#skara and stormy

[theramblingsofadork]

Art-themed asks for you!

Paper, Graffiti, Cricut, Finger Painting

Paper: Who do you feel is your most two-dimensional or underdeveloped OC? Why is this? (including those that are still in development/haven't been written about yet)

I guess that would have to be Skara and Stormy. They’re two of the competitors that end up rivaling Starline and the group.

(Early design of Skara, still WIP)

Currently all I have for them is that at least one of them is related to Rough (and Tumble if they’re blood brothers), and that they’re big on environment protection as well. They come across as brutes and bullies, but unlike the skunk duo, they actually have standards.

The reason I’m feeling they’re under developed is because I’m genuinely not sure how to handle them. Should they be blood sisters with the bros? Each other? Cousins?

All I know is that whatever comes of it, there’ll definitely be a scene later on with Rough questioning how Starline knows their names, and subsequently freaking out when he learns they know each other. XD

Graffiti: Have you ever had to research something that felt illicit or illegal for a fic? What was it?

Electrical and Chemical Detonations/ Explosions. No, you do not get context. :^)

Cricut: are there any characters you've had to "cut" from a story? Are there any moments/chapters/stories you've had to "cut" entirely?

Hahaha, yes. I’ve actually had to scrap multiple, fully written out timelines. And since I’m still in the process of struggling with the story, everything I currently have might still get the ax, or at least be heavily rewritten.

One scene I can share that I’ve cut for sure is a fight at the Atmos CORE (which powers the entire facility and nearby town) where Charge has to stay behind to try and stabilize it, but it still causes an explosion that causes damage to the surrounding areas.

While aspects of it might still be used, this scenario felt like the weakest of my many other options with the events happening around it.

Finger Painting: share a small snippet from your earliest work (or the earliest that you can get back to). How would you rewrite it today? Either share the rewrite itself or just describe how you'd do it.

(This is my favorite piece from the original scrapped timeline during the Post Competition. The group decides to part ways to go home and visit family for a bit. They all want to remain a team though, so they have a meetup planned. Hex just sent Starline a harmless hacking program to deliver a message to him)

“Heya Doc! Hope you’ve been doing well! Wanted to remind you that the meetup is on the 13th! I know you said you’d have to think about forming a team with us, but if you’re still willing to consider it, we’d love have you on board! Hope to see you there! -Hex.”

Starline snuffed amusedly as he read the hacker’s little message and stared at the attached photo of them all laughing with ice creams in hand.

How silly.. It had barely been a month; and yet he still couldn’t believe that he found himself missing them. Despite his tendencies to rely on no one but himself, he did admit that it had been oddly nice to have them all around.

The platypus took a long, quiet sip of his tea as he considered the message. The meetup was in a few days then, wasn’t it? And it seems like the offer to join them still stood.

…

…

Maybe… he would take them up on it..

It wasn’t as if his plans to join Eggman were getting anywhere fast.. and his ideas were suffering from a mental block right now, being very few and far between.

He glanced over at the large; unfinished energy coupler he had been attempting to string together for several days now as he thought this.

Maybe.. it wouldn’t hurt for him to take a break and.. try something different. Still inspired by Eggman of course—but using that inspiration and brilliance to forge something more productive, alongside a team of other brilliant, like-minded people whom he had come to consider his friends.

Chuckling at the absurdity of how he now found himself here as opposed to a few months ago, Starline smiled and raised his finger to accept to the invite.

But just before he could push it, he abruptly jerked back again as a voice suddenly spoke up behind him.’

—

In the original timeline, I planned to have Starline be coerced and manipulated back onto his path of evil by Zeroth, which would have explained his sudden change of heart and the undoing of the good influence the team had on him, leading him into his IDW self. But… it might be seen as a copout, so I had to throw it into the scrapbin it to try and see what else I could come up with.

