ckk185
Crazy Bunny Girl Scientist
- Location
- Port city
They exist. And they are horrible creatures that need to be lit on fire.
Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
To be fair, the VAs already tried killing this thing. Given that it went catastrophically badly for them, it's kind of realistic that their response to somebody trying to convince them to do it all over again is going to be "have fun storming the castle".
I'd hope that they'd at least be willing to give us any information they have on their failed raid, though. We can use that to get an idea of exactly what we're dealing with.
On a different subject, I just thought of something: how is an extension of the Computer likely to see Henriette at this point? I mean, she has been directly responsible for two catastrophic defeats and the loss of priceless assets, so I'd imagine that written under her picture in Autochthon's databanks are either "Priority Target" or "Flee on Contact". Either way, we might be able to use her to lure the Anathema away from the Demise.
Well yes. The Anathema is a huge outside context problem for the VAs because most of the people who had the balls to target Autochthonian infrastructure are currently either dead or post-human mockeries of their former selves, and cannot pass on tips as to how best to attack the tools of a machine-god. Not that there were many of those people to begin with.
As for what the Virtual Adepts might mention-they know that it's a massively powerful alien intellect, that it beats the shit out of even most VA or Iterator computer security they see, that it's capable of subverting icons (Digital Web Avatars) and creating its own attack subprograms with ease, and that it's capable of being in multiple places at once and wreaking havoc on many, many foes. As a bonus, even its very image is intended to snow-crash human minds via a basilisk hack, so anyone without massively augmented neurology needs to have a Mind shield permanently up or risk suddenly going catatonic after seeing the thing. Oh, and it can eat you to recover any harm you've dealt to it.
This is assuming you're harming it-it's not exactly fragile, being this horrific indescribable eldritch horror-cloud that tears icons in half like nothing.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- QM presents a number of options. There is an obvious sliding scale of "usefulness to the party".
- Players waffle back and forth, and eventually settle on the one that appears to be *least* useful to the party, as some sort of "avoid the trap" and/or "it looks like it sucks, so it must be good. Here, I can figure out how to justify this one." option.
- The QM Heavily Implies that the option that looks like the Lose Option *is*, in fact, the Lose Option, and that we might want to reconsider.
I kind of think it says something about this quest that, given the above, I *still* can't be sure whether or not it's a poor choice to make.
- Players waffle back and forth, and eventually settle on the one that appears to be *least* useful to the party, as some sort of "avoid the trap" and/or "it looks like it sucks, so it must be good. Here, I can figure out how to justify this one." option.
- The QM Heavily Implies that the option that looks like the Lose Option *is*, in fact, the Lose Option, and that we might want to reconsider.
I kind of think it says something about this quest that, given the above, I *still* can't be sure whether or not it's a poor choice to make.
cB557
voOOP
I, personally, would be far more interested in the gameplay of this quest if it actually focused on the gameplay and not meta mindgames against the GM.
Man if I was doing meta mindgames at this point you'd know. I'm asking people to set the scene here. Do they want this to be the kind of plot where it turns out your allies are all woefully underestimating the enemy? Or the kind of plot where it turns out that your 'allies' have their own agenda? Or the kind of plot where it turns out that you're just the handful of people who are insane enough to try to face down a god in their own domain because you really care about these two people enough that you're organizing a desperate sally against something infinitely your greater when everyone else is busy cowering.
In fact, the problem I see is that people keep insisting that there's some sort of meta mindgames going on and thus self-justify, because I am obviously going to throw problems at you which would make you want to have chosen the other choices, as long as there are choices. Do you think, if I was doing some kind of meta mindgame thing where you had to guess the one right choice, I'd use so many write-ins and give up so much narrative control?
(Or deliberately change things so your choice is retroactively the right choice, which is something I have done several times).
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/They
Given what Mj12 is saying, I'd like to change my vote to:
[x] Cautious
There's no point in just denying ourselves allies on this mission--cautious will probably mean that the VAs have their own agenda, but given that our own agenda in this mission is just to rescue Rose and Donald I'm not sure them doing their own things is our problem.
[x] Cautious
There's no point in just denying ourselves allies on this mission--cautious will probably mean that the VAs have their own agenda, but given that our own agenda in this mission is just to rescue Rose and Donald I'm not sure them doing their own things is our problem.
You're still fundamentally misunderstanding what he's saying from the sounds of it.
It's not a matter of "is it advantageous". It's a matter of "what scene would you prefer".
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
I stand by my earlier vote. I figure the VAs would be willing to offer whatever info and gear they can, but their willingness to confront the Anathema themselves died along with the bulk of their strike team.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So... let us try to read the question as it is written... (the following is my best SWAG.)
[ ] Gung-ho.
- The VAs we've gotten in touch with are young, testosterone-soaked, and have heard relatively little about the monster. We're about to play out the same old story that's been played out many times before, where the Technocracy draws in poor, naive members of the Traditions, and sends them to their deaths as part of achieving a more important goal... except this time, it's Elsa doing it with her old contacts and compatriots. Oh well, Elsa. You always knew this job would occasionally involve swallowing a bit of bile. Hopefully their assistance will slow it down more than being able to eat them helps it. Burns your contacts.
[ ] Cautious.
- The VAs agree that this thing is horrible and has to be stopped, but they also think that it's horrible and they don't want to be involved with it. They can probably be convinced to second some otherwise disposable assets to us in return for certain considerations. This is the story where you go to your contacts, and you wheel and deal and finagle a few useful resources and try not to pay too much for them. Elsa finds it a bit odd to be on this side of this particular kind of transaction, but it's not nearly so horrible a feeling. The VAs are going into things with their eyes open, and for their own reasons. Maintains your contacts.
[ ] Skeptical.
- The VAs haven't heard much, but what they have heard isn't good. You're going to need a fair amount of convincing to do much of anything, but if you *can* convince them that no, really, this is important and no, really, there's a decent shot here, the assistance you get is likely to be pretty high-quality. The lower-tier folks will stay home, and the few that do show up are going into it with their eyes open, fully prepared. Might improve your contacts, depending on how things go. This is the story where, when the big threat shows up, the adults go out and take care of business so that the folks back home can stay safe.
[ ] No Fucking Way!
- The VAs have heard plenty, and they *know* better. They may be willing to give you info. They may be willing to hand over a couple of hacks that they happen to know worked better than some of the other hacks. That's it. You're freaking crazy. Of course, if you pull it off... well, the VAs do respect badass hackers and awesome hacks, and if you can take out *that* thing, you pretty much qualify by definition. Might well earn you some notable status in places where status is the thing that has value.
[ ] Gung-ho.
- The VAs we've gotten in touch with are young, testosterone-soaked, and have heard relatively little about the monster. We're about to play out the same old story that's been played out many times before, where the Technocracy draws in poor, naive members of the Traditions, and sends them to their deaths as part of achieving a more important goal... except this time, it's Elsa doing it with her old contacts and compatriots. Oh well, Elsa. You always knew this job would occasionally involve swallowing a bit of bile. Hopefully their assistance will slow it down more than being able to eat them helps it. Burns your contacts.
[ ] Cautious.
