hexarchate_rpg | Move 22 (Chapter 1.22)

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moves: chapter 1

Move 22 (Chapter 1.22)

[GM note: This is largely a maintenance move so that folks can continue threads from Move 21 without having to dig through a lot of comments.]

For easy reference:
- Move 21 recap (thanks to

zuhrovet) [wiki]
- the escape plan [wiki]
- Station Moongray Timeline [wiki]

Year 361, Month Three, Day Seventeen (Monday), ~07:90

Confrontation with the baby fox
From this thread:

Sulen moves towards Mikodez, eyes gleaming the brassy color of clock gears. "I think it's time for some truth, Mikodez."

On the Wasp, Ashari (NPC) welcomes the arrival of Sulen, who threatens Mikodez with scrying after Mikodez is recalcitrant about answering Sasha's questions about why he didn't call for help for Istradez (NPC). Iawa is on standby in case Mikodez needs to be sedated again.

The disposition of a magistrate-thief
From this thread:

“‘Belong’ would be an overstatement,” Virmad says, concealing his amusement. “But yes, we did — I was just about to check on him [Gerae].”

He inclines his head to Sulen. “I’ll see you later; good luck with the foxling.”

Then, to Alaric: “Has Gerae had any food? I did tell him before I left that I’d make sure he got something to eat.”

"It looked like someone fed him, yes," Alaric replies, "although I don't know about Fluffy. Dragon snacks might make the conversation go smoother."

Alaric has just informed Virmad as to Gerae's status, and is about to hand Gerae over to Virmad's care. Meanwhile, Yehan (NPC) comes to talk to Alaric about mothling care: she reports that the station is having the remaining mothlings delivered to the Bumblebee and they are due any moment.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mikodez's signifier resolves back to Ninefox Smiling. "It only matters for faction postings, or if we're in -- hexarchate space."

Sasha keys the grid command to find and summarize information on Ninefox Smiling, Ninefox Crowned With Eyes, and variable signifiers under the hexarchate.

"Mishka, this person who took you from the boxmoth to the holding room, the one who wouldn't talk to you. Tell us what you remember about them."

[I'm assuming Sasha has heard Jedao's name and that he killed lots of people, but is very vague on the details.]

[Should this be anyone relevant (Quill, for instance?) I don't have any plans -- just assumed there should be someone around to guide him.]

Edited 2018-07-27 20:28 (UTC)

[This can be Quill, if you like; feel free to embroider with additional details. Mikodez probably remembers mostly that Quill presented herself as a busybody administrative type, physically tall and spindly, with the gray eyes that people in the hexarchate sometimes have and a buzz cut.]

[Sasha will have heard of Jedao but can be vague on details, yes. If you like, she could even "know" things that are not terribly true but are based on scurrilous Andan dramas about Jedao's life.

The grid will tell her that Ninefox Crowned with Eyes is not only...highly disfavored thanks to its association with Jedao, but that Shuos Academy is usually known for purging people who manifest that signifier. It probably won't tell her that people who manifest N-C-w-E as part of a variable signifier are a gray area, although she might be able to guess that anyway.]

[Sasha might or might not have many episodes of Space Anime about Khiaz's noble efforts to protect the galaxy.]

[That sounds terrifying and great. XD ]

Mishka's either trying to remember or inventing something outrageous. Sasha checks her grid search, and just barely stops herself from whistling. Usually people with this signifier are disposed of, but instead the Shuos sent Mishka here? Three-faced saint, the child has not thought this situation through.

"Go ahead," Sasha says, with the tiniest bit of actual sympathy. "Tell us what you remember."

"About Ashari's height, dark eyes, didn't say much."

[Quill's minion, or Quill disguised?]

[Let's make it Quill disguised. More fun that way.]

That's not a lot to go on, but then Sasha doesn't expect double agents to wear nametags or have convenient identifying scars.

"Did the Shuos tell you how long this 'extra credit' project would last? Did you have a timeframe for your return, or a contact for retrieval?"

"Sasha, please. When they ask like that, it's not for volunteers. I was surprised when I wasn't immediately shot following the interview." No, that's putting ideas in their heads, if it wasn't already there. Mikodez rubs at his wrist and contorts it at a terrible angle, but nothing doing; he can't escape that way.

"What this batch of interviewers at the Academy said was that everything was 'pending Rahal review'. You might imagine I'd have been briefed further on the transport moth, but all I got to see was the inside of my room. No opportunity to gossip with the supposed Rahal." Like some scenario maker knew he'd get bored. He woke up convinced that Istradez was telling the truth, but even now he can't be entirely certain that this isn't an exercise. He ought to poke at the Wasp's crew some more while he's like this.

Mikodez looks at Sasha, who may as well be an instructor. It is important that she gets to hear his critique of the scenario. "I fucking hate this scenario."

