hexarchate_rpg | should we help or hinder the assassination of Jedao?

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moves: chapter 2

should we help or hinder the assassination of Jedao?

[In the current move, Flute has just informed the team that they are to accompany a group of Lanterner assassins to a conference where the Lanterners will attempt to assassinate Jedao. This post is for reactions and plans, both in and out of character.]

Sasha's quiet as the group heads from the Catastrophe Axe back to the Cantata. She wants to have a cup of tea and spend a few hours working her way further into the Axe's grid, but work comes before play, and figuring out how to handle Flute's instructions will be a fuck of a lot of work.

Once everyone's safely on the Cantata and the lock has closed behind them, she starts issuing orders. "Grid, please ask Sulen to meet me in my office in twenty minutes, and inform everyone there will be a team meeting in the common room in one hour. Reshad, I'll want you in the meeting with Sulen."

She pulls her memory stick out of her pocket and gives it to Alaric. "Find Aymad, stick this in the minigrid--not in the main one--and see what you can find out about the watchers in Flute's system in the next hour."

Then she turns to Seyli. "I know you want to yell. Go ahead and do it. You've got twenty minutes." [These are heptarchate minutes, so it's more like ten minutes in our calendar.]

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"Hellspin fell out of the deck sideways, though. A real black swan, from everything I've read; took everyone by surprise." A bit of enthusiasm shows there, the hobbyist warming to her subject. "After a cometary arc of a career."

"Don't think of it as ...trying to make him not a monstrosity. He's one of history's finest." She looks thoughtful, mind racing ahead of speech. "Think of it as denying the Hexarchate a weapon - not by destruction, but by theft."

Sasha leans forward. "I wouldn't steal one of the fungal weapons. Because a weapon's no good if you're not willing to use it, and using one of those would make us as bad as the heptarchate. Or the hexarchate, in that case. What makes Jedao different? Why in all the hells do we think we could use him safely?"

Seyli finally drops into a chair, sighing heavily as the do so. "I understand a lot of your plans tend to go heywire," they say when presented with the reassurance. "But that is...useful information to know. You're right, I haven't put those pieces together about the four of you." They'd been too wary of everyone to start thinking and it was helpful for Sasha to put things so bluntly.

"What role do you want me to take, in all of this then? It hasn't escaped my notice I seem to be the only trained infantry person."

Seyli's been keeping their mouth shut through this whole exchange, trying to actually hear their crew mates out and get a good read on where they stand and what their skills are. But Sasha makes the most valid point they've heard.

"I agree with Sasha. Why do we think we could use him when no one else has managed to do so? I'm sure as hell not that special." They leave the and I doubt any of you are, either unspoken.

Edited 2019-01-20 17:04 (UTC)

Sasha has been perfectly successful in breaking things, she thinks ruefully. At least Seyli's listening.

"Your role is security, and our mission is extracting information. Alaric and Ione both have significant operational experience, but they don't ordinarily shoot at people--they specialize in other methods of distraction--and they obviously don't think like military. Your ability to predict the way an armed adversary will react is very important." Maybe more important than Seyli's ability to shoot people, if Sasha's luck holds.

"In the nearer term, it sounds like you're going to be stuck training some Lanterners. What do you need from me, to make that assignment endurable?"

Seyli breathes in and then out, thinking about what is even reasonable to ask. They run through the options and finally settle on something that feels like they can ask for: "Don't send me with the flower girl, if you can help it. I don't have time to teach and babysit at the same time. Or if she does come, you assign someone else to mind her that isn't me."

"Fuck, that would be an operational security nightmare. You're safe from dealing with Fyedlet on the way out, and Alaric, too, for that matter. You'll have a tech--probably Aymad. I might also send Gerae, because the man remembers every word he hears, if I can figure out who's fit to babysit him."

Sasha turns her teacup in her hands. She wants more jam. Possibly she should find calories that aren't jam. "The team meeting is going to be a mess, because I need data, and we're all from different times, so I have to ask everyone. I need you to bear in mind two things. First, our fundamental responsibility is to keep the moth alive and report back to Ashari. Second, our resources are fucking strange. If you need something in order to get a job done, ask for it; you can't assume a tool doesn't exist just because it didn't exist in your time. Got it?"

[What sort of information about Flute's grid and the watchers on it has ended up on Sasha's memory stick? What can she glean from the logs on her (much better protected) tablet?]

[First, after some digging, Sasha and/or Aymad determine that a spy program has set up residence on Sasha's memory stick. It appears to be mostly passive data-gathering, but it also smells like it could do weird polymorphic shit in response to some trigger. They'll be able to "defuse" it as long as they haven't done anything like just plugging it directly into the main mothgrid, which I doubt either Sasha or Aymad would have ventured!

Flute's grid appears to be extraordinarily well-protected and set up by a professional. In retrospect perhaps this is not so surprising, given the sensitivity of this time period and the ambition of this particular mission. It's certainly not perfect security, but it's going to be a tough nut to crack.

It also appears, just from the "personality" quirks visible in the active code and network activity, that there are at least two dedicated security specialists on Flute's crew.

There were definitely attempts to prod at the defenses of Sasha's better-protected tablet, some from Flute's network, others from what looks like the Lanterner's station network. Most of it looks like bored trolling but some of it appears more serious and may come from a concerted effort to gather intel on visitors.]

[Indeed, we have a separate system for testing for just this reason.

Does the code on the memory stick feel like the work of either of the security specialists on Flute's crew?]

