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hexarchate_rpg2017-09-19 09:02 pm
yhlee) wrote in hexarchate_rpg2017-09-19 09:02 pm
Entry tags:
Move 9 (Ch. 1.9)
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.
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.
Re: During the science tour (paging mod, attn Sasha)
[Vidona cadets and first aid, sounds good.]
Supply is staffed by a taciturn alt who appears to have replaced most of their face with implants. It gives them the appearance of wearing an ornate, jeweled insect-mask. They offer Iawa a choice of three different first aid kits, two of which are Nirai standard and one of which is designed for field use in combat. "Kel surplus," the alt says in a dolorous voice. "We always get stuck with Kel surplus." They also give basic instructions on how to use the splutter, with a better you than me tone to their voice.
After Iawa has grabbed whatever they need from Supply, Pavn asks, "Do you want to see more labs, or head to the research assistant? I think she usually grabs coffee and a taro cake around now."
Re: During the science tour (attn Sasha, Mikodez, Ankat)
They choose one of the Nirai kits, the one that seems closest to what they trained with. After a moment of thought, they take the Kel field combat kit as well. That ex-Kel with the typical Kel prejudices against abstract thought might have been trained on it already, or if not, they can see if Avrayen is interested in learning. Or that tech, Sasha, might want it, although she seems to have her hands full already. It never hurts to be prepared.
They conceal the Nirai kit on their person while visiting the bathroom. They carry the splutter and the spare kit in a bag together.
"I'd like to meet the research assistant, if you wouldn't mind," Iawa says. I might get called away with another errand soon, but it'd be good to at least make contact now. Thank you very much for the tour, it was very interesting."
[
Re: During the science tour (attn Sasha, Mikodez, Ankat)
[For the sake of consistent time streams, Iawa should talk to the research assistant before coming back to the Wasp.
On the other hand, I think our GM is traveling for work this weekend (technically so am I, but international data plans are the best), so if you wanted to skip ahead in time and join Sasha & Alaric in speculation about baby aliens, that would be fun!]
Re: During the science tour (attn Sasha, Mikodez, Ankat)
"Excellent!" Vana says chirpily. She's a short, round-faced woman whose affectation appears to be glasses with prismatic lenses. "I'm Nirai Vana, as you've figured out. Pleased to make your acquaintance--would you like a taro cake? One of my coworkers makes them fresh every day."
Re: During the science tour (attn Sasha, Mikodez, Ankat)
"I'm glad to meet you," Iawa says, after accepting the taro cake gratefully. "Pavn-[let's pretend I remembered the correct suffix here] told me a little about the work you're doing, and it sounded fascinating and relevant to so many ancient philosophical quandaries and controversies."
After a little space while they draw Vana out some more about the theoretical underpinnings of her work, they turn things around to: "But it seems to have caused some more modern philosophical controversies too. Pavn-[suffix] let something slip about a debate that your supervisor and you had, something about whether completely alien beings can understand morality in the same way humans do. That's the sort of argument I might have expected of Liozh rather than Nirai, and I'm intrigued. Is your supervisor a very philosophical sort, or just argumentative in general? Supervisors can be difficult, I know."
[I'm assuming this conversation happens before Iawa's called back to Sasha, so they can bring a bit of background info with them. That is, unless something they say upsets Vana enough that Sasha's summons makes a good excuse to bail, of course!]
Re: During the science tour (attn Sasha, Mikodez, Ankat)
"Oh, Nirai Remi," Vana says with a fond sigh. "He came from a world that was only recently joined to the heptarchate, so some of his views are a trifle eccentric. But the matter of aliens and morality is not completely abstract. We've been doing some research with alien life-forms, and I worry that he's losing his objectivity over them. Of course it's important to provide a congenial spawning environment for the spacetime-flitters, but there's no need to get sentimental. They're just animals."
Re: During the science tour (attn Sasha, Mikodez, Ankat)
Speculation Re: During the science tour (attn Sasha, Mikodez, Ankat)
Maybe he likes moths now but will learn something about them that changes his mind. We don't know they're benevolent entities, after all. Maybe a moth killed his childhood dog. Or ate his favourite scarf. Or maybe he finds out they're a humanity-level threat, something so malevolent he decides to... enslave them? Yeah, that's not my idea of an acceptable solution to the problem of evil aliens, but I'm not the dude who implemented ritual torture as a feature not a bug either.
(I don't think the moths are evil aliens, I am just throwing theories at the wall and watching them slide down.)
Or maybe he's ethical now but heading for a heel turn we need to somehow avert.
Or maybe he's fine with moth enslavement but likes playing devil's advocate, who knows?
Maybe he's doing opposition research on exactly how sensitive to the idea of torture and slavery the average heptarchate citizen is, if you convince them it's necessary or deserved or expedient.]
Re: Speculation Re: During the science tour (attn Sasha, Mikodez, Ankat)
Re: During the science tour (attn Sasha, Mikodez, Ankat)
Are they causing the rifts, they want to ask, but caution holds them back.
"It must be very difficult to research an alien species. What sort of tests are you running?" they continue. And why are those tests objectionable to Nirai Remi, they again do not add aloud.
Re: During the science tour (attn Sasha, Mikodez, Ankat)
She takes another bite of her taro cake, then adds, "Mostly we're trying to breed them in captivity. Their ability to faster-than-light could be very useful if we could guarantee a supply of them. Capturing them is a rather hazardous enterprise; the original Nirai-Andan team responsible for the original breeding population did not...return entirely intact."
Re: During the science tour (attn Sasha, Mikodez, Ankat)
But even if this was a simulation, Iawa had probably run out of interesting things to say, until enough time passed for them to do something else with the supplies they asked for. Mikodez decides to find some more people to talk to once Pavn finishes demonstrating the sputter, thankfully away from them, and politely asks about where they might find Andan Ashari's putative exhibit space.
[To vass - do you want Mikodez at the space fungi with Iawa later? I didn't think he'd remember about the Liozh, despite the reminder at the airlock meeting.]
Re: During the science tour (attn Sasha, Mikodez, Ankat)
Re: During the science tour (attn Sasha, Mikodez, Ankat)
Well, the rush of positive emotion is disturbing, but at least he’s not feeling any compulsion to trust those station Shuos or to treat them as anything but opponents. He wouldn’t do that in a regular training scenario, let alone the ‘’’’’past’’’’’. He’s not Kel.
Mikodez goes on about the boxes he’ll have to move and the accuracy Andan Rii has demanded of their exhibit spaces in the past, of course not a problem on a Nirai station, drivel about interdisciplinary art, thank you for all your time on this delightful tour, to end with, “You have Shuos here, too? It’s got to be good for them to learn --” to scrub slime molds? To analyse Nirai?
A rift-station was probably as volatile as a border station, if not more, and those can get up to [whatever number is reasonable for current hexarchate] agents. “To learn some solid skills,” he finishes, for the benefit of any watchers.