He can feel the space in his perceptions where his biotics should be like the biggest and most phantom of phantom limbs -- an inexplicable absence even while everything else is reporting in as all systems green. (Although his toes and fingers might start shading into the blue if he's not careful.) Even at rest, he ought to be feeling the interplay between the eezo in his own body and what's in the world around him, subtle resonances between himself, the other biotics, the drive core of the ship... all the sensations he'd never even thought of, much less put a name to, until they were gone.
He'd had the amp offline before, but had attributed the dislocated feeling as much to the fact that he was on amazing painkillers following having seven shades of shit shaken out of him by a murderous AI-controlled mech. Now, mostly-hale and reasonably-hearty as he stands in an unexpected winter's woods, he can feel it all the more strongly.
The trees look like Earth evergreens, the mountains could easily be the Rockies, but he left an Earth that was smoking ruins, where even the countryside was choked with ash and death and the rubble of small towns taken out with a passing strike from a Reaper's main battery. One hand reaches automatically to call up his omni-tool's display, plans for amp diagnostics and comm broadcasts jostling for priority, only to find another absence: the omni-tool is missing. "What the shit," quoth Major Alenko, standing in the snow in nothing more than his Alliance duty uniform and a thick cloak of befuddled alarm that thickens still more as he realizes he's not alone. "Who's over there?"
Base
The differences between 'under arrest' and 'detained' are appreciable only on a longer timeframe than the one Kaidan's found himself in. In the here and now, they both result in a loss of freedom and a scarcity of answers, it's just that the latter one suggests it would be rude to try and escape. That 'detained' also neatly dispenses with the need to adhere to any rights like access to legal counsel... well, he'd be wryly impressed by their tactics, if he wasn't currently caught in the middle of them.
Kaidan's strategy seems to be to retreat into a watchful calm that might well be downright irritating for a hotter tempered member of the group to watch. He's polite to the guards and medics, trades questions answered for questions asked, and seems to be doing his level best to be as unremarkable as it's possible for an exotic to be. His medical scans betray his efforts, however, as the cybernetics of his biotic amp and the haptic implants in his fingertips provide enough to catch some medical interest all on their own, even without the mysterious shadows of the eezo nodes that nestle all along his nervous system.
It doesn't take too many question-trades for him to figure out that these people have no idea what biotics are, much less the witch's christening gift of his L2 implant. Paired with what seem to be exclusively energy weapons among the soldiers and the unfamiliar state of Cetaganda, and he's left wondering if this is yet another lost colony situation like the Manswell Expedition. "So, ah," he wonders, testing out a new question. "Does your empire still have contact with Earth?"
Bunkroom
The decor may be creepy in its perfection, but the food is slowly convincing Kaidan, who apparently retains his biotic's metabolism despite the amp's failure, that their captor-hosts may be trying to domesticate their new exotics by means of food rewards. Polite requests for comm network access being even more politely declined, he's left with trying to make sense of his situation based on observation alone. His fellow prisoner-guests are certainly the most varied pool of individuals, and the near-certainty that they're being recorded doesn't outweigh the utility of getting to know them. So, in between the various interviews from the Cetagandans, Kaidan turns up with a crooked smile and the reflection that "I really need to see if they'll give us a deck of cards or something... but what's your story? I'm earthborn, myself."
Kaidan Alenko | Mass Effect | ota
He can feel the space in his perceptions where his biotics should be like the biggest and most phantom of phantom limbs -- an inexplicable absence even while everything else is reporting in as all systems green. (Although his toes and fingers might start shading into the blue if he's not careful.) Even at rest, he ought to be feeling the interplay between the eezo in his own body and what's in the world around him, subtle resonances between himself, the other biotics, the drive core of the ship... all the sensations he'd never even thought of, much less put a name to, until they were gone.
He'd had the amp offline before, but had attributed the dislocated feeling as much to the fact that he was on amazing painkillers following having seven shades of shit shaken out of him by a murderous AI-controlled mech. Now, mostly-hale and reasonably-hearty as he stands in an unexpected winter's woods, he can feel it all the more strongly.
The trees look like Earth evergreens, the mountains could easily be the Rockies, but he left an Earth that was smoking ruins, where even the countryside was choked with ash and death and the rubble of small towns taken out with a passing strike from a Reaper's main battery. One hand reaches automatically to call up his omni-tool's display, plans for amp diagnostics and comm broadcasts jostling for priority, only to find another absence: the omni-tool is missing. "What the shit," quoth Major Alenko, standing in the snow in nothing more than his Alliance duty uniform and a thick cloak of befuddled alarm that thickens still more as he realizes he's not alone. "Who's over there?"
Base
The differences between 'under arrest' and 'detained' are appreciable only on a longer timeframe than the one Kaidan's found himself in. In the here and now, they both result in a loss of freedom and a scarcity of answers, it's just that the latter one suggests it would be rude to try and escape. That 'detained' also neatly dispenses with the need to adhere to any rights like access to legal counsel... well, he'd be wryly impressed by their tactics, if he wasn't currently caught in the middle of them.
Kaidan's strategy seems to be to retreat into a watchful calm that might well be downright irritating for a hotter tempered member of the group to watch. He's polite to the guards and medics, trades questions answered for questions asked, and seems to be doing his level best to be as unremarkable as it's possible for an exotic to be. His medical scans betray his efforts, however, as the cybernetics of his biotic amp and the haptic implants in his fingertips provide enough to catch some medical interest all on their own, even without the mysterious shadows of the eezo nodes that nestle all along his nervous system.
It doesn't take too many question-trades for him to figure out that these people have no idea what biotics are, much less the witch's christening gift of his L2 implant. Paired with what seem to be exclusively energy weapons among the soldiers and the unfamiliar state of Cetaganda, and he's left wondering if this is yet another lost colony situation like the Manswell Expedition. "So, ah," he wonders, testing out a new question. "Does your empire still have contact with Earth?"
Bunkroom
The decor may be creepy in its perfection, but the food is slowly convincing Kaidan, who apparently retains his biotic's metabolism despite the amp's failure, that their captor-hosts may be trying to domesticate their new exotics by means of food rewards. Polite requests for comm network access being even more politely declined, he's left with trying to make sense of his situation based on observation alone. His fellow prisoner-guests are certainly the most varied pool of individuals, and the near-certainty that they're being recorded doesn't outweigh the utility of getting to know them. So, in between the various interviews from the Cetagandans, Kaidan turns up with a crooked smile and the reflection that "I really need to see if they'll give us a deck of cards or something... but what's your story? I'm earthborn, myself."