2014-03-23 - Stark Expo: STAR Labs Presents

A trio of lab-coated technicians move around on stage, doing the final touches on the presentation-- STAR Labs logo playing on the big screen.

After the presentation was supposed to have started ten minutes prior, finally, two of the three skitter off the stage, leaving only one man in a lab coat.

"Hello," he says to the audience. He's obviously much more comfortable in a lab than here, but he's willing to talk. He's an older man, with grey hair and facial hair similar to Stark's, only more 'old guy gone to seed' than 'philandering playboy'.

"I'm Dr. Emil Hamilton, for Science and Technology Advanced Research Laboratories, more colloquially known as 'S.T.A.R. Labs. I'm pleased to be here at Stark Expo. It's been a great experience so far, and I hope I can be even as half as interesting as Mr. Stark was for opening night, or Miss Hammer was last night." He smiles, giving a slightly awkward wave.

Kara Zor-El murmurs to Noriko, Bobby, and Tommy, "Oh...hey, I know him. Kal said he helped him at STAR Labs to recreate the Phantom Zone projector and some other stuff..." She smiles watching Dr. Hamilton. Then says to her friends, "If he says he's having a baby though, I'll figure this whole expo is staged..."

Bruce Wayne had taken his seat in the Wayne Enterprises section near Lucius Fox. He had told Damian to 'enjoy himself' elsewhere in the Expo, or, perhaps better, away from the Expo entirely. With Dick, if possible.

And he watches the stage attentively, but is also making sure to stay /aware/ of what is going on around him.

Adam elbows Tommy. "So, what's a 'Sentinel'?" he asks absently. "You looked pretty... weird... when it was mentioned." He's trying to pay attention, really. He promises.

Coming to the S.T.A.R. Expo presentation Dor'rain looks around coming in at the end of the introduction. The labs of this company hold a number of interests for Dor'rain, watching and recording the events on his shoulder scanner. Enough to get a visual record with out going to deep into penetrating Scans. After all humans can get touchy if you are thought to be a spy.

Sitting on the other side of Tommy, Noriko replies, "About a 100 foot tall almost invulnerable robot that's programmed to destroy and kill mutants, or suppress them with tons of different weapons. Totally. Uncool." Then, she observes, "I hope this presentation is cooler than the last one. Or Asshat's."

Tommy nods to Adam. "What Noriko said," he explains before he leans into Noriko about. "Well I doubt these guys are going to have sentinels so, there's that at least." He glances to Kara then. "So you know these guys then? They got any cool stuff like that OsBoard or some video games?"

The tall well-dressed man from the Hammer display presents himself at the Wayne booth showing his pass to security, the name reads Terrance Kase, a subtle barb aimed at Bruce for the false name the man, Ra's, had been stuck with when he was briefly detained in Arkham. "I am here to see Mr. Wayne, I know he will be expecting me," he says to security. Kase, Ra's, is without his bodyguard.

Peter Parker is over in the audience then, in the press area, and as the presentation goes on, he starts to take pictures up of it then, his digital camera clicking then. This Expo has been peaceful the last couple of days. He's hoping they're not going to be interrupted by a random supervillain.

Bruce notices Ra's as he's allowed into the Wayne Enterprises section, and his jaw tightens. A flit of his gaze to the man's badge, and back up, and a forced smile. "Mr. Kase. A pleasant surprise." Neither is true-- that it's pleasant or a surprise.

The gossiping teenagers in the back don't even draw Dr. Hamilton's attention, as he pushes the little clicker in his hand, moving to the next video.

"Our first item for presentation tonight is our Z-Wave Transporter Prototype." He looks over the audience, and the film begins to play of the prototype in action.

"It harnesses the powers of Zeta Beams, allowing for near instantaneous transportation of matter across any distances. The current model is only line of sight, but with the proposed constellation of satellites in place it would be possible to transport materials all over the world and into orbit with no difficulty what-so-ever." He smiles.

Having come in with the group of teens, Bobby has been quiet to this point. Hearing the conversation between the teens, he leans oer and says quietly, "Yeah, Sentinels are 10 tons of bad, and come in a few nifty mutant stomping flavors. I can give you the rundown later, if you remind me." A nod to Kara then, and an added, "Hmm, if these guys have worked with alien tech, this could be..." And then the zeta transporter is descrribed and Bobby changes his comment, muttering, "Ooh... Kurt's going to be jealous."

