#solar hacks

[thoughtportal]

growing garlic on a window

[flipjack]

I think I'm supposed to be looking at the boots.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Solar is a market for (financial) lemons

There are only four more days left in my Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

Rooftop solar is the future, but it's also a scam. It didn't have to be, but America decided that the best way to roll out distributed, resilient, clean and renewable energy was to let Wall Street run the show. They turned it into a scam, and now it's in terrible trouble. which means we are in terrible trouble.

There's a (superficial) good case for turning markets loose on the problem of financing the rollout of an entirely new kind of energy provision across a large and heterogeneous nation. As capitalism's champions (and apologists) have observed since the days of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, markets harness together the work of thousands or even millions of strangers in pursuit of a common goal, without all those people having to agree on a single approach or plan of action. Merely dangle the incentive of profit before the market's teeming participants and they will align themselves towards it, like iron filings all snapping into formation towards a magnet.

But markets have a problem: they are prone to "reward hacking." This is a term from AI research: tell your AI that you want it to do something, and it will find the fastest and most efficient way of doing it, even if that method is one that actually destroys the reason you were pursuing the goal in the first place.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/security/engineering/failure-modes-in-machine-learning

For example: if you use an AI to come up with a Roomba that doesn't bang into furniture, you might tell that Roomba to avoid collisions. However, the Roomba is only designed to register collisions with its front-facing sensor. Turn the Roomba loose and it will quickly hit on the tactic of racing around the room in reverse, banging into all your furniture repeatedly, while never registering a single collision:

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/04/when-ais-start-hacking.html

This is sometimes called the "alignment problem." High-speed, probabilistic systems that can't be fully predicted in advance can very quickly run off the rails. It's an idea that pre-dates AI, of course – think of the Sorcerer's Apprentice. But AI produces these perverse outcomes at scale…and so does capitalism.

Many sf writers have observed the odd phenomenon of corporate AI executives spinning bad sci-fi scenarios about their AIs inadvertently destroying the human race by spinning off in some kind of paperclip-maximizing reward-hack that reduces the whole planet to grey goo in order to make more paperclips. This idea is very implausible (to say the least), but the fact that so many corporate leaders are obsessed with autonomous systems reward-hacking their way into catastrophe tells us something about corporate executives, even if it has no predictive value for understanding the future of technology.

Both Ted Chiang and Charlie Stross have theorized that the source of these anxieties isn't AI – it's corporations. Corporations are these equilibrium-seeking complex machines that can't be programmed, only prompted. CEOs know that they don't actually run their companies, and it haunts them, because while they can decompose a company into all its constituent elements – capital, labor, procedures – they can't get this model-train set to go around the loop:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/09/autocomplete-worshippers/#the-real-ai-was-the-corporations-that-we-fought-along-the-way

Stross calls corporations "Slow AI," a pernicious artificial life-form that acts like a pedantic genie, always on the hunt for ways to destroy you while still strictly following your directions. Markets are an extremely reliable way to find the most awful alignment problems – but by the time they've surfaced them, they've also destroyed the thing you were hoping to improve with your market mechanism.

Which brings me back to solar, as practiced in America. In a long Time feature, Alana Semuels describes the waves of bankruptcies, revealed frauds, and even confiscation of homeowners' houses arising from a decade of financialized solar:

https://time.com/6565415/rooftop-solar-industry-collapse/

The problem starts with a pretty common finance puzzle: solar pays off big over its lifespan, saving the homeowner money and insulating them from price-shocks, emergency power outages, and other horrors. But solar requires a large upfront investment, which many homeowners can't afford to make. To resolve this, the finance industry extends credit to homeowners (lets them borrow money) and gets paid back out of the savings the homeowner realizes over the years to come.

But of course, this requires a lot of capital, and homeowners still might not see the wisdom of paying even some of the price of solar and taking on debt for a benefit they won't even realize until the whole debt is paid off. So the government moved in to tinker with the markets, injecting prompts into the slow AIs to see if it could coax the system into producing a faster solar rollout – say, one that didn't have to rely on waves of deadly power-outages during storms, heatwaves, fires, etc, to convince homeowners to get on board because they'd have experienced the pain of sitting through those disasters in the dark.

The government created subsidies – tax credits, direct cash, and mixes thereof – in the expectation that Wall Street would see all these credits and subsidies that everyday people were entitled to and go on the hunt for them. And they did! Armies of fast-talking sales-reps fanned out across America, ringing dooorbells and sticking fliers in mailboxes, and lying like hell about how your new solar roof was gonna work out for you.