- The VAs agree that this thing is horrible and has to be stopped, but they also think that it's horrible and they don't want to be involved with it. They can probably be convinced to second some otherwise disposable assets to us in return for certain considerations. This is the story where you go to your contacts, and you wheel and deal and finagle a few useful resources and try not to pay too much for them. Elsa finds it a bit odd to be on this side of this particular kind of transaction, but it's not nearly so horrible a feeling. The VAs are going into things with their eyes open, and for their own reasons. Maintains your contacts.
[ ] Skeptical.
- The VAs haven't heard much, but what they have heard isn't good. You're going to need a fair amount of convincing to do much of anything, but if you *can* convince them that no, really, this is important and no, really, there's a decent shot here, the assistance you get is likely to be pretty high-quality. The lower-tier folks will stay home, and the few that do show up are going into it with their eyes open, fully prepared. Might improve your contacts, depending on how things go. This is the story where, when the big threat shows up, the adults go out and take care of business so that the folks back home can stay safe.
[ ] No Fucking Way!
- The VAs have heard plenty, and they *know* better. They may be willing to give you info. They may be willing to hand over a couple of hacks that they happen to know worked better than some of the other hacks. That's it. You're freaking crazy. Of course, if you pull it off... well, the VAs do respect badass hackers and awesome hacks, and if you can take out *that* thing, you pretty much qualify by definition. Might well earn you some notable status in places where status is the thing that has value.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that while we can make the wrong choice when deciding what a given character does, there is no wrong answer for questions about "what is the setting like?" As such, I'd imagine that the different VA options give us roughly equivalent odds of success, but give us a different style of situation: Gung Ho means we'll be fighting alongside an army of cannon fodder, Cautious means we'll have support and possibly small strike teams, Suspicious means they'll work with us but may turn on us, Hell No means we're alone but they'll likely give us some info.
As such, I think I'll vote
[x] Cautious
As such, I think I'll vote
[x] Cautious
Remember the vote for how we encounter the Syndicate guy in the church? All equally hard in a vacuum, it defines the nature of the threat, what we need to defend against, and how we strike.
Crossreference that with WHY the VAs think like that, and our own skills, and you have a picture of what's going on. So some guesses:
[ ] Gung-ho.
The Anathema is a primarily stealth/information control hazard, and has shown little of it's direct killyness to the VAs/brainfucked them into thinking they can take it.
Because the only reason a gang of VAs want a rematch with the Anathema is if they have never dealt with it, or think they can take it. Maybe the first batch to hit it were all rookies and they want some payback for said rookies
[ ] Cautious.
Reasonable default state to dealing with the Technocracy. They hadn't actually engaged the Anathema that much, possibly fighting remotes or subverted technology. They've had a taste of what it can do, but they hadn't faced a Transformer trying to tear them a new asshole yet. But why is it playing subtle?
[ ] No Fucking Way!
Some of them had survived meeting the Anathema or else seen badasses fight the Anathema and die. It's gotten quite a few Mages and is going to be super double plus killy.
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
Face it brah, you've been typecast. Really, it's your own fault for deciding to stick the amalgam in Los Angeles
Kerrus
Fractal Insanity
The big thing that happens repeatedly in this quest via player choosing of QM choice that I see people mistaking is the idea that there's some sort of secret trap option-ing going on and that if only we had picked [other option] then things would have been easy.
Well no. Sort of, but no.
See the thing here is that the choices MJ12 has given for the VA's serves to frame the type of scene we want- but that doesn't mean that the type of scene we choose will automatically play to our strengths. That's what we as players need to think intelligently about- like in the Serafina on the saucer segment- was the option of 'going full in paradigm body horror for maximum +++ statgain' really the best choice for Serafina? No- and we didn't take it. But we could have. It would have been amazing. It wouldn't have necessarily been easier or harder, it would have been different, and the outcome would have been different as a result.
Some of those choices will make some of the interactions easier- if we play them to our strengths, but they won't make, collectively, the mission itself 'a walk in the park'. It's going to be hard. It's always going to be hard- that's the point of it being a game. The exact specific degree of how hard it is, and in what way is it hard- that's what we get to choose.
But shit's always going to happen- we can choose to take the hard route that most directly matches up to our strengths, or the hard route that doesn't- and watch the resulting difference affect the narrative and our ability to achieve our goals.
There's no secret GM spygame going on, but there are multiple layers in action here.
At the very basic level there's the game mechanics layer. Our game mechanics- ie: our party, versus the enemy's. Our stats versus theirs. Our skills and abilities versus theres.
Then there's the decision making layer- how intelligently we apply our mechanics versus how intelligently they apply their mechanics- and those are affected by rolls and write-ins, absolutely.
For a lot of quests.... that's it. That's all there is to it. You pilot the protagonists around the story and everything you see is what's happening, and outside of that very little happens.
But that's not what's going on here. There's a third layer, which is the effects of the narrative on the world.
If we build morale among the hardliners that the new way might be better, the result is that we've built morale and they're less inclined to be tired old grognards. This matters. This actually affects things.
This is the 'actions have consequences' layer. Not 'direct consequences'- that's layer 2. Actions have indirect or not immediately obvious consequences- and a lot of players here are stumbling around in the dark assuming that this isn't a thing that exists, and instead every effect that isn't immediately obvious as a direct consequence to something we did/explicitly spelled out for us, is the result of GM metagaming/the players are the enemy/shadowgames.
What's actually happening is that things that we do have consequences, and those consequences are not transparent or clear or explicitly spelled out for us- and it's up to us as players to try an anticipate those consequences when we're making a decision- and if we get it right and things go mostly as planned, that's sort of nice occasionally. But if it were every time, then it's actually sort of boring.
The game is interesting when the results of the actions-have-consequences layer aren't all perfectly predicted, and instead help us as players learn more about the game universe, and adapt to be prepared for, if not the perfect mission, then at least, turning it into something we can deal with.
I know a lot of people have complained about choices not explicitly spelling out their results- but I think the issue is more that it's very difficult to tell if a choice is a 'this is an action choice' or if the choice is a 'this is a 'what sort of game do you want to play'' choice. And MJ12 has absolutely improved on making those distinctions clearer.
But they're still choices that ultimately we as the players need to make.
So to that end, for the VA's, I'm going to vote:
[X] Hell the fuck damn no!
-[X] You're insane if you think you can even log onto the same sector as that thing- it's a fractal trinary intersticial waveform, the likes of which we've never seen. An alien god overpowering the machine. It doesn't care if you're an icon, if you've just got a headset and a couple keyboards, it'll still backhack you, fry your system, and jack your brain- look, you can have my rig. It's got logs of the whole thing, and I ain't gonna need it. Maybe you'll realize this is a fool's errand once you've had some time to go over the data.
--[X] Okay, look, there's only one man who might be able to help you- Aryan Spice- yes, I know, don't laugh, the guy's a legend. Wrote the book on the Digital Web. If anyone's got a shot at going against that thing, it's him.
(You think I'm joking. The VA "Aryan Spice" really did write the book on the Digital Web. He's now a developer for Star Trek Online)
Well no. Sort of, but no.
See the thing here is that the choices MJ12 has given for the VA's serves to frame the type of scene we want- but that doesn't mean that the type of scene we choose will automatically play to our strengths. That's what we as players need to think intelligently about- like in the Serafina on the saucer segment- was the option of 'going full in paradigm body horror for maximum +++ statgain' really the best choice for Serafina? No- and we didn't take it. But we could have. It would have been amazing. It wouldn't have necessarily been easier or harder, it would have been different, and the outcome would have been different as a result.
