hexarchate_rpg | new player welcome post

Entry tags:

moves

new player welcome post

[Hello, new players! This post is for new and old players to get acquainted with each other in-character (IC) and out-of-character (OOC). I will be updating the character roster shortly for easy reference. Characters from the first arc who are still wrapping things up in Move 24, feel free to continue; I'll get to y'all shortly.

In the meantime, feel free to introduce yourself in OOC threads, including any information you want other players to have about you (including pronouns if relevant, or what time zones you're usually on, that kind of thing.]

[IC]
Ashari has just recruited a number of newcomers to the team in the hopes of shoring up its weaknesses and is, in classic Andan fashion, throwing a party on the Cantata (the moth ship formerly known as the Wasp and/or Bumblebee) so that folks can meet-and-greet. There are canapés, and Ashari promised Sulen that there are no recreational substances other than the alcohol if anyone wants it; Ashari is currently in the galley mixing drinks for anyone who asks. The public spaces of the interior have been decorated with somewhat lopsided and overly colorful artificial flowers (the matter printer was feeling cranky) as well as plush moths. There are in addition six friendly levitating baby moths, all wriggly tentacles and eyes, who will gravitate toward anyone who sings to them, and who like to be petted.

For the purposes of this post, "public areas" include the galley, the common room, and the storage hold, which has been temporarily pressed into service as a place where people can hang out. People are also welcome to hold private conversations elsewhere. For the moment, however, the cockpit, engine room, commander's office, and communications room/gunnery are off-limits.

[See this wiki entry on the Cantata-Wasp for more details on its layout.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The mothling flutters straight forward Aymad, tentacles waving. It's making a friendly? humming noise as it tries to alight on his arm.

[It will go away if shooed.]

He freezes, then carefully sets his glass down on the bar. Then he slowly extends his arm out towards the mothling and hums at it. He is definitely no longer paying attention to conversations around him at this point.

[For anyone who knows music things: He hums a minor pentatonic scale in E.]

The mothling drifts closer and warbles back. It can't hit the exact notes, but it definitely seems to be trying to follow the general contour of the "melody."

There's a much deeper hum as the Cantata [the moth they're in] repeats the same scale a couple octaves down, encouragingly.

It's impossible to miss the moth - the big one - humming back. Reshad suppresses a startle and looks around for the smaller, similar sound, and then moves toward the humming person and the curious mothling.

"Do you sing?" She could be addressing either, with a polite gender-neutral pronoun.

Aymad glances at Reshad and smiles politely. "Badly, most of the time. Have you met the, er, mothlings before?"

She smiles encouragingly. "Same. I liked some songs when I was a child, but-" she shrugs. "I've lost all the words now." She hums a bar, a minor pentatonic with no particular sense of rhythm behind it.

"This is the first time I've met the mothlings. They're quite unusual." Folding her hands before her, Reshad leans toward the little floating creature.

The mothling startles--or at least, its tentacles flail for a bit--then cautiously approaches her hands.

[It will attempt to alight on her hands, but will go away if shooed.]

Seemingly delighted with the little creature, she holds still until it alights and then carefully holds a finger out to it, as one might when offering a sniff to a friendly cat. If it seems amenable, she scratches it.

"This alone would have done it," she reflects, aloud.

A little gentle exploration reveals two shorter tentacles where it seems to particularly enjoy being scratched. It warbles at her again, in an enthusiastic if out-of-tune attempt at the E minor pentatonic she hummed earlier. Then it tries improvising. There's a rumbling from the adult moth as it "corrects" the mothling's pitches.

"Cute," Reshad tells the mothling, as she follows its signals to scratch the preferred tentacles. She refrains from startling when the big moth hums along this time. Tunes, not words! It may be the most peculiar form of communication she's used, but it certainly seems to be a form of communication.

If only she were a musician.

After trying to follow the mothling's improvisation, with moderate success, she hums the first phrase again - then slowly, humming in place of some of the words, tries to piece together a half-remembered song. The words are in a low language, growing in confidence as tune trips memory, and memory loosens tongue.

The mothling seems content, and in fact a second mothling levitates toward Reshad, apparently attracted by the music. The Cantata drops silent as it listens to Reshad reconstructing the song; if she gets to a point where she's repeating any portion of it, it will attempt harmony.

It's distracting, listening to the ongoing conversation while she tries to keep up with the music. Substituting meaningless sounds for words she can't recall in the tongue of childhood, she loops into a second verse, only to be surprised as the Cantata enters in harmony.

She picks up the dropped melodic line, skips the words completely, and keeps on singing, using the big moth's hum to keep herself in tune.

A curly-haired man approaches her as she sings, not interrupting; but Reshad will notice that he's moving, perhaps unconsciously, to time with the music, and he walks like a dancer, careful of how he places his feet. He's wearing Nirai colors, and he nods in friendly fashion toward her. The mothlings let loose with a chord when they notice him, then resume their singing game with Reshad and the Cantata.

She finishes the verse and, not knowing how exactly one bows to small tentacled creatures currently perched in one's own hands, nods in return to the new arrival.

