- Location
- in the trash
@MJ12 Commando, just to check, is it possible to mortgage off the souls of our Expendables? Or are the spirits only interested in the delicious souls of mages?
Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns
Hmm. Yes. That's... uh, decidedly a fallback plan, or alternatively a failstate which we've set up to still advantage us (ie, set things up so if the Autopolitans find that someone's trying to manipulate them, they find that Henriette's signal is coming from a known rival of the first group we were planning for them to attack).
So, let's say the plan is to get the Autopolitans to start attacking the Planet Hollywood Megacorps, which - being both space dystopia megacorps and metaphors for the film studios - will not only rally against the outside attack, but also seek to get as much advantage over each other with the hole in the market (which will also get in the way of the Residents, who probably will not be able to resist preying on each other's corporate assets because - after all - the market is Darwinian and merciless).
Possible Problem 1: If the film studios are divided and weak, that makes them less able to lobby against more government regulation. This will indirectly aid the Agency in their attempts to find Jamelia in this place, in their own metaphor space. However, that's a cost we may have to face.
Now, all good gameable plans have two or three sub-components which let each PC show off their skills and allow multiple lines of approach and make an interesting story. So, how do you do that?
Well, here's a possible proposal:
1. An away team plants a beacon on the station which will - using designs for Harlan's NWO trickery - generate a psychic signal which looks like Jamelia's, if someone was trying to cover it using wide-band jamming which made it all smeared out and indistinct.
2. Via shady meetings in bars we make contact with out-of-work actors/disgruntled employees/people who don't like the target megacorp - ie, the sort of people other people would use to get info on the group in question, and seed rumours with them that they've found something and are covering it up.
3. Henriette uses one of her junk drones to micro-fly-by-laser it to interact with the comms systems of the station. She can't fake the protocols they'd use to communicate with the Autopolitan mothership because she doesn't know them, but she can interfere with the signal so it makes the signal the Autopolitans receive look like it's a fake and that someone's tampered with it and replaced it with a different message - so they'll think the real message is a fake one being used to cover things up.
Then, when the beacon is activated on the station and the Autopolitans detect it - and psychic things are out-of-paradigm for them, so they'll be less good at detecting problems in the fake signal - and when they contact the station to demand the immediate surrender (as the Autopolitans are prone-to), then when they send back their response (which may well be 'okay'), it'll look like it's a fake and so the Autopolitans will probably suspect that they're being lured into range to be destroyed, and so just slag the place.
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Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
I'm kind of concerned about the possibility of having to trade bits of soul for something transient like aid in a task.
EDIT: on the other hand, EarthScorpion's plan doesn't actually require it anywhere, which is a definite plus.
EDIT: on the other hand, EarthScorpion's plan doesn't actually require it anywhere, which is a definite plus.
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- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
Kerrus
Fractal Insanity
As an aside, there are things we can trade that don't involve souls.
See spirits- erm I mean extraterrestials used to use Earth as a sort of vacation pad. Hop down planetside, zip up your human meat suit, and go enjoy the culture, see the sights, and experience something outside of their paradigm.
Because the thing about extra-dimensional beings is that they're limited by their nature. An angry war spirit is always going to be angry, and probably always going to be thinking about war. They can't think and feel outside their nature *except* when they're embodied in a reasonable receptacle. Ghosts are often the best for this, since they remember being human, but can't experience those sensations or emotions anymore. Of course there's the teensy tiny issue of having a ghost running around in your body, but I'm sure that's nothing to worry about.
We could hit up the Detritus belt and scour the wreckage and ruins of box office bombs looking for ghosts interested in a second chance. Call it free advertising because maybe the studio is thinking about doing a relaunch. Isn't that what the Syndicate is all about these days? Reboots and relaunches and endless repeats of the same tired old stuff?
See spirits- erm I mean extraterrestials used to use Earth as a sort of vacation pad. Hop down planetside, zip up your human meat suit, and go enjoy the culture, see the sights, and experience something outside of their paradigm.
Because the thing about extra-dimensional beings is that they're limited by their nature. An angry war spirit is always going to be angry, and probably always going to be thinking about war. They can't think and feel outside their nature *except* when they're embodied in a reasonable receptacle. Ghosts are often the best for this, since they remember being human, but can't experience those sensations or emotions anymore. Of course there's the teensy tiny issue of having a ghost running around in your body, but I'm sure that's nothing to worry about.
We could hit up the Detritus belt and scour the wreckage and ruins of box office bombs looking for ghosts interested in a second chance. Call it free advertising because maybe the studio is thinking about doing a relaunch. Isn't that what the Syndicate is all about these days? Reboots and relaunches and endless repeats of the same tired old stuff?
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
Look, it's perfectly simple.
You give up some opportunities to take others. You expend energy to survive. Life is all about compromise and exchange. You can't get away from it.
What matters is achieving the ideal ratio of compromise to assertion, the right price for your efforts. That's the nature of success - of enlightenment.
I propose that this ideal ratio, this golden mean, should involve selling no more than 3/5ths of our soul in total, and no more than 1/5th to any individual buyer - conversely, we should sell no less than 3/8ths of our soul, lest our selfish stockpiling of spiritual proceeds attract the attention of an unkind fate. Stasis is death - all things must flow, from place to place, and in the vagaries of their passage form an economy. We must be careful not to make of ourselves a desert, but expenditure is our friend, for it drives the river.
#earlysyndicate
You give up some opportunities to take others. You expend energy to survive. Life is all about compromise and exchange. You can't get away from it.
What matters is achieving the ideal ratio of compromise to assertion, the right price for your efforts. That's the nature of success - of enlightenment.
I propose that this ideal ratio, this golden mean, should involve selling no more than 3/5ths of our soul in total, and no more than 1/5th to any individual buyer - conversely, we should sell no less than 3/8ths of our soul, lest our selfish stockpiling of spiritual proceeds attract the attention of an unkind fate. Stasis is death - all things must flow, from place to place, and in the vagaries of their passage form an economy. We must be careful not to make of ourselves a desert, but expenditure is our friend, for it drives the river.