These hustlers tricked old and vulnerable people into signing up for arrangements that saw them saddled with ballooning debt payments (after a honeymoon period at a super-low teaser rate), backstopped by liens on their houses, which meant that missing a payment could mean losing your home. They underprovisioned the solar that they installed, leaving homeowners with sky-high electrical bills on top of those debt payments.

If this sounds familiar, it's because it shares a lot of DNA with the subprime housing bubble, where fast-talking salesmen conned vulnerable people into taking out predatory mortgages with sky-high rates that kicked in after a honeymoon period, promising buyers that the rising value of housing would offset any losses from that high rate.

These fraudsters knew they were acquiring toxic assets, but it didn't matter, because they were bundling up those assets into "collateralized debt obligations" – exotic black-box "derivatives" that could be sold onto pension funds, retail investors, and other suckers.

This is likewise true of solar, where the tax-credits, subsidies and other income streams that these new solar installations offgassed were captured and turned into bonds that were sold into the financial markets, producing an insatiable demand for more rooftop solar installations, and that meant lots more fraud.

Which brings us to today, where homeowners across America are waking up to discover that their power bills have gone up thanks to their solar arrays, even as the giant, financialized solar firms that supplied them are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, thanks to waves of defaults. Meanwhile, all those bonds that were created from solar installations are ticking timebombs, sitting on institutions' balance-sheets, waiting to go blooie once the defaults cross some unpredictable threshold.

Markets are very efficient at mobilizing capital for growth opportunities. America has a lot of rooftop solar. But 70% of that solar isn't owned by the homeowner – it's owned by a solar company, which is to say, "a finance company that happens to sell solar":

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/solarcity-maintains-34-residential-solar-market-share-in-1h-2015/406552/

And markets are very efficient at reward hacking. The point of any market is to multiply capital. If the only way to multiply the capital is through building solar, then you get solar. But the finance sector specializes in making the capital multiply as much as possible while doing as little as possible on the solar front. Huge chunks of those federal subsidies were gobbled up by junk-fees and other financial tricks – sometimes more than 100%.

The solar companies would be in even worse trouble, but they also tricked all their victims into signing binding arbitration waivers that deny them the power to sue and force them to have their grievances heard by fake judges who are paid by the solar companies to decide whether the solar companies have done anything wrong. You will not be surprised to learn that the arbitrators are reluctant to find against their paymasters.

I had a sense that all this was going on even before I read Semuels' excellent article. We bought a solar installation from Treeium, a highly rated, giant Southern California solar installer. We got an incredibly hard sell from them to get our solar "for free" – that is, through these financial arrangements – but I'd just sold a book and I had cash on hand and I was adamant that we were just going to pay upfront. As soon as that was clear, Treeium's ardor palpably cooled. We ended up with a grossly defective, unsafe and underpowered solar installation that has cost more than $10,000 to bring into a functional state (using another vendor). I briefly considered suing Treeium (I had insisted on striking the binding arbitration waiver from the contract) but in the end, I decided life was too short.

The thing is, solar is amazing. We love running our house on sunshine. But markets have proven – again and again – to be an unreliable and even dangerous way to improve Americans' homes and make them more resilient. After all, Americans' homes are the largest asset they are apt to own, which makes them irresistible targets for scammers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

That's why the subprime scammers targets Americans' homes in the 2000s, and it's why the house-stealing fraudsters who blanket the country in "We Buy Ugly Homes" are targeting them now. Same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks: "That's where the money is":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/11/ugly-houses-ugly-truth/

America can and should electrify and solarize. There are serious logistical challenges related to sourcing the underlying materials and deploying the labor, but those challenges are grossly overrated by people who assume the only way we can approach them is though markets, those monkey's paw curses that always find a way to snatch profitable defeat from the jaws of useful victory.