A thought occurs. "This may be a foolish question," she says. "But was that a name? If so, I'm afraid I can't repeat it. I'm Reshad." She hums a bar, quietly, trying to balance the needs of a human conversation and the enthralling little creatures.

"Not foolish at all," the man says. "They're either names or the next best thing, although the fact that humans can't sing chords is a bit of an impediment. Perhaps some kind of instrument app on one of the slates would be a possibility for better communication, though." He bows to her. "I'm Remi. I help look after the mothlings, to the extent that they need it."

"I wonder if a mod could be created to permit it." This with typical Shuos casualness to altering the body, or perhaps even a bit more interest than that. A delicate hand rises toward her throat, as if to sample possibilities.

"A pleasure to meet you, Remi. They're astonishing little creatures. I shall have to apologise to the other members of the crew, for how taken I've been with them."

Remi looks intrigued. "I bet it could. I'm told there will be significant medical advances in this area over what existed during my native time period. In any case, a pleasure to meet you to, and I don't think you're the only one enchanted by the mothlings." His smile seems genuine.

Aymad smiles at the mothling and the other two people chatting, and settles in at the bar to finish his drink.

"During your.." Curiosity sparks. "When is that?"

"They're so different from the moths I've ridden before." Reshad looks contemplative for a moment, with her hands yet full of mothlings. "And... the Cantata? I've certainly never had a moth interact like that. What accounts for the difference?"

[This is assuming that nobody's gone into that as part of space rebellion onboarding, of course.]

Remi's expression shutters slightly. "I was born in 342, on a world that was conquered by the heptarchate."

When Reshad asks about the moths, he grimaces. "They didn't tell you? I suppose I should leave any briefing to Ashari or Sasha, but the Cantata's harness initially stopped working during the previous mission, when I joined the crew. Alaric and I found a way to make that permanent. We agreed that it was unconscionable to enslave a sentient alien like that. As I understand it, moths as used after my time are controlled by the harness so they can be ridden as transportation." He's watching her closely, to see her reaction to this bit of news.

Reshad nods at the mention of conquest, and makes a sympathetic sound. Then - because now she can, and that’s a whole new thing, best explored in relative safety: “My world was conquered in my lifetime, too.” And she watches him, with both sympathy and a certain measured calm.

“I’m very new, I’m afraid.” Tumbled through a rift and hit her head, her tone suggests, and an airy wave of the hand backs it up.

Moths used after his time - sentient aliens - well, it explains something about the mothlings, if they are truly children and not clever, musical pets, miniaturized by some Nirai with a fascination for their heraldic emblem. Reshad’s eyes widen briefly, and after the split-second assessment of her own reaction automatic to almost any situation, she lets the shocked expression stand. Lets the admixture of anger that follows show, too.

“They’re controlled and used for starflight, yes. And I have never heard of them referred to as sentient, nor known them to ...well, sing.” She shifts her stance and her eyes narrow in thought, an expression not unlike that of something pointed and toothed spotting prey. “This malfunction,” she muses.

“I don’t suppose it’s...replicable.”

Remi's mouth twists into a half-smile. "There are certain experiences that are difficult to explain to born heptarchate citizens." He leaves it there.

"I joined the rebellion," Remi says, "because I was hoping that the moths would receive better treatment. It was a bit of a shock to realize their ship"--he gestures at the Cantata--"was a moth itself. At least that got cleared up relatively quickly."

In response to Reshad's question, Remi says, "It's definitely something I've been thinking about. But whether anything's implemented on that front will be up to mission leadership."

Reshad’s expression clouds over, and she nods. This is no time, no place, to be getting into it - but she feels more than a bit of sympathy. Maybe - Maybe, she can trust these people enough to make an offer like she wanted to. Eventually.

And it’s still strange to hear ‘heptarchate’ as anything but a historical reference. But that’s what it is, and she will adapt.

“Do people have...non-moth ships, then?” She doesn’t have a word for it, she realizes. Not in any tongue. “Rather, is it common?” More softly, she muses: “I don’t know that I would know if a ship were a moth, or not. I assumed they all were.”

Mission leadership: meaning Sasha or Alaric? Logic suggests otherwise, or Remi would have spoken with them himself.

“We can perhaps find a path that links them, both. Rebellion and moths.” A thin smile, another shift of her feet; this is audacious for someone so new to the situation. “If every moth in the hexarchate stops flying, they’ll have some difficulty doing - well, anything.”

Remi lifts a shoulder in an expressive shrug. "For local transportation, mainly. For interstellar travel, I'm given to understand that moth ships are so much better than invariant transport that there's really no comparison. And it wasn't any particular virtue on my part that I recognized the Cantata as a moth. I was already researching the mothlings and happened to have a lab full of instruments that told me one was nearby."

In response to Reshad's musing, Remi says dryly, "Yes, I don't imagine weaning the hexarchate from their starships is going to be easy. That's a lot of infrastructure."

"Hm." Giving the impression of rapid thought, dark eyes flicking back and forth across empty air, Reshad realigns what she knows, and what she suspects.

"And - tell me, if I'm taking too much of your time? - what did Cantata do when its harness... stopped working?" For she's noticed they still have a ship, and travel space and rift at will.

Re: let's have a sensible conversation about maps

yhlee - 2018-12-27 05:02 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only