"Mutant killing robots?" Adam wrinkles his nose. "Sounds insane. And people are allowed to build them?" He thinks. "Ohhh... I think I've seen those. I think they wrecked a concert a few months ago, right?"

As Dor'rain listens to the talk of Zeta Beam technology he will get a scan of the technology of the device. His people use Transmat technology, this wouldn't be all that advance even if it is line of sight.

Kara Zor-El nods a little. "Yeah.... they backward engineered Zeta Beam technology. My cousin Kal said it's used on the Watchtower." She pauses then says to Bobby, "It's like transporters in that Star Trek show... just.. you know... while making actual scientific sense. It's more of a focused hyperspace bypass transfer of matter and energy than just saying..." Kara waves her hands around a little. "Saying 'Heisenberg Compensator' and thinking everything's fine then."

Wait, Kara's trekkie? Yep. Kara's apparently a trekkie.

Oh man, they hadn't grabbed Spot to do this, had they? PEter's internal monologue is on a somewhat different tangent over from the rest of the others as he goes into an appreciate 'ooh' along with the rest of the crowd no doubt as he takes photographs of the display.

Bobby grins at the Star trek comparison, but it's a different bit of geekdom he latches on to. He glances at Kara, "Wait, hyperspace bypass?" He pauses, then mutters, "Hmm, where's my towel." He turns his attention back to the stage.

Kara Zor-El looks at Bobby. "Towel?" Okay, she's lost on that reference. "Bypass transfer. Basically opens a pinprick in spacetime, then latches on to... actually wait he's explaining it now. Oooh." She smiles and listens at all the techno-boring stuff.

"Okay," agrees Noriko, "That's pretty cool. Just think of how much energy that'll save. And travel time. And lines at the airport. But, ... how would they make sure that stuff like that one movie 'The Fly' didn't happen?" Because, the science in that of DNA getting mixed up, totally makes sense to her teenage brain.

"Yep, mutant killing robots," Tommy confirms to Adam before he nods to the rest about the transporter or whatever. Sci-fi stuff man. "Huh, guess so," he says to Nori. "Though might put me out of business."

Kase steps forward and takes a seat. "Indeed," he answers Bruce non-comittally. "I am sorry for intruding on you like this," he pauses catching himself from saying Detective, as he was so accustomed to calling him. "Mr. Wayne. However my attempt to amend a mistake has gone awry and I wish to make it right between us."

Bruce lifts a brow, looking around. No, Ra's may be a mass-murdering, homocidal maniac, but he was one Bruce knew weell.

As odd as it was, all these people were /safe/. Unless he did something to blow either of their 'covers'. "Oh?" he asks simply, a legion of questions in one word.

"If anyone puts you out of business," promises Noriko, to Tommy, "I will totally black them out. For days. Until they cry Uncle." Then, she grins and punches him lightly in the shoulder, "C'mon. It is pretty cool. And you know it"

Bobby shakes his head at Kara, "I definitely need to introduce you to Douglas Adams some time." No mention that it's an author. He sits back and watches the demo, seeming interested y the showy bits, like an actual demonstration of the tech. Otherwise, he looks interested, but his eyes glaze a bit as he goes into "Listening to Beast explain something" face.

Kara Zor-El looks over at Noriko. "Oh I saw that movie too... this is different. Basically shunts everything into another quantum state. Soooo no having fly heads." She thinks. "I'm pretty sure at least. They never actually developped this technology on Krypton, but I've heard about it a lot." She pauses. "Plus different animal DNA takes a lot more effort to merge together using what they used in that movie. Honestly if they wanted to be accurate, he would have materialized in the other tube as a blob of protoplasm." She pauses. "But then the movie would be called... I don't know... something ridiculous like 'The blob'" She rolls her eyes, "As if that makes sense as a science fiction movie, right?" She goes back to watching the presentation.

