- Location
- United States
[X] Tell him about his mistake out loud, drawing attention to it
Petals of Titanium -- My Life as a Mecha Setting Bridge Bunny Quest
- Thread starter Gazetteer
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Third planet from the star named Sol
- Pronouns
- He/They
[X] Quietly send Mazlo a message alerting him to his mistake without embarrassing him
- Location
- Canada
Yeah, I think that was a bit unclear. I was kind of under the assumption that if North did it herself, the information would... somehow magically get to where it needed to go, without antagonizing Mazlo? Or even alerting the Captain?
It sounds really weird now that I think about it.
[X] Quietly send Mazlo a message alerting him to his mistake without embarrassing him
Ideally with some sort of "no, I wasn't trying to screw you over earlier, and I'd prefer we do our jobs well without this petty bullshit" tag.
I'd prefer to mend fences with him, if possible. For a couple reasons:
First, because "awash in an endless sea of spite" is not actually a healthy or useful working environment at the best of times. But it is very unhealthy in a high-stakes combat environment where everyone coordinating quickly and efficiently is a matter of life and death for us and for the people under our care.
Secondly, because I do feel a measure of sympathy for Mazlo. Mazlo was a dick, yes. In response to... us very nearly wrecking his career by accident. And he doesn't necessarily know it's an accident. It's quite possible that he thinks he made a reasonable but incorrect call, and that his subordinate responded to that by going out of her way to completely screw him on purpose.
(Also, for whatever reason, the accidental nature of it also bothers me more than if we'd actually set out to sink him with malice aforethought. We weren't out to get him the first time, he just had really shitty luck that the first officer happened to be right behind North when she figured it out and reacted and things snowballed from there.)
Like, imagine if we were playing MazloQuest instead of NorthQuest:
The above seems largely in line with the sort of choices we've seen throughout the quest where every answer is probably going to bite you somehow. That particular outcome is likely not how I'd have voted, but at the same time doesn't seem super unreasonable as a choice.
But then imagine the next update was "North ignores your orders and continues signals processing, and rather than report to you, she skips up the chain of command to report directly to the first officer. It turns out that the random noise was, in fact, possible hostile fleet movements. She gets a commendation out of it. You get a private dressing-down, and likely a note in your permanent career file that you saw a signal indicating hostile action and ordered your subordinate to ignore it."
Can you imagine how completely fucking furious we, the hypothetical MazloQuest players, would be with North – and possibly the QM – if that happened? On top of that, it put Mazlo in a position where he had to bring back something amazing to not look like some kind of arch-fuckup.
So when the coded signal opportunity came up in MazloQuest, I can absolutely see us, the players, saying "A chance to rescue our career, and do so at Ensign North's expense? YES. She broke the chain of command to screw us over, it's payback time."
So: I don't think being at war with our immediate boss is helpful to anyone, especially when we're supposed to be working together to avoid us and all our friends getting massacred. I can see why, from his perspective, he might think we were going out of our way to screw him. Now that he's unfucked his career from the damage we accidentally did to it and "gotten one over on us," I think there may be an opportunity to mend fences. I would like to do so – continuing to have to deal with this petty bullshit with a war on is irritating on a personal level (and as a player, I can't say I enjoy it), and is also likely to get people killed down the line if we just dive deeper into spite-fueled undermining of each other.
That said, it might not be possible to mend fences. While I have some measure of sympathy based on what we know now, on further investigation it might turn out that no, he really is just a pure selfish jerk, or the sort of asshole who thinks that us offering an olive branch is surrendering at some sort of prison-rules workplace dominance bullshit, no matter that lives are on the line.
So the other purpose of making a clear peace overture is that, if he won't take a reasonable peace offering, then I'd take that as grounds to commence Operation Fuck Mazlo Over And Get Him Out Of Our Life As Quickly As Possible.
I'd prefer a peaceful resolution. The Titanium Rose is front and center in a Sci-Fi Anime Plot and there's going to be credit enough to have everyone set for life if we don't all fuck up and die, and I think we can do plenty well on our merits if left to do our job without friendly fire. But if the only way out of this Mazlo crap really is to go through him, then I would like to clearly establish that now, and then we can go forward knowing that getting rid of him as efficiently as possible really is the best course for practical reasons and that he is deserving of any shit-wrecking we do along the way.
Ideally with some sort of "no, I wasn't trying to screw you over earlier, and I'd prefer we do our jobs well without this petty bullshit" tag.
I'd prefer to mend fences with him, if possible. For a couple reasons:
First, because "awash in an endless sea of spite" is not actually a healthy or useful working environment at the best of times. But it is very unhealthy in a high-stakes combat environment where everyone coordinating quickly and efficiently is a matter of life and death for us and for the people under our care.
Secondly, because I do feel a measure of sympathy for Mazlo. Mazlo was a dick, yes. In response to... us very nearly wrecking his career by accident. And he doesn't necessarily know it's an accident. It's quite possible that he thinks he made a reasonable but incorrect call, and that his subordinate responded to that by going out of her way to completely screw him on purpose.
(Also, for whatever reason, the accidental nature of it also bothers me more than if we'd actually set out to sink him with malice aforethought. We weren't out to get him the first time, he just had really shitty luck that the first officer happened to be right behind North when she figured it out and reacted and things snowballed from there.)
Like, imagine if we were playing MazloQuest instead of NorthQuest:
Article: You are Sub-Lieutenant Mazlo. Your attempts to establish contact with Phoebe Central have been unsuccessful. The main culprit appears to be ring particle interference. Your first several efforts to compensate for this have now failed. You are now four hours overdue.