Some of those choices will make some of the interactions easier- if we play them to our strengths, but they won't make, collectively, the mission itself 'a walk in the park'. It's going to be hard. It's always going to be hard- that's the point of it being a game. The exact specific degree of how hard it is, and in what way is it hard- that's what we get to choose.
But shit's always going to happen- we can choose to take the hard route that most directly matches up to our strengths, or the hard route that doesn't- and watch the resulting difference affect the narrative and our ability to achieve our goals.
There's no secret GM spygame going on, but there are multiple layers in action here.
At the very basic level there's the game mechanics layer. Our game mechanics- ie: our party, versus the enemy's. Our stats versus theirs. Our skills and abilities versus theres.
Then there's the decision making layer- how intelligently we apply our mechanics versus how intelligently they apply their mechanics- and those are affected by rolls and write-ins, absolutely.
For a lot of quests.... that's it. That's all there is to it. You pilot the protagonists around the story and everything you see is what's happening, and outside of that very little happens.
But that's not what's going on here. There's a third layer, which is the effects of the narrative on the world.
If we build morale among the hardliners that the new way might be better, the result is that we've built morale and they're less inclined to be tired old grognards. This matters. This actually affects things.
This is the 'actions have consequences' layer. Not 'direct consequences'- that's layer 2. Actions have indirect or not immediately obvious consequences- and a lot of players here are stumbling around in the dark assuming that this isn't a thing that exists, and instead every effect that isn't immediately obvious as a direct consequence to something we did/explicitly spelled out for us, is the result of GM metagaming/the players are the enemy/shadowgames.
What's actually happening is that things that we do have consequences, and those consequences are not transparent or clear or explicitly spelled out for us- and it's up to us as players to try an anticipate those consequences when we're making a decision- and if we get it right and things go mostly as planned, that's sort of nice occasionally. But if it were every time, then it's actually sort of boring.
The game is interesting when the results of the actions-have-consequences layer aren't all perfectly predicted, and instead help us as players learn more about the game universe, and adapt to be prepared for, if not the perfect mission, then at least, turning it into something we can deal with.
I know a lot of people have complained about choices not explicitly spelling out their results- but I think the issue is more that it's very difficult to tell if a choice is a 'this is an action choice' or if the choice is a 'this is a 'what sort of game do you want to play'' choice. And MJ12 has absolutely improved on making those distinctions clearer.
But they're still choices that ultimately we as the players need to make.
So to that end, for the VA's, I'm going to vote:
[X] Hell the fuck damn no!
-[X] You're insane if you think you can even log onto the same sector as that thing- it's a fractal trinary intersticial waveform, the likes of which we've never seen. An alien god overpowering the machine. It doesn't care if you're an icon, if you've just got a headset and a couple keyboards, it'll still backhack you, fry your system, and jack your brain- look, you can have my rig. It's got logs of the whole thing, and I ain't gonna need it. Maybe you'll realize this is a fool's errand once you've had some time to go over the data.
--[X] Okay, look, there's only one man who might be able to help you- Aryan Spice- yes, I know, don't laugh, the guy's a legend. Wrote the book on the Digital Web. If anyone's got a shot at going against that thing, it's him.
(You think I'm joking. The VA "Aryan Spice" really did write the book on the Digital Web. He's now a developer for Star Trek Online)
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Pretty clear usually.
Whenever we get to pick "What does someone who's not a party member do/react", it's usually that kind of choice
Elsa's hands fly over the keyboard. She has six active IRC conversations open over four monitors and… oh, wait, only five now. Because someone just quit.
This is about the sum total of her successes today. Which are minimal-to-nonexistent.
Things are not working out. She's being hammered with setbacks from two directions. On one side, she burned quite a few bridges when she switched sides. People are assuming that she's just doing this because the Technocracy wants info. Which… um, is true. And that Jamelia Belltower told her to do this. Which is also true. Um.
Stupid useless truth.
But on the other side, the Virtual Adepts really don't want to talk about what happened in there. They got fucking smashed. She's got several contacts who simply haven't been online in days who other people are saying are dead. Either they're burning their bridges and going to ground so utterly that no one can find them, or they're actually dead. Either way, the entire Adept cyberspace community is in a state of shock and mourning. People are comparing it to the Great Whiteout of '99.
They're exaggerating, of course. Elsa knows some of the figures for the losses there. This doesn't come close.
But the Adepts running around panicking here here aren't the Adepts she was used to and that she hung with. They're not the bitter vampire-slaying Cyberpunks with their SPECTRE avatars and the solid knowledge that the whole fucking Russian Camarilla are gunning for you and it's better to die fighting than become one of their slaves. They're the Digital Web experts and they've gone soft over the past fifteen years. When they fight the Technocracy, they've been fighting a cultural war over DRM and with social engineering and their own corporations as weapons.
They've just been reminded that there are things out there which can kill people over the web. They don't like it. They don't like it at all. And they've tried fighting it and that ended in horrific failure, so now they're just trying to hide.
AccordPlayer: I dont give a shit about your excuses. Your just fishing for intel so you can take us down when we took losses.
Elsa grits her teeth and massages her temples.
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: look im just trying to help
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: i went and joined the engies
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: not the nwo or anything. i want to protect the world from evil space monsters and shit. i saw things in moscow and while a lot of the rest of the cracy can go fuk itself, the engies keep aliens away
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: and from what ive herd this is literally some evil syberspace thing. we want to take this motherfuker down
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: please???
She waits.
AccordPlayer: look
AccordPlayer: that entire sector is taken over
AccordPlayer: it can hack anything
AccordPlayer; /anything/
AccordPlayer: it fucking turned the laws of the dw into clay and rebuilt them
AccordPlayer: there's a whole sector where nothing works like it should
AccordPlayer: like there's a totally new set of software and hardware standards there
AccordPlayer: gleaming walls of black ice and firewalls as hot as the sun
AccordPlayer: squirming ports full of worms
AccordPlayer: icons of crystal and lightning and steam and oil and metal and smoke
AccordPlayer: it subverts everything
AccordPlayer: do you fucking get this
AccordPlayer: i was a backup who got called in to try to cover some of the retreat
AccordPlayer: i didn't even see what was in there
AccordPlayer: and im glad of it because i saw mor than enouygh
AccordPlayer: theres only a few groups who could even think of making something like us
AccordPlayer: and it isnt us
AccordPlayer: do you understand /technocrat/
AccordPlayer quit (fuck this i'm out)
She runs her hands through her blonde hair and leans back in her chair. Pushing him like that gave her an unexpected motherload. It's more than worth the storming off.
This? This basically confirms that it's Autopolitan. Something nasty and powerful, too. As an ex-VA with the Engineers, she's heard the rumours from R&E that the Autopolitans use a different implementation of Digital Web standards than anything humans made. If the Adepts ran into that without any warning… shit, no wonder they got massacred. When you're looking for exploits which don't exist and you're having to emulate your avatar to conform to their backhole-riddled standards… ouch. The term "killing field" comes to mind.