To get a sense of how the engineering challenges of electrification could be met, read McArthur fellow Saul Griffith's excellent popular engineering text Electrify:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/09/practical-visionary/#popular-engineering

And to really understand the transformative power of solar, don't miss Deb Chachra's How Infrastructure Works, where you'll learn that we could give every person on Earth the energy budget of a Canadian (like an American, but colder) by capturing just 0.4% of the solar rays that reach Earth's surface:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/17/care-work/#charismatic-megaprojects

But we won't get there with markets. All markets will do is create incentives to cheat. Think of the market for "carbon offsets," which were supposed to substitute markets for direct regulation, and which produced a fraud-riddled market for lemons that sells indulgences to our worst polluters, who go on destroying our planet and our future:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

We can address the climate emergency, but not by prompting the slow AI and hoping it doesn't figure out a way to reward-hack its way to giant profits while doing nothing. Founder and chairman of Goodleap, Hayes Barnard, is one of the 400 richest people in the world – a fortune built on scammers who tricked old people into signing away their homes for nonfunctional solar):

https://www.forbes.com/profile/hayes-barnard/?sh=40d596362b28

If governments are willing to spend billions incentivizing rooftop solar, they can simply spend billions installing rooftop solar – no Slow AI required.

Berliners: Otherland has added a second date (Jan 28 - TOMORROW!) for my book-talk after the first one sold out - book now!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/27/here-comes-the-sun-king/#sign-here

Back the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle here!

Image:

Future Atlas/www.futureatlas.com/blog (modified)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/87913776@N00/3996366952

--

CC BY 2.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

J Doll (modified)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_Sky_%28140451293%29.jpeg

CC BY 3.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[balkanradfem]

Plant update!

I mentioned I had some unauthorized plants illegally growing in already-occupied pots. I'm now gonna transplant them to their own pots! Or I'll do as many as I can, because I am running out of soil.

This tomato looks the most established; I wasn't sure how to take it out, so I clumsily pushed my finger under it, trying to pull it up from below. I think I accidentally snapped away a piece of root, but it has another little piece so maybe it lives? It's a very feeble root system I have to say. But may it live!

I do feel much better seeing her in her own pot, feels right! The two tiny tomato plants underneath, I have damaged even worse, but I still planted them together in a little cup, hoping one might make it.

Next I checked on my paper towel seeds to see if any seed germinated, and there were some! I found 3 little dwarf tomatoes, and two broccoli seeds activated. I gathered up as much soil as I had left, and put them in 4 little plastic cups.

They're so tiny! Since they've already activated I feel like I can be confident these will come out of the soil, they're Certified Viable Seeds.

At this point I became banned from further gardening, because I don't have any more soil to work with. And this isn't the fault of my poor planning! Right when I was going to the forest to gather soil, my aloe arborescens had all those babies that needed to be transplanted if I were to keep them, and I couldn't abandon little aloe babies, that would be crazy. So in transplating all of them I spent.. half of my soil, and I need to go to the forest to get more. Earth is frozen, temperatures are below zero, ground is frozen, forest is cold. Good luck to me!

However there was another thing I figured I could do. All of my plants were starting to look leggy and sad, reaching to the window for there was not enough sun. I knew a trick to deal with this, even though I've never used it before, it felt like I really needed it now. I found a big piece of cardboard, and reached for used aluminum foil I had stashed 'just in case'. I wrapped the board in aluminum and placed it facing the window, and the plants.

The idea behind this is doubling the solar power the plants receive, by reflecting it right back at them. This way the plants get almost double amount of light, and they get it from both sides, so they stop reaching terminally towards the window, and straighten up a little! I realized after I've done this, that it could be more efficiently achieved with a big mirror, but I did not own a big mirror I could randomly move around, so I left it at cardboard and foil.

This is how it looks like installed:

I took the first picture yesterday, and the second today to compare progress, and even though the plants are still leaning out, their tips are straightened up! They are slightly more inclined to grow straight now they have a reflective source of light. I should have done this from day one, maybe plants wouldn't even get leggy that way. Am mesmerized by the new knowledge I acquired! My next batch of plants will thrive because I learned to use the power of the sun.

I also started using a big paper fan on them, fanning wind at them every day, because wind resistance communicates to baby plants they need to grow stronger stems! That's why professional greenhouses always have those big fans working, that and preventing the mold and disease occurring on wet leaves (wind dries faster).

Isn't it interesting how many normal household items you can use for growing a little garden in your kitchen? Plastic cups, paper fan, little spray bottle to water the tiniest seedlings, aluminum foil with some cardboard, my entire setup is just a big wooden plank placed on a cardboard box, it creates a little plant table. I bet everyone has most of the stuff they need for gardening at home.

[tuxxydo]

are y'all pickin up what i'm puttin down?

[rosewind2007]

Saw this:

And immediately thought of Ratthi

More solarpunk lab equipment, please!

