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!]

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]

[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...]

[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 ^_^]

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: [special crafting bugs]

[pengwern]

[I do have one roll of washi tape with characters on it. If word gets out, people might try scratching out the eyes, but it's probaby fruitless as the function-critical areas are bound into the fancy hair ornaments.

And thank you for the link! I'm on chapter two and skimming is not happening, because going into random chapters in hopes of finding something that wouldn't be Shuosish has failed.]

[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.]

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.

[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?]

[on bugs (the spy kind)]

[yhlee]

[The GM is, alas, not James Bond or Q and does not know how bugs work in real life. I don't see why they couldn't have miniaturized, possibly limited cameras. Y'all can decide whether the bugs need to be physically visited or are transmitting to a receiver somewhere--and honestly, if it's a receiver on board the Wasp, you're right, it can probably be intercepted through the grid by someone like Sasha.]

[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?

[pengwern]

[I was thinking that these are from his school projects, so they'd have a grab-bag of functions (and ability to function). The wire ones can circle the ship and return to him via a signal, which could probably be interrupted, but it's likely that some might depend on small touch based delivery systems like ibuttons (which I just read about in the textbook \o/).

The Haodan section in Ninefox has bugs that could only detect human activity, moving onto ones that record sound, I think, but that was against Vahenz's modern warmoth equipped office. Anything that works for more drama?]

[pengwern]

Mikodez couldn’t help a reflexive glance up to the Andan’s sapphire orbs*, but it’s done. He fixes his own eyes onto theirs, then straightens his back and grins. Now the top of his head reached their chin.

“Hungry, mostly. But that can wait until after the alcohol.” If Ashari means to accompany him all the way down to the storage hold, he will ransack the crates of alcohol until he’s stopped.

He considers, then attempts the worst Andan bow he’d seen, based on the animation in a game he played once. (The elbow was fixed while the forearm zoomed far into the sky, and while it had been created during in a timed exercise, that was no excuse, since it hadn’t been entered into the “Mockery of Other Factions” category.) Most Andan insist on being obvious about their affiliation, but fashions changed so quickly that foreign agents avoided that faction unless they could be sure of no other Andan appearing to them, which was certainly true of this mission.

“I didn’t catch your name earlier.” He wasn’t about to defer to them anyway, but time to desperately reason to himself that: unlike the outcast Andan before him, he was still a cadet of the Shuos, probably. Hopefully. And as enthrallment depended on the calendar which depended on the factions, this makes him higher in status than the looming, clinking wall of tasteful ornamentation before him.

[*SORRY**]

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.

[more on bugs, the spy kind]

[yhlee]

[Yes--Haodan's bugs were pretty limited because Vahenz's ability to detect things was completely ridiculous and he didn't want to tip her off. You probably don't have to be quite as careful here.]

Re: [more on bugs, the spy kind]

[pengwern]

[Ok, cool! Then the disposition of the bugs, so far: Mikodez has four of the mobile bugs, which are capable of a top speed of 9cm/s, and audiovisual surveillance. Think horrible millipedes (they crunch like those too). One of them has been dropped by a major corridor. He has 26 pieces of tape recorders, but he can no longer tell which ones have sound or which ones have visual, as the scanner that detected these is back in his dorm. None of these need power on their own, but he will need to access his own tablet in order to review what they record. Thirteen of those can be remotely accessed, and the other half respond to a pin he has.

(And after the first time he saw a pangonlin on his screen, Mikodez switched immediately to searching for tiny xenarthra. He is now on episode 132 of the classic Kel-on-planet show where the Shuos-trained Nirai deuteragonist once declaimed to his Kel partner, "You have debauched my pangolin!"]

Re: firewalls and matter printer shenanigans

[ursula]

Heh, the grid clearly interpreted "minimalist" as "lowest common denominator"; the Andan love of sugar must be universal. Sasha will have to request an in-person meeting with Ashari to sort out their precise pretended artistic vision, and identify the associated keywords to feed to the grid.

Similarly, whoever wrote the matter printer color routines clearly specified something like "whatever shade these jerks asked for." She has a feeling they weren't high language native speakers. She'll have to ask Yehan to take a look at one of the champagne flutes, and see whether she can explain this particular combination of obscenities.

[smokedetective]

The bow is more amusing than anything. It's not one Ashari's familiar with, so either Avrayen's from the future or (and this is just as likely) he's simply very bad with bows. Ashari's still convinced that this kid's a fox. The slipping away, the attentiveness, They'll have to ask Sulen about his signifier, later and see what they can scrape up. In the meantime, messing with the kid should be interesting.

"Oh, you poor darling. Here." Ashari produces a small, but dense nutrient block from their pocket. "It's..."-they check the wrapper and wrinkle their nose-"chocolate flavored. Hopefully. I'm Ashari. And you really must be turned around. I think the cargo hold's in the other direction."

Hopefully, establishing the hierarchy on the ship, and maybe displaying some parental instincts will at least sway the kid, or at least throw him off guard. And it's always good to see how someone reacts to being offered food.

[SAPPHIRE ORBS LOL. I have to say, all is forgiven, but only because "looming, clinking wall of tasteful ornamentation" is by far my favorite description of Ashari.]

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: firewalls and matter printer shenanigans

[venndaai]

[I have no idea how firewalls work, what does delaying requests mean?]

[And would this firewall prevent Sulen from downloading episodes of their favorite dramas from Space Pirate Bay?]

Ashari's Response to Sasha's Memo

[smokedetective]

Ashari replies thanking Sasha for the precaution and asks if its possible for them to get a record of the requests that fall outside the approved requests, but ask to include the top three best entertainments and the top four worst entertainments in the approved categories.

Ashari also requests an in person meeting asking for Sasha to teach them more about the matter replicator and for them to discuss the vision for the minimalist art project.

Re: firewalls and matter printer shenanigans

[zuhrovet]

[Sasha's goal is to prevent the moth's Space Internet access patterns from looking unusual to the Shuos. That means preventing people from doing stupid things, like trying to download a bunch of dramas about the Battle of Candle Arc when it hasn't happened yet, but it also means creating a bunch of fake Space Internet traffic, because nothing looks weirder than a moth full of people who don't use the internet at all.

The delay prevents iffy downloads from starting until Sasha (or a program she wrote) looks at your request and decides whether it will tip off the Shuos. As a user, you will notice a lot more loading screens than usual, and some things just won't work.

Of course, I'm assuming Space Internet won't work at all while the moth is going through the rift, because when you're traveling through a hole in the fabric of spacetime, you don't get much in the way of reception.

In terms of shows, this means you will be mostly limited to whatever the moth has stored on its grid. Its storage is huge, and assuming you're not into full-body VR experiences, there's room for a lot of media. However, I think we can assume that the people supplying the Resistance are cautious and smart, and have mostly loaded media that fits the time we're about to visit.]

Re: firewalls and matter printer shenanigans

[zuhrovet]

[Moral: Sulen will sadly be limited to episodes of their favorite dramas they brought in on a chip. There's all sorts of weird old stuff in the grid, though. That drama the teenager is watching, Kel Jack and Nirai Stevey, actually looks like it could be good.]

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!]