This is actionable. This is useful. And the fact that she has taken so fucking long to get it out of the VAs… well. So much for 'information wants to be free'. Some Adepts reminds her too much of the NWO. Smug as fuck when they know something you don't, and too fond of making you grovel for any scraps you can get.
No, that's not fair. She's just angry. Angry and tired and upset. People she knew aren't answering her messages - and she's left hoping it's because they now hate her. That's the better alternative.
Another window is flashing up. And has been for a while.
xx_XX: I don't know how to feel about you coming back like this, poking for info.
xx_XX: How could you do it?
xx_XX: Go over to them?
xx_XX: … hello?
Elsa sighs. And types. Not 100% honestly, but as honest as she can be.
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: it was my choice. it wasnt forced or anything
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: but i saw too muyc in Moscow. the things which attacked it have to be stopped and the ves are the ones who seemed best to do it.
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: i wouldn't have taken an offer from any of the other conventions but the ves are different. u know that, right?
xx_XX: I guess.
xx_XX: You should have stayed, though.
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: maybe. it wasn't easy to choose.
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: i hate to say this, but… you know how much it matters to me. that they offered me a full refit. im in a body with full human sensery emulation now.
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: not a hacked together frankenmark
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: i can feel the sun on my skin again. feel someone gently touch me. taste food properly.
xx_XX: …
xx_XX: I should hate you for being tempted to compromise your principles for material things like that
xx_XX: but I can't. Fuck. I'd have been tempted if I'd been in your place.
xx_XX: And yeah. At least the VEs aren't so bad compared to the others.
xx_XX: Okay, you 'pass'.
xx_XX: Listen. LBN.
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: listening
xx_XX: My sister's someone you might want to talk to.
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: i tried. shes not online
xx_XX: Yes. She wouldn't be.
Elsa felt butterflies churn in her stomach. It was purely psychosomatic, even more than it was for someone whose stomach wasn't a cybernetic nutrient extraction system, but that didn't mean it wasn't real.
xx_XX: She was in the attack. She's in Kashira now. You know where.
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: id have visited her anyway if id know. not for info. because i owe her that much
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: how is she?
xx_XX: Bad.
xx_XX: Listen. LBN. If you find who was behind this?
xx_XX: /burn them all/
xx_XX: make them suffer
xx_XX: make them pay
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: ill try my best
It could be a trap. Elsa knows it.
And yet she still goes. She doesn't have anyone else on her side who she can exactly trust with something like this. Maybe it's a product of those years as a consor. Maybe it's just that this is a bit of her life that the Technocracy hasn't touched. Even if the Union as a whole doesn't give a crap that she prefers the company of women - and self-righteously tends to pride itself in its apathy, in a very Western way - she has a habit of keeping things of that ilk out of the sight of authorities. She discovered her sexuality in 00s Russia, and that wasn't a good place for people like her.
Of course, neither was 90s Russia. She was born in '87 which meant she got a special childhood first hand view of everything going to shit.
But It's not a trap. Elsa almost would have preferred it. Traps are things which can be solved, usually by punching straight through them with extreme violence. This wasn't one, though. It was a hideout around 100km south of Moscow, in Kashira.
Hideout. Hah. Call it what it was. It was a hospital run by someone friendly to the Adepts with some consors on staff. A place for someone to vanish and be fixed up at the same time. Also a place with a padded and EM-shielded basement where someone with a vitae-addiction could be locked in to detox while they tried to find a brain specialist to burn out the habit. That sometimes had to be used.
It's not being used for detox right now, though. It's being used as a hidden place for… for Lidiya. Ludmila's little sister. The little sister of the woman who'd been there for a confused and in-the-closet young woman and had led her into the Adepts and taught her her first consor tricks. Lidiya had been a little sister to her too when she'd been living with Ludmila, for those first few wonderful years when she'd found that the world had been much bigger and more wonderful and... and more magical than she could have thought before. Who'd know her before she'd been LessBeanNJA or Elsa Naryshkin and certainly before she'd been a Void Engineer 2nd Lt.
And now she's lying there, barely breathing, eyes struggling to focus on Elsa's face.
"Hi, Lidiya," Elsa says quietly.
Her mouth opens and closes, as Lidiya struggles to say anything. "'Nya," she manages finally. "W-w-w-what are y-you d-doing here?"
"I heard you… you were hurt," Elsa says, feeling absolutely shitty about the fact that she wants information from her too.
"... h-heard… s-something 'bout y-you, 'Nya." Lidiya frowns. "Can't 'member what. It was. 'Portant. Some'in h-happened to y-you. C-can't 'member." She closes her eyes, and drifts off.
Elsa sits by her bedside, shoulders hunched over. The room is cold and white and sterile. It reminds her of her own painful recuperation in that first cyberbody. She spent a year in rehab and therapy, trying to get used to the fact that her brain had been cut out of her maimed and crippled body and put in a HITMark IV's cybercerebrum. Not the newest kind of IV, either. It had been what was available. The damage had been so horrific that she has to believe that the Series-P had orders to make her suffer but make sure she lived. So they could offer her ghoulification as a way of getting any quality of life back at all.
Fuck that. She might had had a clumsy FRANKENMark made up of whatever bits they could salvage for that first body, but better someone trapped in a cybershell with no sense of touch than a vampire slave. She is… she'd been a Virtual Adept. The Net had been her way to escape her body until they'd improved it.
But she was the lucky one here, compared to Lidiya. Elsa had just had her body crippled. She was up and moving again once she was used to being a full body cyborg. But she's talked to the doctor.
Lidiya's fried.
Muscle coordination, shot to pieces. Speech centres, damaged. Memory, swiss-cheesed. What happened is like a stroke. Her headware - a late 80s experimental QDEI she's had since before she was decanted - literally melted, and took out bits of her brain around it.
They said she's still alive because she de-rezzed her own implants before they could do too much damage, but… but the implants are part of who she was. Who she'd been as long as Elsa had known her. They were run-aways from an Iteration X lab-school for 'gifted and talented youths' which had been 'sold off' in the nineties. To a SPD Syndic. They'd gone back with the Adepts and burned the place to the ground.
They weren't really sisters, either, but it was easier to talk about them as sisters than explain the fact that they were both Ludmillas - a rejected late 80s L-Series upgrade package with a quantum computer in the head. Lidiya was younger than Ludmilla, so they were sisters to anyone who asked.
"'Nya." Lidiya is speaking, eyes still closed. "There's some'in out there. On the Net. Y-you have to help g-get them out. They're trapped in its k-killin' fields. Black ICE. Everywhere. Frozen. W-worms in the ICE. S-s-so m-many attack programmes. They w-went for us. B-before we s-saw it. People w-were turning. Worms in their head. G-getting in. Re-writing them. T-taking over. It pl-played with us. M-machine wh-whispers in my h-head. Telling me. What to do. L-like they used to do. When I was little."
Her lips twist into a bitter smile.
"I d-don't listen to. The 'Cracy anymore. It. Got angry. Changed the landscape. Sp-split us up. C-controlled the space. M-managed to rewrite its control. It's v-very good. Not perfect. 'Nough people working together, 'Nya. You can find people to save them. Like PICO. G-get… out..."
