yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (hxx clock)
yhlee ([personal profile] yhlee) wrote in [community profile] hexarchate_rpg2017-07-17 11:59 am
Entry tags:

Move 3 (Chapter 1.3)

Time: 361 (high calendar)
Place: out-rift near Station Moongray

[Edited to add: NOTE: I'm flying back home tomorrow but will be keeping an eye on this move or any questions you might have. I should be able to resume normal GMing activities starting Wednesday. Sorry about that!--YHL]

[GM's note: feel free to continue to wrap up any last business in Move 2.]

Whoever is monitoring the Wasp notes that there are no major issues emerging from the rift into the target place and time. The visuals show strange energies crackling around the moth as it passes back into normal space-time. For days afterward, the energies' patterns haunt your dreams, as though conveying a coded message in a language you knew before your birth.

It doesn't take long for someone to notice your arrival. A transmission arrives from the direction of Station Moongray. The Wasp's mothgrid asks for your attention, and plays it. The message is given first in the high language, then repeated several times in other "low" languages: "Greetings, travelers. This is Station Moongray of the heptarchate, under the command of Administrator Nirai Paerani. Do you require an escort to the station?" It is accompanied by a local starmap giving coordinates to the station and the identifying information of a proposed escort, a non-combat research moth called the Butterfly Lens that has been patrolling the rift. The transmission goes on to offer succor in exchange for information about the other side of the rift.

[Players should feel free to discuss their response then, possibly, open communications with the station. The administrator will repeat the greeting message until someone responds or the Wasp attempts to approach the station.

Yehan will notice that someone has taken the task of translation very seriously--the heptarchate doesn't have the greatest track record in this area, but the low language translations are extremely competent, fairly polite, and convey a sense of eagerness for contact with people who can bring the station information about other times and places.

The Wasp's more advanced scan functions can verify the presence of the Butterfly Lens about a half day away and whoever queries scan will be almost certain that it only has the kind of light armaments that you'd use to defend against local debris.]
smokedetective: (Default)

Re: [GM POLICY: re: splitting the party]

[personal profile] smokedetective 2017-07-22 02:45 am (UTC)(link)
[Splitting the party probably isn't the best idea, but Ashari still definitely asks if Iawa, but feel free to say no. I think it would be interesting if Iawa disagreed.]
zuhrovet: A green frog (Default)

Re: Ashari's plans - faking the grid crash

[personal profile] zuhrovet 2017-07-22 03:01 am (UTC)(link)
"Right, I've sorted out a mechanism for the supposed crash. We need to kill all non-essential grid functions and then record some chatter to feed the virus. I'm figuring part of my fake explanation is enough? Sooner is better, but tell me when you're ready."
slybrarian: The Incomparable Leonardo de Montreal, Nightmare's Angel (Nightmare Scientist)

Re: COVER STORIES - Ashari's ideas

[personal profile] slybrarian 2017-07-22 09:59 pm (UTC)(link)
"We're posing as disreputable "legitimate space travelers"," Alaric says, complete with exaggerated air quotes. "That's hardly boring. Especially since disreputable spacers tend to do things like bar-hop and drunkenly meander around the docks, while listening for useful gossip and scoping out security. You can learn a lot of useful information by planting a few bugs in the local dive bars."
zuhrovet: A green frog (Default)

Re: COVER STORIES - Ashari's ideas - paging pengwern

[personal profile] zuhrovet 2017-07-23 02:13 am (UTC)(link)
"That reminds me-- the teenager was playing with this really cute sticky tape. Avrayen, you wouldn't mind if we borrowed some of your bugs, right?"

Re: COVER STORIES - Ashari's ideas - paging pengwern

[personal profile] pengwern 2017-07-24 05:34 am (UTC)(link)
If Mikodez got back to Shuos Academy, he was going to have to overhaul his course schedule for the next three years in order of “most useful to stranded undercover agents”. His suitemate who was already in that track had entire lectures on “Never Freeze”, so he looks up with a quizzical head tilt, and tries to not show too many teeth when he smiles.

