Move 11 (Chapter 1.11)

[yhlee]

Year 361, Month Three, Day Sixteen (Sunday), evening
Station Moongray

On the Station, at The Bar on Level Three: Virmad

[lleullawgyffes, it's up to you whether you want to say that Virmad gets caught up with Teo and/or matters on station overnight, or whether he will take care of matters with Teo quickly enough to join the others at the "Bumblebee" below.]

Per this thread, Teo has just greeted Virmad in the bar. To recap for your convenience:

The Bar on Level Three really is on Level Three. There are helpful directories pointing the way, but the fact that a number of people are heading there, and the cheerful clamor of people talking, and music, would have made it easy to find regardless.

The bartender is a trim woman with her hair hanging about her face in fantastic coils; the combs and hairpins look like they're about to escape. She's pouring a drink for a slouching Nirai technician when Virmad arrives. "You're new here," she says. "What can I get you?"

Kel Teo is sitting at a seat where he has a clear view of all exits. (Very Kel.) He's had a chance to change out of his uniform; he's wearing a sleek suit in shades of deep brown, and he's also embellished himself with gold-and-amber jewelry. He waves when he spots Virmad, smiling.

Teo adds that he's happy to pay for Virmad's drink--the first one, anyway, and some of the local grub. "I recommend the fried pork fritters with barbecue sauce," Teo says, "But maybe that's not ascetic enough fare for a Rahal?" (He's teasing.)


On the Station, on the "Bumblebee": Sulen, Sasha, Iawa, Alaric
Also probably: Ashari?, Mikodez?

Recap:
Remi has explained, at Sasha's insistence, that the baby moths were hatched in captivity from eggs stolen from the parents by a heptarchate expedition, and that the parents are likely dead. He claims that this all happened before he himself arrived on the station, and that he's been advocating for humane treatment of the baby moths.

Alaric has just explained that he discovered the Wasp's "moth" is a sentient starfaring being and has been communicating with it using pictures [Move 10].

Moving on:
Remi's response to this is to stare at Alaric in horror. "Do you seriously want me to believe that you were using a living being as your spaceship and didn't even check for sapience? I thought that was basic protocol...unless," and his expression sours, "it was convenient for people to hush it up?" He stares at Alaric. "Well, I can't blame it for wanting to adopt the young of its kind, but that's a high-security enclosure..."

[Remi might well be responsive to helping them kidnap the baby moths, assuming the whole conversation doesn't blow up in a completely different direction, but he's not going to offer unless someone else brings it up. There's plenty of opportunity for people to opine on what should be done about the baby moths, whether Alaric has been behaving appropriately, who Sasha should have notified, etc. If you need help brainstorming on your action, please let me know and I'll get back to you when I can; others players might also have thoughts.]


[GM suggests that Ashari and Mikodez could either have returned to the ship for the meeting with Remi, or else could teleconference in.

smokedetective: Ashari probably wants to be present in some form for the discussion, not least for possible/likely pending confrontation with Sasha per zuhrovet's notes. If teleconferencing, Istradez will be happy to cover for them with any pesky people.

pengwern: If Mikodez prefers not to be involved in this discussion, he could plausibly be investigating the nonresponsiveness of the Kel at the moment after they helped Sulen stow Gerae, or assigned to keep an eye on Gerae, who might be feeling confessional while everyone else is occupied.]

---

Active in Move 10: Sulen, Virmad, Sasha, Iawa, Alaric, Mikodez, Ashari

Inactive: Yehan, Ankat, Kaliyan

Comments

Re: Plotting Escape - Ashari's petting Sasha's hair like a James Bond villain pets a cat

[zuhrovet]

Every muscle in Sasha's body locks.

This isn't Naxarat. Ashari doesn't own her, not to any greater degree than they did three minutes ago. They're not invoking the obedience clause of the standard fucking marriage contract.

"Please," she manages to say. "I don't understand."

[Between Remi's comments on barter and the no-seduction note in his file, I infer that he has very strong feelings about consent. I can only hope that he thinks Ashari's antics are too mild to register.

Also, Sasha's exotic powers tend to activate under stress...]

Re: Plotting Escape - Ashari’s the Worst

[smokedetective]

Ashari leans back and picks up their tea. Having Sasha unable to think just won’t do. That technique had never been... that effective. Usually, anyone in a power grab hits right back, hard. They haven’t even flashed their eyes. But. Sasha isn’t an Andan, so it’s best to give her the benefit of doubt for now.

When they speak again, their voice isn’t as lovey dovey, but it still has a soft edge to it.

“If you, and everybody else here, thinks this can be done, this being getting our lovely guest and the mothlings off the station and to the wormhole, I’m all ears. If you think it will work, don’t think it will work, or have any suggestions or ideas, or want to poke holes, I’m all ears. The more flaws we work out now, the more smoothly it will hopefully go later. Because I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not die on this little station, and I believe our time is rather limited.”