Elsa helplessly grips her hand. How to tell her that PICO's been missing for two weeks? That his cabal hasn't seen him - and if what Lidiya says is right, he might have been taken over.
Oh. Shit. That's what it might be playing at. Virtual Adept sleeper agents, maybe. Or maybe not sleeper agents. Maybe false flags. Waiting to attack anyone who tries to attack it and pin the blame on the Adepts. So it looks like they're working with it. Get the Void Engineers trying to purge the Virtual Adepts for the fear that they're compromised by the Autopolitans.
Because some of them are.
Shitfuck. VOIDCOM needs to know.
"Things are going to be okay, Lidiya," she says weakly.
"N-n-no! They're not! It… it came! It's out there! On the web!" Lidiya's eyes snap open, pupils pinpoints. "I… I c-can't go b-b-back. It's out there! It's… it could be waiting." Her breaths come fast. "D-do you have any c-computers on you, 'Nya? T-turn them off! Turn them all off!"
Elsa acts swiftly. "I will, I will," she says, making an act of taking out her phone and turning it off. It had already been off, of course, so no one could track her down. But Lidiya doesn't need to know that, and might help calm her down.
"W-w-w-what if it heard us?" Lidiya frets.
"It didn't," Elsa reassures her. "I was running anti-tracking programmes and an air-gap."
"G-g-good." Lidiya takes a deep breath. "I s-saw it," she confides. "It… it'll remember it. And… and it melted my QDEI. I… I cut out. Fr-fragged my link. B-b-b-basilisk hax. It… it kills. On sight. It c-came for us. M-my head still hurts. H-had to get my QDEI out and… stop it singing. It w-wanted me to. Obey. Obey. D-didn't want to." She tries to smile at Elsa. "'Milla and 'Nya'd b-be so d-disappointed in me if... if I did what it wants."
"You… you did well," Elsa says, trying not to cry. Poor Lidiya. She leans over her and gives her a hug. "You managed to hold it off. Even though it c-cost you."
"Ever'in' is s-so slow," Lidiya says quietly. "B-but with the QDEI out of m' head. M-maybe it won't find me."
"I'll try to stop it finding you," Elsa promises. "You're in the hospital in Kashira. You'll have plenty of time to… to rest. And stay safe while you get better."
"How'd I… I get here?" Lidiya asks, confused. "I… I was… I can't 'member where I was. I… I don't think. Kashira."
"There's a hospital here," Elsa says reassuringly. "And a hideout, remember? We took you here because you're hurt."
"... yes. That m-makes sense, Anya," Lidiya says, eyes drifting shut again. She shivers. "Wh'r's m' sis?" she asks groggily.
"I talked with her online. She told me to come here. I'm sure she'll be along," Elsa says. She doesn't say that she knows that Ludmilla has already been and gone. If Lidiya doesn't even remember that, then she… she probably won't remember that Elsa has been and gone either. "I… I'm so sorry about what happened," she says softly. "I… you… I just hope you get better."
Of course she'd get better. Ludmilla would be able to find someone to help her. She had to have favours, right? Someone who could help heal brain injuries. Enough so even if she'd never be the same again without the QDEI, she'd be… be almost okay. She had to!
Elsa leans over and kisses her on the brow softly.
There's a cough from behind her.
There's someone here - a consor here to watch the Technocrat who's got an AK loaded with HV rounds. It's a formality because it's not like a consor could do more than slow down a combat cyborg like her who can move far faster than a baseline, but it's still an intrusion. Still something ruining this moment. She wishes the armed doctor was gone.
"I'm going to reach into my pocket and take out a purse," she tells the doctor. "Don't jump."
The doctor still watches her closely as she does exactly that. Elsa pulls out an anonymised, disposable debit card with the PIN stuck on the front on a post-it note. "Here," she says, passing it to him. "To help with her treatment."
It's money Director Belltower gave her for bribes, but she considers this suitable payment for the info Lidiya got her. Of course, she'd have still given it if she hadn't had it, but this way she can justify it.
And the worst thing is that it's not enough. Not for the value of the info she's getting here. Which could be literally priceless. VOIDCOM needs to know. Director Belltower needs to know. And she strongly suspects that the Traditions' internal police will find out one way or another, because if that… that thing is pulling Agent Smith bullshit on people, there's going to have to be a house-cleaning of its pawns.
This is about the sum total of her successes today. Which are minimal-to-nonexistent.
Things are not working out. She's being hammered with setbacks from two directions. On one side, she burned quite a few bridges when she switched sides. People are assuming that she's just doing this because the Technocracy wants info. Which… um, is true. And that Jamelia Belltower told her to do this. Which is also true. Um.
Stupid useless truth.
But on the other side, the Virtual Adepts really don't want to talk about what happened in there. They got fucking smashed. She's got several contacts who simply haven't been online in days who other people are saying are dead. Either they're burning their bridges and going to ground so utterly that no one can find them, or they're actually dead. Either way, the entire Adept cyberspace community is in a state of shock and mourning. People are comparing it to the Great Whiteout of '99.
They're exaggerating, of course. Elsa knows some of the figures for the losses there. This doesn't come close.
But the Adepts running around panicking here here aren't the Adepts she was used to and that she hung with. They're not the bitter vampire-slaying Cyberpunks with their SPECTRE avatars and the solid knowledge that the whole fucking Russian Camarilla are gunning for you and it's better to die fighting than become one of their slaves. They're the Digital Web experts and they've gone soft over the past fifteen years. When they fight the Technocracy, they've been fighting a cultural war over DRM and with social engineering and their own corporations as weapons.
They've just been reminded that there are things out there which can kill people over the web. They don't like it. They don't like it at all. And they've tried fighting it and that ended in horrific failure, so now they're just trying to hide.
AccordPlayer: I dont give a shit about your excuses. Your just fishing for intel so you can take us down when we took losses.
Elsa grits her teeth and massages her temples.
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: look im just trying to help
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: i went and joined the engies
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: not the nwo or anything. i want to protect the world from evil space monsters and shit. i saw things in moscow and while a lot of the rest of the cracy can go fuk itself, the engies keep aliens away
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: and from what ive herd this is literally some evil syberspace thing. we want to take this motherfuker down
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: please???
She waits.
AccordPlayer: look
AccordPlayer: that entire sector is taken over
AccordPlayer: it can hack anything
AccordPlayer; /anything/
AccordPlayer: it fucking turned the laws of the dw into clay and rebuilt them
AccordPlayer: there's a whole sector where nothing works like it should
AccordPlayer: like there's a totally new set of software and hardware standards there
AccordPlayer: gleaming walls of black ice and firewalls as hot as the sun
AccordPlayer: squirming ports full of worms
AccordPlayer: icons of crystal and lightning and steam and oil and metal and smoke
AccordPlayer: it subverts everything
AccordPlayer: do you fucking get this
AccordPlayer: i was a backup who got called in to try to cover some of the retreat
AccordPlayer: i didn't even see what was in there
AccordPlayer: and im glad of it because i saw mor than enouygh
AccordPlayer: theres only a few groups who could even think of making something like us
AccordPlayer: and it isnt us
AccordPlayer: do you understand /technocrat/
AccordPlayer quit (fuck this i'm out)
She runs her hands through her blonde hair and leans back in her chair. Pushing him like that gave her an unexpected motherload. It's more than worth the storming off.