#earlysyndicate
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Each? Of a single character? We have multiple characters each with their own soul here.
Update CXI: The All-Seeing Eye
JB CXI: The All-Seeing Eye
1999
An-Jin Choi wakes to a headache and the biomonitors on his bed showing an anomaly.
"Urggggh."
"Could you please repeat that command?" The room asks in a mild androgynous voice, carefully engineered to have a calming effect. "Your vital signs are unstable. Do you need medical assistance?"
"No." He manages. "I'm fine."
"Acknowledged." They're going to still monitor him, of course, but it's just an anomaly. Probably some weird space-flu that the Void Engineers who go back and forth sometimes spread across the station from what the old hands hear. Maybe some headache that comes with being a 'grounder' living in space. Even in the Technocracy, there's bigotry.
When he finishes showering and brewing some of his coffee-100% Kona, actually imported from Earth, taking up a good chunk of his monthly luxuries mass budget-he feels a lot better. Yet he can't shake that someone's watching him. Someone besides this entire station, set up as a panopticon where everyone is under constant surveillance. An-Jin has gotten used to it. He changes into one of his tailored synthsilk suits, and smiles at himself in the mirror as he adjusts his tie.
He's ready for yet another day at work. They've temporarily pulled him off of his long-term project for a short-term one monitoring hemophage media transmissions and intercepted communications. Something strange is afoot there, and his job is to help them decipher the likely results of their statements. What he thinks might happen. There's a lot of documentation there-mostly messages tracked by micro-spybots and nanobugs, rather than intercepted electronic communications. The Camarilla are aggravatingly outdated in so many ways, including the archaic dialects they use.
The Camarilla are fighting a war. The Ravnos clan in India is desperately creating large numbers of soldiers to hold off encroaching Asian hemophages-"Cathayans" they call them. They're losing and their elders are desperately calling in every marker their games and machinations have created in an attempt to stave off this problem. The disruptions these ripples are creating are likely to have long-term ramifications in the next few months. More problematic are the rumors and the statements made, that the Union needs to control in a way which doesn't lead to a mass panic or the reversal of the slow industrialization and development of India. Worse, he has to worry about Pakistan and other geopolitical issues. Yet this is nothing new for someone in the Ivory Tower. Dancing around and making explanations palatable to all parties that retain the geopolitical status quo is something they do.
But something bugs him about his analysis. He's missing something and he doesn't quite know what. There's something in the back of his mind that suggests that he should check the massive databases, possibly ask someone for extended access to more restricted documents. He considers it, and files it off as something to do tomorrow. A few of his friends want to have a social night tonight and he'll be busy with that. It's not as if he needs to rush. He has all the time in the world.
And he wants to share the bottle of Lunar wine he's managed to acquire from a family friend. Made from grapes grown on the actual Moon! It's definitely an experience he doesn't want to have alone.
***********************************************************************************************************************
Jamelia remembers the Pyramid. It was one of the NWO's stations, a weaponized and armored citadel housing thousands and thousands of academics and some of the most powerful Iteration X supercomputers in existence, capable of simulating the entire world down to a surprising resolution. It was the NWO facility that specialized in large-scale developments and "social" science research. She's been here a few times, mostly in a temporary role as security and sometimes for brain scans and other developmental assistance.
Jamelia can see why they wanted her brain engrams. These are MiB upgrades, clearly enhanced personnel-faster, tougher, harder to kill, smarter, and yet with all the flexibility and creative intellect of your normal MiB. And there's something eerily familiar about some of them. Uncomfortably familiar. There's the way some of them reflexively smooth out their suit, in the same methodical top-to-bottom way she does it. There's the slight quirk of the mouth on one that reminds her of what she looks like when she gets annoyed by an unexpected circumstance and allows herself to show it. Tiny tics. Tells. Her tells. They took some of their best agents and made a new generation of them, she thinks. Upgrades that would have disseminated into the mainstream DNA of the Men in Black but were delayed by the Dimensional Anomaly. Upgrades that show up in some form or another in late-generation combined upgrades.
They have some chatter about an anomalous mass reading, approximately 150 kilograms higher than normal. As a disembodied mind, she shouldn't have caused that, and she wouldn't weigh nearly that much anyways. So it's here. Whatever it is. Probably hiding somewhere, waiting to see who the host is. Why wouldn't Control know exactly where it couldn't see when it was mortal? It can't start a rampage without drastically changing history. Its actions have to be targeted. Precise. Surgical.
She considers her host as he does an exercise session on a treadmill. His level of fitness... doesn't impress. Too slim, too weak. Even before she was Jazmin, she could have beaten him in a fistfight with some luck. She can't fight it. Not even with her skills, not even with her knowledge. She'll have to be ready for it in another way. She has 24 hours before Code GODLIKE. Another 48 before its destruction. And 72 hours before the Dimensional Anomaly. She'll have to make her time count. After that-things change. And she suspects if she misses that deadline-she stays there.
Find a way to delete critical information on Union assets from the Pyramid's servers. Find a way to destroy or otherwise render unusable the backups. Find a way to do so without changing the past more than she has to, and then eliminate all witnesses. Maybe this is a bit more difficult than she thought.
***********************************************************************************************************************
2015
Elsa maneuvers the Oppenheimer's Light to a dead stop behind one of the many asteroids in this implausibly dense asteroid field and goes down to the Planning Room. She's... of mixed opinions on the Ethercruiser. On one hand, it's a big, obvious target, compared to Void Engineer combat units. It reminds her of her history lesson-the Armed Universal Cruisers and other science ships that the Void Engineers used before 1999, with plenty of room so their crew wouldn't go stir-crazy on a long and lonely mission into the Void. Back when they could afford the waste of mass that amenities required. Compared to the tiny, almost submarine-like design of modern Voidships. On the other hand-it's great having a proper captain's stateroom and a planning room like this.
