yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (hxx clock)
yhlee ([personal profile] yhlee) wrote in [community profile] hexarchate_rpg2017-07-08 04:41 pm
Entry tags:

Move 2 (Chapter 1.2)

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, [personal profile] 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!]
talifabian: (Default)

Re: Ankat's Academy

[personal profile] talifabian 2017-07-11 01:45 am (UTC)(link)
Ankat nods. "I'll set up firearms training tomorrow from the common room; I can't promise you'll be any good in a week, but I should trust you not to shoot yourself in the foot by the time we arrive at the Nirai station. If you'd like to brush up on your close quarters, report to the gym Kaliyan's set up for sparring."

[personal profile] pengwern 2017-07-11 01:56 am (UTC)(link)
Mikodez decides to not try another bow, but flings his arms out in a flourish wide enough for his palms to brush the walls of the corridor. "Lead on!"

He's never made any of those drinks himself, but he watched the videos over and over on stakeouts, waiting for his victims to draw near the squirrel-baited tripwires. Imagined them during the fitness courses while doing push-ups, or when trapped down a water-barrel, until his hypothermia induced dreams began to feature meadowcream roses. Since most of those videos were even Andan produced, he could lie and say that whatever he made was the fashion, just like the dreadful tomato-sauce-and-cheese fad two decades ago.

What could go wrong.

[He can be caught whenever it's funniest - I think Sasha mentioned that the grid could tell you where everyone is on the moth? (I don't think he's been bureaucratic enough, so maybe as he ransacks Station Moongray for purchasing logs.)]
slybrarian: The Incomparable Leonardo de Montreal, Nightmare's Angel (Nightmare Scientist)

Re: Ankat's Academy

[personal profile] slybrarian 2017-07-11 02:05 am (UTC)(link)
"I assure you, it's perfectly stable now," Alaric tells him, while carefully putting it back in storage. "There hasn't been so much as a hiccup in years, and I've carried it through far stranger calendrical environments that anything we're likely to run into."
talifabian: (Default)

Re: Ankat's Academy

[personal profile] talifabian 2017-07-11 02:21 am (UTC)(link)
Ankat raises an eyebrow. A pacifist? "Your beliefs, firmly held as they may be, won't stop anyone from trying to kill you if things go fox-shaped. Fighting an armed guard with your bare hands won't get you far, but it's better than nothing. I will not .... force you to learn to shoot, but report to the gym for sparring practice tomorrow."

Might have to assign a minder to that one when we get off-moth
talifabian: (Default)

Re: Ankat's Academy

[personal profile] talifabian 2017-07-11 02:26 am (UTC)(link)
"Report to the common room tomorrow; I'll check to make sure you're capable of treating a gun properly, then head to the range to see if you can hit something. Sparring practice in the gym."
smokedetective: (Default)

Re: Ankat's Academy

[personal profile] smokedetective 2017-07-11 02:29 am (UTC)(link)
"Sparring groups would be lovely, but getting a decent bow out of the printer's going to be a lot harder." They give an exaggerated sigh. "Just put me in the same group as Sulen and, uh, Avrayen. Please. Or if you don't, do keep an eye on Avrayen. We can't have children getting hurt on our watch, can we?"

[Avrayen is Mikodez's fake name, I think.]
talifabian: (Default)

Re: Ankat's Academy

[personal profile] talifabian 2017-07-11 02:33 am (UTC)(link)
Ankat nods through this explanation; he suggests that she should, at the least, refamiliarize herself with handgun maintenance and usage, and tells her that sparring groups will meet in the gym.
talifabian: (Default)

Re: Ankat's Academy

[personal profile] talifabian 2017-07-11 02:33 am (UTC)(link)
[Makes sense :)]

[personal profile] pengwern 2017-07-11 02:56 am (UTC)(link)
[It's futile, given the briefing materials, but on Mikodez's very long to-do list is 'try to stay out of eyesight of the Rahal'. I forget if it was ever mentioned that scrying had to be conducted in person?]

Re: Ankat's Academy

[personal profile] pengwern 2017-07-11 02:57 am (UTC)(link)
[Given what's happening in the other part of this thread, I am SUPER tempted to put Mikodez through a growth spurt right here and now.]
vass: Gold Iawa (OC from The Intolerable Clock) (Iawa (gold background))

Re: Ankat's Academy

[personal profile] vass 2017-07-11 03:58 am (UTC)(link)
"But if it's their beliefs that's making them try to kill me, why wouldn't I use my beliefs to stop them?"

Iawa isn't a pacifist, just dangerously addicted to following hypotheticals all the way down. Also they're clumsy, and not looking forward to demonstrating this in front of a new peer group.

As Ankat's eyebrow stays raised, Iawa has a rare moment of good sense and continues, more meekly, "But we can discuss this further when I report to the gym tomorrow. For sparring practice."
talifabian: (Default)

Re: Ankat's Academy

[personal profile] talifabian 2017-07-11 04:02 am (UTC)(link)
"I'll keep that in mind. There'll be sparring in the gym tomorrow; bring your sword and I'll examine your fencing. Send me a document on what exactly that sword can do; it doesn't look like any calendrical sword I've seen, and the only way we ... Kel ever figure out a new exotic without being told is testing it on someone, and I haven't seen any High Generals making themselves available around the moth."
zuhrovet: A green frog (Default)

Re: matter printer shenanigans: hey, GM, does it work?

