Move 2 (Chapter 1.2)

[yhlee]

Time: 702 (high calendar)
Place: a rebellion outpost near a stable rift

[GM's note: Elesa's player had to drop, so we'll just say that Crow tells you she's been called away to another last-minute mission better suited to her talents and move on.]

[Also, for your ease of reference, Mission information, mostly from Move 1 so far.]

The interior of the Wasp is more spacious than it looks. Crow, when asked, informs you that this is a precursor to variable layout technology. For the curious (and those from earlier eras), she explains that variable layout is a hexarchate-era technology that allows affected areas to be bigger inside than out, and for the "rooms" to be rearranged almost at will, or connected with internal teleporters. The Wasp's version isn't advanced enough for room-shuffling, but it does mean that the moth will easily accommodate all of you.

The Wasp contains, at minimum:
- a cockpit for a pilot and copilot
- a gunnery room (weapons/defenses can also be automated)
- an office for the commander [that's you, smokedetective]
- a small medical bay--the Wasp can suggest first aid treatments with an expert system, and there's room in "freezers" to put up to two people in a primitive form of stasis so they can be taken to a real hospital elsewhere if someone gets badly injured [this will only happen to your character with your permission, but could make for fun drama if you are so inclined]
- a combination galley and dining room
- a large common room suitable for entertaining (which begs the question of just what kind of entertaining pirates do), although its decor is rather lacking unless someone wants to play with the matter printer
- sufficient quarters for everyone to have a cabin of their own
- a capacious storage hold filled with strange liquors and other miscellaneous trade goods, as well as occasional miscellaneous supplies

You can address the Wasp's mothgrid from anywhere within it, or access it through slates that communicate with the computers.

Once you reach the rift, travel through it is as simple as pointing the Wasp at it and going through. Inside the rift, you won't be able to see anything but a shimmering blue haze, and it is highly, highly disrecommended that anything alive go extravehicular while in rift transit; there are robots (non-sentient) to take care of any repairs that might become necessary.

[Note to Alaric: if he's paying attention to this, he may notice that, interestingly, Mothra itself appears to be unharmed by the rift energies, thanks to some sort of innate resistance. Mothra may or may not have anything to say about this if he can figure out a way to communicate with it.]

[General notes and formatting: Since I'm going to have probably limited internet access over the next odd-week per this announcement, this is what I suggest:

Players should familiarize themselves with the Wasp and feel free to set out toward the rift in order to commence their mission with travel through the rift. I don't think one day = one move makes sense, especially during boring travel bits. Feel free to use different threads for different conversations that may take place during different times in the journey (one thread for day one, another for day two, etc.)--whether that means making further plans, or devising clever weapons using the matter printer, or getting to know each other, or looking up the briefing materials on heptarchate culture/tech in the target year 361, etc. Just to make thread navigation easier, I suggest that henceforth threads about major topics be titled to help people navigate. If there's a major topic change, or you need to flag an OOC query/discussion, change the comment title, e.g.

immolationfox: Weapons Inventory
Shuos Jedao happily goes through ALL the crates in the hold to check for any weapons, including knitting needles.

overlyloyalhawk: re: Weapons Inventory
Gized sighs and goes to keep an eye on Jedao help him count, since Jedao sucks at numbers.

immolationfox: [paging GM]
[Are there any small arms in here? Grenades? Also, whiskey?]

We don't need to be strict about this, but if we do this for major topics it'll probably help navigating threads.

Once I get back the week after Readercon, we'll see about moving the action forward on the other side of the rift!]

Comments

[pengwern]

As soon as he sees people gathering in the common room, Mikodez heads off in the opposite direction to cautiously plant bugs throughout the moth. Most look like pieces of tape or film, but some are slender flexible rods around 3mm in diameter that can move themselves into the wiring. If anyone asks, he’ll say that he’s looking for booze. If challenged further about how he’s headed in the wrong direction from the cargo hold, he will offer to accompany his interlocutor to the kitchen to see just what the matter printer can create when it comes to processed sugar.

He’s looking to strike up conversations, especially to anyone he failed to speak to in the hangar. Much more important to (suss out demographics) pet Ankat’s dog, given the difficulties of getting information off those bugs.