The planning room shows evidence of Henriette's kitbashing, where computer systems and LED screens were hastily installed to replace pen, paper, and maps. Kessler's already there, having called one of the reinforced chairs that don't sag under his weight. "So what were you thinking?"
Henriette is glancing down at something only she can see, possibly an inventory of what the mecha in the Oppenheimer's hangar requires or might be able to do, possibly an inventory of what the Autopolitan war machines are there for. "Yeah, you're the captain here." Henriette says. "Got any good plans?"
Elsa tries to hide her concern. Not just about this little suicide mission, but about what's probably going to happen afterwards. The Void Engineers know-that's the only way this would have happened, and they're counting on them fucking up. If they succeed, somehow, the Void Engineers will be more than happy to make sure to finish the job the Autopolitans and Residents don't. Because this is hostile territory, and it's not safe to be here. Not for Void Engineers, let alone anyone else. She sighs. Hopefully she can talk them into deciding to join instead of resisting and being shot as 'loose ends.'
Elsa gestures at the massive display table in the center, and it responds, highlighting several dots on the asteroid belt. "I was spending an hour going over radio and other transmissions while we were running silent and I think there's a few promising places here that might help us get the assets we need to either sneak past them or defeat them." She waves at the first one, and zooms into an asteroid with cancerous pockmarks. She zooms out slightly, and Henriette can see the silhouettes of various ships. There's an Ethercruiser there, and a couple of alien flying saucers, and even a small Void Engineer manned science vessel.
"Ateshga runs a little business buying and selling ships. People come here, end up being entrapped, and sell their possessions to keep afloat. Some of these possessions end up in his hands. He has a lot of technology and a few interesting examples of upgrades. He might also try to strip us for parts, but that's what happens in the Void. Everything wants to kill you. If it's smiling and polite, it just wants to kill you by stabbing you in the back." Elsa thinks. "His base is probably heavily defended and he might call out for help if we actually attack, but it's an option."
"Anything else? Something quieter, maybe?" Kessler asks. Elsa feels surprised that he understands the meaning of 'quiet' or 'subtle,' but she supposes the old cyborg has some hidden depths. He's definitely smarter than he looks, or else he probably wouldn't have survived Moscow and wouldn't be here. Not when the Computer is around broadcasting its seductive signals to any Iterator who might know of it. That had been a worry, but nothing had developed from it. Fortunately. If it had-VoidCOM had issued her a backpack nuke for a reason. She's glad that she hasn't had reason to use it.
"Extros station is where the unimportant faces disappear to. Do you really think a station based on capitalism and mass media," Elsa starts, "can function without the faceless workers that stay hidden in the shadows? Not a chance. A lot of them do their jobs quietly, but I suspect some might be rather disgruntled and would love to steal the spotlight. Barring that, we could infiltrate into the station via that method, simply because what's one faceless blue-collar worker over another?"
"There's talent scouts everywhere, looking, even in the belt, for people who desperately want to enter the station. If you think you can make a good sell, there's a good chance that they might be able to get you inside." Elsa continues. "Of course that might be a bit..." she's heard the stories. "...undignified." She zooms into one of the stations they use, and there's a garish glowing sign saying "The Casting Couch."
"And finally," Elsa gestures, and a black monolithic vessel expands to fill the display, floating ominously in the midst of a cloud of space debris, "there's this ship here, the Avellanos. It's abandoned but scans show it's in good shape. It hasn't been stripped by scavengers yet, so be careful. There might be something or someone on it that doesn't like us."
"So what's your recommendation?" Kessler asks.
"I think we should..." Elsa pauses.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I'm going to ask people to take a careful look at the paradox numbers. Simply by existing in the past, Jamelia is slowly getting paradox. This means that she probably wants to resolve this issue as soon as possible. And just to point this out again, changing the past grants you permanent paradox. The reason Catherine couldn't go with you is because she has a ton of permanent paradox from repeated historical changes and thus would probably instantly summon a Paradox Spirit the moment she went back.
Be Jamelia:
Jamelia is going to tell An-Jin:
[ ] (3.0x) Exactly nothing. She'll just have to force it when she needs to take over, or make him think that her decisions are his idea.
[ ] Something about time travel and how she's from the future and needs his help. (PARADOX RISK)
[ ] Everything that might reasonably be important, like the Dimensional Anomaly. (MAJOR PARADOX RISK)
Jamelia is going to manipulate An-Jin into:
[ ] Asking for a broader clearance than necessary so he can access what Jamelia needs to know quietly. (PARADOX RISK)
[ ] Asking for a broader clearance so he can access what Jamelia needs to know loudly. (MAJOR PARADOX RISK)
[ ] She's not. She'll use the clearance he gets to forge one for herself. (PARADOX RISK)
Special Vote Abort:
Do not vote for this unless you are absolutely sure you want to abort your time travel. Remember. Actions have consequences.
[ ] (Special) Fuck it, this mission is a bust. Just observe. (No Paradox Risk, Aborts Mission)
Be Elsa:
[ ] Go get some ship parts by seeing what Ashtega has.
1999
An-Jin Choi wakes to a headache and the biomonitors on his bed showing an anomaly.
"Urggggh."
"Could you please repeat that command?" The room asks in a mild androgynous voice, carefully engineered to have a calming effect. "Your vital signs are unstable. Do you need medical assistance?"
"No." He manages. "I'm fine."
"Acknowledged." They're going to still monitor him, of course, but it's just an anomaly. Probably some weird space-flu that the Void Engineers who go back and forth sometimes spread across the station from what the old hands hear. Maybe some headache that comes with being a 'grounder' living in space. Even in the Technocracy, there's bigotry.
When he finishes showering and brewing some of his coffee-100% Kona, actually imported from Earth, taking up a good chunk of his monthly luxuries mass budget-he feels a lot better. Yet he can't shake that someone's watching him. Someone besides this entire station, set up as a panopticon where everyone is under constant surveillance. An-Jin has gotten used to it. He changes into one of his tailored synthsilk suits, and smiles at himself in the mirror as he adjusts his tie.