The fic ended up never getting published, but it was the first to be completed! 🥳

I’m not really sure how I would rewrite it now, other than changing a few lines of dialogue later on. 🤔 It’s a concept that sort of fits in it’s own bubble and either works or doesn’t.

It was fun to write though! I made someone cry from reading it, so I consider that a win! XD

[erikacousland]

Stormy sky over Skara Brae, a Neolithic village on the Mainland, Orkney © Robert Harding World Imagery/Offset

*

Featured on Bing 19 July 2021

The ancient stone homes of Skara Brae This cluster of strange stone structures were part of the landscape here in the Bay of Skaill, Orkney, long before Stonehenge and the pyramids of Egypt were built. Skara Brae is the best-preserved example of a Neolithic (or new Stone Age) settlement in western Europe, thought to have been built and occupied sometime between 3000 and 2700 BCE. Around that time, people in Britain started farming and they began to build permanent homes.

These were usually constructed out of wood but in the Orkney Islands trees were few and these circular, one-roomed, homes were built using stone slabs instead. For reasons that are not clear, village life ended sometime around 2500 BCE and for centuries, the homes were hidden away, buried under earth until they were uncovered by a storm which hit Scotland in the winter of 1850. As well as the stone chambers, well-preserved stone furniture was found inside the homes, including beds, dressers and hearths - offering an unrivalled insight into what life was like here, 5,000 years ago.

The Neolithic period was also known for its huge stone circles and tombs and you can see those here too. Skara Brae is part of Unesco’s Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site - alongside the Maes Howe chambered cairn, the Standing Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar stone circle. If digging up the past is your thing, the Festival of Archaeology runs from 17 July to 1 August in the UK, with scores of events planned to help discover historic (and prehistoric) sites in your local area.

[blogparadiseisland]

Nature Saving Scotland’s Heritage From the Rising Seas

Nature Saving Scotland’s Heritage From the Rising Seas Nature Saving Scotland’s Heritage From the Rising Seas http://www.nature-business.com/nature-saving-scotlands-heritage-from-the-rising-seas/

Nature

Off the north coast of Scotland, Orkney’s soft green landscapes hold a trove of things from everyday life before history was written.

More than 3,000 archaeological sites — among them standing stone circles, Norse halls and a Neolithic tomb graffitied by Vikings — have endured for millenniums, scattered across the roughly 70 islands that make up the Orkney archipelago.

At Skara Brae, one of Europe’s best-preserved Stone Age villages, kitchens built around 3180 B.C. are fitted with hearths and cupboards, bedsteads and doors that could be bolted shut.

Today, in forays to remote spits of land, people are working to save some of these places for posterity from the climate changes accelerated by human activity.

About half of Orkney’s 3,000 sites, many built before Stonehenge or the pyramids, are under threat from those changes, according to the county archeologist. Some are already being washed away.

Since 1970, Orkney beaches have eroded twice as fast as in the previous century. Others that had been stable are now shrinking. Rains, falling heavier and more often, are dissolving the crusts of soil and sand packs that protect remnants of civilizations.

These threats, now familiar at world heritage sites around the globe, are being answered in Scotland by archaeologists, citizen-scientists, students, government agencies and academics.

Their work is urgent. Orkney’s stories are recorded in disappearing ink.

“Heritage is falling into the sea,” said Prof. Jane Downes, director of the Archaeology Institute at the University of Highlands and Islands. “It’s a very dramatic and obvious sign of sea level rise and increased storminess.”

Sanday

There are more than

100 sites in this area.

Rousay

ORKNEY ISLANDS

Skara Brae

SCOTLAND

5 MILES

Sanday

There are more than

100 sites in this area.

Rousay

ORKNEY ISLANDS

Skara Brae

SCOTLAND

5 MILES

Sanday

Rousay

There are more than

100 sites in this area.

ORKNEY ISLANDS

Skara Brae

SCOTLAND

5 MILES

Sanday

There are more

than 100 sites

in this area.