This? This basically confirms that it's Autopolitan. Something nasty and powerful, too. As an ex-VA with the Engineers, she's heard the rumours from R&E that the Autopolitans use a different implementation of Digital Web standards than anything humans made. If the Adepts ran into that without any warning… shit, no wonder they got massacred. When you're looking for exploits which don't exist and you're having to emulate your avatar to conform to their backhole-riddled standards… ouch. The term "killing field" comes to mind.
This is actionable. This is useful. And the fact that she has taken so fucking long to get it out of the VAs… well. So much for 'information wants to be free'. Some Adepts reminds her too much of the NWO. Smug as fuck when they know something you don't, and too fond of making you grovel for any scraps you can get.
No, that's not fair. She's just angry. Angry and tired and upset. People she knew aren't answering her messages - and she's left hoping it's because they now hate her. That's the better alternative.
Another window is flashing up. And has been for a while.
xx_XX: I don't know how to feel about you coming back like this, poking for info.
xx_XX: How could you do it?
xx_XX: Go over to them?
xx_XX: … hello?
Elsa sighs. And types. Not 100% honestly, but as honest as she can be.
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: it was my choice. it wasnt forced or anything
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: but i saw too muyc in Moscow. the things which attacked it have to be stopped and the ves are the ones who seemed best to do it.
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: i wouldn't have taken an offer from any of the other conventions but the ves are different. u know that, right?
xx_XX: I guess.
xx_XX: You should have stayed, though.
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: maybe. it wasn't easy to choose.
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: i hate to say this, but… you know how much it matters to me. that they offered me a full refit. im in a body with full human sensery emulation now.
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: not a hacked together frankenmark
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: i can feel the sun on my skin again. feel someone gently touch me. taste food properly.
xx_XX: …
xx_XX: I should hate you for being tempted to compromise your principles for material things like that
xx_XX: but I can't. Fuck. I'd have been tempted if I'd been in your place.
xx_XX: And yeah. At least the VEs aren't so bad compared to the others.
xx_XX: Okay, you 'pass'.
xx_XX: Listen. LBN.
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: listening
xx_XX: My sister's someone you might want to talk to.
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: i tried. shes not online
xx_XX: Yes. She wouldn't be.
Elsa felt butterflies churn in her stomach. It was purely psychosomatic, even more than it was for someone whose stomach wasn't a cybernetic nutrient extraction system, but that didn't mean it wasn't real.
xx_XX: She was in the attack. She's in Kashira now. You know where.
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: id have visited her anyway if id know. not for info. because i owe her that much
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: how is she?
xx_XX: Bad.
xx_XX: Listen. LBN. If you find who was behind this?
xx_XX: /burn them all/
xx_XX: make them suffer
xx_XX: make them pay
LessBeanNJAFromSpace: ill try my best
***
It could be a trap. Elsa knows it.
And yet she still goes. She doesn't have anyone else on her side who she can exactly trust with something like this. Maybe it's a product of those years as a consor. Maybe it's just that this is a bit of her life that the Technocracy hasn't touched. Even if the Union as a whole doesn't give a crap that she prefers the company of women - and self-righteously tends to pride itself in its apathy, in a very Western way - she has a habit of keeping things of that ilk out of the sight of authorities. She discovered her sexuality in 00s Russia, and that wasn't a good place for people like her.
Of course, neither was 90s Russia. She was born in '87 which meant she got a special childhood first hand view of everything going to shit.
But It's not a trap. Elsa almost would have preferred it. Traps are things which can be solved, usually by punching straight through them with extreme violence. This wasn't one, though. It was a hideout around 100km south of Moscow, in Kashira.
Hideout. Hah. Call it what it was. It was a hospital run by someone friendly to the Adepts with some consors on staff. A place for someone to vanish and be fixed up at the same time. Also a place with a padded and EM-shielded basement where someone with a vitae-addiction could be locked in to detox while they tried to find a brain specialist to burn out the habit. That sometimes had to be used.
It's not being used for detox right now, though. It's being used as a hidden place for… for Lidiya. Ludmila's little sister. The little sister of the woman who'd been there for a confused and in-the-closet young woman and had led her into the Adepts and taught her her first consor tricks. Lidiya had been a little sister to her too when she'd been living with Ludmila, for those first few wonderful years when she'd found that the world had been much bigger and more wonderful and... and more magical than she could have thought before. Who'd know her before she'd been LessBeanNJA or Elsa Naryshkin and certainly before she'd been a Void Engineer 2nd Lt.
And now she's lying there, barely breathing, eyes struggling to focus on Elsa's face.
"Hi, Lidiya," Elsa says quietly.
Her mouth opens and closes, as Lidiya struggles to say anything. "'Nya," she manages finally. "W-w-w-what are y-you d-doing here?"
"I heard you… you were hurt," Elsa says, feeling absolutely shitty about the fact that she wants information from her too.
"... h-heard… s-something 'bout y-you, 'Nya." Lidiya frowns. "Can't 'member what. It was. 'Portant. Some'in h-happened to y-you. C-can't 'member." She closes her eyes, and drifts off.
Elsa sits by her bedside, shoulders hunched over. The room is cold and white and sterile. It reminds her of her own painful recuperation in that first cyberbody. She spent a year in rehab and therapy, trying to get used to the fact that her brain had been cut out of her maimed and crippled body and put in a HITMark IV's cybercerebrum. Not the newest kind of IV, either. It had been what was available. The damage had been so horrific that she has to believe that the Series-P had orders to make her suffer but make sure she lived. So they could offer her ghoulification as a way of getting any quality of life back at all.
Fuck that. She might had had a clumsy FRANKENMark made up of whatever bits they could salvage for that first body, but better someone trapped in a cybershell with no sense of touch than a vampire slave. She is… she'd been a Virtual Adept. The Net had been her way to escape her body until they'd improved it.
But she was the lucky one here, compared to Lidiya. Elsa had just had her body crippled. She was up and moving again once she was used to being a full body cyborg. But she's talked to the doctor.
Lidiya's fried.
Muscle coordination, shot to pieces. Speech centres, damaged. Memory, swiss-cheesed. What happened is like a stroke. Her headware - a late 80s experimental QDEI she's had since before she was decanted - literally melted, and took out bits of her brain around it.
They said she's still alive because she de-rezzed her own implants before they could do too much damage, but… but the implants are part of who she was. Who she'd been as long as Elsa had known her. They were run-aways from an Iteration X lab-school for 'gifted and talented youths' which had been 'sold off' in the nineties. To a SPD Syndic. They'd gone back with the Adepts and burned the place to the ground.
They weren't really sisters, either, but it was easier to talk about them as sisters than explain the fact that they were both Ludmillas - a rejected late 80s L-Series upgrade package with a quantum computer in the head. Lidiya was younger than Ludmilla, so they were sisters to anyone who asked.
"'Nya." Lidiya is speaking, eyes still closed. "There's some'in out there. On the Net. Y-you have to help g-get them out. They're trapped in its k-killin' fields. Black ICE. Everywhere. Frozen. W-worms in the ICE. S-s-so m-many attack programmes. They w-went for us. B-before we s-saw it. People w-were turning. Worms in their head. G-getting in. Re-writing them. T-taking over. It pl-played with us. M-machine wh-whispers in my h-head. Telling me. What to do. L-like they used to do. When I was little."