He's ready for yet another day at work. They've temporarily pulled him off of his long-term project for a short-term one monitoring hemophage media transmissions and intercepted communications. Something strange is afoot there, and his job is to help them decipher the likely results of their statements. What he thinks might happen. There's a lot of documentation there-mostly messages tracked by micro-spybots and nanobugs, rather than intercepted electronic communications. The Camarilla are aggravatingly outdated in so many ways, including the archaic dialects they use.
The Camarilla are fighting a war. The Ravnos clan in India is desperately creating large numbers of soldiers to hold off encroaching Asian hemophages-"Cathayans" they call them. They're losing and their elders are desperately calling in every marker their games and machinations have created in an attempt to stave off this problem. The disruptions these ripples are creating are likely to have long-term ramifications in the next few months. More problematic are the rumors and the statements made, that the Union needs to control in a way which doesn't lead to a mass panic or the reversal of the slow industrialization and development of India. Worse, he has to worry about Pakistan and other geopolitical issues. Yet this is nothing new for someone in the Ivory Tower. Dancing around and making explanations palatable to all parties that retain the geopolitical status quo is something they do.
But something bugs him about his analysis. He's missing something and he doesn't quite know what. There's something in the back of his mind that suggests that he should check the massive databases, possibly ask someone for extended access to more restricted documents. He considers it, and files it off as something to do tomorrow. A few of his friends want to have a social night tonight and he'll be busy with that. It's not as if he needs to rush. He has all the time in the world.
And he wants to share the bottle of Lunar wine he's managed to acquire from a family friend. Made from grapes grown on the actual Moon! It's definitely an experience he doesn't want to have alone.
***********************************************************************************************************************
Jamelia remembers the Pyramid. It was one of the NWO's stations, a weaponized and armored citadel housing thousands and thousands of academics and some of the most powerful Iteration X supercomputers in existence, capable of simulating the entire world down to a surprising resolution. It was the NWO facility that specialized in large-scale developments and "social" science research. She's been here a few times, mostly in a temporary role as security and sometimes for brain scans and other developmental assistance.
Jamelia can see why they wanted her brain engrams. These are MiB upgrades, clearly enhanced personnel-faster, tougher, harder to kill, smarter, and yet with all the flexibility and creative intellect of your normal MiB. And there's something eerily familiar about some of them. Uncomfortably familiar. There's the way some of them reflexively smooth out their suit, in the same methodical top-to-bottom way she does it. There's the slight quirk of the mouth on one that reminds her of what she looks like when she gets annoyed by an unexpected circumstance and allows herself to show it. Tiny tics. Tells. Her tells. They took some of their best agents and made a new generation of them, she thinks. Upgrades that would have disseminated into the mainstream DNA of the Men in Black but were delayed by the Dimensional Anomaly. Upgrades that show up in some form or another in late-generation combined upgrades.
They have some chatter about an anomalous mass reading, approximately 150 kilograms higher than normal. As a disembodied mind, she shouldn't have caused that, and she wouldn't weigh nearly that much anyways. So it's here. Whatever it is. Probably hiding somewhere, waiting to see who the host is. Why wouldn't Control know exactly where it couldn't see when it was mortal? It can't start a rampage without drastically changing history. Its actions have to be targeted. Precise. Surgical.
She considers her host as he does an exercise session on a treadmill. His level of fitness... doesn't impress. Too slim, too weak. Even before she was Jazmin, she could have beaten him in a fistfight with some luck. She can't fight it. Not even with her skills, not even with her knowledge. She'll have to be ready for it in another way. She has 24 hours before Code GODLIKE. Another 48 before its destruction. And 72 hours before the Dimensional Anomaly. She'll have to make her time count. After that-things change. And she suspects if she misses that deadline-she stays there.
Find a way to delete critical information on Union assets from the Pyramid's servers. Find a way to destroy or otherwise render unusable the backups. Find a way to do so without changing the past more than she has to, and then eliminate all witnesses. Maybe this is a bit more difficult than she thought.
***********************************************************************************************************************
2015
Elsa maneuvers the Oppenheimer's Light to a dead stop behind one of the many asteroids in this implausibly dense asteroid field and goes down to the Planning Room. She's... of mixed opinions on the Ethercruiser. On one hand, it's a big, obvious target, compared to Void Engineer combat units. It reminds her of her history lesson-the Armed Universal Cruisers and other science ships that the Void Engineers used before 1999, with plenty of room so their crew wouldn't go stir-crazy on a long and lonely mission into the Void. Back when they could afford the waste of mass that amenities required. Compared to the tiny, almost submarine-like design of modern Voidships. On the other hand-it's great having a proper captain's stateroom and a planning room like this.
The planning room shows evidence of Henriette's kitbashing, where computer systems and LED screens were hastily installed to replace pen, paper, and maps. Kessler's already there, having called one of the reinforced chairs that don't sag under his weight. "So what were you thinking?"
Henriette is glancing down at something only she can see, possibly an inventory of what the mecha in the Oppenheimer's hangar requires or might be able to do, possibly an inventory of what the Autopolitan war machines are there for. "Yeah, you're the captain here." Henriette says. "Got any good plans?"
Elsa tries to hide her concern. Not just about this little suicide mission, but about what's probably going to happen afterwards. The Void Engineers know-that's the only way this would have happened, and they're counting on them fucking up. If they succeed, somehow, the Void Engineers will be more than happy to make sure to finish the job the Autopolitans and Residents don't. Because this is hostile territory, and it's not safe to be here. Not for Void Engineers, let alone anyone else. She sighs. Hopefully she can talk them into deciding to join instead of resisting and being shot as 'loose ends.'
Elsa gestures at the massive display table in the center, and it responds, highlighting several dots on the asteroid belt. "I was spending an hour going over radio and other transmissions while we were running silent and I think there's a few promising places here that might help us get the assets we need to either sneak past them or defeat them." She waves at the first one, and zooms into an asteroid with cancerous pockmarks. She zooms out slightly, and Henriette can see the silhouettes of various ships. There's an Ethercruiser there, and a couple of alien flying saucers, and even a small Void Engineer manned science vessel.
