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Petals of Titanium -- My Life as a Mecha Setting Bridge Bunny Quest

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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Yun said:
[x] Quietly attempt to break the code yourself before you report it.

Well if the scam noise is actually useful it might be an explanation for why the station is silent, or even better a encoded beacon leading to mostly intact salvage from the start of the war.
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Nah, this is mecha so it's 100% enemy signal traffic and Phoebe is silent because it was taken out by their vanguard units.

[x] Quietly attempt to break the code yourself before you report it.

Or, you know, it's not and this'll land us in hot water with our direct superior :V
 
I think it's fairly obvious that this is a significant thing, probably a stealthy enemy spy ship or something because that's how things go.

Looking over the options:
Gazetteer said:
[x] Attempt to report your findings to Mazlo once again.
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This is probably the way that standard procedure would indicate for us, and would insure our findings are communicated. It does, however, risk our boss's ire and we don't have anything to show for ourselves yet (other than some random words). A choice that would be excellent if we expected to be tried for incompetence, but is otherwise kind of mediocre.

Gazetteer said:
[x] Quietly attempt to break the code yourself before you report it.
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A better choice in my opinion, as we make sure we definitely have something before we poke the grouchy and unpleasant boss. This does risk the source of the signal revealing itself before we finish it to possibly disasterous results. I'd prefer this over the other one as it makes sure Mazlo can't screw with us, and if the captain arrives before we're done, we can report to her instead.

Gazetteer said:
[x] Save a copy of the data and focus on ordinary work for the rest of your shift.
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Obviously a bad option, and the ordinary work has nothing of value going on.

[x] Quietly attempt to break the code yourself before you report it.
 
[x] Quietly attempt to break the code yourself before you report it.

Honestly it just seems like the thing to do- we seem to be of the opinion this is important, and if we can suss out the mystery in time it might let us keep from having to change ships near immeadiately.
 
[x] Quietly attempt to break the code yourself before you report it.
 
[x] Attempt to report your findings to Mazlo once again.

Trying to break the code quietly is probably going to end with North either figuring it out 30 seconds before the enemy attacks or missing something else important as she focuses on playing cryptographer. Telling Mazlo now is probably going to get the Ensign yelled at, but may also draw the First Officer's (or whoever has the watch's) attention, potentially convincing him to increase the ship's readiness. And even if it doesn't, having North focusing on the scans instead of the message is arguably preferable if there's an attack imminent.
 
[x] Attempt to report your findings to Mazlo once again.
Money where your mouth is. If she thinks the message is worth looking into she should act like it is worth looking into rather than go behind her CO's back.
 
Auks said:
[x] Attempt to report your findings to Mazlo once again.

Trying to break the code quietly is probably going to end with North either figuring it out 30 seconds before the enemy attacks or missing something else important as she focuses on playing cryptographer. Telling Mazlo now is probably going to get the Ensign yelled at, but may also draw the First Officer's (or whoever has the watch's) attention, potentially convincing him to increase the ship's readiness. And even if it doesn't, having North focusing on the scans instead of the message is arguably preferable if there's an attack imminent.
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It didn't draw his attention last time, and he's in a worse mood now. He's going to blow us off, and we're going to end up doing regular work, and any information that could be gained via the decryption is lost. While it's possible that we could only discover it 30 seconds before the enemy attacks, this is also the main thing we're good at- I honestly feel like it'd be kinda dirty pool to give us a skill and then punish us for using it the first time we're capable of doing so; it's equally possible that if this even is a code indicating an attack pattern or the like (it might be, it might be something totally different) that we'll decode it ahead of time and thereby be able to alert people as to the situation- the best case is as equally plausible as the worst case.

And there is currently nothing showing up on the scans- it's possible that there will be soon, but the whole idea that the encoded message is a sign for an attack on us is pretty flagrant speculation. And honestly, I feel like I can use your own argument against you here- who is to say that by the time the enemy clearly shows up on the scans and the intent is clear, it won't be too late to escape? We chose this as a skill. Why not take advantage of it while we have the chance?
 
Broken Base said:
We chose this as a skill. Why not take advantage of it while we have the chance?
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I feel like this may well be the best argument to make in any case. We can speculate on how badly Mazlo will take us interrupting him again or whether or not he'll be too much of an ass to give us the attention what we found deserves, but that's all down to interpretation of his character. What we can say for absolute certain, though, is that we have a code that can be decrypted, and we are good at decrypting. We took this skill, and we've been presented with an opportunity to use it, and, potentially, to use it to great effect.
 
Besides, Mazlo has been known to be a grumpy man, the lack of shore leave and the stress from work is only going to make that worse. If we're gonna approach him, we need to have proof to rub on his stubborn face.
 
While using your talent is not always going to be the right call or yield good results, your talent is something you are improbably good at for your age and training -- this is a genre filled with absurdly young people who are absurdly knowledgeable and capable. So you can generally assume that if you vote to use your talent, it's not going to be "and so you find out nothing new or useful and completely waste your time." That time may have been better spent in a different way, or the problem could have been better approached otherwise, but the way you've voted, finding and decoding weird transmissions is your jam.

If this were an RPG, you'd be the crew member who periodically offers side missions because you found a garbled distress signal or something. I legitimately kind of think of your choices as translating to "Much-less-awkward Samantha Traynor."
 
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