[personal profile] zuhrovet 2017-07-11 12:36 pm (UTC)(link)
[So can we print successfully, as long as we're making something black and fashionable? Or does the matter printer secretly prefer something sillier, like a Space Pirate aesthetic?]
zuhrovet: A green frog (Default)

Re: Ankat's Academy: Sasha at the range

[personal profile] zuhrovet 2017-07-11 01:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Sasha works through the pistol safety checks methodically. As she expected from reading the manual, this isn't quite the model she's used to-- a few hundred years will do that-- but invariant tech varies slowly, and the differences are largely cosmetic.

Sasha used to be pretty good at this. She used, if she's being perfectly honest with herself, to be inconsistently good at this. She wonders if she can measure that effect.

Sasha plans out a series of five-round groups, focuses, then deliberately lets herself freak out: Ankat's watching, Kel talk to other Kel, if she tests like an idiot braggart her life will potentially literally be over. Focus back through the stories-- the doe came from the north, the wolf came from the south, east and west and earth and sky make six points to roll the die1-- and fire.

When all is said and done, the spread on that first group is 0.623 of what Sasha manages on the next-best group. Not a statistically reliable measurement, but lucky Sasha is almost twice as good as her everyday self, it seems. She's not sure that was worth subjecting herself to that pitch of self-generated embarrassment, but then again, this isn't life and death, yet.

[1 Sasha's imagined lucky die is an octahedron (d8), not a cube. I know we were all worried about that.]
Edited 2017-07-11 13:41 (UTC)
vass: Gold Iawa (OC from The Intolerable Clock) (Iawa (gold background))

Re: firewalls and matter printer shenanigans: a lack of coverage

[personal profile] vass 2017-07-11 03:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Iawa edges up to Sasha after dinner. "I gather you're who I'm to speak to about technical problems?" they say. "I'm having a bit of trouble getting the matter printer to do what I want it to. What I want is a thick, soft blanket the size of my bed, with a pile weave texture. I don't care about colour or style or even fibre type really, so I left those fields empty. But what ended up happening was that it didn't print at all."

They take a deep breath before continuing, extremely deadpan: "I think the problem might have been that the printer's software decided my request wasn't high enough priority, that it was unimportant or something."

A pause.
"Immaterial."

Another pause.
"It didn't matter."

[Sorry not sorry.]
smokedetective: (Default)

[personal profile] smokedetective 2017-07-11 06:58 pm (UTC)(link)
[Can we jump forward to when the two of them have acquired the exotic booze and are in the galley getting ready to mix drinks?

Also, Ashari's equally part suspicious of what someone who's pretty young and seemingly has a lot to live for is doing in the rebellion, but also slightly concerned. And then later, when they get the briefing files and it says that "it is imperative that his life be preserved" and they're going to be even more concerned. So I think Station Moongray is a pretty good place for Mikodez to get caught.]
zuhrovet: A green frog (Default)

Re: firewalls and matter printer shenanigans: a lack of coverage

[personal profile] zuhrovet 2017-07-11 07:24 pm (UTC)(link)

[I, uh.... Wow, that's dedication.]

"Sounds like you accidentally engaged the sleep mode."

venndaai: a blue nebula (Default)

Re: [high calendar note]

[personal profile] venndaai 2017-07-11 10:59 pm (UTC)(link)
[Has he invented the mothdrive yet? We might draw some attention if he hasn't. EDIT: looked at the updated timeline and I see he hasn't invented the modern mothdrive yet. Does that mean Mothra is going to be way faster than everyone else in 361? Sorry if you've answered this before.]

[NG says Kujen came up with the "ceremonial torture" part of the remembrances so did they just involve like, executions or something before then?]
Edited 2017-07-11 23:05 (UTC)
lleullawgyffes: a wolf looking at the camera (Default)

Re: Virmad's agenda (paging Sulen?)

[personal profile] lleullawgyffes 2017-07-12 12:03 am (UTC)(link)
Virmad blinks in surprise. “You’re Rahal Sulen? Excuse me, you're ‘the heretic and traitor Aricura Sulen’? You’re famous. Well, you’re infamous, I suppose. I wondered how you’d gotten away after that run-in with the Kel; the official records were a little vague on that point. I guess now I know.”

He takes a moment to collect himself. “Apologies. I’m just. Surprised. But pleased! When I started — I always wished — that is — I wished I were brave enough to put my ideals into practice like that. I’m —” he corrects himself “—I was a second-level inquisitor. In 858. When I saw your signifier, I worried — but I guess it’s not going to be an issue.”
Edited (lol I forgot how not-old Virmad is) 2017-07-12 00:04 (UTC)
zuhrovet: Photo of a Soviet bas-relief sculpture showing a kneeling woman releasing Sputnik (sputnik)

Re: matter printer shenanigans: we can make anything, as long as it's black!

[personal profile] zuhrovet 2017-07-12 12:53 am (UTC)(link)
The printer whirs for a little while, then the hatch opens to reveal a vest, jacket, and skirt. The texture is slightly fuzzy, like very flexible suede, and glints a bit from different angles.

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