"Ateshga runs a little business buying and selling ships. People come here, end up being entrapped, and sell their possessions to keep afloat. Some of these possessions end up in his hands. He has a lot of technology and a few interesting examples of upgrades. He might also try to strip us for parts, but that's what happens in the Void. Everything wants to kill you. If it's smiling and polite, it just wants to kill you by stabbing you in the back." Elsa thinks. "His base is probably heavily defended and he might call out for help if we actually attack, but it's an option."
"Anything else? Something quieter, maybe?" Kessler asks. Elsa feels surprised that he understands the meaning of 'quiet' or 'subtle,' but she supposes the old cyborg has some hidden depths. He's definitely smarter than he looks, or else he probably wouldn't have survived Moscow and wouldn't be here. Not when the Computer is around broadcasting its seductive signals to any Iterator who might know of it. That had been a worry, but nothing had developed from it. Fortunately. If it had-VoidCOM had issued her a backpack nuke for a reason. She's glad that she hasn't had reason to use it.
"Extros station is where the unimportant faces disappear to. Do you really think a station based on capitalism and mass media," Elsa starts, "can function without the faceless workers that stay hidden in the shadows? Not a chance. A lot of them do their jobs quietly, but I suspect some might be rather disgruntled and would love to steal the spotlight. Barring that, we could infiltrate into the station via that method, simply because what's one faceless blue-collar worker over another?"
"There's talent scouts everywhere, looking, even in the belt, for people who desperately want to enter the station. If you think you can make a good sell, there's a good chance that they might be able to get you inside." Elsa continues. "Of course that might be a bit..." she's heard the stories. "...undignified." She zooms into one of the stations they use, and there's a garish glowing sign saying "The Casting Couch."
"And finally," Elsa gestures, and a black monolithic vessel expands to fill the display, floating ominously in the midst of a cloud of space debris, "there's this ship here, the Avellanos. It's abandoned but scans show it's in good shape. It hasn't been stripped by scavengers yet, so be careful. There might be something or someone on it that doesn't like us."
"So what's your recommendation?" Kessler asks.
"I think we should..." Elsa pauses.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I'm going to ask people to take a careful look at the paradox numbers. Simply by existing in the past, Jamelia is slowly getting paradox. This means that she probably wants to resolve this issue as soon as possible. And just to point this out again, changing the past grants you permanent paradox. The reason Catherine couldn't go with you is because she has a ton of permanent paradox from repeated historical changes and thus would probably instantly summon a Paradox Spirit the moment she went back.
Be Jamelia:
Jamelia is going to tell An-Jin:
[ ] (3.0x) Exactly nothing. She'll just have to force it when she needs to take over, or make him think that her decisions are his idea.
[ ] Something about time travel and how she's from the future and needs his help. (PARADOX RISK)
[ ] Everything that might reasonably be important, like the Dimensional Anomaly. (MAJOR PARADOX RISK)
Jamelia is going to manipulate An-Jin into:
[ ] Asking for a broader clearance than necessary so he can access what Jamelia needs to know quietly. (PARADOX RISK)
[ ] Asking for a broader clearance so he can access what Jamelia needs to know loudly. (MAJOR PARADOX RISK)
[ ] She's not. She'll use the clearance he gets to forge one for herself. (PARADOX RISK)
Special Vote Abort:
Do not vote for this unless you are absolutely sure you want to abort your time travel. Remember. Actions have consequences.
[ ] (Special) Fuck it, this mission is a bust. Just observe. (No Paradox Risk, Aborts Mission)
Be Elsa:
[ ] Go get some ship parts by seeing what Ashtega has.
[ ] And actually trade for them.
[ ] Permanently borrow them.
[ ] Infiltrate Hollywood Station[ ] As an Extra
[ ] As new talent
[ ] Explore the Avellone[ ] What could go wrong?
[ ] It's probably completely abandoned and harmless.
[ ] No really it's probably just really creepy.
[ ] Write-inJamelia Belltower Status
Willpower: 9/9
Prime Energy: 5/5
Paradox: 1
Willpower: 9/9
Prime Energy: 5/5
Paradox: 1
Permanent Paradox: 0
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
So, I'm inclined toward Jamelia getting her own goddamn clearance - does she even have the Spheres for mind control?
So something occurred to me ... what will Jamelia look like from the perspective of technocrats? She's semi-spirit and outside the realm of consensus, so she may show up as some kind of alien or something. Maybe that's why the sensors detected extra mass.
Also, An-Jin may have played a critical role in analyzing data for the vampire snafu
Also, An-Jin may have played a critical role in analyzing data for the vampire snafu
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Yes this is exactly the reason. You don't have to worry about anything else. Stay calm and don't consider the possibility of being chased by killer robots.
Kerrus
Fractal Insanity
You don't need spheres for mind control when you're already possessing someone as a disembodied spirit. At that point you just roll your willpower against theirs to take over for a scene, although they can spend a point of temporary willpower to resist you.
Be Jamelia:
Jamelia is going to tell An-Jin:
[X] (3.0x) Exactly nothing. She'll just have to force it when she needs to take over, or make him think that her decisions are his idea.
Jamelia is going to manipulate An-Jin into:
[X] She's not. She'll use the clearance he gets to forge one for herself. (PARADOX RISK)
Be Elsa:
[X] Explore the Avellone
Jamelia is going to tell An-Jin:
[X] (3.0x) Exactly nothing. She'll just have to force it when she needs to take over, or make him think that her decisions are his idea.
Jamelia is going to manipulate An-Jin into:
[X] She's not. She'll use the clearance he gets to forge one for herself. (PARADOX RISK)
Be Elsa:
[X] Explore the Avellone
Tentatively thinking about going with this:
Be Jamelia:
[X] (3.0x) Exactly nothing. She'll just have to force it when she needs to take over, or make him think that her decisions are his idea.