Wait, no, that's not constructive. Did he say that? Can he still bullshit his way through if he's volunteering information, rather than answering a direct question? He blinks and schools his face to earnestness. "This could have been quite good if not for some glaring indicators. Great attention to detail, and an excellent selection of threads to pull -- foreign visitors, a disgraced magistrate, an Andan-Rahal misalliance, all that Nirai research, your own inteference," nodding at Sasha, "Not to mention the official mission target. But piling family and traditional Shuos hobbies AND time travel on one single individual is unbalanced." Unless all the other options had equally mind-boggling revelations.

He continues in his most outrageous voice while observing the others in the room.

[SORRY VASS I'm pretending that Iawa said something especially Liozh during Pavn's science tour. And re Quill, got it! I will make up an unfortunate squeaky voice for them if pressed. Enthrallment question: would you know that you're being enthralled, if all was going well?]

[GO AHEAD!]

"Scenario?" Iawa says, levelly. She should leave this to the fox's actual interrogators, but what if they miss the implication?

[Depending how convincing Mishka is/the others are at refuting him, Iawa may entertain the possibility that his training scenario hypothesis is actually correct. Is having lived her whole life thus far just to be an NPC in someone else's training scenario really more unlikely than the rifts? How would she tell if she's just a part of a training scenario? Maybe Iawa is a butterfly dreaming she's Zhuangzi!]

Edited 2018-08-07 12:31 (UTC)

Would Iawa be the type that attacks when informed that they live in a game? "Either this is an extra realistic training simulation, which could have been helped by the least bit of subtlety, because you really didn't have to quote from the Classic of Web and Glint every other sentence, or...This is eight hundred years in the past and I've been set loose." Mikodez lets his lips quirk. "I could invest in startups and make a killing. Isn't someone inventing the mothdrive soon?"

[I don't suppose you have read Bostrom's "Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?", a philosophy paper that posits just that. The Wikipedia article on the Simulation hypothesis discusses it in a more, ah, readable format.]

[I've skimmed the wiki article before, but had not followed that paper to its source! Paranoia about this being an ancestor simulation run by Kujen beginning in 3...2...1...]

["Have you tried running an ancestor simulation where there's calendrical effects? It's a huge pain in the ass. Someone thinks the wrong way and suddenly history goes flying off a cliff. It's so much easier to just have the entire simulated universe to run on invariant physics, or one strictly enforced calendrical environment."]

[*is dying over here*]

[How do we know that it isn't the gate-space critters behind it, anyway.]

"Mishka, Mishka, Mishka. I thought you didn't want to hurt the mothling, and now you want to research how to bind it into a starship?"

"This is the first that I'm hearing about it," Mikodez says. "Aren't you from the past? I've never encountered an actual voidmoth in my life, let alone any on the whoosh kind of moth besides the big one that Alaric claimed we have on board. Which I have yet to see."

[Man, all the icons y'all have for this game crack me up...!]

As if summoned, the Wasp's voidmoth thrums again.

[It's responding to the predicament of the sedated mothlings, with which Alaric is dealing with, but which people in the room have not been informed of yet.]

[*\\Ninefox whooshing through the heavens//*]

Mikodez spreads his palm against the floor. He remembers that sound from the storage hold. He lifts his head, eyes shining (metaphorically - first contact fervor), having made some very rapid calculations.

"Alaric said he could communicate with it. Can it talk to us?

If Sasha's right about the moths, a heptarchate without exotic drives would be unrecognisable, and there would be no way to guarantee his family's safety. But the world that led to Istradez as he is now is....hardly optimal, in too many ways. This ought to raise Sasha's approval, and the nice thing about being Shuos, of course, is that you can always change sides later.

Mikodez bounces to his feet and turns to Sulen. "Where did the mothling in my pack go? Do you still have it? I named it Crowned-With-Eyes but it doesn't actually answer to that. It's cuddly, and sometimes tries to attack people. Well, I say attack, but it might just be confused. Is it on this moth?"

[This is exactly how Mishka would act with a Shuos instructor.]

Edited (icon change) 2018-08-07 22:48 (UTC)

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

Re: the joys of mutual understanding

npc discussion

Re: npc discussion

[variable signifiers and other info]

Re: [variable signifiers and other info]

Re: [variable signifiers and other info]

natural conclusions

Re: natural conclusions

Re: natural conclusions

Re: natural conclusions

when has 'thinking the situation through' been useful

when you're not dah overthinkingit iawa

Re: when you're not dah overthinkingit iawa

[OT but relevant to the topic somehow]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: when you're not dah overthinkingit iawa

where have all the voidmoths gone

Re: where have all the voidmoths gone

Re: where have all the voidmoths gone

Re: when has 'thinking the situation through' been useful

[enthrallment]