Move 9 (Ch. 1.9)

[yhlee]

Year 361, Month Three, Day Sixteen (Sunday), evening / day Seventeen (Monday), morning

On the station's carapace
The ammunition drone reports to whoever is listening that it has not exactly caught a spacegoing slime mold; rather, the slime mold has clogged up its legs and it's clinging rather precariously to the station's carapace. It is requesting, as forlornly as a nonsentient drone can, that somebody repair it. Until someone does something, it's...stuck.

On the station, during Mikodez and Iawa's science tour
Pavn, having noted Iawa's interest in the question of sonciousness, adds, "If you like, the researcher is probably busy at this hour, and he's in one of the classified labs, but I think that research assistant is currently off-shift. I could introduce you to her, if you like. She's always happy to talk about philosophical questions."

On the station, during Sasha, Yehan, and Alaric's science tour
Pavn looks quizzically at Yehan during the tour. "You remind me of some of the other visitors we've had recently," he says, in a friendly enough fashion. "You may have caught sight of their ship on the way in. Granted, phenotypes can be so misleading. Where did you say you were from?"

On the station, visitor's lounge, later
Sasha and Alaric are debating over carbon-fiber sculpture aesthetics when a ping comes in from the lokwor to indicate that Sasha's program has picked up more information on Remi. [Edit: sorry, hit post too soon.] He's not in his lab, but has signed out a spacesuit and has apparently gone for a walk outside the station. The lokwor has no idea why--it wasn't able to ferret out that information without Sasha's hacking guidance.

On the station, Rahal Gerae's office
Armed with an extra slate containing information about Rahal Gerae's known black market dealings, Sulen and Virmad head to Rahal Gerae's office. [Feel free to insert any preparations you may have wanted to make beforehand in a thread of its own.] The door is neatly labeled in a peculiarly Rahal style of calligraphy, recognizable despite the drift of time. There is a potted plant outside the door, its elongated flowers wilting.

More problematically, the door isn't locked. It appears to be stuck halfway open.

On the station, Nirai Alissa's dance studio
Before Ashari can say anything one way or the other to Alissa, a short man, dark-skinned, their shaven head covered with gold mesh-tattoos, stomps out of the office. He glares at Ashari. "I always knew you would be sucking up to any 'artists' who showed up on the station," he says. "Excuse me. I'm artist-designate Kwor, and I simply must demand that you authenticate yourself."

Alissa closes her eyes and looks pained. "Ah, yes," she says, "our resident artist-designate..." She leaves it at that.

[An artist-designate is basically the station's arts & entertainment coordinator, and in particular it means that Kwor is not an Andan but sort of secondary artist hired through the Andan, because a real Andan couldn't be arsed to come out to this posting.]

[Also note that Istradez is lurking in the background in this scene, if you need to borrow him.]

On the station, bubble tea stand 4:30 Monday morning
The bubble tea cafe is already open, or maybe always open, based on its sign. Mikodez and anyone else who decides to come here will notice several people sipping their bubble tea or coffee in a small area with seats and tables and decorative floating lanterns. There are many flavor shots offered, from mango to orange creme to root beer.

The barista frowns when she sees Mikodez. "Excuse me," she says. "Where are your parents?"

---

Character status
- Active characters as of last post: Sasha, Alaric, Yehan, Sulen, Virmad, Ashari, Mikodez, Iawa

- Currently inactive: Ankat, Kaliyan
Inactive players should feel free either to jump in wherever it feels logical, or to message me asking for an updated storyline so they can rejoin in a graceful fashion.

Comments

what Remi is up to outside the station

[yhlee]

Remi is indeed headed for instruments that are suspiciously close to where the Wasp is docked. The stuck drone is not far from it, although if it's true that wandering slime molds are a known phenomenon, he may not think anything of it.

Curiously, Remi appears to have hacked the visual feed from his helmet. It's not showing the stuck drone, but a completely tranquil station-carapace-scape that looks like it was recorded/simulated at some earlier time.

Re: what Remi is up to outside the station

[zuhrovet]

[Do we by any chance have a drone with an external text display?]

While waiting for Alaric to respond, Sasha checks the grid for information on spacegoing slime molds, and best practices for cleaning them out of filters.

Re: what Remi is up to outside the station

[yhlee]

[Sure thing.]

The grid's most informative document on spacegoing slime molds informs you that there is a type of cleanser used to suck the mold out of the filter. Some helpful Nirai has left an annotation saying that the cleanser is colloquially called a "splutter" for the "splut" sound that it makes when used in atmosphere.

mold control

[zuhrovet]

Sasha tries to determine whether there is a standard technique for using the cleanser when not in atmosphere, and where she can acquire some.

Re: mold control

[yhlee]

Let's say there is just because the Nirai would have dealt with vacuum-resistant mold before, and I'm not STEM enough to make up details. The grid informs Sasha that she can requisition the cleanser from Supply on Level Five. This is a fairly common problem on Moongray Station and there's also a little note that hints that if Sasha and her people have a long-term solution to pest slime mold, they might be able to make a profit that way.

Re: mold control - paging Iawa

[zuhrovet]

Sasha checks how late Supply is open; she's hoping (possibly fruitlessly) that Iawa will pick up some cleanser for her. Istradez seems marginally more reliable, but his cover story doesn't include running miscellaneous errands for the ship.

Re: mold control - paging Iawa

[vass]

[Coming!]

Re: mold control - paging Iawa

[zuhrovet]

[Yay, thank you!