Rousay

ORKNEY ISLANDS

Skara Brae

SCOTLAND

10 MILES

By Sarah Almukhtar | Source: Historic Environment Scotland Canmore. Note: Archaeological sites date from prehistoric times through the 20th century.

From around the world, troops of archaeologists and students descend in the summers to dig, sift and catalogue imperiled places. There are scrambles for funds. “We’re focused on coastal sites because they’re going to be gone,” Professor Downes said.

At many spots, the only plausible kind of preservation is documentation — done swiftly.

In 1983, an archaeologist drew sketches of a Neolithic chambered tomb at the tip of a peninsula on Sanday island. Then the site was left essentially untouched until last year, when other researchers returned, planning to deploy new tools that would tell them where the people of that area came from and what they ate. But the tomb and its archaeology had shrunk: five feet had been lost to cliff erosion, and it was evident that the remaining 40 feet were headed for the water as well.

At the end of the summer digging season, students packed the site with rock and a thick plastic membrane. Depending on the severity of the winter storms, the protection might keep some of the fine sediments from washing away, and also allow another year of excavation at the deteriorating tomb.

In a short walk along the south shore of Rousay Island, a stunning arc of human activity comes into view. One mile covers 50 centuries: the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. The Picts, the Viking era, rule by the Norse, and Scottish landlords.

The burial of a cow on Rousay in 1963 led to the discovery of human graves and, in them, evidence of long-distance travel. For instance, a silver brooch inlaid with amber and gold filigree from about 750 A.D, is similar to Irish jewelry of the era, said Julie Gibson, a lecturer with the University of Highlands and Islands and the co-author, with the photographer Frank Bradford, of “Rising Tides: The Loss of Coastal Heritage in Orkney.”

Nearby, in a Viking cemetery, Ms. Gibson said: “They found two guys buried in boats. One was born north of the Arctic Circle.”

At the Knowe of Swandro, on Rousay, tribes built atop the homes of predecessors, creating layers of habitation back to Neolithic times. One discovery at Swandro this summer was a rock anvil used 1,500 years ago by a Pictish coppersmith, still smudged with the carbon grime of the forge.

Smithy’s handprint

10 centimeters

Swandro-Orkney Coastal Archaeology Trust

“You can see where the smithy put his hand and his knee,” said Steve Dockrill, a senior lecturer at the University of Bradford.

The anvil is among the finds that have emerged since 2010, when Julie Bond, an archaeology professor at Bradford, strolling the beach at Swandro, spotted a stone jutting up. She performed a field test. “I gave it a kick,” Professor Bond said. “The kick is an important archaeological tool.”

The Swandro project has a charitable trust to support equipment, tests and housing. Virtually all the Orkney digs rely on donations to supplement thousands of hours of free labor from students. In early August, as professors and students from Bradford, Highlands and Islands, Orkney College, the City University of New York and elsewhere finished their summer fieldwork, they hoped the sites would be there the following year.

Each tide washes away midden, domestic waste heaps, that provide a “cultural and economic biography,” Professor Bond said. “We did core sampling at low tide eight years ago, and you could see settlement materials. When we did it again a couple of years ago, it was gone.”

From 2012 to 2016, more than 1,200 volunteers, trained by the Scottish Coastal Heritage at Risk project at the University of St. Andrews, mapped vulnerable sites in Scotland, scores of them on the Orkney and Shetland islands. The report is, in effect, a guide for archaeological triage.

In 2015, a community group on Sanday painstakingly moved a mysterious Stone Age structure known as a burnt mound to a heritage center, away from the shorefront where it was being battered.

Elsewhere, residents are sandbagging an 11th century graveyard to keep skeletons from spilling out. Public agencies are using laser scans to map changes to the beach in front of Skara Brae, where the waters of the Bay of Skaill lap ever closer.

A storm revealed parts of Skara Brae in 1850.

To protect the site from the advancing bay, a sea wall was built in 1927.

There had been no bay in the village’s Stone Age heyday.

