Move 1 (Chapter 1.1)

[yhlee]

Time: CLASSIFIED
Place: CLASSIFIED

The tan-skinned woman, your contact in the resistance, doesn't introduce herself, but she has that efficient way of walking that suggests some form of military training, and she leads the twelve of you to the hangar where a trademoth awaits. The moth is painted with some kind of stylized insect symbol. "Technically this is a reclaimed pirate vessel," the woman says abruptly, "but we prefer to call it an entrepreneur. We've named it Wasp, mainly because the technicians couldn't be bothered to repaint it."

She faces you fully, unsmiles. "Let me be frank. In an ideal universe we would send a fully integrated team that had trained together. We don't have that kind of luxury. The twelve of you are the people available for this particular mission, so we're sending you."

The woman's expression smooths out a little. "We have been informed of an opportunity to recruit a Nirai defector, who is going by the name Remi, from a certain time period in the heptarchate. Not only are Nirai valuable because they can always tell what the date is--useful when you're time traveling, as you might imagine--this one claims to have invented a method for detecting rifts and predicting where they will take us, possibly even generating them. As some of you know from personal experience, rifts are unstable and figuring out where they will take you is not...exactly a science. That being said, there's always the possibility that Nirai Remi is a heptarchate agent. Stay alert."

She continues giving you details: the twelve of you will be crewing the Wasp, which is thankfully largely automated, to go through a rift and recover Nirai Remi on the other end from Station Moongray. Her briefing materials include some photographs of Remi, a handsome young man with curly hair and striking ice-violet eyes. Apparently this isn't the first time he's run into trouble with heptarchate authorities, and he's much more interested in continuing his research than getting into yet more trouble.

Remi will be expecting you. The woman is happy to leave the details of his retrieval up to you. In particular, there hasn't been time to do a thorough reconnaissance of Station Moongray, as there's some concern that the particular rift leading to Remi's time and place is unstable and may dissipate soon.

[GM notes: At this point, you should feel free to ask the NPC questions about the mission. You should also feel free to organize yourselves either in-character or out of character--is there going to be a command hierarchy? who will specialize in what roles aboard the moth or during the retrieval? cover stories and identities?--and discuss preliminary plans. You can also talk a little bit about how your character ended up here, if you like. It's fine to have multiple threads going for simultaneous conversations. Given that this is a forum RPG and we're mostly in different time zones, some of that is inevitable. If you have any questions, feel free to ping me--I'll be watching the threads.

Once the characters get underway, there should be plenty of room for interaction and flirting and whatever you like--this is mostly to get us started.--YHL]

Comments

[venndaai]

Sulen is mentally going, "Aaaaugh!!!" but their somber, attentive expression doesn't change.

Auuuugh, what was that?! Well, the woman who recruited them to the rebellion did tell them that they should expect to see a lot of strange things...

"That's an interesting talent," they say. "I'm guessing you're not from the Heptarchate?" Unless this is some kind of Shuos trick. Sulen wouldn't put it past the Andan either.

[lookingforoctober]

Elesa is disappointed by the lack of reaction, but covers it by shifting back to her normal appearance, having made her point.

"No, as far as I can tell, I'm from about as far away from this ... entire run of history involving political entities ending in -archate ... as a person can get."

She studies the impassive person, thinking to herself that if everyone gives as little away, this is going to be difficult. "Some time, if you're amenable, we should talk about the time you're from--" She's assuming based on the hept- prefix. "When we don't have a mission to plan."

[venndaai]

That might be interesting, if Elesa really is a historian. Although Sulen's never had much interest in history from outside the Heptarchate. But that might be because there is no other history, as far as Heptarchate libraries and archives were concerned. They didn't have to teach you in academy not to question it, because by that point the thought would never even cross your mind. Information from outside was corrosive, would naturally cause rot. Was corrupt.

So many things were corrupt.

"How fortunate for you," Sulen says.

[lleullawgyffes]

The idea of a mutual history lesson piques Virmad's interest, almost as much as the implications of the...ability...that this strange woman has just demonstrated. He'd like to ask how it works — or, more to the point, how it works here, since it's clearly an exotic effect — but now isn't exactly the time.

Or — maybe it is? They're going to be working together, after all, on a potentially dangerous mission. They need to have a real sense of what they all can do.

"Are you certain your ability will work under all iterations of the High Calendar?" Virmad asks.