[For the honor of his Intro to Griddiving class, Mikodez should be capable of holding his own against other people on the ship for a little while, BUT personally I can just about turn on a computer, so I hope people will permit the elision of any hacking sequences. Mikodez will have some saved files of his own that are mostly innocuous, like boring literature anthologies, calligraphy manuals, and scores of those cooking videos for making desserts.]

[completely optional security engineering resource!]

[yhlee]

[Personally, I took two years of comp sci in uni and then had to switch to math because math was so much easier and I am the world's slowest debugger. All this to say I have no idea how to do real hacking and we are probably going to handwave this stuff. I expect the hacking/grid-diving expert in the group to be Sasha because that's her character concept.

Meanwhile, if you feel like reading a free and super-accessible introduction to security engineering, including interesting tidbits about hacking, may I recommend Ross Anderson's Security Engineering 2nd ed.? COMPLETELY OPTIONAL, not required for this RPG. But the whole thing reads like a collection of Leverage plot hooks!]

[special crafting bugs]

[yhlee]

[Stray thought you may use or ignore at will: I bet the Shuos have bugged washi tape, which would appeal to Mikodez...]

[smokedetective]

Seeing the child (Avrayen, Ashari thought), slip away, Ashari briefly considered what they should do about it. They didn't trust the toddler further than they could throw him (which wasn't very far), so they away threw their previous plans of going loudly from room to room complaining about the decor and planting bugs. Instead, they rushed after Avrayen at what seemed like a reasonable pace and clamped a firm hand down on the child's shoulder.

"Avrayen, right?" they say, and their usually pleasant smile is just on the wrong side of threatening. "How are you doing? Settling in alright?"

They're pretty sure their concern sounds genuine, and to an extent, it is. The tone of their smile might ruin it, though. But it's best to get a handle on the kid early.

[Sorry to jump in here, but I thought that Ashari following Mikodez and both of them trying to plant bugs without the other noticing would be funny. And also, if Mikodez does offer to accompany Ashari to the matter printer, that's something that they'd find very agreeable, as they absolutely love sugar.]

[zuhrovet]

[These are physical bugs that record voice conversations, right? Do they take video as well? Are they feeding information back through the grid, or do you need to visit them physically to retrieve the data?]

[lleullawgyffes]

[I forgot to ask during move 1/you mentioned he was thinking about it but didn't say what his conclusion was — what signifier is Mikodez displaying at the moment?]

Interior Design

[smokedetective]

[OOC: I thought I'd make a thread for people to describe some basic set ups for their quarters, if they want to. Like, the kind of stuff that they bring in, and later anything they get from the matter printer. That way, if there's scenes set in someone's room we can keep track of what's there.

For stuff in the common areas, if anyone wants to put something there or change something, we can always title the message within this thread with the name of that room and then add on to it as people add stuff to the room.

Ofc I don't want to make anyone feel like they have to comment, but it seems like something that would be fun to do if people want to. It's just that, playing an Andan, this is something that I'm very interested in. xD]

Re: Interior Design - Ashari's Office

[smokedetective]

Despite their previous talk of redecorating, Ashari keeps their actual decor sparse. They don't know what part they'll be playing yet, so what they do put up is designed to offer up as much useless information as possible.

They pin up a wall hanging behind their desk. It's a pretty innocent thing, displaying an array of flowers masterfully interwoven into elaborate knots. It's from their personal luggage, a souvenir from their last job. Technically, it was supposed to be a bed covering, but the quality of it was high enough quality that Ashari doubted that anyone who wasn't trained in these things would be able to tell.

They managed to wrestle a couple of cushions out of the matter printer, though the colors and shapes were off, but that was alright. They'd just have to present themself as more eccentric in the future. The cushions went on the chairs (there was one behind the desk, the another two in front of it).

On the table itself they scattered a couple of miscellaneous trinkets that seemed personal, but really meant very little: an odd color changing orb (really, it's an audio and video recorder, though they haven't exactly figured out its specifics yet), a small statue of a frog (gold, with small blue jewels for eyes), and an array of jeweled hairpins (scattered hectically around the desk in such a way as to create a sense of urgency).