Thanks to the sea wall, Skara Brae remains intact, Ms. Gibson said, in contrast with an unprotected mill a few hundred yards away that has been demolished by tides and storms since 1972. Similarly, the Midhowe Broch, an Iron Age tower on Rousay, has been successfully defended since 1934 by a sea wall. “We’re learning where physical structures can be used for a limited time, and others that can work permanently,” Ms. Gibson said. “Permanently, meaning 100 years.”

Natural changes in climate over the last 15,000 years made human habitation not only possible on the islands, but attractive to succeeding generations. The farmers and fishers put little pressure on the land, other than depleting the timber. Stone was a primary building material. Things lasted.

With tide and time, most beaches will grow and shrink as the sand and sediment subtracted from one spot are added to another. But nature’s rhythms are being accelerated by human actions.

“Sea level in Orkney has been rising over thousands of years, and so coastal flooding and beach erosion is nothing new,” said Jim Hansom, a professor of geomorphology at the University of Glasgow and principal investigator for Dynamic Coast, a report commissioned by the Scottish government to assess coastal change. “What is of concern is that the extent and pace of erosion since the 1970s has increased.”

Some Orkney beaches have narrowed an average of 16 inches per year since 1970, compared to an annual average loss of eight inches between 1890 and 1970, according to data in Dynamic Coast. In addition, Professor Hansom said, more beaches are eroding.

Rainfall in Northern Scotland increased nearly 26 percent from 1961 to 2011, according to Historic Environment Scotland, the public steward of Scotland’s historic sites, which has studied risks to Scottish heritage from climate shifts. “The changes have speeded up,” said Mairi Davies, climate change manager for the agency. They are, she said, significantly faster than at any other point in the last 100 years.

The new extremes have led to archaeological epiphanies.

Walking across Cata Sand on the island of Sanday on a windy December day in 2015, Professor Downes and colleagues noticed an upright stone and red soil that turned out to be hearth scrapings. They found an early Neolithic house, older than those at Skara Brae.

A small dune had protected the site for thousands of years.

But a storm in 2012 ripped the dune away.

The next one may erase the Stone Age house.

With students and archaeologists from her own school and the University of Central Lancashire, Professor Downes has spent the last three summers digging between tides and documenting the artifacts.

The waters and storms that exposed these sites will also, before long, destroy them. The coastal survey forecasts that Cata Sand will lose about 80 feet of beach by 2050.

“That’s why this site is so important in trying to understand the lives of past societies,” Ross Drummond, a student at the University of Highlands and Islands, said. “The archaeology will be washed away for good, and future generations will only have our records and findings to go on to understand the story of Cata.”

In 1999, a few Orkney treasures were listed as world heritage monuments by Unesco, which said the islands had been a “center of innovation and experimentation” in art and architecture that spread throughout the Neolithic world. Among them is Maeshowe, a passage tomb built in 3000 B.C. Its entryway aligns with the setting midwinter sun, much like a tomb at Newgrange, 500 miles south in Ireland. (More than 4,000 years after Maeshowe was built, Vikings broke in and carved runes on the walls. A fit-to-print graffito roughly translates as: “Thorfinn wrote these runes.”)

The most sprawling neolithic Orkney site, the Ness of Brodgar, is only now emerging on a neck of land surrounded by water. Its discovery was pure serendipity.

In 2003, a couple hired a farmer to plow a sheep field outside their retirement home to ready the ground for a wildflower meadow. On the final turn, he hit a stone — one that had notches carved into it. The stone was part of a group of monumentally scaled structures, all buried.

Near them was an impossibly massive wall, also buried, 18 feet thick in places. Until then, the area’s landscape had been dominated by two circles of standing stones, the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness (they appear on the album cover of Van Morrison’s “The Philosopher’s Stone”).

The Ness totals six acres, about eight American football fields, and is rich with artwork and heaps of cattle bone from mass feasts, said Nick Card, director of the site. With less than 10 percent excavated, he said, 35,000 items have been collected.

