hexarchate_rpg | Move 13 (Chapter 1.13)

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Uh. They were kind of hoping to avoid revealing their... exact history with the rebellion.

“From what I observed,” they say guardedly, “they’re very willing to cut off compromised agents, and information is given out sparingly in case of capture. Which makes sense, given the consequences of capture.” They look around. “Do any of us actually know anything that could compromise the rebellion in any way? I don’t.”

"That's the stupidest lie I've ever heard," Sasha says. "I'm not going to ask about your specific experience, if it's not need-to-know. But we all know the code name of an agent on the station, just for starters. Unless Yellow was meant to be Gerae?"

“Another point to considert,” says Ashari thoughtfully. “None of us were given code names, not that I’m aware of. I’m sure some of us may be using fake names, but it wasn’t by design or suggestion.”

"And half of us have no covert ops training. Don't get me wrong, I'm good at what I do. But what I was doing before this mission is obscuring cross-time financial transfers. The Kel might as well be walking around with hawks on their jackets. And Iawa took a tablet onto the station without patching it. The only reason Teo didn't listen in to our entire meeting with Remi is that the tablet crashed-- unless Virmad has skills I don't know about, I suppose."

[If you need a handy excuse as to why the Kel have been scarce (since the players appear to be otherwise occupied), GM rules that the Kel have been suffering debilitating migraines that the Wasp's Medical diagnostics module thinks is a not-uncommon side effect of outprocessing, i.e. being kicked out of the Kel.]

[Personally I've been assuming that Kaliyan is giving Sasha the silent treatment for ignoring a direct order, but a more global explanation certainly works!]

[Well, maybe Kaliyan is also giving Sasha the silent treatment between lack of respect for proper hierarchy and headache putting her in a foul mood!]

“You really think that’s a code name they’ll be reusing for anything other than this particular operation?” Sulen scoffs.

"You think the rebellion updates all its embedded agents on the latest pass-phrases every month or two? I certainly wasn't on that team. But it shouldn't matter. I'm not the expert on heptarchate information gathering, but I know what the security forces back home would have done with the knowledge that a terrorist agent was watching a key strategic resource. We've all got information like that about events, people, procedures. Even old procedures could be a risk, if the heptarchate's using the rifts too."

“I think we know barely anything, and I can’t decide if that puts us in more or less danger from the people who sent us here. Also...” They sigh. “I happen to know that the Heptarchate, at least in my time, has about as much knowledge about the rebellion’s modus operandi as any of us except you and Ashari. Because I got the information from captured heretics myself. Before I defected, obviously.” That makes it sound like they had a larger role than they did (they were just one member of a large task force) but whatever. “And none of the scraps of information we got ever led anywhere.”

But Sulen's been part of the rebellion longer than Sasha has. At least, she's pretty sure that's the case. Why haven't they tried to figure out how things work? There's a security advantage in not knowing too much, certainly. But that advantage accrues to the organization, not to the individual.

Or maybe Sulen's warning Sasha that she seems to know too much? Green saint, she's tired.

"We'll just have to try to find out, I suppose. I can certainly go through the Wasp's files, to see what kind of logs it's making about us, while we're in transit home. Everything we say is recorded, but it would be unusual to save that very long, and it will be interesting to see who has access. What about the magistrate? Do you think it's better to tell him we're the same organization that rescued his niece, or to leave him in the dark?"

[Nah, this is Sulen’s first mission, it’s been like two weeks since they joined. Ashari’s the one who’s been here a while.]

[Sasha assumes, not illogically, that Ashari and Sulen met through the rebellion.]

Move 13 (Chapter 1.13)

Re: Ashari Speculates (aka I make a blind shot in the dark)

Re: Ashari Speculates (aka I make a blind shot in the dark)

Re: Ashari Speculates (aka I make a blind shot in the dark)

we are all doomed, especially Iawa (sorry, Iawa)

[GM note re: Kel]

Re: [GM note re: Kel]

Re: [GM note re: Kel]

Re: Ashari Speculates (aka I make a blind shot in the dark)

on a scale of 1 to 100, who is more paranoid, Sasha or Sulen?

I think they have different areas of paranoia expertise, but probably Mishka’s got them both beat

should we tell Gerae who took his niece? - paging Virmad as well as Sulen, Ashari

Re: should we tell Gerae who took his niece? - paging Virmad as well as Sulen, Ashari

Re: should we tell Gerae who took his niece? - paging Virmad as well as Sulen, Ashari