[To anyone watching closely, Ashari’s signifier has definitely shifted from Kniferose Unsheathed to Unblooming.]

Re: Plotting Escape - Ashari’s the Worst

[venndaai]

[Sulen is always watching closely, and now they are less angry but more stressed, which is probably not a net positive.]

signifiers

[zuhrovet]

At the beginning of the conversation with Remi, Sasha had a flickery signifier-- there were a couple of flashes of a moth in flight, though that doesn't narrow things down much-- but she's now displaying a bright, crisp Broken-Winged Moth.

Re: Plotting Escape - possibly constructive criticism

[zuhrovet]

Sasha takes three deep breaths. Order of operations, she tells herself. Ashari may have no shame and no sense of duty, but Sasha can wait until they're not entertaining a guest.

She thinks about taking her own sip of tea, but fails to persuade her hand to move. That's all right; she has a sufficiency of tea; obtaining more is an issue for another moment.

The problem at hand is social engineering. Because that's always the problem. "I... just... I don't see what moths have to do with the rifts. And I don't think the incentives are right for the station, Rii, in what you're proposing. They're not objecting to hosting your art, and it's gorgeous, but what they want from us is technology transfer. You can tell them anything you like about why you want to borrow Nirai Remi. But they'll only play along if they think they'll learn something about our ship."

She glances at Remi and adds, "Please, can you tell us, how big are the mothlings? What sort of support do they require? Do we definitely need to bring their habitat, or could we carry them in our hold if we figured out how to transfer them?"

Re: Plotting Escape - possibly constructive criticism

[yhlee]

Remi looks thoughtful. "At this stage? There are thirteen of them, and they're about the size of a large toddler, except they resemble large tentacly wormy things with silver eyespots and they like to flitter around when they're playing with each other. The original expedition called the silver areas eyespots, although the moths don't seem to 'see' the way we do, in the electromagnetic spectrum, but rather by detecting gravitational fluctuations. At this phase of their development, they subsist off radiation. If you can shield your hold so that humans don't get irradiated, they would probably fit. They don't need constant radiation, so they'd survive a transfer. The question is getting them past station security."

Remi grimaces and adds, "I wish I could tell you how to bribe Lieutenant Teo, but he likes his job and seems to be a fine, upstanding specimen of a Kel."

Re: Plotting Escape - possibly constructive criticism - question for Ashari

[zuhrovet]

Saint and prophet, they've finally reduced to a technical problem. "How cooperative are the mothlings? Could we put each one in a box and move the boxes? How long would we have before your staff noticed?"

[My impression is that the station is much more interested in things we're removing from the Wasp than things we're loading onto it, but presumably they have some kind of monitoring. Did Sasha go through formal security when returning to the Wasp? Are the station-security monitors feeding information to the same place as the wriggly virus, or is that separate?

smokedetective, is Ashari aware of Ankat's plan to use drones to bypass security and get ammunition on station?]

Re: Plotting Escape - possibly constructive criticism - Ashari’s back on their bullshit

[smokedetective]

[If it was mentioned in their presence or in a report, they’re aware of it, otherwise they have no clue what’s up.]

“And we’d still need a good excuse to get to the wormhole, whether it’s of a more diplomatic nature, say offering a demonstration of how something or other works, or a more violent distraction, say setting the station on fire or, ah, drugging key individuals?”

paging GM

[venndaai]

Sulen coughs. "There's really no need for that. If you need a distraction, Virmad and I can get you one. Without violence."

They turn to Remi and say, carefully, "These creatures... are they calendrically null?"

[So, the later calendar is designed to assist the mothdrive, right (or at least everyone thinks that), so that means moths aren't null, right? And Sulen knows that. Pls correct me if I'm wrong!]

Re: paging GM

[slybrarian]

"As far as I can tell, the moths themselves are," says Alaric, who's never heard a question directed at someone else that he wouldn't feel free to answer instead. "The key to the mothdrive, once you get past all the parts involved with bringing the ship along, seems to be keeping it from flying off wherever it wants or murdering everyone."

Re: paging GM

[yhlee]

"Yes, that aligns with my knowledge of the moths," Remi says, "and with my, ah, preliminary analysis of the coercive device that you call a 'mothdrive.'"

He frowns. "Do the moths have a history of running off or murdering people if left uncoerced? Or is that...unknown?"

Re: paging GM

[venndaai]

[Okay, I am now deeply confused about what the high calendar is actually for. Help?]

Re: paging GM

[yhlee]

[For clarity's sake, what do you/Sulen think the high calendar is For? Genuine question.]