"You know who and what I mean, Mr. Wayne," Ra's says. "Surely you have deduced how he came back. I had hoped his return would balance the scales but it's clear now that I misjudged and he has become a thorn in your side. You need but say the word and my men will find him and bring him to you to do what you wish."

Tommy snorts. "I did mention you were awesome right?" he says to Noriko before looking at Kara and Adam. "She's awesome by the way," he takes the shoulder punch with a smile and he nods. "And yeah, it's pretty cool, gotta admit."

Peter Parker continues to take pictures. It's a video, it can't unleash a portal into a parallel dimension and have them be invaded by beasts from an antimatter verse. It can't. Can it? Peter is not having his spider-sense blaring his brains out, so he takes this as a state that reality is not about to end from whatever is being shown on the screen.

Bruce grits his teeth. "/No/." His dismissal is firm, almost challenging. He looks over at Ra's, then goes back to paying attention to the scientist on stage.

Kara Zor-El looks back at Tommy. "Yep. Noriko's awesome." Then peers over at Bruce curiously for a moment across the audience for a moment before looking back at the stage distractedly.

"Ah, next..." and the man clicks his clicker again, moving to the next video, "Our Boreas Satellite System! This one is one of my favorite, I must confess." He chuckles. "A series of fusion powered satellites when deployed properly can manipulate the Earth’s magnetic field to help reduce powerful storms." He pauses. "Weather control, on a global scale-- can you imagine the possibilities?"

Peter Parker raises his hand up then as the man continues then as he sits in the press booth, one hand using his camera to continue to take pictures. "Doctor Hamilton, are you taking questions?"

Doctor Hamilton looks startled for a second-- he hadn't truly expected questions, but he doesn't look bothered. "Oh... of course, Mr....?"

Bobby stops pretending to be interested and actually leans forward in his seat. Global weather control... through magnetic manipulation. Out comes the cell phone. Using one hand to shield the light from it, he thumbs out a text and zips it off to a certain bald educator in Westchester, NY.

Ra's lets out an exasperated sigh when he is refused though he does not speak for a moment he looks towards the stage and the satellite and for a moment he does imagine the possibilities. Though that moment passes and he returns to the subject at hand. "Are you certain Mr. Wayne? I offer only to bring this to a close before any more of your disciples or our mutual heir, is harmed in this business."

"Wow have these guys even met supervillains?" asks Tommy as the weather machine is rolled out. "I've got like five bucks that says the next thing they've got is an earthquake machine."

Adam lets out a snrk. "Don't we need weather? Like, in place, ddifferently, for ecology or something? I mean, I had to write a paper for Docotor Pym a couple weeks ago on climate."

"I will not allow that to happen," Bruce replies firmly. "/Either/ way." Meaning, of course, either his current trouble causing more injury to his 'family', /or/ Ra's's little 'friends' stepping in.

Peter Parker glances up at Doctor Hamilton, "Parker, Doctor Hamilton. Peter Parker. Even assuming the issues with the satellites being commandeered by someone malfeasant aside, as with all such technologies.. How accurate are the simulations you've run then? The Magnetosphere is something that we barely understand today. Even with the computer technology predicting global warming trends and other issues of long term climate predictions has proven incredibly difficult with the human computational ability. Now you're talking about altering the magnetosphere when we can barely understand all of the existing dynamics that affect it. How much have you crunched the numbers over on this and run your simulations given I'm not aware of any research papers in the field that have shown a breakthrough of climate analysis?"

Bobby leans over and comments to the boys near him, "Maybe we'll get lucky, and they'll just piss off Thor before a supervillain grabs the specs from them?" He gives a little shrugs. A man, or a mutant, can dream…

"Ah!" Dr. Hamilton actually looks pleased. "A fine question. Yes, we have run the device through multiple simulations, making sure to adjust and counter for area-specific ecosystems and--" he drones on with a rambling, very scientific explanation that likely will only interest Lucius, Kara, and Peter.

Adam, for one, is already zoned out. "I don't think they do video games," he points out to Tommy.

Ra's seems actually disappointed by that answer. "Very well, carry on by yourself as you always do, but be warned. I know the type of man he has become, and he may not give you a choice in how to stop him." Then with that final warning, Ra's rises and takes his leave unless someone stops him.