[cynosphere]

Power up anytime, anywhere! Our solar powerbank keeps your devices charged using the power of the sun—perfect for travel, camping, or daily use. No outlet? No problem. Stay connected, stay powered, and go green. Grab yours now and never run out of battery again!

[persephoneflouwers]

-

[ourwitching]

We think of the power we generate as coming from all these different kinds of sources. Oil, gas, coa...

[tangiblesolar]

How to Make Dollar Store Solar Lights Brighter: Ultimate Hacks

You can try changing the batteries or upgrading to better batteries to make Dollar Store solar lights brighter. By cleaning the solar panels or placing them in direct sunlight for longer periods of time, you can also increase their brightness. Your dollar store solar lights’ brightness can be considerably increased by following these straightforward methods. Your outdoor spaces can be brightened…

[flipjack]

Hat season!

[elleroseukblog]

[marioclash]

i really dont think were ever going to get games like boktai games on the gba ever again

[astuteology]

♤Another astrological observations♤

Ps: i am still learning and astrology is a forever learning subject. It may or may not be relatable. :)

-------------------

•° solar return observations °•

Solar return 7th house- the sign in your 7th house of your solar return will probably be the one to backbitch/backstab you👀. For eg- having Sagittarius descendant, people with sag sun or prominent sag placements are likely going to do you very wrong. 😊🪰

SR Uranus in 1st- an apparent change in the appearance of the individual. Dying their hair, a haircut, change in the makeup looks, joining the gym, having skincare routine, etc.🦄😋

SR Jupiter in the 12th- spiritual enlightenment🧞‍♂️. Could be the time youre very sensitive to the energies of the people. Seeing spirits frequently👻. (Hack- wear black tourmaline for the shield against negative energies). This is the time when everything will be clear to you, the intentions of the people, their traits, their habits, their trauma🤠 (your's aswell).👽

SR moon in the 6th- sensitive to other people's words, their criticism, etc. Take care of your health at this time please. Eating disorder. Very moody. Might eat spicy food alot. 🥲

SR neptune in the 11th- the friends, peers, acquaintances you have, you'll be getting to know about them more clearly👀 in negative way ofcourse, Alot of deceiving, lying, manipulation, taking behind your back, cheating, blah blah blah.😗🪓🩸

SR Saturn in the 11th- yes you ARE GOING TO LOSE FRIENDS, even the closest friend you have🙃. I honestly LOVE Saturn whatever house it's in because it fucking slaps you so hard that you begin to see everyfuckingthing very clearly🤪😶‍🌫️. Its going to be hard for you but dont worry youre better of with little to no friends than lying poopies.💩💝

SR venus in the 1st- you're going to be every 2nd person's crush, like literally fr. You're guna appear more ethereal and soft to the other person, maybe innocent too which will make the other person wAnT tO pRoTeCt YoU aT aLL cOsT🥺 because to them you're vulnerable to the world😐😐😐😐.

SR mars in the 3rd- alot of fights with your siblings/ cousins/ childhood friends. Way of communication may be direct, more straight forward, could even be a little cruel ehe🤭. Probably guna put people in their fucking place. Humbling down people alot.💅

SR aquarius ascendant- very detached from the emotions. Its like giving yourself 5 minutes to feel everything then after that, stop feeling completely until the next year. ORRR.... you could be in your feelings for the 1st or last 6 months then the rest of the year? Nonchalant🧘(could be opposite).Your mood for the year: 'eehh'😐 'Okhay'😐 'Yeah'😐 'Mhm'😐 'No'😐 'Don't'😐 'Shut up'😐 'Can you leave me alone'😐 'Youre so annoying'😐 'Can you stop'😐 'Omg youre a fucking fe/male'😐. Might be the year you'll question your sexuality.

SR lilith in the 4th- watch your closest ones/ own family turn against you just cuz you stood up against their negativity and manipulation. Oof!! 😍😍😍THE BEST YEAR EVERRR!!!🥳🤯💋 Sarcasm intented. Theyre going to spread false rumors about you. Play victim card in the situations they create. Its like creating a problem for you to solve.🧍🏻‍♀️🧍‍♂️🗣

SR venus in the 5th- will attract ALOT of love interests👀🔥🧲 but since its a 5th house, it wont be long lasting. For girls: this placement can make guys crazily obsessed with you for monthsss beware as they can note down your every move (3 of my friends had this and the guys ended up following them home, it was scary). For guys: this can make girls want to be with you just bcz everyone wants you, youre the center of everyone's attention (cheating could be involved too👀)

