. Ash was paying attention to those surface conditions!

The taller ott nods to Ash, “That's why we have extensive safety protocols.” The shorter ott smiles to Andy, “It depends on the distance. Close settlements or to go from shallow to medium or deep, submersible. For longer distances, we have aircraft called 'skippers'; they are capable of atmospheric flight or submersion to our shallow depth settlements.” Then a smile to Tainary, “There are surface boats for that; you can hire a boat to take you fishing or swimming from the surface. Our surface boats are all re-purposed lifeboats from other worlds, capable of withstanding popup storms or tsunamis, and honestly they're pretty much exclusively for tourists.” He continues…

…“The submarine you're hauling is destined for our deepest water operations.” The presentation shows a 'side view' of the different depths. Shallow, medium, deep, and ultradeep. It gets /very/ deep [player doesn't have an off the head number, but it's certainly 'weirdo fish and millionares died in the sub well before getting this deep' deep. :) Anyway.] “These are resource extraction; drilling and minerals. This sub is going to deliver supplies down and cargo back on a basically non-stop route back and forth between a staging base in medium depth and the extreme deep-water. We're asking for cargo and engineer volunteers to take the ride down with us and help make sure the sub's in good shape the whole way down. I will be on the sub myself, so I'm not asking you guys to do anything I wouldn't. It should be safe, we'll go down very slowly.”

Tainary lets out an aah, and nods.

There's a pause to see if there's reactions to the request that folks go down to the super-deep with him.

Ash shrugs, “Provided all the systems check out after we get it down. I am a little concerned about taking it through an atmospheric landing.”

The Colonel chimes in, “SubSafe Protocols will be maintained at all times and the descent will begin only after we've verified full integrity and atmospheric adjustment. Going from the cold vaccuum of space to the warm waters of the planet is, itself, a massive adjustment. So we're taking it slow, we'll do it over the course of several days.” Ria chimes in, “And they're paying hazard-pay for whomever helps out with the descent. 100% of that bonus goes to the individuals taking the risk, so you can consider that when thinking about going down. No need to decide now.”

Tainary nods. “I'm curious enough. I've never seen anything like this, so I'm in!”

Ib's tail flicks at the prospect of that much pay. Peter, meanwhile, tugs on his brother's sweater and points to the submarine. Andy shakes his head, since no, they're not going on the most dangerous part of this job.

Ash mmms. “I'll go, sure. Not a problem.” Simple as that for Ash.

Collins looks to the colonel-ott and smiles, “Shall you continue with the safety briefing, then?” The tall ott nods and steps forward. She takes a bag off the floor and holds it up; it's about the size of an average laptop bag, or maybe a particularly large purse. “You will each be issued one of these bags. For those with small children, their adult supervisors will all have spare gear for the kids. Small children *must* be accompanied by a parent with the safety bag at all times. Let me show you what's in the bag and how to use it. After the presentation, if you want to come up and see it up close, you are welcome to.”

The bag is opened, and the otter holds it up so eveyone can see inside. There's something that looks vaguely like a snorkling mask, some swimming fins, and a few small objects that are difficult to immediately identify.

Peter sits up in his chair and leeeeeans forward, as if it will magically grant a better view.

Tainary peers!

Bauers takes out the snorkling mask first. “This is your gill-mask. It can produce oxygen from ambient water similar to how fish do it for about 6 to 8 hours depending on physical activity; don't worry, it gives you a lot of warning before it runs out of juice. It fits over the nose and mouth, and is individually fitted. You will all be issued one that fits your particular facial geometries.” The otter demonstrates putting it on, then takes it off. “You are welcome to use these for swimming, but their core purpose is to make sure you can breathe if there is a hull breach in an underwater building. These are spare batteries for the mask; there's enough juice for 24 hours of even highly active swimming. We recommend you charge whatever you use overnight when you're sleeping so that each day you start with a fresh 24 hours of use. The fins are just that, fins. Again, you'll be issued them in your particular size. And again, you can wear them any time you want. The fins make swimming in deep water infinitely easier. Questions so far?”

Tainary shakes her head. She is apparently utterly fascinated by the breathing mask.

Ib nor the wahs have questions, but Peter is on the edge of his seat!

Ash headshakes. It seems pointless to point out the obvious that a hull breach would likely be catastrophic in ways beyond needing to breath.

Bauers notes Ash's dour look, “This stuff can save your life at shallow depth, but, it's not made for even medium depth. Tourists won't be allowed to go medium depth without an escort, though; there's farm tours you can take, but you stay in the sub to see it. Anyway, this is a dog,” she says, holding up a… metal pipe? “And I know what you're saying, those are dogs there,” she says and points to the flop family, “But this is also a dog. I don't know why it's called that. It's basically a breaker bar for watertight doors. The watertight doors should open and close automatically, and they should also have a dog on the wall next to them. But sometimes electronics fail, and sometimes tools walk off. In an emergency, you don't want to be fumbling around with a stuck door. And lastly, this is your emergency beacon. It is actually set to go off automatically if it is completely submerged – not just a little wet, your wet gear won't set it off. Even dropping it in the toilet won't. It needs to be properly wet. It's for if you are incapacitated or just too fucking busy trying to live to deal with calling for help, it calls for you. You can also manually trigger it by holding down the button til it starts flashing. All that make sense?”

Ib nods, throwing in a “yep,” for clarity. Andy, too, nods, while Peter can't help but ask: “Are there cats too?”

Tainary nods in response to Bauer's question, then just grins at Peter's.

The ott marine chuckles to Peter and hms softly. “Might be a question for one of the engineers down there.” She does give a little amused smile. Collins smiles, “Well that does it then… we've a few more days until we get there, so feel free to approach either of us with questions.” The ott marine nods, “I'll stick around here a lil while if anyone wants to check out the gear. Your own stuff will be issued when we arrive. It's all really easy to use – on purpose, of course, it needs to be something anyone can just grab and go with.”

—

I turned the log off at this point with the otters wrapping up their meeting.

Some notes … I was trying to keep this brief so I was kind of more focused on getting it done than content. I think the emergency bag probably has a few more things in it that I wasn't mentioning. What exactly? … if it comes up I'll let you know (the breather mask was the most important thing I wanted to introduce). Also, I imagine they go over some of what to do in case of breaches; tourists wouldn't be expected to do all that much but just where to go, whom to notify, or what to do if you're entirely stuck. a bit like an airline briefing. At this time, I'm not really planning for any serious disaster to happen so we'll cover that OOCly if we need to.