They're not the best with bugs and tech, but their skills are passable. So, they plaster a small sensor under their desk. It should tell them if a bug is planted in the room, though they'll have to find it and disable it on their own, if it comes to that. It's not the most accurate thing in the world.

Re: Interior Design

[venndaai]

Rahal tend to go in for austerity. Sulen feels vaguely that they should try and be less of a Rahal, but the problem is that they have exactly zero sense of aesthetics. They'll have to ask Ashari for help. For the moment they put a single bright orange cup on the empty fold-out table, and stare at it. At least it's not silver or bronze-colored.

They have exactly three changes of clothes, more if they're willing to go a while without changing shirts. Just two copies of the pants and undershirt of the Rahal uniform sans identifying jacket, the dark gray dress and leggings that had made up their one civilian outfit, and a windbreaker that someone in the resistance had given them out of pity. Sulen folds all the items they're not currently wearing with intense precision and puts them in the storage cubby.

What's missing? Alcohol. Maybe there's some in the storage hold.

Re: Interior Design

[zuhrovet]

Sasha puts her duffel in one locker, mentally designates a second locker for dirty laundry, and looks around for safety information. If there's a fire alarm, or other alarms, she'll test them; if there's an evacuation route, she'll memorize it.

[Still working on my player journal vs. personal journal habits. Sorry about the inconsistent usernames!]

Re: Interior Design: Ankat's quarters

[talifabian]

Ankat lurches into his room, a large bag slung over his shoulder, his dog darting between his legs as he enters. Throwing his bag onto his bed he begins methodically unpacking; a set of water and food dishes for Yisrain go next to the door, multicolored clothes are neatly packed away, a pad of artificial, odor suppressing grasses laid in the toilet, and gridpaper briefing documents placed in a drawer.

Reaching further into his bag, stylized statues of a serpent, coiled around a tree, a group of people in exotic clothing, and an abstract form of flowing curves, unfamiliar to hexarchate eyes, are placed on his desk. He looks around for a suitable cabinet, before leaving for the matter printer. Returning, he carries a small metal locker (for some reason decorated with an eye-searing Andan-style floral print) with a sturdy, mechanical combination lock. A few invariant guns are taken out of the bag, disassembled, cleaned, oiled, reassembled, and locked inside.

As he reaches the bottom of the bag, he slows. He swallows uncomfortably, and his eyes go distant for a moment. He calls Yisrain to him, picking her up and giving her a treat as she comes, shaking slightly as he holds her in his arms. She bears this patiently for a moment before squirming free onto the bed, walking in a decisive circle about the foot of it, and lying down. Taking a breath, Ankat reaches into the bag and pulls out the hilt of a calendrical sword, glancing at the weapons locker before decisively hanging it above his pillow.

Re: Interior Design: Virmad

[lleullawgyffes]

Virmad doesn't have much to add to his quarters by way of decoration, as such, but as he's unpacking he does set aside a few things that aren't strictly essential (that is, besides his clothes and his Tlen Gwa textbook — with the friendly title Let’s Learn Tlen Gwa!, not at all reflective of its staid interior text, which is carried over almost unchanged from an earlier edition first published some fifty years before Virmad's copy — and reference grammar/dictionary):

• three other physical books (collections of poetry by Rahal Senjek and Kel Zem Rao, and something in Gwa-an [on the off-chance anyone reads Gwa-an, the title is The Ontology of Thought]);


• a small, framed watercolor painting signed "Rahal Ejad" — it's a very conventional seascape with a single bird flying overhead; and


• a small metal icon in the shape of a lantern — if someone were to examine it closely, they'd see that it looks like it was meant to be a pendant, but Virmad hasn't bothered to put it on a chain or string.

The books (Tlen Gwa materials included) and the painting he leaves on his nightstand; the icon he takes a long look at, then sighs and puts it back in his now-otherwise-empty bag.

Re: Interior Design

[pengwern]

The distance between each crew quarters is negligible. Mikodez takes one set in the middle, rather than one far to the end of the corridor like a fox gone to ground. He might even consider keeping his door open all the time and turning the volume on his shows and games up instead of using headphones.