But we're sort of in a time loop here, since Sasha's back on the ship after her tour, which was supposedly second? Let's fix it by saying that Sasha did her lattice search about slime mold on Ankat's tablet, while she was setting up the 3D printer.]

sending a drone to talk to Remi? - paging everyone, especially command

[zuhrovet]

[Sasha's about to send a drone to blink, "Mango! Mango! Mango!" at Remi. I'm going to pause here for 24 hours real-time just in case somebody wants to weigh in on this plan.]

Sending a drone to talk to Remi!

[zuhrovet]

Sasha tweaks the drone navigation routines to be more cautious about dark patches that might be spacegoing mold, and prints a slate and a fat grease pencil. The pencil comes out a fetching shade of purple, which she's not inclined to argue with. She ties the slate and the pencil to a convenient handle on her drone, and sends it toward Remi.

When it nears Remi, the drone pulses an amber light and displays the word "Mango!" on its screen.

Re: Sending a drone to talk to Remi!

[slybrarian]

"Why are we asking about fruit?" Alaric says, leaning over Sasha's shoulder. "He's not a botanist, he's - oh, right. The code."

Alaric has mostly been trying to figure out what Sasha asked, examining what information they have publicly available on the station - if nothing else, they should be able to tell which direction that sensor cluster points - as well as anything the drone can see or the ship might have scanned on the way in.

[Sorry about the delay in responding, this was a busier weekend than expected.]

Re: Sending a drone to talk to Remi!

[zuhrovet]

[Seriously, I feel like I should be apologizing to you for the spam. Patience is not Sasha's virtue, evidently.]

Re: Sending a drone to talk to Remi!

[yhlee]

The sensor cluster is definitely pointing toward the Wasp in its docking bay.

Meanwhile, the drone has detected what looks suspiciously like a hatchery of mothlings in one of the restricted areas near what Sasha has determined is Remi's lab.

Anyone on the Wasp at the moment will notice that the Wasp is humming and vibrating more than usual.

Re: Sending a drone to talk to Remi!

[slybrarian]

"It occurs to me," Alaric says, while examining the imagery, "that while your average small-fuzzy-insect moth does not care much about juveniles - generally being dead before they hatch - gigantic spacegoing moths of indeterminate much longer lifespan may have different opinions."

This is a somewhat worrying development. Eldritch space beasts harnessed for starflight are something he can handle. Children, less so.

He sends the moth the ol' 010101 interrogative signal to see if it feels like expressing itself.

Re: Sending a drone to talk to Remi!

[zuhrovet]

"I thought moth was just a nickname, not a biological parallel?"

Sasha's hoping that the baby aliens will be like tadpoles. She likes tadpoles.

Re: Sending a drone to talk to Remi!

[slybrarian]

"I think it's just a nickname or metaphor," Alaric replies. "Maybe based on appearance, but I'm not planning on sticking my head into its chamber to check anytime soon. Anything that can fly faster than light and haul a ship around with it probably isn't easy on the eyes."

Re: Sending a drone to talk to Remi!

[yhlee]

The moth sends space ASCII of a big moth, then a bunch of little moths, then a picture of the big moth and little moths all flying away together along with 010101 [???].

Moth chat, moth policy - paging Alaric

[zuhrovet]

"Can you tell the moth about Remi?" Sasha asks. "Something like, there's a person with the baby moths, we're not sure if he's heptarchate or rebellion, let's all fly away together?"

She starts digging into the command files, trying to see if she can find official policy on moths, mothdrives, or appropriate treatment of intelligent aliens.

[How much does Sasha know about the way the rebellion is organized? Would making moth freedom an official rebellion goal entail persuading a general, or convincing a committee, or editing brief documents shared with newly formed cells, or winning a referendum, or...? Does the rebellion even have official goals?]

Re: Sending a drone to talk to Remi!

[yhlee]

This is what Sasha sees through the drone's cameras:

Remi's eyes, seen behind the faceplate of his helmet, visibly narrow. Then he examines the drone with its offering. He thinks a moment, then grabs the slate and grease pencil.

He writes: Meet tm (Month 3 Day 17) at Bar on Level 3. I hv ethics concern abt yr org.

Then he draws a (not very good) moth, shoves the whole shebang in front of the drone's camera for about a minute, then wipes the slate clean and hands it back.

Re: Sending a drone to talk to Remi!

[zuhrovet]

"I have concerns about the fact that he has the same favorite bar as the chief of security," Sasha says aloud. "Does the rebellion only recruit people with icicles instead of adrenal glands?"

She displays:

Andan/Rahal will meet after yr shift

Come to B-bee to meet moth.

"Alaric, are you going to tell Ashari and the rest about the moth, or am I?"

Re: Sending a drone to talk to Remi!

[slybrarian]

"I can take care of that," Alaric said. "It shouldn't be too hard to present the basic facts of the situation. It's not like anyone needs to know the mathematical reasons why the moth is suddenly conscious, beyond 'some historic Nirai was a very bad person', just that it is."

After a moment, he adds off-handedly, "Also, adrenal glands are definitely something I still have. At least the last time I checked."

Re: Sending a drone to talk to Remi!

[zuhrovet]

Sasha's curious about the math, but she has a feeling it will quickly degenerate to muttering about bundles, sheaves, and other agricultural metaphors, so she doesn't push.

Off-handed comments from Alaric, on the other hand, usually portend later trouble. "Are you in the habit of misplacing small organs? Is it catching?"

Re: Sending a drone to talk to Remi!

[slybrarian]

"Not really. One doesn't count as a habit, and I know exactly where it is," Alaric says. "As for catching, certainly not. It was a surgical procedure, not a disease."

Re: Sending a drone to talk to Remi!

[yhlee]

Remi frowns, then concedes:

Will come to B-bee. Many Qs.

arranging a meeting with Remi

[zuhrovet]

Sasha displays:

When?