Her lips twist into a bitter smile.
"I d-don't listen to. The 'Cracy anymore. It. Got angry. Changed the landscape. Sp-split us up. C-controlled the space. M-managed to rewrite its control. It's v-very good. Not perfect. 'Nough people working together, 'Nya. You can find people to save them. Like PICO. G-get… out..."
Elsa helplessly grips her hand. How to tell her that PICO's been missing for two weeks? That his cabal hasn't seen him - and if what Lidiya says is right, he might have been taken over.
Oh. Shit. That's what it might be playing at. Virtual Adept sleeper agents, maybe. Or maybe not sleeper agents. Maybe false flags. Waiting to attack anyone who tries to attack it and pin the blame on the Adepts. So it looks like they're working with it. Get the Void Engineers trying to purge the Virtual Adepts for the fear that they're compromised by the Autopolitans.
Because some of them are.
Shitfuck. VOIDCOM needs to know.
"Things are going to be okay, Lidiya," she says weakly.
"N-n-no! They're not! It… it came! It's out there! On the web!" Lidiya's eyes snap open, pupils pinpoints. "I… I c-can't go b-b-back. It's out there! It's… it could be waiting." Her breaths come fast. "D-do you have any c-computers on you, 'Nya? T-turn them off! Turn them all off!"
Elsa acts swiftly. "I will, I will," she says, making an act of taking out her phone and turning it off. It had already been off, of course, so no one could track her down. But Lidiya doesn't need to know that, and might help calm her down.
"W-w-w-what if it heard us?" Lidiya frets.
"It didn't," Elsa reassures her. "I was running anti-tracking programmes and an air-gap."
"G-g-good." Lidiya takes a deep breath. "I s-saw it," she confides. "It… it'll remember it. And… and it melted my QDEI. I… I cut out. Fr-fragged my link. B-b-b-basilisk hax. It… it kills. On sight. It c-came for us. M-my head still hurts. H-had to get my QDEI out and… stop it singing. It w-wanted me to. Obey. Obey. D-didn't want to." She tries to smile at Elsa. "'Milla and 'Nya'd b-be so d-disappointed in me if... if I did what it wants."
"You… you did well," Elsa says, trying not to cry. Poor Lidiya. She leans over her and gives her a hug. "You managed to hold it off. Even though it c-cost you."
"Ever'in' is s-so slow," Lidiya says quietly. "B-but with the QDEI out of m' head. M-maybe it won't find me."
"I'll try to stop it finding you," Elsa promises. "You're in the hospital in Kashira. You'll have plenty of time to… to rest. And stay safe while you get better."
"How'd I… I get here?" Lidiya asks, confused. "I… I was… I can't 'member where I was. I… I don't think. Kashira."
"There's a hospital here," Elsa says reassuringly. "And a hideout, remember? We took you here because you're hurt."
"... yes. That m-makes sense, Anya," Lidiya says, eyes drifting shut again. She shivers. "Wh'r's m' sis?" she asks groggily.
"I talked with her online. She told me to come here. I'm sure she'll be along," Elsa says. She doesn't say that she knows that Ludmilla has already been and gone. If Lidiya doesn't even remember that, then she… she probably won't remember that Elsa has been and gone either. "I… I'm so sorry about what happened," she says softly. "I… you… I just hope you get better."
Of course she'd get better. Ludmilla would be able to find someone to help her. She had to have favours, right? Someone who could help heal brain injuries. Enough so even if she'd never be the same again without the QDEI, she'd be… be almost okay. She had to!
Elsa leans over and kisses her on the brow softly.
There's a cough from behind her.
There's someone here - a consor here to watch the Technocrat who's got an AK loaded with HV rounds. It's a formality because it's not like a consor could do more than slow down a combat cyborg like her who can move far faster than a baseline, but it's still an intrusion. Still something ruining this moment. She wishes the armed doctor was gone.
"I'm going to reach into my pocket and take out a purse," she tells the doctor. "Don't jump."
The doctor still watches her closely as she does exactly that. Elsa pulls out an anonymised, disposable debit card with the PIN stuck on the front on a post-it note. "Here," she says, passing it to him. "To help with her treatment."
It's money Director Belltower gave her for bribes, but she considers this suitable payment for the info Lidiya got her. Of course, she'd have still given it if she hadn't had it, but this way she can justify it.
And the worst thing is that it's not enough. Not for the value of the info she's getting here. Which could be literally priceless. VOIDCOM needs to know. Director Belltower needs to know. And she strongly suspects that the Traditions' internal police will find out one way or another, because if that… that thing is pulling Agent Smith bullshit on people, there's going to have to be a house-cleaning of its pawns.
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Cornuthaum
Be kind to each other.
- Location
- Austria
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It really is not for mortal eyes to gaze upon the form of God. That was nicely done.
- Location
- The end of all things
I'm pretty sure the mythic thread that Rose is tapping into is universal, even if it doesn't directly draw from all cultures. Otherwise Blatancy would be pretty useless for operating in locations with hostile paradigms. The Anathema, for instance, doesn't recognize the existence of vampires as anything other than worthless meat.
I'm beginning to suspect that Jamelia gave Kessler that new body just to so she could use him as a concealable weapon.
[X] Skeptical.
Cornuthaum
Be kind to each other.
- Location
- Austria
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[x] No Fucking Way!
IT IS NOT FOR MORTAL EYES TO GAZE UPON THE FACE OF GOD
Beep bop.
IT IS NOT FOR MORTAL EYES TO GAZE UPON THE FACE OF GOD
Beep bop.
Of course Jamelia is prepared for the Void Engineers coming up and demanding the truth. She's been expecting it since they assigned two enlightened assets and a team of marines to 'help' her. Since not-being-shot-when-it's-not-necessary is one of her driving goals in life, she has several stories, each one tailored for a certain circumstance.
All she has to do is act like a cautious, paranoid old Operative who's secretly hiding that she's found something way over her head and is concealing her desperation under layers and layers of obfuscation and misdirection.
It comes naturally, really.
"Not here," Jamelia says quietly. "I don't trust that you are who you claim to be. This was meant to be a secure and private meeting, which means I can't trust my existing security precautions. You showed up uninvited and that means my defences appear to be flawed. So I believe I will need to take a little bit of time to verify such small things as 'you're not a MUSCOVITE agent' and 'no one followed you here' and then perhaps we can resume our conversation." She narrows her eyes. "And you know very well," she adds, "that protocol dictates I do this even if I didn't know anything else." She lays the bait. "Unless you come with valid Control codes that would override standard procedure, which would of course completely change things."
She sees if he bites, one way or another. It's the truth. If he tries to use a Control code on her, she'll go loud. That would completely change things. But it also lays the seeds that 'she doesn't know quite enough' since her entire attitude and manner is such that she would accept those codes. And of course, it really is standard protocol. Protocol is such a convenient excuse for not doing things you don't want to do.
Barret raises his hands in mock surrender. "Quite understandable," he says. "I could explain how it was quite difficult to find you, but then you wouldn't believe me, would you? But we will talk, or this conversation goes no further."
