hexarchate_rpg | 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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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 don't know what the fuck harm reduction means in this context," Sasha observes, "or why we're comparing the moth, whose priority appears to be protecting babies, to a man who murders his own people. And no, Fyedlet, we cannot just talk to him. Not unless we want to risk him alerting the Kel, and attacking us."

"Yeah, it does seem like the sort of situation where you kidnap first and ask ideological questions second," Alaric agrees. "Or shoot him, whatever."

"I see four possible responses," Sasha summarizes. "Zero, we let the Lanterners make their assassination attempt without interference. One, we let them try, but attempt to secure Jedao if they fail. Ione, Iawa, do you have some sort of drug that might make him come with us willingly? It's going to be a lot easier to fuck the scans so the Kel don't know to follow us than it would be to drag a body through security. Two, we communicate more of our capabilities and assist in the assassination attempt seriously. We could probably smuggle printer components and construct weapons on-site, if we wanted. Or three, we sabotage the assassination attempt and go straight to kidnapping. Given our current lack of information about what Quill actually wants, I favor Option One. Tell me what I'm missing."

[GM's note on drugs:

delight, I am happy to defer to whatever you know from real life or want to invent from Ione's experience here given that I have zero medical or pharmaceutical knowledge. [1]

vass, Iawa would have general familiarity with Vidona drugs that make people more complaisant, or sedated, or induce mind-altering states; and God knows, you probably know a lot more about the real life version of this too because I know NOTHING about the real life version of this.

[1] My dad is a surgeon but surgeon's kids either (a) become super-knowledgeable about biology (my sister) or (b) outsource everything to the medical person in the family and end up super ignorant (me).

]

[I tried to do research to figure out something more terrifying than the real drug available that does this, AND I COULDN'T THE REAL DRUG IS TERRIFYING ENOUGH TO FIT INTO THE H*ARCHATE SETTING AS IS.]

Ione cannot put her finger on anything Sasha is missng, and she only squints and tries to look at her nose a little bit as regards that counting method. But she's getting used to the fact that this mission + numbers are going to be weird to her.

"Oh, sure," she says easily, trying not to look pleased or smile, because that would definitely be weird to everyone else. "In what format did you prefer? I have the powder, which can be powerful even when inhaled but if you put it through a ventilation system you'd have either a lot of problems or the most complacent group of people you've ever dealt with and they would be extremely annoying, but they would also probably all forget it happened -- er, anyway, I can also make it into a suspension and we can dart it. He might really hate us, though, there are a couple of side effects ..."

Because that is absolutely the only reason that Jedao would hate them as a result.

"If I have a couple of days and lab equipment and someone else to do calculations for me because that will be much faster, I can adjust the potency."

Reshad nods at Sasha's options, and cocks her head curiously at the mention of drugs.
"Harm reduction, in this case, is stopping Hellspin and its associated remembrance, and we have the bonus option of denying Quill what she seems to want by keeping him alive."

She gives Mafyyil a smile, for that suggestion. "We still don't know if we can trust him, and probably can't, but working with someone doesn't necessarily mean full trust. Only that you trust them to act in a known way." Even that is shaky with Jedao, masterful Shuos - but even foxes have patterns.

"Kidnapping asking questions later is probably our best choice. I favor option 3- it's identical to 1, save that we aren't leaving our outcome to chance or someone else's competence."

[Maybe let's pick up the conversation in this thread, where Sasha has just stormed into the common room?]

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

some possible courses of action - paging everyone, especially Iawa and Ione

mind-altering/sedating drugs - paging Iawa and Ione

Re: mind-altering/sedating drugs - paging Iawa and Ione

Re: some possible courses of action - paging everyone, especially Iawa and Ione

Re: some possible courses of action - paging everyone, especially Iawa and Ione

in the future, we will have more data