Re: paging GM

[venndaai]

[Sorry, I'm pretty low on sleep. Um- in the books, I got the impression that it was necessary to keep the mothdrives working and make interstellar civilization possible, or that at least that was the justification Mikodez and Cheris had for supporting the Hexarchate. The other exotic technologies too but I thought the moth drive was the big one.]

Re: paging GM

[slybrarian]

"Oh, I don't have a clue, to be honest," Alaric said. "I'm not even from around these parts, and I don't think the government tells people that sort of thing anyway. I'm just saying that if you hooked me up to something like this I'd be pretty cranky, and I'm not a monster from beyond conventional time and space. It's been surprisingly well-behaved all things considered."

rahal intervention - paging Sulen

[zuhrovet]

Sasha finds she is able to lift her cup. The tea is lukewarm, but the jam is delicious. "Yes, the moth seems very friendly. I wonder if we should tell them that Nirai Remi says hello?"

She continues, "But I think Dar Chresh may have a point about calendars. That is, I want to say, everyone knows faster-than-light is a sort of time travel. I'm not an expert here, but there's something about going outside the light-cone? It seems plausible that a high density of creatures capable of that kind of movement might affect spacetime, locally, and therefore the calendar. If the Rahal were to order our ship to leave suddenly, because of such concerns, we would certainly have to cooperate. Even if it later transpired those concerns were unfounded."

Sasha's less sanguine about the likelihood that Sulen can persuade the station to renounce moth research. She doesn't know a lot about Rahal, but if this is anything like the Houses and the judges back home, the Nirai will drag their feet and file a million appeals before actually dropping the program.

Re: rahal intervention - paging Sulen

[venndaai]

Sulen says, “Particularly if the moths actually were having catastrophic effects on the local calendar. Or it appeared that they were.”

(They’re grateful to Sasha for seeing what they were getting at and backing them up. She’s still on their shitlist, but they’re starting to see that it might be best to try and find a way to work with her despite their personality differences.)

Re: Plotting Escape - possibly constructive criticis

[zuhrovet]

"I can trigger the station alarms at any time," Sasha says. "But that doesn't explain why we're taking Remi, or keep the other ships away."

[The conversation with Ankat is here, and I'm honestly not sure whether it happened as part of the pre-landing conference call or in a separate discussion with Ankat and Alaric. Sasha and Alaric have certainly not reported it, and the stuck drone is still an outstanding problem, but Ankat might have demonstrated more attention to chain of command. I guess I'll assume Sasha's nervous about the stuck drone, and leave reporting questions to you.]

paging Ankat, Ashari

[yhlee]

[I'll ping Ankat's player, but he's been absent for a while. If we don't hear back in the next few, I'm going to put down the foot of GM fiat and say Ankat did, in fact, report this to Ashari.]

Re: paging Ankat, Ashari

[zuhrovet]

[Thanks! That puts Sasha back a couple of pages in the ongoing competition for Who Would Get The Longest Writeup If We Had a Functional HR Department, but it does offer another potential option for retrieving the moths. Ashari can always retaliate later if Ankat contradicts.]

Re: Plotting Escape - possibly constructive criticism - question for Ashari

[yhlee]

"The mothlings wouldn't object if they were sedated first," Remi says after a pause. "It's not ideal, but we did identify some drugs that work on them. My assistant Vana is going to notice if we start shifting mothling-sized boxes out of the lab, though."

[Sasha only went through a cursory scan on the way back onto the Wasp. The sttion security monitors are feeding info to the same place as the wriggly virus.]

Re: Plotting Escape - some possibilities - request to Ashari for funds

[zuhrovet]

"Only one assistant? That's not so terrible. I see two options. We can move the mothlings out of the lab while Vana is asleep or on break, and bring them through station security with a collection of other purchases. In that case, Rii, I'd like to access some funds, so we have real supplies mixed in with the mothlings. Alternatively, perhaps we can find a way to access the habitat from the outside of the station? You said it's detachable. We could move the mothlings across the station exterior with drones, and skip security altogether."

Re: Plotting Escape - some possibilities - request to Ashari for funds

[slybrarian]

"Depending on how closely we're being watched, the exterior option might be easier," Alaric says. "We can hack the lab's sensors or external cameras, but if someone decides to hand-search packages that would get awkward."

Re: Plotting Escape - some possibilities - request to Ashari for funds

[zuhrovet]

Sasha magnifies the coffee table's image of the station exterior, focusing on the mothling habitat, and hopes the resolution is good enough to see any exterior ports.

Re: Plotting Escape - some possibilities - request to Ashari for funds

[yhlee]

There are a couple of ports. There's a maintenance robot chugging along, and stalking it, a very determined (?) looking space amoeba. As far as Sasha can tell, there aren't any humans in the vicinity.