SR Sun/mars/pluto in the 6th- take care of your health because; sun: can make you vulnerable to the evil eyes which could lead you to falling sick frequently🪰🧿. Mars: your anger, impulsiveness, all the othet martian feelings, can make you sick as well, so beware of your surroundings and your mental health🎭. Pluto: the jealousy with this can turn physical real quick✂️. And all three: JUST. TAKE. CARE. 😀 🫠

SR moon in the 7th- sweeeeettttt cravings will ⬆️⬆️. Feeling very joyful for no reason🌞. Feeling 'Butterfly in the stomach' frequently🦋. Lovesick🐕‍🦺.

SR mercury in the 5th- you could hear from a friend that a lot of "certain someone's" like you😊. Love to talk about your interests and hobbies. Involvement in frequent get-togethers, random friends meet💁🏻‍♀️.

SR saturn in the 8th- might deal with your own fears. Could be a triggering year for you🧘.

SR nn in the 9th/12th- frequent travels🗺. Might overthink alot about the world and the life (a lot of what's, why's, who's, how's, etc).

Wherever SR Jupiter is, you're expanding that. Like for eg- 5th house: your interests, might pursue your hobbies, or if you already are, lets say an artist, youll expand your art, the type of drawings you make. 2nd house: your business. Money. Self esteem. Confidence. 11th house: your friend circle, electronics, etc.

SR saturn/neptune in the 8th- out of nowhere setbacks, betrayal, cheating, etc are possible. BUT you WILL receive a news about CERTAIN SOMEONE which will make you question them🤫. Or youll get to know some f-ed up family secrets😗.

SR Scorpio ascendant- watch people getting intimated💁🏻‍♀️. You're guna hear rumorssss about youuu👀🤫. Random guys/girls approaching you with the intention of "hUmBLiNg YoU dOwN" 🗣💩 (ykwim).

SR venus in the 7th- randomly, out of nowhere, falling for someone veryyyy haaarrrdd🕳🚶🏻‍♀️.This usually happens within 3-5 months after your birthday.

Whereas... 😗

SR neptune/saturn in the 7th- showing you why you shouldn't have😊. (If i were you i wouldn't give them a 2nd chance, many people don't deserve it🧘. Pay attention if its their "traits" or "company" either way, you shouldn't forgive them because "traits" are self explanatory, they wont ever change, and if its the "company" affecting them then its guna be tiring for you and trust me you wouldn't want a person who is gullible🧍🏻‍♀️).

SR Uranus anywhere- sudden. Anything sudden. For the better or the worse🎭. Out of nowhere. Unexpected👀. The ex you didn't see? Here s/he comes💩. Job offer🌞. Oldest friend contacting you🏌‍♂️.realization about career path. Your personality, your looks. Family dynamics. Home, etc.

SR lilith/neptune in the 1st/5th/7th/8th/10th/11th- people be copying youuuu i seeee👀. Your secret enemies wanting to be you👀. Copying your style, outfit, skincare. Haircare, haircut, your hobbies, even your career path🤾‍♀️. Amd they'll still have the audacity to TELL YOU how you should be doing *insert what you're good at* 🧍🏻‍♀️🧍‍♂️like?????. Jealousy runs deeeppp 😶‍🌫️.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Thank you for reading :) <3

[pupsmailbox]

ROBOT ID PACK

NAMES ︰ aerobot.　agatha.　ai.　alan.　alethea.　alexia.　algernon.　alistair.　alpha.　amaryllis.　ambrose.　androbot.　androic.　andromeda.　angelica.　antenna.　arabella.　araminta.　arcade.　auto.　automaton.　axel.　axis.　badnik.　bionel.　bolt.　byte.　care.　celline.　cello.　chip.　chipique.　clank.　cloniste.　clonoid.　cobot.　codelle.　cole.　curiosity.　cy.　cyber.　cybette.　cybion.　cypher.　data.　dell.　della.　delpha.　delta.　digi.　dot.　droid.　droidess.　droidis.　dronette.　echo.　elektra.　euna.　eva.　eve.　fritz.　giga.　gizmo.　glitch.　grey.　gynoid.　helix.　holo.　holodir.　hydra.　ida.　jet.　kaput.　kinect.　krudzu.　linion.　mac.　mace.　machibella.　machina.　mal.　malware.　mation.　mech.　mecha.　mechael.　mechan．ace.　metal.　metalia.　metalish.　micro.　motherboard.　motor.　nano.　neo.　nucleus.　nyquist.　orbit.　parallel.　pip.　pixel.　prime.　primus.　proto.　quantum.　radar.　radius.　ram.　ray.　reflect.　reflectette.　robo.　robonaut.　rusty.　satellite.　scrappy.　selsyn.　sentiex.　servo.　shard.　siri.　solar.　sonar.　spark.　sparkie.　sparky.　sputnik.　steele.　sterling.　stochastic.　synchro.　synie.　synthett.　talus.　terra.　tin.　tink.　tobor.　ultramarine.　ultron.　unimate.　unit.　virus.　waldo.　zip.