Inside, he seems to have gathered most of the useless sidetables around the Wasp. On them, if samples of the alcohol cargo are allowed, will be tall glass decanters with settling layers of various liquids, and various gridpaper with recipe notes. It’s too bad that grid searches aren’t working for him, or he could have looked up their specific gravities of the liquids, instead of keeping this obstacle maze of furniture in his room, all of them flimsy and easy to shove towards someone coming through the doorway.

His bed is off on the opposite side from the door, partly blocked by a tall storage cabinet. He has a emptied bag of belongings, as the few shirts and sweaters he has are flung around the room, folded but not precisely neat.

Re: Interior Design

[yehan]

Yehan breathes a small sigh of relief once she's finally able to shut the door to her quarters and be alone. She had no idea there would be so many people involved in this mission. After sitting on the bed quietly for a moment, just letting herself catch up with all the new information, she starts to unpack.

First come a perhaps surprising number of paperback and hardcover books--Yehan hadn't known what kind of grid access would be available going through the rifts and wasn't about to risk losing resources. The books have titles like The High Language: A Historical Linguistic Companion, Creolisation in the Early Heptarchate, and Papers of the 82nd Naxorian Linguistics Conference. Most she sets in a tall stack on the desk, but one very old and worn-looking book, Kirrish Folk Tales and Proverbs, she sets on the nightstand next to the bed.

She lights a stick of incense and sets it on the nightstand as well, though tucked carefully away from the book. On the bed she sets a brightly-colored woven blanket, stopping for a minute to let herself ball it up in her first and roll it around a bit. The texture soothes her.

After a trip to the matter printer, she adds one of the rainbow champagne flutes (more her style than shot glasses) and a few custom-printed lamps that match those she'd used at home. Standard lighting on moths always make her eyes hurt.

Re: Interior Design: Iawa's quarters

[vass]

Iawa came through a very unstable rift. One moment it was open, the next it was gone and them with it. This had the disadvantage that when they emerged on the other side some hours or days later, they arrived with nothing but the clothes they were wearing (ceremonial vestments, discarded and replaced with an umber tunic and trousers at the earliest opportunity) and their grandparent's mirrorweight web piece (worn, as always, in a pouch just below their heart.)

To counterbalance this, the rift's instability conferred the advantage of removing Iawa from their former academy in time to save their life. They're sure they'll cope without their philosophy books (brought to their academy dormitory from home), practical religion and anatomy texts, and oversized hardcover The Art of Paper-Folding: A Vidona Guide, Complete With Step By Step Diagrams And Morally Instructive Anecdotes.

The spareness of their quarters is appealing. They always liked the idea of minimalism, but had somehow never quite managed to commit to it in practice. They decide to look on this as a new start. Like when they had to pack for Vidona academy and had to leave most of their library at home, even the grid-based ones (Vidona cadets being restricted to books on their academy grid.)

Their belongings are still back at home with their parents in the future. This is just a much bigger move than the last one, that's all. There's no reason to be upset. This is an opportunity to think carefully and deliberately about what they want to acquire.

Especially since they're sharing a single matter printer with ten other people. They should probably limit themselves to a few changes of clothing... all right, and a more comfortable set of sheets. Something that won't make them think of the Vidona dormitory. They should go print that now, probably.

Iawa stares thoughtfully at the unadorned eggshell wall opposite their bed and doesn't move for a while.

Re: Interior Design - Alaric's Quarters

[slybrarian]

Alaric doesn't add much decoration to his quarters, beyond experimenting with his mattress and the matter compiler until he got it to spit one out with a firmness to his liking. There's an obligatory set of bubbling tubes and flasks, but that's pretty much just some colored water with pleasing scents.

Otherwise, he has printed out from digital files a few photos:

A much younger version of himself with some other young individuals by a seashore. The setting sun reflects oddly off the water with a slight rainbow sheen, and in the distance a fishing boat is towing something quite large behind it.

Sixth or so serious-looking student types posed for a formal portrait. The school uniform is quite elaborate in a vaguely Edwardian military fashion, lots of bling and rope and embroidery. Alaric is in the second row, fifth from the left.

A rather smaller group of students, more relaxed although still posed to an extent, and all in various colored lab coats. Several appear to be missing body parts - hands or arms seem to be the most obvious, although one has fire where his eye should be - and Alaric is rubbing at his chest. They sit on a hill covered in dark grass, an endless starry night above them.