On the bright side, sticky tape might mean that his roverpedes escaped the count.

“Not at all, if you can get them to work.” He had to wonder if she was why the swathe of tapes by the gunroom and cockpit went dark 34 hours ago. But when in doubt, blame the quartermaster. “I haven’t been on a station in a while, so good testing conditions for temperature and pressure are hard to come by where I’m staying. My cousin sent me this monitoring kit from out of system, and the instructions were really useless.”

Re: COVER STORIES - Ashari's ideas

[personal profile] pengwern 2017-07-24 08:02 am (UTC)(link)
Swearing was a universal language that even small dogs could understand, so Mikodez refrained, sliding up front to the tapestry instead. Ducking Ashari every time after their drink session the first day kept him from having to invent more plausible family details, and foxes willing, there would be less time on Station Moongray for enthrallment-backed Rahal interrogations, but really, how much youthful incompetence did he have to feign before they’d ask him to stay behind, like Iawa? He had already sliced up two fingers while sculpting lotus shot glasses from a sack of red onions, which he had paired with starbloom cordial. If only he hadn’t maintained that this was the actual winning combination in the Great Crescendo March Mix-off.

He needed another plan for sneaking away, unless he could manage it before the Wasp reached the station. Almost idly, he reaches a hand out to pluck at the edge of the fabric. There were a few ways to handle Andan. Withholding the adulation their egos craved annoyed them, but it also meant that they might refuse to move on until you appreciated them sufficiently, and maneuvering them just shy of the line of enthrallment was fun, if slow. Ooh and ahh enough and they would think you sufficiently pliable to proceed with their agenda, which could be inconvenient, but if he couldn’t stay behind with Iawa, then he had to stay with the project. Then he could wait until Ashari went to hobnob with the Nirai administrator and go exploring solo.

“Ashari, how did you get the color to project like this? I almost missed the repeats until I moved my head.” Mikodez moves to take an image on his tablet, but stops after five pictures. He looks up, bright eyed, like this was enough to distract him from the mission ahead. “And, can I stay with it when we’re bringing it over later? It doesn’t work as well on camera.”
zuhrovet: A green frog (Default)

Re: COVER STORIES - Ashari's ideas - paging pengwern

[personal profile] zuhrovet 2017-07-24 11:42 am (UTC)(link)
Sasha had nothing to do with the fate of that tape. Ankat might have cleaned it up-- he seems thorough-- or it might genuinely have failed. Sasha is, however, the reason Mikodez' tablet powers on for thirty seconds at 6:00 every morning.

[For the sake of Mikodez' honor, I'm going to assume that although Sasha's aware of the stream of data from the roverpedes, she hasn't actually seen one, and hasn't broken their encryption. She cheerfully compromised Mikodez' grid account, so she can see whatever roverpede-provided information Mikodez has accessed himself, but she won't know what else is in their feed unless she spends some time trying to hack it. Also, the tablet's weird behavior will stop if Mikodez takes it off the Wasp: consistent queries like that are their own security liability.]
vass: Purple Iawa (OC from The Intolerable Clock) (Iawa (purple background))

Meeting in Ashari's office

[personal profile] vass 2017-07-24 05:44 pm (UTC)(link)
[Okay, let's go.]

Iawa arrives at Ashari's office promptly, and tries to be subtle about looking around. Is the blue-eyed frog statue some sort of Andan joke? The scattered hairpins might be carelessness, but more likely are some sort of carefully coded signal.

"You asked to speak to me privately?" she says.