PRONOUNS︰ ai/ai.　algo/algorithm.　android/android.　app/app.　auto/auto.　auto/automated.　auto/automaton.　axis/axi.　beep/boop.　bio/bionic.　bio/bioplastic.　blast/blast.　bo/bot.　bolt/bolt.　bot/bot.　buffer/buffer.　byte/byte.　cell/cell.　chaos/chaos.　chi/chip.　click/click.　clo/clone.　code/code.　coil/recoil.　command/command.　compute/computer.　core/core.　cyb/cyborg.　cyber/cyber.　data/data.　dev/device.　device/device.　dig/digital.　digi/digital.　droi/droid.　droid/droid.　e/exe.　electric/electric.　entry/entries.　exo/exoskeleton.　gear/gear.　gli/glitch.　glitch/glitch.　hack/hack.　ho/holo.　holo/holo.　hologram/hologram.　in/install.　intra/intranet.　link/link.　machi/machine.　mal/malfunction.　mal/malware.　mech/mech.　mecha/mechanical.　mechanic/mechanic.　metal/metal.　metro/metro.　motor/motor.　neo/neo.　neon/neon.　nuclear/nuclear.　propeller/propeller.　radar/radar.　retro/retro.　robo/robo.　robo/robot.　robot/robot.　rubber/rubber.　satellite/satellite.　sca/scan.　shard/shard.　shine/shiny.　signal/signal.　solar/solar.　steel/steel.　stem/stem.　swi/switch.　syn/synth.　syn/synthetic.　tech/tech.　techno/techno.　test/test.　text/text.　turing/turing.　vi/viru.　web/site.　web/web.　whirr/whirr.　wi/wifi.　wire/wire.　wired/wired.　⚙️/⚙️.　🔧/🔧.　🔩/🔩.　🛠//🛠.　🤖/🤖.

[b-free]

"Good thing i can read and have common sense." Hafiz gave a small smile, taking the blueprints. It was fairly clear, the detail she worked in was... "Neat... no, wait Neat is rude. This is awesome." Mostly for the art aspect. He didnt understand some of it, but he could be taught. "I can at least get half of this. And i catch on quick." He handed the schematics back, and moved to get into the ship. "I'm going to grab a couple things really quick. One of them, you might find kinda neat."

The drone chuckled as he made his way in, careful with his steps.

The pair seemed to almost pout, but it was something not unlike a child's spoiled 'well if i must then fine, but i dont want to' look. They took their eyes off of N, not moving but shifting slightly as they didnt particularly want to actually go anywhere at that moment.

"Oh, it survived!" Hafiz was heard speaking, something moving with a plastic clunk before the rattle of a zipper followed. When he returned, a large and fairly secure tub made of heavy duty plastic was set out, and a small backpack with a broken strap was slung over his shoulder. The tub was given a pat. "This is what i was kind of worried about getting uh... spilled..." He glanced over to N, chuckling a little. "You've got a great family if i'm allowed to say so, ma'am."

The night is clear, stars twinkling in the sky. The patrol seems to be relatively uneventful until one of the party looks up to see a small flash in the sky. Something not unlike debris burning in the atmosphere on entry.

Only it juat dulls, and slowly grows. Smoke trails as a ship is seen falling toward the planet, flames licking off the hull as it streaks toward the jungle, passing over the settlement of sanctuary with only a strong gust of disturbed and heated air before crashing a good couple miles away. The landing stirs the silence of the evening, the crash echoing loudly enough to reach Sanctuary.

((Trembles and tosses this at u before i delete it all))

Tera is on the roof, staring up at the stars before the streak of flaming hull catches her eye. Her eyelights sharpen as she turns the safety off her pistol and flies quickly in the direction it crashed, on high alert.