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]

"I can't pilot this ship," Sulen says. "Can any of you? Automated or not, we need someone who knows how ships work and how to fly it if things go wrong."

[smokedetective]

"Alaric," says Ashari, elegantly stretching a hand out in Alaric's direction. "If you can figure out how to fake damage, could you figure out how to fly this thing? Or at least figure out enough about it to stop it from crashing? I'm sure everyone will help as they can, but this seems like your speed."

[slybrarian]

"Oh, sure, no problem. I did stellar in my astrogation course," Alaric replies, hoping someone sees what he did there. "How different could it be from any other spaceship? You calculate the desired orbit and burn, point in the right direction, and push go when the countdown reaches the correct time. As long as we avoid a dogfight I think I'll be fine."

That was with conventional Newtonian physics, of course, but if the engine's calendrical physics model didn't have inertia turned on surely it would be even easier. He'd just have to read the manual first. No need to worry anyone else with the fiddly details.

[smokedetective]

Ashari laughs lightly. "Stellar," they repeat, and then turn to the unnamed contact. "Are there perhaps any manuals or tutorials on board for the rest of us whose skills with space faring technology aren't quite so... out of this world?"

[yhlee]

The woman raises her eyebrows. "Tutorials, yes. Along with the grid, they'll get you through basic navigational situations. I regret that we couldn't provide you with a dedicated pilot, but they are in short supply. Just stay out of dogfights, as the man said."

[smokedetective]

"Understandable," says Ashari. "I'm sure that none of us want to get into a space fight we're unlikely to win. Thank you... uh, how should we address you?"

a belated introduction

[yhlee]

Interesting: the woman has dimples, but her smile is not friendly. "You may call me Crow."

[interstellar travel and stardrives]

[yhlee]

[Feel free to live in the land of handwave for this stuff. I'm not an astrophysicist. My husband...is an astrophysicist with his degree from MIT, but I sort of recommend against getting technical given that the high calendar and ansible communications tech already violate relativity. XD ]

Re: [interstellar travel and stardrives]

[slybrarian]

[Oh, believe me, I have no intention to do much beyond rephrase things I vaguely remember hearing Scott Manley say. That and turn on MothJeb. Possibly after inventing MothJeb because not having a fast forward time setting really makes 99% if space travel boring. :D]

[zuhrovet]

Sasha shudders. The man sounds like a theorist, the sort who makes inane comments like "I didn't know there would be so many dials." She makes a mental note to spend some serious time in the flight sims, when she's not setting up the network or playing with the matter printer. Maybe one of the Kel types would copilot? Military people are willing to practice skills, and Sasha tends to find pseudorandomized scenarios boring.

[slybrarian]

Alaric, his highly developed scorn senses tingling, eyes Sasha suspiciously.

[zuhrovet]

[If Sasha can get over the age-old experimentalist-vs.-theorist conflict, I'm hoping she can do some SCIENCE! with Alaric. She has exotic luck; he can turn it off. What are the parameters? How far does the effect reach? Must there be line-of-sight? SO MANY QUESTIONS.]

[yhlee]

[I for one look forward to any discussions/experiments Sasha and Alaric want to do about this!]

[slybrarian]

[Does her luck cause a series of strange coincidences that make it so he doesn't turn his power on? What if it would be fortuitous for her to be inside a null field? Does her luck react to things caused by the null, like if he was really stupid and released Mothra* mid-flight, will she be right next to an escape pod at the time? QUESTIONS.

*I apologize, Yhlee, but I am naming the Wasp's lovecraftian monstrosity Mothra.]

[yhlee]

[Hahaha the two of you are welcome to hash this out amongst yourselves--I'll let you know if there are GMly concerns.

Mothra it is! Heh. :p]

[zuhrovet]

[Hmm, I'm not sure how far Sasha's luck extends to situations that aren't marked as depending on a game of chance of some sort. She's good with quantum physics, but not with strangers' feelings. We'll have to experiment.

Also I'm pretty sure your imagined imprisonment of Mothra was less horrifying than mine. I didn't think we could break them out without doing neurosurgery and then blowing up the ship. Let's hope I was wrong.]