Talking to him about time shenangians can end up with him spilling the beans to the next agent. This would be fatal.
[X] Asking for a broader clearance than necessary so he can access what Jamelia needs to know quietly. (PARADOX RISK)
Be Elsa:
[X] Explore the Avellone
We have a heavy combat team with nice equipment.
It is not enough to fight Autopolitan Mothership. It is hopefully enough to fight whatever is on the Avellone.
Because we do not have much to trade, I am reluctant to do soul pacts, and infiltrate Hollywood Station without much weapons puts the ones infiltrating in an extremely vulnerable position.
These are at least my thoughts so far.
Be Jamelia:
[X] (3.0x) Exactly nothing. She'll just have to force it when she needs to take over, or make him think that her decisions are his idea.
Talking to him about time shenangians can end up with him spilling the beans to the next agent. This would be fatal.
[X] Asking for a broader clearance than necessary so he can access what Jamelia needs to know quietly. (PARADOX RISK)
Be Elsa:
[X] Explore the Avellone
We have a heavy combat team with nice equipment.
It is not enough to fight Autopolitan Mothership. It is hopefully enough to fight whatever is on the Avellone.
Because we do not have much to trade, I am reluctant to do soul pacts, and infiltrate Hollywood Station without much weapons puts the ones infiltrating in an extremely vulnerable position.
These are at least my thoughts so far.
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- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
[X] (3.0x) Exactly nothing. She'll just have to force it when she needs to take over, or make him think that her decisions are his idea.
Jamelia prefers to operate low-key and quiet, and going loud mean more flags Threat Null can home in on to find her. So for now, we work as quietly as possible.
[X] Asking for a broader clearance than necessary so he can access what Jamelia needs to know quietly. (PARADOX RISK)
As above.
[X] Explore the Avellone
-[X] What could go wrong?
--[X] It's probably completely abandoned and harmless.
---[X] No really it's probably just really creepy.
The others look fun, but how can you say 'no' to John Kessler and Henriette Langely boarding a SPACE HULK? That's a sci-fi awesome setup right there. Guest starring Elsa!
Jamelia prefers to operate low-key and quiet, and going loud mean more flags Threat Null can home in on to find her. So for now, we work as quietly as possible.
[X] Asking for a broader clearance than necessary so he can access what Jamelia needs to know quietly. (PARADOX RISK)
As above.
[X] Explore the Avellone
-[X] What could go wrong?
--[X] It's probably completely abandoned and harmless.
---[X] No really it's probably just really creepy.
The others look fun, but how can you say 'no' to John Kessler and Henriette Langely boarding a SPACE HULK? That's a sci-fi awesome setup right there. Guest starring Elsa!
Killer robots? What killer robots? Who said anything about killer robots? Everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
I don't know mage very well, but I do know that the very first thing getting Sphere X lets you do is "detect X"
Whatever makes you think you can do a space hulk heavy assault without the autopolitans noticing?
(so, you know, write in stealth rotes?)
Because it is in another location?
Can they notice it? Possibly.
They are yet to detect either of our ships, though.
They can also notice us trading or infiltrating Hollywood.
Going into Avellone should not be more noticeable than either of the other actions.
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Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Trading and infiltrating don't involve Forces 3: Fire railgun.
But them you probably know better than me.
It is a derelict.
We will be boarding it, and (hopefully) not having a ship to ship fight in space.
As I said - we could be detected, but given that they can have agents or spy drones in other locations I do not think the risk of detection boarding the hulk is higher than the other options.
I may be mistaken, of course.
Be Jamelia:
Jamelia is going to tell An-Jin:
[X] (3.0x) Exactly nothing. She'll just have to force it when she needs to take over, or make him think that her decisions are his idea.
-> [X] Pre-emptive contingency - if things really go to shit, it's not like Technocrats aren't used to taking orders from mysterious authoritarian sources, and Jamelia is a Director now and has (admittedly ahead-of-date) security codes and a knowledge of the protocols. If everything collapses faster than she thinks, he'll likely be welcoming of someone who knows what they're doing who sounds like a senior Technocrat.
Jamelia is going to manipulate An-Jin into:
[X] Asking for a broader clearance than necessary so he can access what Jamelia needs to know quietly. (PARADOX RISK)
[Jamelia - Entropy - She is certain that he will find appropriate materials in today's duties which will lead him down the path of requiring more security clearance. She knows the debated modern theory that the 99 Ragnarok was caused by the haemophage conflicts in the area resulting in someone trying to awaken the Ragnarok, and she's heard of mention of haemophage texts which support that. In a place like the Pyramid, they'll have haemophage religious texts as part of the tools for psycho-analysing them, and An-jin has sufficient clearance to access the censored versions for his modelling work. So if he's working on haemophages, it's perfectly reasonable that he might happen to look through one of their religious texts to try to get insight into what they're thinking about and happen to find an appropriate passage which will stir them down that path. For all she knows, he may well have done so anyway. Enhanced by Manipulation + Investigation - she knows how Ivory Tower classification and documentation systems work, and has had to dig through a few in her time]
It's just before lunch when An-jin looks away from his screen, massaging his eyes. There have been so many documents today, they're all blurring together. Literally. He adjusts the set of his glasses, and stretches, looking out the window down at the expansive white hall filled with Men in Black and Sympathiser analysts. He's glad he's not down there. As an Enlightened analyst, he gets an office with only five other people. They're trusted to work on their own. Anyway, everyone knows Enlightened people work better when they get to chat and help each other out. Things go a lot better with two or three people bouncing ideas around about a problem.
Getting up, he grabs a coffee from the machine, and returns to his desk. There are already three cups in front of him, and he distracts himself for a moment by stacking them into a pyramid and drawing a little eye in pen on the top one.
Then it's back to the reports and the media logs and - oh joy - the badly scanned documents captured in the field. He reads down the - who writes in black on grey? The archivist who added this should have added a proper transcription - text. There's a melodramatic picture of a spread-eagle sacrificial victim, and what looks like a female figure showering in the blood coming from the victim. Maybe the writing was added over the top of the image?