Archaeologists and students trowel the soil, whisk dirt off promising bits, then bag them.

“I thought you’d have to be really lucky to find anything,” Kaehlin Terry, 22, a senior from Willamette University in Oregon, said. “But every 20 seconds, you come up with pieces of bone, stone tools, pottery.”

Across vast historical ages, ordinary time scales blur.

The grand spaces at the Ness of Brodgar, like the homely kitchens of Skara Brae and the tomb at Maeshowe, were built thousands of years before scribes first told of Buddha and Moses, Lord Vishnu and Jesus Christ.

These were the sturdy vessels of everyday life 5,000 years ago.

Humanity’s own fossils.

Interested in keeping up with climate change?

Sign up to receive our in-depth journalism about climate change around the world.

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/25/climate/scotland-orkney-islands-sea-level.html | Jim Dwyer, Josh Haner

Nature Saving Scotland’s Heritage From the Rising Seas, in 2018-09-26 10:43:24

[theramblingsofadork]

Found a better way to do these OC Ask Game things. :3

I found some more that I think are cool, so if anyone wants to send one (or a few) my way for any of my Sonic OCs, go for it! The last ones helped spur some more character development. ✨ (and also made me realize I needed to change some things)

[theramblingsofadork]

Here are all of the art pieces from my Starpoint Squad AU synopsis post yesterday!

[theramblingsofadork]

Morning retweet!

⋆｡°✩ Starpoint Squad AU Lore Post 2⋆｡°✩

— Competition Arc: Act II: The Plot

🚨 (Major spoilers ahead!)

Throughout the duration of the competition, there are multiple teams who are at odds with the Starpoint Squad. Several in particular clash with and pose more of a threat than the others. Like Skara the Skunk and Stormy the Mink.

Although Starline thinks them to be nothing more than rude, loud-mouthed bikers at first, he quickly finds out that they’re serious about being here, and are rather competent despite their unfitting appearance.

There’s also the pompous, above-it-all rich boy Atlas and his silent cohort (currently unnamed). Starline knows Atlas from their shared time at university, as they were somewhat at odds with each other, and graduated the same year. The friction of their opposing dynamics are ever present, even here.

There are also some human competitors involved in the mix, like a conservationist named Yew and a hotheaded brute named Dude. (Name TBD but Dude sounds funny.) Due to the tensions between the two races, partially in Aethos, this adds a whole other level of drama to the event.

Halfway through the competition, strange things begin to happen, including sabotages, fights, and Skara and Stormy dropping out of the running quite suddenly.

As these tensions and escalating events threaten to bring a premature end to the competition, Starline decides the only way to prevent that is to find out what’s really going on. So he and the squad begin to dig in and investigate.

What they eventually find out is that the tensions and sabatoges are being used to distract and draw security away from their usual outposts.

As Starline discovers from hacking someone’s personal computer, there’s a plot going on behind the scenes to weaken security and cause division, so the assailants can break into and take control of the Atmos CORE— using it’s power systems to take over security and turn both them and the competitor’s robots against them.

At this revelation, Starline finds himself torn. On one hand, he could use to his advantage by ‘joining’ them, only to then betray and assume control later on, allowing him to hand over Atmos and the CORE to Eggman.

But on the other hand, if his plan somehow fails, that could have this dangerous and ancient artifact in the hands of an idiot.

It’s at this point that he’s discovered and confronted by a teammate, and the farce he sought to maintain crumbles. His morals and reason for being here are challenged, and he’s given a single choice.

Join the saboteurs and show everyone his true colors, or help the team— HIS team, to stop a tried and true disaster from occurring.

Starline grapples with his selfishness, and the part of him that’s become attached to the squad. And he ultimately decides..

He’s gone soft. Not only would the improper handling of the CORE be a catastrophe, but he knows the others are going to charge in regardless of what he chooses. And whether he wants to admit it or not, some small part of him doesn’t want to see them get hurt.

