hexarchate_rpg | Move 24 (Chapter 1.24)

yhlee posting in

[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...]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

zuhrovet

"Have you talked to the moth about the concept of names?" Sasha asks Alaric. It seems rude to go on calling them "our ride", and "the moth" will be confusing as the mothlings grow.

Also, it would be nice to skip to an agenda item that isn't a list of things Sasha has fucked up.

From:

yhlee

"Besides names," Ashari says drily, "there's the slight fact that the...moth effectively can take us wherever it wants." They look meaningfully at Sasha, Alaric, and Remi. "How open is it to negotiation, do you think? Because we can't be held hostage to its whims."

Remi's mouth thins, but he says, "I take your point. I should also point out that the mothlings are going to grow, and they'll have opinions of their own..."

[This might be a good time for someone to remember that the calendar back in Station Moongray time was the reason the moth "awakened" in the first place--it might not be eager to return to calendars where it'll be brainwashed again. Remi won't know about moth harnesses but Alaric and Sasha might bring it up.]

From:

lleullawgyffes

“Hi,” Virmad says, waving slightly obnoxiously as he interjects. “Could someone please explain what’s going on with the moth? I bracketed it during our earlier conversation because there were too many other things to deal with at that point, but now seems like as good a time as any to circle back to it.”

From:

zuhrovet

"The moth is intelligent. Alaric made contact with it soon after we exited the rift. It wanted us to rescue Remi's mothlings, and it likes music and math puzzles. So far, negotiation with it has been straightforward. We told it that we were from a group of humans with the rebellion logo, not one of the factions. Alaric explained that it had to be quiet and wait for us to retrieve the mothlings, which mostly worked. And I promised that I would sing with it. You probably heard us, yesterday afternoon."

Sasha knows perfectly well that Ashari heard the music. The moth is tuneful, albeit loud. The mothlings are another matter.

From:

lleullawgyffes

“I’m sorry,” Virmad says. “The moth is intelligent? Is this a new development?”

This is a lot to process.

From:

yhlee

The Wasp interjects with a lullaby-like fragment of melody. Its thrumming is echoed by the out-of-tune warbling of the mothlings (not present, but audible). Anyone who happens to be looking at Remi can see his expression soften slightly.

From:

zuhrovet

"Alaric figured it out the day before yesterday, I told you yesterday, and Remi knew before you were born. So it depends on what you mean by 'new'."

Sasha tries to keep her eyes moving. There are a lot of people to keep track of. In particular, if Ashari wants any specific outcome from this meeting, they've probably already discussed the proposal with Sulen. That means Sasha needs to watch for what Sulen suggests.

From:

lleullawgyffes

“I mean,” Virmad says, a little impatiently, “have they always been intelligent?”

From:

zuhrovet

"I'm not an expert in moth evolution, but we just went back in time prior to the invention of the mothdrive and collected a bunch of juveniles, one of which is a fuck of a lot smarter than my brother was at one day old. So for all practical purposes, the answer is yes."

From:

slybrarian

"They've always been intelligent in the same sense that humans have always been intelligent, yes," Alaric agrees. "Although with a sample of only one adult I can't tell you whether they've also been dumb in the way humans have always been dumb."

From:

yhlee

[*cracks up*]

From:

zuhrovet

"But you really didn't know about the moths, in your time?" Sasha asks, looking first at Virmad, then at Ashari and Sulen. "It's not one of those facts that everyone is aware of but no one likes to talk about?"

From:

yhlee

"I never paid attention to Nirai experiments in transportation," Ashari says after a nettled pause. "I had no idea." They look sidewise at Sulen for backup on this point.

From:

slybrarian

"I think at some point the biological nature of the moths entered the common knowledge, but I don't think the fact that they were sapient did," Alaric replies. "The same applies to the necessity of the high calendar to the function of the mothdrive - lots of propaganda about why the drive justifies the remembrances, not much about why it requires them. The harness suppresses their higher mental functions, allowing them to be steered."

He looks around the table. "Which is a problem, for reasons that I hope should be obvious."

From:

zuhrovet

"Did you disable the harness?" Sasha asks. "Or is it going to reactivate, once we exit the rift?"

From:

yhlee

Ashari's mind is on another matter entirely: "How well do the moths understand human notions of hierarchy, in your estimation?" they ask Alaric and Sasha.

[Ashari isn't a contact specialist, but they'd be familiar with the general concerns of "OMG is my enthrallment going to work on these aliens/foreigners/etc.?"]

From:

zuhrovet

Sasha sets her mug down and tries to keep her hands relaxed. "We're not entirely sure, but one of the first things the moth asked Alaric is whether we belonged to a faction, so they do know something about the heptarchate."

From:

yhlee

Ashari's mouth twitches. "Given that they're apparently sentient, and omnipresent at that, I suppose that's not surprising."

Remi, for his part, looks perturbed. "How young are moths when they're fitted with harnesses?" His voice is tense.

[

slybrarian, moths are generally fitted with harnesses once they reach maturity/full growth, unless they're going to be used for breeding--harnessed moths are pretty apathetic about the whole breeding thing. It's up to you how much Alaric knows about this.]

From:

venndaai

Sulen, who's been quiet and contemplative for the last few minutes, breaks their silence to ask, "Do we know what time this ship comes from? I had been assuming year 702 of the high calendar, but... is there any way to know for certain? Would the moth understand, if you asked it?"

From:

lleullawgyffes

Virmad is still reeling from this revelation. “I knew they were alive, but I always thought it was, you know,” he gestures vaguely, “biotechnology. Not literally sentient life forms that we were...are...” He hesitates, but there’s only one appropriate word: “Enslaving. Does — the moth — have a name of its own? Does it want to be carrying us?”

From:

zuhrovet

"I already asked Alaric whether he knows the moth's name. I don't. And what they want to do is to look after the mothlings. They were very firm about that."

Virmad's surely not the only one who wants to ask a question that Sasha has already asked. She activates a screen at the side of the room and displays the list of questions from the recent conversation, to avoid going round in circles.

From:

slybrarian

"I'm pretty sure they have some sort of name equivalent, but I don't think we know it yet, no. Or if we do I missed it in among all the other information it was trying to convey, but I think that's highly unlikely," Alaric says. To Sulen, he adds, "And I can ask the moth to verify its origin date, too. Now that you mention it, I can see why we can't trust the ship's own logs. It was definitely designed for the heptarchate-era calendar, though."

From:

zuhrovet

"Can you ask them now? About the name, and the time?" Sasha says. "Just for clarity."

Re: facts about moths

From:

yhlee - Date: 2018-11-04 05:42 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: facts about moths

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zuhrovet - Date: 2018-11-04 07:02 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: facts about moths

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yhlee - Date: 2018-11-04 10:19 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: facts about moths

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zuhrovet - Date: 2018-12-17 02:24 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: facts about moths

From:

yhlee - Date: 2018-12-17 02:26 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: facts about moths

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slybrarian - Date: 2018-11-06 02:48 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: facts about moths

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yhlee - Date: 2018-11-06 03:32 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: facts about moths

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zuhrovet - Date: 2018-11-07 12:58 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

zuhrovet

[

slybrarian, I went through moves 5 and 6 and established that Alaric didn't really mention the harness or the calendar's role in moth suppression to Sasha. She is generally in favor of writing some sort of virus that would free all the moths, but doesn't know how that would work in practice.]