Jamelia offers him a quiet smile, and then brings out a handheld device. "Mr Brown, I need you," she says into it.
Bowman shakes her head wearily, but says nothing else. It's unclear whether she's exasperated by standard NWO paranoia, or the Void Engineers showing up and ruining things.
There's a knock at the door, and a blandly handsome man presents himself. "Ma'am," he says flatly. "Orders? Who are these unidentified units?"
"Please run full identifying scans on them. That's what I want to find out."
"Affirmative."
"Who is this?" Barret asks.
"Unit modified with extensive sensor packages and full autistic isolation from remote access," Jamelia says, implying he's a HITMark variant but not quite saying it outright. "For when mirrorshades just can't fit in enough sensory gear. Go ahead, Mr Brown."
"Affirmative," says Kessler.
[Kessler - lots of 1 ranking spheres - Look, he has so many forms of sensory equipment in there. Check the two newcomers with Life and Spirit to check that they're human, do the soul check thing to confirm that they're Awakened mages, Prime to look for active effects on them like remote control, etc. Enhanced with Perception + Alertness, duh.]
And this gives her a chance to act, while everyone else is distracted by the newcomer. Keeping the device in her hand, she taps a button. It's all just mummery, because what she's actually doing is using her psychic powers to compose a monodirectional message to Barret, emulating the Void Engineer designs of short-range dimensional disruption communicators. She's studied the standards and can fake it with her mind.
Her simple morse code message is quite to the point.
HOW SAFE TO TALK IN FRONT OF NON UNION MEMBERS STOP IF WE ARE TO DISCUSS THIS PREFER IT TO BE PRIVATE STOP V CLASSIFIED STOP
[Jamelia - DSci 2, Entropy 1 - It just requires a little more finesse to produce a monodirectional dimensional pulse with her powers and blink it on and off with morse code, so it only targets Barret (as compared to the standard omnidirectional pulse which doesn't use Entropy 1 for target discrimination). She has to assume he has the standard issue listening systems that the Engineers use for these communications purposes. Not that she's letting on that she's using powers, however. No, she's fiddling with something in a pocket, about the right size and shape to be a standard issue communicator. Enhanced by Manipulation + Subterfuge, for her sneaky subtle NWO sneakery for pretending to be using a standard communicator]
Jamelia waits for a response - or any sign of a reaction from him. The way he detects it, if he detects it, will be interesting indeed and tell her something about how he's outfitted. If it turns out he isn't carrying such a communicator, she'll just ask to take him aside into a separate room on the grounds that - rightfully - certain elements of this are classified. And she'll make sure to take 'Mr Brown' with her, for his help in 'jamming electronic listening'.
And if Kessler tells her that some of them aren't who they claim to be - well. Then that changes everything.
All she has to do is act like a cautious, paranoid old Operative who's secretly hiding that she's found something way over her head and is concealing her desperation under layers and layers of obfuscation and misdirection.
It comes naturally, really.
"Not here," Jamelia says quietly. "I don't trust that you are who you claim to be. This was meant to be a secure and private meeting, which means I can't trust my existing security precautions. You showed up uninvited and that means my defences appear to be flawed. So I believe I will need to take a little bit of time to verify such small things as 'you're not a MUSCOVITE agent' and 'no one followed you here' and then perhaps we can resume our conversation." She narrows her eyes. "And you know very well," she adds, "that protocol dictates I do this even if I didn't know anything else." She lays the bait. "Unless you come with valid Control codes that would override standard procedure, which would of course completely change things."
She sees if he bites, one way or another. It's the truth. If he tries to use a Control code on her, she'll go loud. That would completely change things. But it also lays the seeds that 'she doesn't know quite enough' since her entire attitude and manner is such that she would accept those codes. And of course, it really is standard protocol. Protocol is such a convenient excuse for not doing things you don't want to do.
Barret raises his hands in mock surrender. "Quite understandable," he says. "I could explain how it was quite difficult to find you, but then you wouldn't believe me, would you? But we will talk, or this conversation goes no further."
Jamelia offers him a quiet smile, and then brings out a handheld device. "Mr Brown, I need you," she says into it.
Bowman shakes her head wearily, but says nothing else. It's unclear whether she's exasperated by standard NWO paranoia, or the Void Engineers showing up and ruining things.
There's a knock at the door, and a blandly handsome man presents himself. "Ma'am," he says flatly. "Orders? Who are these unidentified units?"
"Please run full identifying scans on them. That's what I want to find out."
"Affirmative."
"Who is this?" Barret asks.
"Unit modified with extensive sensor packages and full autistic isolation from remote access," Jamelia says, implying he's a HITMark variant but not quite saying it outright. "For when mirrorshades just can't fit in enough sensory gear. Go ahead, Mr Brown."
"Affirmative," says Kessler.
[Kessler - lots of 1 ranking spheres - Look, he has so many forms of sensory equipment in there. Check the two newcomers with Life and Spirit to check that they're human, do the soul check thing to confirm that they're Awakened mages, Prime to look for active effects on them like remote control, etc. Enhanced with Perception + Alertness, duh.]
And this gives her a chance to act, while everyone else is distracted by the newcomer. Keeping the device in her hand, she taps a button. It's all just mummery, because what she's actually doing is using her psychic powers to compose a monodirectional message to Barret, emulating the Void Engineer designs of short-range dimensional disruption communicators. She's studied the standards and can fake it with her mind.
Her simple morse code message is quite to the point.
HOW SAFE TO TALK IN FRONT OF NON UNION MEMBERS STOP IF WE ARE TO DISCUSS THIS PREFER IT TO BE PRIVATE STOP V CLASSIFIED STOP
[Jamelia - DSci 2, Entropy 1 - It just requires a little more finesse to produce a monodirectional dimensional pulse with her powers and blink it on and off with morse code, so it only targets Barret (as compared to the standard omnidirectional pulse which doesn't use Entropy 1 for target discrimination). She has to assume he has the standard issue listening systems that the Engineers use for these communications purposes. Not that she's letting on that she's using powers, however. No, she's fiddling with something in a pocket, about the right size and shape to be a standard issue communicator. Enhanced by Manipulation + Subterfuge, for her sneaky subtle NWO sneakery for pretending to be using a standard communicator]
Jamelia waits for a response - or any sign of a reaction from him. The way he detects it, if he detects it, will be interesting indeed and tell her something about how he's outfitted. If it turns out he isn't carrying such a communicator, she'll just ask to take him aside into a separate room on the grounds that - rightfully - certain elements of this are classified. And she'll make sure to take 'Mr Brown' with her, for his help in 'jamming electronic listening'.
And if Kessler tells her that some of them aren't who they claim to be - well. Then that changes everything.
Amorous Intent
Love the future
- Location
- Octavia, Venus
- Pronouns
- She/her
Command doesn't have valid Control codes. They're "just" an interim coalition loyally holding down the fort until Control comes back to take over. Thanks to that slim justification, everyone still has to accept Control codes, even if no one can give them except in extremely narrow circumstances. For a Control code overriding standard protocol? That's going to require a fresh Control code, from Threat Null itself.
Kerrus
Fractal Insanity
We can't just blather about above top secret info before traditionalists. That's why ES's writein doesn't have Jamelia blatheirng about above top secret information before traditionalists.