Move 13 (Chapter 1.13)

[yhlee]

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

Mikodez, on Moongray Station, pondering an egg

[Follow-up to this thread.]

It's easy enough for Mikodez to switch the motion detector off; it's not really designed for security use, so the researchers in the lab have it set up so it's easy to take offline for maintenance, etc. (It's highly doubtful they figured the egg would know how to hit the off switch.)

There is no one snoring under the desk, but there is a small file box containing a few paper notebooks, the old-fashioned kind. The game's soothing purring continues.

If Mikodez wants to set up the matter printer for a fake egg and one or two guns, that's easy enough. It might take some extra time to make sure the egg doesn't come out attractively plaid, though.

---

Year 361, Month Three, Day Sixteen (Sunday), overnight

on the Bumblebee/Wasp/Mothra

After Sasha and Ashari's fight/cultural misunderstanding, and Ashari and Sulen clean up afterward, Gerae's distress becomes increasingly evident. He's pounding on the door of the room that Sulen deposited him in, crying in an increasingly hoarse voice that he refuses to leave without Fluffy.

[lleullawgyffes, it's up to you whether Virmad pays any attention to Sasha's presumed discreet lokwor message and returns in time to help talk to Gerae, or whether Virmad decides to ignore it in favor of continued shenanigans with Teo.]

Sasha appears to be in good health; Iawa might or might not want to write this up formally for Ashari or Ashari's superiors, depending on their assessment of Ashari's mood. [Iawa is the de facto medic as far as I can tell!]

Remi is asking Alaric if it would be difficult to set up a radio to soothe the mothlings into docility, which is less invasive than sedating them.

Meanwhile, Mothra is making rumbly noises again. It sends another Space ASCII diagram, this time of mothlings playing hide and seek.

---

Active in Move 12: Sasha, Ashari, Sulen, Mikodez, Iawa, Alaric, Virmad

Continuing inactive: Yehan, Kaliyan, Ankat

Comments

Mothling Bay Construction

[slybrarian]

"Radio would be easy enough," Alaric says. "We can just install a transceiver unit inside the shielding and run a line out. Have they ever responded back with radio, or any other method? In fact, do you know anything about their natural communication?"

He pulls out his lokwor, which he's programmed to relay messages to and from the engineering computers. He shows it to Remi.

"Right now we're basically stuck sending pictograms over a low-bandwith channel not remotely meant for this purpose."

He sketches out that he is doing something to this compartment, into which the mothlings will come and then the whole ship will fly off.

Re: Mothling Bay Construction

[yhlee]

"Yes, that sounds admirable," Remi says. He's clearly pleased to be working with a fellow science person. ["Science" haha.] "They do seem to engage in frequency-modulated radio babble, but it's unclear to me whether it's language. We think there's a possibly they're communicating with gravitation waves, which was Vana's hypothesis, but we stalled out trying to get funding for a sufficiently sensitive detector to listen in on any such thing."

Meanwhile, Mothra sends back a picture of the entire ship flying off, mothlings and all, with the crew, then a "1111111" for an emphatic "yes."

Re: Mothling Bay Construction

[slybrarian]

"It's possible the harness has detection equipment. I wouldn't put it past the government to spy on moths that are supposed to be asleep," Alaric says. "We can check that later. For that matter, the presence of an adult might stimulate greater levels of communication on radio. Obviously I don't want to over-anthropomorphize, but human babies learn to communicate from other humans, and that applies to a number of other species as well."

Re: Mothling Bay Construction

[yhlee]

Remi looks grave. "In all fairness," he says grudgingly, "I suppose scientific observation doesn't look much different from 'spying,' from the subject's point of view. I'd be happy to help look for detection equipment during the journey, but--" He makes a helpless gesture. "I have a lot to learn from you regarding this advanced technology."

He pats one of the bulkhead's absently. "I do hope the presence of your moth adult is good for the mothlings. Imagine witnessing them learning to speak properly--whatever that may look like!"