hexarchate_rpg | Move 7 (Chapter 1.7)

Time: 361
Place: Station Moongray, at last!

[GM's note: If your characters wanted to make any preparations or do any interactions in between Move 6 and Move 7, that's totally fine--just start a thread here with an appropriate subject header so everyone knows. If it's more in the nature of character RP than plot-related RP, it's also fine to start a separate character RP post.]

The Wasp
The Wasp is securely docked under Kaliyan's guidance in one of Moongray's bays--pretty roomy, but Moongray must be used to receiving shipments of raw materials for any fabrication, plus any specialty equipment they can't make or replace with what they have on-station.

In response to Alaric's last communication with the Wasp [Move 6], it responds with a box containing the Wasp, a bag-of-water human figure, and the Rebellion's logo and a "1." Then it pauses and sends two juxtaposed illustrations, one of a moth inside a box with a specifically Nirai voidmoth logo, and one of three moths outside the box.

The welcome on-station
When anyone who's coming on-station emerges, Andan Bokali and Nirai Pavn lead the way.

The group is greeted by Station Administrator Nirai Paerani Shan--who watches them from behind a translucent partition. Shan is a short, stumpy woman whose every inch of visible skin is covered with tattoos and/or implants. The lenses covering her eyes combined with the colorful, shimmering shawl she's wearing makes her resemble a butterfly. "So what's this I hear about trade goods?" she says through an intercom system that distorts her voice.

A rather harried looking group of security workers appears at another door that is blocked by yet another translucent partition. Interestingly (and this was not mentioned in the briefing materials), their leader appears to be a broad, muscular lieutenant seconded from the Kel--the Nirai uniform looks like it only barely fits him, and the golden Kel ashhawk at his breast gleams in the lights of the docking bay.

"Before we start negotiating," the lieutenant says after an inscrutable look in Shan's direction, as if he's used to her jumping the gun (so to speak), "I will have to ask you all to submit to a security and medical scan, for everyone's safety. It might tickle if you have any implants." He holds up a handheld scanner.

Bokali looks bemused. "I always do love being the guinea pig for any bored diseases, but I don't even feel so much as a sniffle coming on."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Wasp is humming slightly and does not respond immediately. Then again, it's probably trying to formulate its responses, just like Alaric is.

The answer to Alaric's question is buried in one of the appendices. His suspicion is correct: moth harnesses, which tell the moth what to do, are an exotic technology. Mothdrives are fitted with additional invariant tech that effectively paralyzes a moth and prevents it from flying wherever the hell it wants when the harnesses are inactive due to a change in calendrical terrain.

There's nothing in there about when this system was invented, though; this is a pretty bare-bones user manual that looks like it was written by committee, not a historical overview.

Interesting. It occurs to Alaric that the harness, while functioning overall, may be having a subtle malfunction. While the 'past' calendar is broadly similar to the 'modern' one, enough to allow the mothdrive and the harness to be invented, no doubt the Nirai have made sure the 'modern' calendar is optimized for the drive's efficient functioning. That was something all of the factions could agree was a top concern, he imagines, because of its military and commercial importance.

He starts doing a more thorough review of the mothdrive's diagnostic readings. He specifically looks to see if there if anything is changed in the part of the harness responsible for steering. He has a hunch that something about the harness is supposed to be suppressing the moth's conscious thoughts, or at least forcing it to be only think in an approve manner, and something about the time change has made that stop working.

Well, either that, or moths were always chatty and people just ignored them. However, rudeness seems less likely that mind control given that this was the hexarchate.

[Apologies for falling behind on responses...this one was buried in my inbox.]

It takes some time, but after a bunch of headscratching--the mothdrive diagnostics UI is not the best-designed, quelle surprise--Alaric comes upon some anomalous readings that do, in fact, suggest that the harness is no longer dampening the moth's ability to think for itself.

What's more, Alaric thinks he can see how to mod harnesses in general to get rid of the dampening effect, although there's the very real possibility that not all moths are as friendly (?) as this one, so it would definitely be a proceed-with-caution modification.

The moth vibrates slightly during this process, as though the diagnostics tickle, although it doesn't send any message over space ASCII indicating that it's in distress.

Alaric is aware that he should probably wait until he's had a chance to consult the rest of the crew anyway. Then again, there's an old saying, "better to ask forgiveness than permission". If the moth is intelligent, it has a right not to be forcibly sedated just because it's inconvenient for the ship to have opinions. Surely everyone else would agree, since they're rebels, and as he knows they would agree it should be OK to just go ahead with necessary modifications. If it's software he'll turn it off; if not, he'll find some time where he's not supposed to be building smuggling drones.

In any case, he tries to indicate to the moth that he will be away from his console for a while doing some other things.

[Alaric chooses to make brave and heroic decisions.]

[#teamchaotic!]

[Boy, I can't wait until the Kel find out about this.]

[Sulen is also very much not on #teamchaotic, but they're slightly less likely to throw yall out the airlock.]

[I confess I'm curious about what the wrath of Ashari looks like.]

Shortly after the Wasp docks with the station, Sasha calls down to Engineering. "Alaric?" she asks. "Could you let some of the maintenance drones you built out, and have them wander just a little bit? I want to see how the station's drones react if we let something crawl a meter or two off the Wasp. But also we just flew through a hole in space and time itself, so I guess it wouldn't hurt to do a true maintenance scan?"

She can find the pings between the station and its drones on scan: it's a technology related to the lokwors, and each drone seems to have its own fingerprint. She tries to get a visual image of one. Meanwhile, she's hunting through the data she has pulled from the station, looking for drone order information or part numbers.

Down in the printer bay, Alaric flips up the welding mask he's using while aging up the appearance of some newly drones.

"Of course, Sasha," he says, pulling up the maintenance drone controls. "How's this sound? I'll send out a couple not modded to look like theirs, so they doesn't look suspiciously similar if someone is watching closely. First a couple attached to the hull, then a couple more with do a wider external flyby. If we widen the spacing slowly, that might give us an idea at what point their system notices them."

Move 7 (Chapter 1.7)

Re: Engineering

Re: Engineering

Re: Engineering

Re: Engineering

Re: Engineering

Re: Engineering

Re: Engineering

drone skirmishes

Re: drone skirmishes