[Yes, I assumed y'all would have a setup like that. I mean, not that I know anything about real-life hacking besides having read two books on the subject, which is not the same thing, so I apologize to any real hackers who are reading my handwaved GMing on this topic.

Let's call the two security specialists Spider (patient, predatory, prefers a labyrinthine defensive approach) and Firecracker (more flamboyant, more of a risk-taker, although this may be a ruse in itself). The memory stick code looks like Spider's work.]

"Maybe using him is the wrong approach," Alaric says. "The heptarchate uses Jedao, and it ended up poorly. The also use moths, and while nothing's happened yet, traditionally enslaving strange creatures from beyond space and time doesn't go well either. So far working with a moth for mutual benefit seems to work pretty well though."

[We upgraded our test systems at the same time we acquired a less-opinionated printer, even!

Has Sasha encountered either of these people, or their work, before?]

[Maybe the question should be, from an RP standpoint, would you rather one or both of these people be people Sasha has encountered before in some security conference or other context, for extra drama points, or would you rather they be strangers?]

Reshad nods to Seyli and Sasha both, an acknowledgement of their points. They're good ones, but she hesitates to let that be the only reason to drive the decision.

"Assassinated or kidnapped, either way we deny the Hexarchate his ability. But to Alaric's point - alliance may be more potent yet. And make every plan with an eye to harm reduction." She glances back and forth between them. "Aren't we doing that already?"

Edited 2019-01-22 19:54 (UTC)

[I'm happy either way. Reshad would probably be best placed with the Lanterners, so she can learn about them - and about how to foul them up.]

Sasha pokes around the other moths in Flute's fleet, checking whether they're equally well protected.

[Maybe Sasha met one or both of them during her rebellion training? If it was early, they might be inclined to underestimate her skill.

vass,

pengwern, I am thinking that one entertaining way to try to get into this network would be to leak some information about Mikodez, on the theory that this is information lots of people in the rebellion will want to look at. Do either of you want to play out a scene where you run an errand to Flute's moth with a strategically insecure device, or should I just assume it happened?]

Well, that's good. Seyli relaxes for a second and then remembers just what they're going into and tenses up once more. "I'll do so, sir. Sasha," they correct in an attempt to at least look like they're trying with Sasha. She hasn't done anything and this is a weird situation all around. "I'll let you or whoever I need to on the team know what I need when I need it. I trust I'm not going to sound like a moron when I describe a tool that I'm not sure is real but would help?"

Sasha makes a noise that's halfway between "huh" and a genuine laugh. "If you can think of something that Alaric hasn't heard of and doesn't offer to invent, I'll scare you up a bonus payment. Did he tell you, he doesn't have a heart?"

[Let's say that Sasha met Spider during her rebellion training, and that Spider did, indeed, go by Spider as her nom de hacker. Based on their actions, Sasha thinks it's likely that Spider does, in fact, underestimate Sasha and thinks that Sasha is too hot-tempered to really understand security.]

Oh, fuck Spider, Sasha's going to bind her up in her own little webs and let her choke on them. [Sasha's 1337 h4x0r name is usually Salad, should this become relevant.]

Sasha plays with the watcher code from her memory stick, trying to work out how it authenticates and reports back. She's also poking around the security in Flute's fleet: whenever you lock a grid down, there's somebody who decides it's too much of a hassle and starts looking for shortcuts, and she would like to identify that person.

"We've not really talked." Honestly, they've kept themselves busy getting the range cleaned and keeping to themselves.

"Do you need anything else from me, sir?" Seyli asks with a polite smile, eager for this one-on-one to be over.

"No. See you in 85 minutes."

Seyli can spend those minutes not in a meeting. Sasha envies them.

[Hahaha, so noted!]

It takes a bit, but Sasha hits pay dirt, because of course humans are predictable. There's one person who's been loosening the security, and based on the pattern of Space Internet lookups--shooter games, cheerful porn, silly bird memes, and op-ed articles on the merits of different firearms--it seems likely that this is one of Flute's infantry, possibly even former Kel.

Why can't anyone in the heptarchate have a normal, decent hobby, like compulsive gambling? Sasha wonders. She carefully and quietly works her way into this person's messages: she wants to see how that part of Flute's grid is protected.

Meanwhile, she prints a variant of the fitness trackers with some built-in photo and video storage.

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Page 2 of 5

should we help or hinder the assassination of Jedao?

Re: no, seriously, are we going to assassinate Jedao? - paging everyone

Re: no, seriously, are we going to assassinate Jedao? - paging everyone

Re: welcome back - paging Seyli

Re: no, seriously, are we going to assassinate Jedao? - paging everyone

Re: welcome back - paging Seyli

Re: welcome back - paging Seyli

Re: welcome back - paging Seyli

what is on the memory stick? - paging Aymad

Re: what is on the memory stick? - paging Aymad

Re: what is on the memory stick? - paging Aymad

Re: what is on the memory stick? - paging Aymad

Re: no, seriously, are we going to assassinate Jedao? - paging everyone

Re: what is on the memory stick? - paging Aymad

Re: what is on the memory stick? - paging Aymad

Re: no, seriously, are we going to assassinate Jedao? - paging everyone

Re: on splitting the party

maybe we can leak some of Mishka's home video? - paging Iawa and Mikodez

Re: welcome back - paging Seyli

Re: welcome back - paging Seyli

[hackers who know hackers]

I guess it's personal, then

Re: welcome back - paging Seyli

Re: welcome back - paging Seyli

Re: I guess it's personal, then

Re: I guess it's personal, then