Re: COVER STORIES - Ashari's ideas - paging pengwern

[personal profile] pengwern 2017-07-25 02:33 am (UTC)(link)
[With the tape recorders - maybe half are nicely reusable, and the rest perforated like tamper proof labels? So unless Sasha has the patience to take a razor to the walls, there might only be a handful of bugs to use for Station Moongray.
And re: the tablet, so right at the tail ends of his late night Elite Thundersnake 20000 marathon sessions, then. (Mikodez will be sad only if Sasha turned off his tablet in the middle of a game.)]
Edited 2017-07-25 02:50 (UTC)
zuhrovet: A green frog (Default)

Re: COVER STORIES - Ashari's ideas - paging pengwern

[personal profile] zuhrovet 2017-07-25 12:12 pm (UTC)(link)
[Ah, I see Mikodez' plan to turn his tablets off was hypothetical. If they're already on, he shouldn't notice a power cycle.

I wonder how obnoxious ad-tracking is in the heptarchate. It would be fun if we could just advertise Ashari's art show, and see who paid attention.]
zuhrovet: A green frog (Default)

Re: [ad-tracking in the heptarchate]

[personal profile] zuhrovet 2017-07-26 02:08 am (UTC)(link)
[This is a huge tangent, but what I'm really wondering is how specific an ad we can buy. Would "I'm selling purple sunglasses with butterflies on them, so I want to show this ad to all Nirai between the ages of 15 and 25 with purple eyes, and record where they are when they view it" be a normal ad purchase? In the current US I could target an ad at myself using gender + zip code + age + shopping habits, but it would probably go to a couple of people in my neighborhood, since I don't think my shopping habits are THAT special.]

Re: COVER STORIES - Ashari's ideas - paging pengwern

[personal profile] pengwern 2017-07-26 03:06 am (UTC)(link)
[So what kind of attention does pirating all 20.5 seasons of Kel-Jack-and-Nirai-Stevey net Mikodez? I think I had him in his room practicing 4th century accents using the show/Yehan’s materials through the night, while dodging Ashari and Ankat’s gym class by napping the day away.

And, uh, let’s say he managed to bring a full panoply of eyeFox gadgets even while shipping off to a random Rahal station, from big, obsolete tablets to wrist monitors, like Jedao's tablet at Academy. He might be parted from them after some wrangling, but there’s always the possibility that they’d explode.]

Re: COVER STORIES - Ashari's ideas - paging pengwern

[personal profile] pengwern 2017-07-26 04:42 am (UTC)(link)
[yeah, sorry about that! I wasn't sure if it's the done thing for Mikodez to keep generating spy gadgets out of his pockets?]
pengwern: Ninefox Smiling (^U^)

Re: [spy gadgets]

[personal profile] pengwern 2017-07-26 06:21 am (UTC)(link)
[Got it! So no life sized stuffed dragon-horses, stolen shipments of Kel pickles, rocket powered hoverboards, or batch of gene spliced fox/octopus embryos. I guess a well prepared cadets could have -- two tins of mixed poison/candy/assorted capsules of nastiness, (useless) stolen Andan space credit cards, a few forged IDs, a selection of weak incendiaries, three pairs of small, sharp scissors, and one square cornered inkstone with matching blowdart brushes and poisoned inksticks (although what separates poisoned from inedible is probably something that only the most distrait Andan would test, since red and gold glitter flecks are bad for you anyway). The poison (felting) needles and circular knitting needles/garrotes go without saying.

(This is a setting where "some time in the next century" is actually achievable, but, uh, maybe “within the next millennium” would be a better bet)]
zuhrovet: A green frog (Default)

Re: COVER STORIES - Ashari's ideas - paging pengwern - all time travelers are pirates

[personal profile] zuhrovet 2017-07-26 11:39 am (UTC)(link)
[I guess you failed to transfer payment to the show's creators, but since we were traveling through time, that would have been hard to arrange in any event.

I'm not sure whether Sasha would've reported your vid-watching habits. She's not Shuos at heart, and fakes human surveillance badly. She would absolutely have routed data to Yehan, or anybody else posing as an analyst, if Ashari had asked.]

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