Alaric, standing with aviator glasses next to a rocket ship labelled "Centennial Peacock".

Finally, a collage of Alaric standing near various landmarks, several recognizable as being from the ---archate. In the final, he is taking a selfie while a very perturbed-looking Vidona is marching up behind him.

[mercuryhatter]

Istradez has a slate in his hand and is paging through the stored information in the mothgrid, flagging historical and cultural information to convert to audio and listen to later. With the rest of his attention, he is keeping an eye on everyone else as they disperse. He hopes that the out-of-time Mikodez isn't the only one planting bugs (he doesn't see Mikodez doing so, but it seems safe to assume). It would be convenient if he could get close with someone who is keeping tabs on them all, and a child version of his brother was not the best option. Maybe their newly appointed commander, or Alaric, who had established himself as good with technology.

As an afterthought, he also flags any information on the matter printer, hoping that he can find a user manual or something in there before he needs to create anything necessary for a cover identity at their destination. He remembers Crow mentioning that the results might turn out interesting, whatever that means.

[While Istradez would obviously find the moth technology totally normal, I personally am Team Free Mothra and hope someone becomes friends with her ^_^]

[vass]

[Is Istradez sure Avrayen is Mikodez? Last I saw, he had definite Suspicions but hadn't confirmed anything, and I'm wondering if I've missed an important thread.]

[zuhrovet]

Sasha's agenda is:

1. Set up firewall.
2. Test matter printer.
3. Moth simulator.
4. Work out.

On 1, she sets the grid to request information about space weather, top fifty music, top fifty vids, and minimalist Andan art projects automatically, and to delay all other requests made to the broader net. She writes a memo to Ashari explaining this security precaution and asking for other categories to block. She also writes a quick program to interrupt every fifty of the teenager's grid requests with baby animal vids (mostly pangolins) whether he wanted them or not.

On two, she tries to print a matched set of 27 shot glasses (that seems like a lucky number) in rainbow colors. What goes wrong?

firewalls and matter printer shenanigans

[yhlee]

The grid is more or less cooperative--for some reason the grid initially understands "minimalist Andan art projects" to mean "rococo Andan cake decorations with an emphasis on gilt and spun sugar," but eventually, if Sasha cares enough to wrangle it, she can get it to behave. Curiously, the pangolins are no problem.

As for the shot glasses, every fourth one comes out as a champagne flute instead. The colors are mostly okay, except the matter printer decided to embed super-tacky prismatic glitter in the glasses. Closer inspection reveals that the glitter is in patterns that strongly resemble high language obscenities.

Ashari's Agenda

[smokedetective]

Ashari has a couple of things they want to do (after they do something vaguely resembling wrangling Mikodez).

Get more information:
- See what other information about their crew is available to them as the team leader.
- Read and memorize the briefing information.
- Skim the moth operation manuals.
- Read up on Andan minimalism from the years 693-704, to make sure they have everything in order.

Talk to the Team:
- Send out a memo asking to set up a schedule for watches in the cockpit, so in case something goes wrong, there's a physical presence there.
- Send a memo to Kaliyan and Ankat, asking them to assess the gunnery.
- Set up a team meeting so that everyone can get their cover stories straight.
- Send everyone a message saying that their office is always open if anybody needs to talk.


[Any notes on Ashari get from their research and the briefing information?]

Re: Ashari's Agenda

[zuhrovet]

[You want Andan minimalism for the year we'll be in after we exit the rift, right?]

Getting acquainted with the moth : Gunnery

[after_almsivi]

Kaliyan decides she better get herself acquainted with the ship first and foremost.

Surprising exactly no one, she starts with the gunnery room. (She reasons that her predictability will make her easy to find if she's needed). She wants to familiarize herself with the moth's weapons, to get a good sense of their firepower. Based on what she gathered from the briefing, she fully expects her conclusion to be “Don't get into any space battle, you will die”, but still she wants to be conscientious.

She also looks for a vacant room to turn into a gym on the way, because working out is how Kaliyan spells taking a break.

[Kaliyan is slowly turning into a meathead. I blame the abundance of nerds aboard this ship.]