So, they all head to stop the plot from happening, and in doing so, stumble upon Stormy and Skara, who did in fact NOT drop out, but were instead captured and locked up for discovering the grand scheme earlier on.

The assailants reveal themselves to the entire competition, applauding the squad for making it this far before stating that they’re ultimately too late.

A widespread broadcast activates on the intercom for the entire facility, and the CORE is activated, being directed to take over security and capture the both the Board of Directors and the competition participants.

What started out as a simple little competition suddenly turns into a fight for Atmos, and by extension— like or or not—the very balance of the world as they know it.

[theramblingsofadork]

✩‧₊˚⋆ Hey there! Welcome to my blog! ✩‧₊˚⋆

I’m a writer/artist who’s recently gotten back into Sonic through the IDW comics! I don’t know all the nuances or history of Archie or the games, so please bear with me being dumb! 💖

This blog mainly revolves around my OCs and Dr. Starline, but my other favorite characters include Surge, Silver, Blaze, and Espio.

I have a redemption AU for Starline and my OCs in the works, and am slowly building the pieces up to a full story. If you’re interested at all, the masterpost for all the related events lies below.

I usually post on Thursdays and Fridays.

As for me, I’m always up for a chat or questions, and enjoy hearing about others OCs, so feel free to shoot anything my way! :)

—

⭐️ Starpoint Squad AU Timeline ⭐️

(This masterpost will be updated reguarly with all the lore related art and writing, in the order that they happen in.🚨 There will be spoilers for the IDW comics ahead as well! 🚨)

Go ahead and hit Read More, and happy diving! ✨

v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v

Notes:

Major spoiler posts will be in green.

Major AU plot points will be highlighted in pink. (If not already green from spoilers)

EVERYTHING IN THIS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AND IS NOT SET IN LORE STONE, so to speak. It’s my first time attempting a grand scale story so I’m changing things on the go.

Character Introductions :

🌟 The Starpoint Squad: Starline the Platypus | Rivet the Cat | Charge the Cat | Hex the Rat | Cello the Firefly | Lug the Bulldog

🌪️ Team ???: Stormy the Skunk | Skara the Mink

🏴‍☠️ Villains: Professor Yew | Zeroth the Destroyer

📗 Side Characters: Hero Mania Creator

— The World:

🎖️ Aethos City/The Atmos Corporation

The Competition Arc

— Act 1: Friendly Competition

~~ Act 1 Synopsis ~~

Art/Text/Fanfic: Starline Encourages Hex

Art: Starline and Rivet’s Dynamic

Art: Starline and Cello’s Dynamic

Art: Starline and Hex’s Dynamic

Art: Hex and Lug’s Dynamic

Art: Starpoint Duties Part 1

Text: Hex’s Motivation for Joining the Competition

Comic: Starline and Cello’s Arguements

Art/Fanfic: A Slice of Humble Pie (Hold the Pie)