An-Jin shakes his head. He's getting distracted.
"Mark these signs," he reads, "they are coming.
Gehenna will be on earth.
Mark the shadow which flies,
mark the dragon which rises,
mark the darkness which moves,
mark the shadow of the moon
mark the angel that dies
mark the maiden who weeps
mark the children Embraced
mark the Clanless who run."
He shakes his head. Pointless superstition - and worse, not even cogent pointless superstition. It's so incredibly vague he can straight off think of several metaphors which might be 'the dragon which rises', starting with the fact that Vlad Dracul was a known haemophage and moving forwards in time from there. Useless. He can make a note that there might be irrational actions from vampires if... who knows, there's an eclipse or something - that might be a shadow of the moon - but... superstitionists, eh?
The next lines grab his attention, though.
"And there will be a time
when Sire will drive out Childer
when Sire will abandon Childer to the sun's mercy
and there will be no mercy for the Clanless
there will be no mercy for the Clanless,
mongrel though they be
upon their forgotten sires shall be the curse of Auriel
upon their hateful sires shall be the curse that comes of crossing Caine
upon their lazy sires shall be the curse of the hunters hunted."
Well.
That's something meaningful. Something usable. Something which, if he believed in such nonsense, he would consider actionable. And that means that haemophages who believe in such nonsense will consider it actionable. It makes the testable predication that the use of mass conversion and the resultant genetic dilution will have some unforeseen 'curse' effect.
And since haemophages are a bunch of backstabbing weasels you should trust less than a Syndic, they'd totally make use of this to dispose of rivals and blame it on a 'curse' which was caused by their mass human-conversion policies. An-Jin scratches his head. Wasn't there something in some Progenitor report about genetic dilution of the haemophage variant subspecies caused by excessive conversion or something? That classic marker traits carried by their parasitic biology were expressed less? That was something related to the whole 'Clanless' thing that they ascribed, right? And there's certainly been lots of mass conversion going on in India.
Of course, it's entirely useless as babble like this. Maybe if he had some population statistics - enough that he could maybe throw a population study over to some Time Motion Mechanics he works with. Earthside amalgams would have access to the up to date figures, but... urgh, damn it, communications are restricted. Maybe he might be able to get his hands on higher classification analyses of these texts, to see what other people have thought on the same topic. Urgh, not likely. But he'd also need clearance for communication with earthside amalgams, and additional clearance for field-active reports on haemophage populations.
Still, maybe it's worth a try. If they can work that into the psychodynamic modelling, maybe they can get a more accurate insight into how their harder-to-predict less-human senior ranking individuals will act.
He might get lucky.
Jamelia is going to tell An-Jin:
[X] (3.0x) Exactly nothing. She'll just have to force it when she needs to take over, or make him think that her decisions are his idea.
-> [X] Pre-emptive contingency - if things really go to shit, it's not like Technocrats aren't used to taking orders from mysterious authoritarian sources, and Jamelia is a Director now and has (admittedly ahead-of-date) security codes and a knowledge of the protocols. If everything collapses faster than she thinks, he'll likely be welcoming of someone who knows what they're doing who sounds like a senior Technocrat.
Jamelia is going to manipulate An-Jin into:
[X] Asking for a broader clearance than necessary so he can access what Jamelia needs to know quietly. (PARADOX RISK)
[Jamelia - Entropy - She is certain that he will find appropriate materials in today's duties which will lead him down the path of requiring more security clearance. She knows the debated modern theory that the 99 Ragnarok was caused by the haemophage conflicts in the area resulting in someone trying to awaken the Ragnarok, and she's heard of mention of haemophage texts which support that. In a place like the Pyramid, they'll have haemophage religious texts as part of the tools for psycho-analysing them, and An-jin has sufficient clearance to access the censored versions for his modelling work. So if he's working on haemophages, it's perfectly reasonable that he might happen to look through one of their religious texts to try to get insight into what they're thinking about and happen to find an appropriate passage which will stir them down that path. For all she knows, he may well have done so anyway. Enhanced by Manipulation + Investigation - she knows how Ivory Tower classification and documentation systems work, and has had to dig through a few in her time]
It's just before lunch when An-jin looks away from his screen, massaging his eyes. There have been so many documents today, they're all blurring together. Literally. He adjusts the set of his glasses, and stretches, looking out the window down at the expansive white hall filled with Men in Black and Sympathiser analysts. He's glad he's not down there. As an Enlightened analyst, he gets an office with only five other people. They're trusted to work on their own. Anyway, everyone knows Enlightened people work better when they get to chat and help each other out. Things go a lot better with two or three people bouncing ideas around about a problem.
Getting up, he grabs a coffee from the machine, and returns to his desk. There are already three cups in front of him, and he distracts himself for a moment by stacking them into a pyramid and drawing a little eye in pen on the top one.
Then it's back to the reports and the media logs and - oh joy - the badly scanned documents captured in the field. He reads down the - who writes in black on grey? The archivist who added this should have added a proper transcription - text. There's a melodramatic picture of a spread-eagle sacrificial victim, and what looks like a female figure showering in the blood coming from the victim. Maybe the writing was added over the top of the image?
An-Jin shakes his head. He's getting distracted.
"Mark these signs," he reads, "they are coming.
Gehenna will be on earth.
Mark the shadow which flies,
mark the dragon which rises,
mark the darkness which moves,
mark the shadow of the moon
mark the angel that dies
mark the maiden who weeps
mark the children Embraced
mark the Clanless who run."
He shakes his head. Pointless superstition - and worse, not even cogent pointless superstition. It's so incredibly vague he can straight off think of several metaphors which might be 'the dragon which rises', starting with the fact that Vlad Dracul was a known haemophage and moving forwards in time from there. Useless. He can make a note that there might be irrational actions from vampires if... who knows, there's an eclipse or something - that might be a shadow of the moon - but... superstitionists, eh?
The next lines grab his attention, though.
