Move 24 (Chapter 1.24)

[yhlee]

[GM note: This is a wrap-up move to close off the Station Moongray arc. Well done, everyone!]

[IMPORTANT: There is a roll call thread in this move. Please respond if you intend to continue as an active player for the next arc. Otherwise I will move you off the active list and to the NPC/inactive list.]

Year 361, Month Three, Day Seventeen (Monday), ~0900

Kaliyan (NPC) successfully guides the Wasp to the rift without complications or interference. She reports that the Rosemallow ship has veered away and chosen not to pursue or harass them further--at least in this timeline. The ship will be spending the next five to seven days in rift travel.

In the Rift:

Ashari orders everyone to catch up on sleep in shifts. After this has happened, they call a meeting that includes Sulen, Virmad, Sasha, Iawa, Alaric, and Mikodez [if pengwern is available], with Gerae (NPC) and Remi (NPC) as guests. The Wasp (NPC) may also venture opinions through Alaric and Sasha as interpreters. Kaliyan (NPC), Ankat (NPC), and Yehan (NPC) oversee the ship in case of emergency, but can be called via the ship's grid if anyone has questions for them specifically.

Tentative agenda as per this thread [Move 23]: (a) addressing problems in teamwork during the Station Moongray mission, (b) how to rectify those issues, and (c) next steps, including any recruitment.

[GM notes: Players are welcome to suggest plot hooks for what they'd like to explore in the next arc. Going after Quill? Rabble-rousing? Crashing the heptarchate's stock market?

Also, I'd really prefer the team leader to be a currently active PC rather than an NPC. If someone would like to volunteer their character for the job, I can move Ashari (NPC) to more of a background/support position, or maybe "shadowy boss who doesn't get involved in the day to day decision-making that much."

For recruitment, I still think the team would benefit from a couple of more fighty/meat shield type characters, and I'm thinking of opening up applications so we can recruit two more PCs. Thoughts on this are welcome, either IC or OOC. I'm personally not opposed to opening up mothlings as adoptable PCs, although they're not really meat shields yet...]

Comments

paging Iawa

[zuhrovet]

At some point, after she manages to sleep (wrapped up in a sleeping bag in Environmental, listening to the moth hum) but before the big meeting, Sasha goes looking for Iawa, bringing the emergency blanket with her.

Re: paging Iawa

[vass]

[I will catch up tomorrow and answer this then, promise.]

Re: paging Iawa

[zuhrovet]

[Thanks for the update!

I am headed to a work conference tomorrow and will be there through the weekend. Goodness knows work travel has never stopped me from checking game on my phone, but please don't feel rushed on my account.]

Re: paging Iawa

[vass]

Iawa scuttles back to quarters and showers, changes, and grabs a few hours of sleep. When Sasha catches up with them, they're grabbing some food (fermented bean broth and rice with whatever vegetables are around dumped in.)

"Oh, hello," they say awkwardly. They don't know the appropriate social greeting for "someone you've just forcibly sedated."

Re: paging Iawa

[zuhrovet]

"Hi," Sasha says. "I brought your blanket, from your kit. I have two things to say to you. The first one is thank you. The other one is, would you mind explaining what you thought I was doing? I don't understand your threat assessment at all."

Re: paging Iawa

[vass]

If Iawa had thought about how this conversation would go, this is not what they would have expected. They take a moment, stirring rice around in their broth. They forgot the fish flakes, didn't they.

"I thought you were kicking Avrayen in the head. Was that... not the case?" That probably came out more sarcastic than they intended, although their tone was gentle enough. "I didn't know he was Shuos, just that no one was fighting until you kicked him. One of my... threat assessment possibilities was that a virus in his augment had taken over your augment."

[This is what happens when you never gave more than a quarter of your attention to the magistrate dramas your father was watching, and those dramas were not designed for their technical rigour.]

Re: paging Iawa

[zuhrovet]

Sasha bites her lip. "I thought he'd bring his arms up when he blocked, and I'd be able to restrain him. You don't need to tell me how badly I fucked that up, or how much worse it could have been. And I don't have an augment. But if you thought I was dangerous, why didn't you restrain me? Properly, I mean. You must have training on how to tie people up? And why didn't you go through my pockets?"

Re: paging Iawa - ping

[zuhrovet]

[Do you want to continue this thread, or should we assume the conversation simply trailed off awkwardly?]