Re: Getting acquainted with the moth : Gunnery

[zuhrovet]

There's a crate of Kel exercise gear in the hold. Sasha has been meaning to go through it looking for free weights, but Kaliyan probably has a better idea what those devices are for.

Virmad's agenda (paging Sulen?)

[lleullawgyffes]

After unpacking the few things he brought with him, Virmad's agenda has two items on it. First, he wants to ask the mothgrid for specific information about the High Calendar in the period they're traveling to — he's got a general idea of the trajectory of the Calendar's development, but if he needs to pose as a Rahal from hundreds of years ago (and he has the not entirely pleasant suspicion that he will), he needs to make absolutely sure he's got all the remembrances and their attendant rituals straight (on top of not accidentally referencing anything from the future).

He'll have plenty of time to review whatever information the Wasp can provide over the course of their trip, so he's not going to settle down to study it right away (although he'll skim through it quickly to reassure himself that none of his memory of this period from his Historical Doctrine seminar was blatantly wrong).

His second priority is to try to find Sulen and talk to them alone. He needs to find out what another Rahal — or, presumably, ex-Rahal — is doing here; that is, he needs to find out how worried he should be about their presence on the moth. He wanders idly (putting on his generic "purposeful Rahal" mask) through the corridors in search of Sulen, although he's not in any particular hurry, and if anyone else stops him en route he's willing to chat.

[high calendar note]

[yhlee]

[You're welcome to invent early high calendar filler detail and I'll run with it. :)]

Ankat's Academy

[talifabian]

Since Kaliyan seems to have begun to assess the space-based options for the inevitable full frontal assault, Ankat begins to examine the resources he will have access to when off-moth.

He's specifically trying to determine the following:

- If anyone besides him possesses a personal sidearm of any sort
- If there are any small arms in the Kel surplus we have, especially concealable ones
- Which members of the crew have received sufficient training that they're more likely to hit the enemy than the friendlies, if trusted with a sidearm
- If the cargo-hold has sufficient space to set up a temporary firing range

From what Ankat has determined of the crew, he has little confidence in anyone other than Kaliyan when things go sideways (and he's known moth Kel to get behind on maintaining their certifications for small arms). Nonetheless, he'll go around the ship, asking persons to describe any combat training/experience they possess. [If the answer is no, no particular need to reply, unless you think the RP will be fun]

Lastly, he'll request introductory marksmanship training materials from the grid to familiarize himself with how one brings up to speed a bunch of nerds who decided for SOME reason to join a dangerous and volatile rebellion valued members of the crew .

Re: Ankat's Academy

[yhlee]

[There are enough invariant handguns on the Wasp for everyone to have one, and a limited supply of ammo. In theory the matter printer can produce more, but given the printer's known issues, he probably wants to save that for a last resort. If the Nirai station's security is lax, you may not have too much difficulty getting weapons past whatever scanners they have.]

[EDIT: You can have a small firing range, but it won't do anything fancy with moving/pop-up targets &c.]

Sparring Practice

[talifabian]

[I thought showing some of the sparring practice might be fun for RP's sake, so I'm making this thread for it (since the other one was already starting to get crowded). Feel free to RP this with whoever, even if in-universe Ankat is creating the groups]

Ankat is awake bright and early the next few mornings as the moth gets under way, alternating between time spent in the common areas showing trainees how to clean, care for, load, and generally maintain a handgun, time spent at the firing range showing them how to shoot them, and time spent at the gym teaching armed and unarmed close-quarters fighting.

It's fortunate that Medical is well stocked, he thinks on the first morning of training, watching as his crew mates lunge at each other.

Re: Sparring Practice

[venndaai]

Sulen stands across from Ashari in the gym. They're wearing one of their undershirts and some sweatpants that they eventually managed to extract from the matter printer.

"Don't let me win this time," they say to Ashari. "I mean it." They pause for a moment, trying to remember if Ankat's been assigned a rank, and decide you can't go much wrong with Commander. "Commander Ankat needs to get an honest picture of our abilities."

Memo: Sasha to Ashari, cc Kaliyan: Libations

[zuhrovet]

Estimate 50 subjective hours to rift exit. Tonight is best for group to toast success of mission?