You are in the middle of reconfiguring the transmission array, again, when Ensign North comes to you. She has a question about scan noise on the sensor readings from the mecha squadron; she thinks it's too random for natural system noise. At first look you can't tell if she's correct. You're not sure why she was even looking so closely at this, since it's at best peripheral to her assigned duties. Ensign North is extremely keen and so far has demonstrated a talent for sensor work. However, that keenness has her chafing at the tedium of a job that often includes long stretches of boredom, and she may be jumping to find a pattern where there isn't one.
[ ] You're going in circles on the communications problem. Maybe focusing on North's question for a while would clear your head and help you come up with some new ideas... though if it doesn't, you'll be even later than you would be otherwise. At least you'll find out if she's got something real.
[ ] You've failed several times to correct the interference problem, and you're running low on new ideas. Having a fresh pair of eyes on the problem would help. North is talented with signals problems and isn't running on zero hours of sleep. You can draft her to help with your interference problem, though this would take her from her normal duties for a while – and would make it obvious to everyone on the bridge that you need the help.
[X] Establishing contact with Phoebe is your primary responsibility right now. Tell the ensign not to bother you right now while you make another attempt to establish contact with Phoebe. (Reroll contact attempt.)
- [ ] It may not be what she's supposed to be focusing on, but she's been good at her job so far. Let her trust her instincts. Encourage North to look into the mecha squadron's sensor noise on her own.
- [X] There's no apparent pattern to the signal, and by the book she's already spent a bit longer than is warranted staring at sensor noise. Tell North to focus on her primary duties.
The above seems largely in line with the sort of choices we've seen throughout the quest where every answer is probably going to bite you somehow. That particular outcome is likely not how I'd have voted, but at the same time doesn't seem super unreasonable as a choice.
But then imagine the next update was "North ignores your orders and continues signals processing, and rather than report to you, she skips up the chain of command to report directly to the first officer. It turns out that the random noise was, in fact, possible hostile fleet movements. She gets a commendation out of it. You get a private dressing-down, and likely a note in your permanent career file that you saw a signal indicating hostile action and ordered your subordinate to ignore it."
Can you imagine how completely fucking furious we, the hypothetical MazloQuest players, would be with North – and possibly the QM – if that happened? On top of that, it put Mazlo in a position where he had to bring back something amazing to not look like some kind of arch-fuckup.
So when the coded signal opportunity came up in MazloQuest, I can absolutely see us, the players, saying "A chance to rescue our career, and do so at Ensign North's expense? YES. She broke the chain of command to screw us over, it's payback time."
So: I don't think being at war with our immediate boss is helpful to anyone, especially when we're supposed to be working together to avoid us and all our friends getting massacred. I can see why, from his perspective, he might think we were going out of our way to screw him. Now that he's unfucked his career from the damage we accidentally did to it and "gotten one over on us," I think there may be an opportunity to mend fences. I would like to do so – continuing to have to deal with this petty bullshit with a war on is irritating on a personal level (and as a player, I can't say I enjoy it), and is also likely to get people killed down the line if we just dive deeper into spite-fueled undermining of each other.
That said, it might not be possible to mend fences. While I have some measure of sympathy based on what we know now, on further investigation it might turn out that no, he really is just a pure selfish jerk, or the sort of asshole who thinks that us offering an olive branch is surrendering at some sort of prison-rules workplace dominance bullshit, no matter that lives are on the line.
So the other purpose of making a clear peace overture is that, if he won't take a reasonable peace offering, then I'd take that as grounds to commence Operation Fuck Mazlo Over And Get Him Out Of Our Life As Quickly As Possible.
I'd prefer a peaceful resolution. The Titanium Rose is front and center in a Sci-Fi Anime Plot and there's going to be credit enough to have everyone set for life if we don't all fuck up and die, and I think we can do plenty well on our merits if left to do our job without friendly fire. But if the only way out of this Mazlo crap really is to go through him, then I would like to clearly establish that now, and then we can go forward knowing that getting rid of him as efficiently as possible really is the best course for practical reasons and that he is deserving of any shit-wrecking we do along the way.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Quietly send Mazlo a message alerting him to his mistake without embarrassing him
Alright I'm convinced enough. We'll have to be satisfied with knowing that he knows that we're better than him.
Alright I'm convinced enough. We'll have to be satisfied with knowing that he knows that we're better than him.
Why are people voting explicitly to embarass him? We're in a potential combat situation, we're going to be in more combat situations, in-fighting among the bridge officers is the absolute last thing we need. If voting trends continue like this, we're in very real danger of putting our pride before the safety of the ship we're on.
[X] Do it yourself while he's still stuck
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
[X] Quietly send Mazlo a message alerting him to his mistake without embarrassing him
AIUI, a lower-ranking officer contradicting a superior when not explicitly asked to do so is doing the career equivalent of playing Russian roulette with a semiauto.
AIUI, a lower-ranking officer contradicting a superior when not explicitly asked to do so is doing the career equivalent of playing Russian roulette with a semiauto.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Please join me next time for Embittered, Aging, Mediocre Bridge Officer Quest in which you do an adequate amount of work, never get promoted and watch more talented or better connected subordinates continuously surpass you.
- Location
- NY
[X] Do it yourself while he's still stuck
Uh the important thing to keep in mind is that North would need to get noticed by J6 who has the ear of royalty, or if that doesn't pan out Grayson, which for the latter is more a matter of maintaining his current opinion of North.