Re: paging Iawa - ping

[vass]

[Thanks for your patience. I've been shitty at keeping up lately. I'd like to continue it if you're up for that?]

Re: paging Iawa - ping

[zuhrovet]

[Yes, definitely! I look forward to Iawa's reaction.

I am trying to keep myself out of spam territory, but if you find yourself wanting more signposting or more active reminders, I would be happy to provide them.]

Re: paging Iawa - ping

[vass]

[Thank you. If you're waiting for a reply from me for more than two days, please feel free to prod.]

Iawa can feel the gears grinding in their head, or possibly falling out into their broth. Sasha said they don't to tell her how badly she fucked up, they decide to leave "I thought he'd bring his arms up when he blocked, and I'd be able to restrain him." where it's lying, although it makes them long for an hour alone with some paper, a pen, and a dictionary of logical fallacies.

That's good that Sasha's not vulnerable to having her augment overwritten, since she doesn't have one. They don't know a lot about augments.

"I lost some time getting the breath knocked out of me when I went to patch Avrayen. After that I called Ashari and then improvised some restraints. This kit didn't have proper ones, it was meant for colleagues or families. You're right, I should have searched you both."

It's probably too much to ask that Sasha won't jump on their poor rope (or torn in half bandage) skills. That was one of the Vidona classes they managed to absorb just skill enough to pass, then immediately forgot it all.

different user interfaces - still paging Iawa

[zuhrovet]

[Got it, thanks!]

"I've still got lots of cable ties, if you'd like to add some to the kit," Sasha says.

The next bit is harder. "On the list of things that could have gone wrong--you've noticed I use a lot of verbal commands with the grid, right? There was a minute there when I thought you were hostile Shuos. If I'd been a little bit more alert, I could have dropped through the floor and then flooded the room with carbon dioxide. Which would have been unfortunate. So. Maybe also gag people, if you're worried they might be hostile?"

Iawa obviously needs more experience restraining people. You never react the way you hope to in a crisis, you react the way you've drilled. (Sasha's personal contingency plans now have "CALL ANKAT FIRST" scrawled in red at the left margin; she runs through them before she falls asleep.) Sasha could use some practice restraining people herself. The obvious thing to do would be to talk to Ankat about working this into the sparring sessions. But Sasha's got plenty of experience with the way self-defense class can fail when you're smaller than everyone else and they don't like you very much, and Iawa's tentative during practice in a way that makes Sasha wonder if they've had similar experiences. Also, Ashari and Sulen come to sparring.

"If you want to practice tying people up, you can use me, if you want," Sasha offers. Green saint, this is the heptarchate, she has no idea how Iawa's going to take that. "I mean, in a practical way. I don't--I understand if you don't trust me. But I do think you should practice with someone."

Re: different user interfaces - still paging Iawa

[vass]

"Thank you, I'll take the cable ties," Iawa says gravely, trying not to show distaste. They'll see if the matter printer can make them something less likely to cause nerve damage.

They don't like the idea of gagging unconscious patients either. Too much risk of aspirating vomit. But that's clearly not a consideration that Sasha's going to listen to. There's something else about what Sasha just said that is nagging at them, but they can't quite place it.

"And thank you for the offer. I suppose I do need to review practise safe restraint techniques, if this sort of thing is going to happen again," they say. Any innuendo sails entirely over their head. "I think if you wanted to hurt me, you wouldn't need to ask me to tie you up to do that."

Thinking of the ways Sasha could hurt them with her technical preparations, to say nothing of her hand to hand combat skills, shakes loose what bothered them before about Sasha's mention of grid-based gas traps.

"Sasha, I don't mean this as... I'm sure you've thought about this already, but I don't know your reasoning. Have you set up the grid as a..." What's the word? [dead man's switch] "Um, if you fall unconscious for a long time, or are otherwise out of touch with the grid. Have you set it up to do something deadly?"

Because they'd really rather it didn't.

Iawa trails into silence.

Re: different user interfaces - still paging Iawa

[zuhrovet]

"Fuck, no. That is, it's a fair question. But I don't like single points of failure, and I'm not going to introduce them where I don't have to."

Sasha crosses her arms, then uncrosses them. She knows the next question she'd ask, if she were Iawa. "My levels of grid access are, themselves, a potential liability. I have thought about how to limit the damage, if I'm subjected to coercion somehow." Though she needs to go to back over those plans, now that she's seen Ashari in action.