"And there will be a time
when Sire will drive out Childer
when Sire will abandon Childer to the sun's mercy
and there will be no mercy for the Clanless
there will be no mercy for the Clanless,
mongrel though they be
upon their forgotten sires shall be the curse of Auriel
upon their hateful sires shall be the curse that comes of crossing Caine
upon their lazy sires shall be the curse of the hunters hunted."
Well.
That's something meaningful. Something usable. Something which, if he believed in such nonsense, he would consider actionable. And that means that haemophages who believe in such nonsense will consider it actionable. It makes the testable predication that the use of mass conversion and the resultant genetic dilution will have some unforeseen 'curse' effect.
And since haemophages are a bunch of backstabbing weasels you should trust less than a Syndic, they'd totally make use of this to dispose of rivals and blame it on a 'curse' which was caused by their mass human-conversion policies. An-Jin scratches his head. Wasn't there something in some Progenitor report about genetic dilution of the haemophage variant subspecies caused by excessive conversion or something? That classic marker traits carried by their parasitic biology were expressed less? That was something related to the whole 'Clanless' thing that they ascribed, right? And there's certainly been lots of mass conversion going on in India.
Of course, it's entirely useless as babble like this. Maybe if he had some population statistics - enough that he could maybe throw a population study over to some Time Motion Mechanics he works with. Earthside amalgams would have access to the up to date figures, but... urgh, damn it, communications are restricted. Maybe he might be able to get his hands on higher classification analyses of these texts, to see what other people have thought on the same topic. Urgh, not likely. But he'd also need clearance for communication with earthside amalgams, and additional clearance for field-active reports on haemophage populations.
Still, maybe it's worth a try. If they can work that into the psychodynamic modelling, maybe they can get a more accurate insight into how their harder-to-predict less-human senior ranking individuals will act.
He might get lucky.
Bursting Eagerness Soul
Threadwalking Rating Machine
- Location
- Wisconsin
Be Jamelia:
Jamelia is going to tell An-Jin:
[X] (3.0x) Exactly nothing. She'll just have to force it when she needs to take over, or make him think that her decisions are his idea.
Jamelia is going to manipulate An-Jin into:
[X] Asking for a broader clearance than necessary so he can access what Jamelia needs to know quietly. (PARADOX RISK)
Be Elsa:
[X] Explore the Avellone
->[X] What could go wrong?
-->[X] It's probably completely abandoned and harmless.
--->[X] No really it's probably just really creepy.
Jamelia is going to tell An-Jin:
[X] (3.0x) Exactly nothing. She'll just have to force it when she needs to take over, or make him think that her decisions are his idea.
Jamelia is going to manipulate An-Jin into:
[X] Asking for a broader clearance than necessary so he can access what Jamelia needs to know quietly. (PARADOX RISK)
Be Elsa:
[X] Explore the Avellone
->[X] What could go wrong?
-->[X] It's probably completely abandoned and harmless.
--->[X] No really it's probably just really creepy.
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Aleph
Princess of Stabbity
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Hmm. Yeah, okay, ES's plan seems like a good taste case of how much influence we have here and what the risks are.
Be Jamelia:
Jamelia is going to tell An-Jin:
[X] (3.0x) Exactly nothing. She'll just have to force it when she needs to take over, or make him think that her decisions are his idea.
Jamelia is going to manipulate An-Jin into:
[X] Asking for a broader clearance than necessary so he can access what Jamelia needs to know quietly. (PARADOX RISK)
Be Jamelia:
Jamelia is going to tell An-Jin:
[X] (3.0x) Exactly nothing. She'll just have to force it when she needs to take over, or make him think that her decisions are his idea.
Jamelia is going to manipulate An-Jin into:
[X] Asking for a broader clearance than necessary so he can access what Jamelia needs to know quietly. (PARADOX RISK)
So you want to cast magic in the past, eh?
Roll Jamelia's Enlightenment (6) and Entropy (4) for an Entropy 2 effect, Difficulty +2 vulgar without witnesses. Jamelia gains 1 paradox.
Roll Jamelia's Enlightenment (6) and Entropy (4) for an Entropy 2 effect, Difficulty +2 vulgar without witnesses. Jamelia gains 1 paradox.
But not permanent, I hope?
- Location
- in the trash
Be Jamelia:
Jamelia is going to tell An-Jin:
[X] (3.0x) Exactly nothing. She'll just have to force it when she needs to take over, or make him think that her decisions are his idea.
Jamelia is going to manipulate An-Jin into:
[X] Asking for a broader clearance than necessary so he can access what Jamelia needs to know quietly. (PARADOX RISK)
Be Elsa:
[X] Explore the Avellone
[X] What could go wrong?
[X] It's probably completely abandoned and harmless.
[X] No really it's probably just really creepy.
We have a psychic, a cyborg killing machine who can talk to spirits, a bunch of guys out of 80s action flicks, another cyborg killing machine (who is also Samus), and Henriette (who lacks most of her combat effectiveness because she's not in a deathbot).
So this almost certainly won't turn into a horror movie (that ends with Henriette as the sole survivor) though conversely it's almost guaranteed that it will turn into an action flick.
Jamelia is going to tell An-Jin:
[X] (3.0x) Exactly nothing. She'll just have to force it when she needs to take over, or make him think that her decisions are his idea.
Jamelia is going to manipulate An-Jin into:
[X] Asking for a broader clearance than necessary so he can access what Jamelia needs to know quietly. (PARADOX RISK)
Be Elsa:
[X] Explore the Avellone
[X] What could go wrong?
[X] It's probably completely abandoned and harmless.
[X] No really it's probably just really creepy.
We have a psychic, a cyborg killing machine who can talk to spirits, a bunch of guys out of 80s action flicks, another cyborg killing machine (who is also Samus), and Henriette (who lacks most of her combat effectiveness because she's not in a deathbot).
So this almost certainly won't turn into a horror movie (that ends with Henriette as the sole survivor) though conversely it's almost guaranteed that it will turn into an action flick.
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