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

[Ditto, if there is anything productive you would like to me to do - scope out the station, sabotage somehting, technobabble at the Nirai - please feel free to ask and/or order.]

Edited 2017-08-26 01:09 (UTC)

"I've been thinking about our problem getting reliable ammunition on board the station; here's what I've got.

Alaric, can you construct a vacuum hardened (radiation resistant logic circuits, magnetized legs, the works) drone which can move along station exterior from the Wasp to just below that sensor rack monitoring rift radiation? That should hopefully be enough of a blind spot that it won't be noticed by station security. Set it to wait until it receives a signal, then proceed into the maintenance ducts for pickup by the away team. Big enough to carry, say, two dozen handgun magazines?

Sasha, can you come up with a plan to fight the entirety of station security once they notice a rogue drone in the maintenance ducts? Alternatively, we could do the smart thing and do something fox-style.

My suggestion would be to get that drone's hardware ID registered with the system as a routine worker. Any more intelligent ideas will be of course, retroactively claimed as my own."

Edited 2017-08-28 01:33 (UTC)

[Eee!

GM notes that GM is not an engineer or firearms expert--if I get tech details wrong, please bear with me. My bachelor's is in math and while there were theoretically crypto applications, most of it was pure math...I may end up asking players to brainstorm with me for this stuff.]

This is my punishment for not reporting the printer, thinks Sasha. (Ankat has clearly inferred its purpose; he must have seen Mishka playing with it.)

Ankat's plan seems elaborate, but adjusting a couple of drone IDs will be easier than bypassing station surveillance for long enough to reload a reasonable number of cartridges. "I can do my part, but I might need to come back to the Wasp for some quiet time. Let's see if we can get one of the existing maintenance drones on scan. It might be a standard type."

"We should have maintenance drones on file for our own use," Alaric comments while pulling up the ship's library. "Or servitors, although I'll make sure if that's the case I only build a few dumb ones. They're able to carry tools and parts, so a vacuum-proof case for the magazines should suffice."

"As for fitting them in, it should mostly be cosmetic changes to the exterior without altering the internal mechanisms. Really, I think the IDs would be the important part. Very few people pay attention to maintenance constructs."

[Yup, you have schematics or whatnot for maintenance drones for your matter-printing pleasure. The ones on Moongray Station have been tinkered with to varying extents because some damn Nirai can't leave well enough alone, but it wouldn't be hard to slip a couple extras into the population.]

[I discovered aviation.stackexchange.com on my lunch break. It's kind of the best thing ever, at least if you wanted to know how commercial radar would interpret a flying lawn chair.

Anyway, on Sasha's behalf I am wondering whether Moongray Station's system for recognizing its drones acts more like Air Traffic Control's secondary surveillance radar, in which case there is probably some separation between the detecting computer and other systems for security reasons, or whether it authenticates through the grid. The latter is potentially a security nightmare, but maybe the heptarchate isn't as concerned about terrorism as the hexarchate will be later?

Please let me know how much time Sasha has to work on this, if any, before everyone disembarks-- I like the space opera convention that engineering happens fast and things work the first time, but Sasha already has one heretical power and I don't feel the need to edge into magic on the technical front.

P.S.: In the context of Secondary Surveillance Radar, garbage information is FRUIT.]

[Wow, the things that exist on the internet!

Let's go with drones and Air Traffic Control with secondary surveillance radar. If I goof on this stuff, please don't hesitate to sort me out--I am very not technical so this stuff is a struggle, which makes it hilarious that I write "science" fiction, albeit fantasy-minded "science" fiction.

How does a couple hours, while people are sorting out boring logistical things, for Sasha sound?]

[Oh, I am cheating like mad on the technical front. I married an electrical engineer, and have no shame asking for help with anything involving hardware.

An hour or two sounds good!]

"I'm just thinking-- depending on the drone models Moongray uses and their precise security setup, it may be easier to reprogram an existing drone than to infiltrate the friend-or-foe system. Some of the commercial protocols are nearly as good as Kel standard, and we don't have a week to work on inducing an operator error.

Maybe once we reach the station we can let our own maintenance drones wander a little bit, and do some imaging of the opposition?"

[Yeah, this is a straight line for a Kel joke-- but I'm guessing military grade friend-or-foe protocols are solid.]

Edited 2017-08-29 02:35 (UTC)

Move 7 (Chapter 1.7)

Re: Flashback: In-n-Out of Character Plans (PAGING TEAM)

Tech support request: Ammunition Problems

Re: Tech support request: Ammunition Problems

Re: Tech support request: Ammunition Problems

Re: Tech support request: Ammunition Problems

[DIY drones]

Re: [DIY drones]

Re: [DIY drones]

Re: [DIY drones]

Re: Tech support request: Ammunition Problems