Art/Fanfic: Deciding on a Team Name

Art: Late Nights In the Lab

Art/Writing: Dance With Me

— Act 2: The Plot

~~~Act 2 Synopsis~~~

The Downfall Arc (IDW)

— Act 1: Gain and Loss (Metal Virus Era)

Art: Grief

Writing Prompt: Exhaustion

Fanfic: Giving Up Grievances

— Act 2: Awakening (Surge and Kit Era)

Text: Operation: Remaster, and Surge and Kit’s role

The Restoration Arc (Post IDW Issue #50)

— Act 1: Forgiveness

Art: Why Did You Save Me?

Art: Hesitation and Acceptance

— Act 2: Restoration

Text Post: Messing With the Broadcast

Joke Comic: Like Adopted Mother like Daughter

Art/Writing: Teaching Surge and Kit about Gear Riding

— Act 3: Happy Endings (Rivetline and beyond)

Text: Hex Getting a Cameo

Art: Two Dorks in Love

Ask: Confession?

Art: Worthy

Art: Trying on His Clothes

Art: Enjoying the Gala

Art: Lemon Meringue to his Chocolate Soufflé

Text: Starline Being Sick

Ficlet: How Much Time Has Passed

Text/HC: Nightmares

Text: Hypothetical Wedding

— Other Lore Related Stuff:

🎶 Character Themes

✨ Starpoint Squad Headcanons

💪 The Strengths of the Starpoint Squad

❓How the Squad Handles Sudden Plan Changes

👨‍👧‍👦 OC Parental Relationships

��� Rivetline Dynamics

❤️Art/Headcanon: Nose Boops and Nose Kisses

More Info about the Squad

More Info about the Squad 2

More info 3

More info 4

More info 5 (maybe i should get a new page for these lol)

[theramblingsofadork]

⋆｡°✩ Starpoint Squad AU Lore Post 2⋆｡°✩

— (Here’s a link in case you missed Act 1 )

— Competition Arc: Act II: The Plot

🚨 (Major spoilers ahead!)

Throughout the duration of the competition, there are multiple teams who are at odds with the Starpoint Squad. Several in particular clash with and pose more of a threat than the others. Like Skara the Skunk and Stormy the Mink.

Although Starline thinks them to be nothing more than rude, loud-mouthed bikers at first, he quickly finds out that they’re serious about being here, and are rather competent despite their unfitting appearance.

There’s also the pompous, above-it-all rich boy Atlas and his silent cohort (currently unnamed). Starline knows Atlas from their shared time at university, as they were somewhat at odds with each other, and graduated the same year. The friction of their opposing dynamics are ever present, even here.

There are also some human competitors involved in the mix, like a conservationist named Yew and a hotheaded brute named Dude. (Name TBD but Dude sounds funny.) Due to the tensions between the two races, partially in Aethos, this adds a whole other level of drama to the event.

Halfway through the competition, strange things begin to happen, including sabotages, fights, and Skara and Stormy dropping out of the running quite suddenly.

As these tensions and escalating events threaten to bring a premature end to the competition, Starline decides the only way to prevent that is to find out what’s really going on. So he and the squad begin to dig in and investigate.

What they eventually find out is that the tensions and sabatoges are being used to distract and draw security away from their usual outposts.

As Starline discovers from hacking someone’s personal computer, there’s a plot going on behind the scenes to weaken security and cause division, so the assailants can break into and take control of the Atmos CORE— using it’s power systems to take over security and turn both them and the competitor’s robots against them.

At this revelation, Starline finds himself torn. On one hand, he could use to his advantage by ‘joining’ them, only to then betray and assume control later on, allowing him to hand over Atmos and the CORE to Eggman.

But on the other hand, if his plan somehow fails, that could have this dangerous and ancient artifact in the hands of an idiot.

It’s at this point that he’s discovered and confronted by a teammate, and the farce he sought to maintain crumbles. His morals and reason for being here are challenged, and he’s given a single choice.

Join the saboteurs and show everyone his true colors, or help the team— HIS team, to stop a tried and true disaster from occurring.

Starline grapples with his selfishness, and the part of him that’s become attached to the squad. And he ultimately decides..

He’s gone soft. Not only would the improper handling of the CORE be a catastrophe, but he knows the others are going to charge in regardless of what he chooses. And whether he wants to admit it or not, some small part of him doesn’t want to see them get hurt.

So, they all head to stop the plot from happening, and in doing so, stumble upon Stormy and Skara, who did in fact NOT drop out, but were instead captured and locked up for discovering the grand scheme earlier on.

The assailants reveal themselves to the entire competition, applauding the squad for making it this far before stating that they’re ultimately too late.

A widespread broadcast activates on the intercom for the entire facility, and the CORE is activated, being directed to take over security and capture the both the Board of Directors and the competition participants.

What started out as a simple little competition suddenly turns into a fight for Atmos, and by extension— like or or not—the very balance of the world as they know it.