Tommy is so bored. He leans his head on Noriko's shoulder. "Yeah, figure the Osboard demo is still open?"

Peter Parker would be interested in pursuing the question further, but his knowledge of climatology based prediction is satisfied by the response and he is not qualified to ask follow up questions then as he nods cheerfully, "Thank you for elaborating Doctor Hamilton." Looking over at Kara for her analysis if he can spot her in the crowd.

Noriko leans towards Tommy, "So. Where's the party tonight, then?" She asks, with a grin. "I demand a party."

"Ahem," Dr. Hamilton looks a little sheepish. "And our final display for the evening... the Mark I Disintegrator. Using Zeta Beams, this backpack powered weapon can be used to disintegrate up to 100 tons of matter on a single charge." The video plays on the screen behind him.

Bobby leans over to Kara and says quietly to her, "You know, I kind of have to wonder if these guys took the differences in the merged world into account. I mean... there's some pretty big differences by the poles, right? Different histories, different aliens... I'm thinking maybe there's stuff they don't know about that would go wonky if you messed with the magnetics." His words say "maybe". His tone of voice says, "Can't talk about it, but not a maybe."

Peter Parker raises his hand up, "Ah, Doctor Hamilton, but by the laws of physics should not a Disintegrator first Disintegrate itself when used?" Okay, that one is probably a bit obtuse for those that don't know their technological details of the 31st and one half century.

Kara Zor-El leans over to Bobby. "Well.... I know there's this guy operating out of Central City called Weather Wizard, and he recently was doing some weather manipulation.... so.... I don't know. You could ask?"

"Hey, Bobby? Can the Institute order one of those disintegrators to use on the Hammer Industries robots?" Noriko wonders, curiously.

Kara Zor-El looks over at Tommy. Then says to Bobby. "Probably wouldnt be bored if there were topless girls on stage." She smiles.

Dr. Hamilton blinks, then lets out a laugh. "Funny, kid-- but, no, on a serious note..." and the science begins spewing.

This... is worse than a lecture witht he 'science bros', Adam decides. "...I'm bailing," he comments quietly to Tommy. "Let's find Jules and see if he can hook us up with another party."

Tommy slips the phone out of his pocket and fires off a text. "Already ahead of you," he says to Adam and Noriko about finding Jules and a party. He snorts at Kara. "Thanks for being a helper there, Zor-El," he snarks. "Want us to text you an address when we find this party, I know you probably want to get your science on right?"

Peter Parker can't hear Kara. Fortunately. But otherwise Peter can follow the science, "So you're saying that we're not at risk anytime soon of an Illiudium P-38 Explosive Space Modulator unless the Inhumans want to improve thier view of Venus from Earth then?"

Bobby chuckles at Kara's comment, "Neither would any other guy here." He glances at her, then cracks a smile, "Of course, X-Ray vision would make everyone topless. How did superman ever make it through puberty...?" The wicked little grin on his face is enough to know he's teasing her. And then he hears Parker's "question" and ends up with a hand over his mouth, trying to contain a laugh. There are a few similar reactions around the audience from others who watched too many cartoons growing up. Or still do (who said Bobby ever grew up?)

Kara Zor-El looks over at Bobby, Noriko and Tommy. "Can you excuse me a bit? Need to just talk to someone quickly." Then makes her way over across the audience to Bruce. She looks around, then murmurs to Bruce, "Um... I wasnt trying to eavesdrop..."

Except she was. Anyone who gets Bruce looking perturbed is something to be curious about.

"... but are you okay? I mean.. you know... okay for you? That guy?"

"Was no one, Kara," Bruce responds quietly. "I will handle it."

His tone was less Bruce and more the cowl speaking. And Kara, at least, should know better than to argue with the cowl. Especially when the brooding is threatening, and it is.

Kara Zor-El pauses. "okay... but you know ... if you need any help..." She drops the line of thought. "Okay anyway, nice to see you. Or something...."

As if she's going to actually not ask people who won't give her a bat glare. Yeah right.

Peter Parker gets up as the presentation finishes. It's stragne. HE doesn't think he's actually been to a scientific symposium in what feels like -years- that wasn't interrupted somehow by a state of emergency.