Onward - To New Frontiers! (Torchship Playtest Quest)

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RULES
LORE BIBLE (WIP)

Seriously y'all, this is an open_sketch/DragonCobolt quest. It's gonna get spicy.
We'll put all the NSFW stuff behind spoilers but like, for real.
Also also: There will be drug use in this quest, it's the space 60s. Many, but not all drugs will be fictional.​
 
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[X] Act honestly and openly - you overheard them, let them know it.

[X] Invite Tai'lon to talk and convince them that he is not some kind of political commissioner.

This seems like a good opportunity for Tai'lon to shine. His personal experiences and willingness to condemn the Aquillian empire could probably do more to convince them that Humanity really won the war than any easily fabricated historical documents.
 
Ct613hulu said:
This seems like a good opportunity for Tai'lon to shine. His personal experiences and willingness to condemn the Aquillian empire could probably do more to convince them that Humanity really won the war than any easily fabricated historical documents.
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Why would they be inclined to believe someone they explicitly think is a sociopath and who, in their view, is integrated into the control system of the empire? For them, anything he says would just be more Aquillian lies.
 
I was thinking about how different he is from the stereotypical depiction of an Aquillian officer. My perspective is that his willingness to criticize the Aquillian Empire and talk about his service in Star Patrol would be more compelling than computer files. It would also directly contradict their image of him as the secret mastermind controlling the brainwashed members of a Fake Star Patrol Vessel.
 
The misunderstandings are making me anxious... 😅

[X] Act honestly and openly - you overheard them, let them know it.
[X] Bury them in data - the fall of the empire actually happened and you've got the history books to prove it.
 
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[X] Act honestly and openly - you overheard them, let them know it.

[X] Invite Tai'lon to talk and convince them that he is not some kind of political commissioner.
— Tag his By the Book trait by making as formal as a debrief of the hows/whys of the Empires collapse as possible, including whatever arrangement was made to get him on a boat captained by a Vet. of the war (with the scars and certs to prove it)

a long shot, but:
[x] if the Scropian crew or the Nomads have any pychics, let them pick someone's brain?
 
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[X] Act honestly and openly - you overheard them, let them know it.

Also, uh, did anyone explain that the old Solar Patrol got split into Star Works, Star Rescue, Star Force, and Star Patrol? And that the Star Patrol is not a military arm but a hippie research university with antimatter and FTL drives?

To some extent I think they will trust our captain, because she was in the Solar Patrol.

And as for the old memories of the Aquillian POWs, just remember that the Aquillians unironically did "The beatings will continue until morale improves."
 
I do wonder if there's a way to just kind of instantly disprove that we're auxiliaries. You know something that's timeless enough that Slade and the rest would instantly know but also something that under absolutely no circumstances would any kind of colonial junior officer, secret commissar, or bourgie civilian observer desperately trying to ape their aristocratic betters would ever allow themselves to participate in for the sake of their Aquillian honor...

...Say do we happen to have some recordings of the Newton's karaoke night and Mr. Tal'on's performance therein?
 
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[X] Act honestly and openly - you overheard them, let them know it.
[X] Offer to transfer any relevant historical documents proving that the Aquillian Empire has collapsed.
 
bookwyrm said:
I do wonder if there's a way to just kind of instantly disprove that we're auxiliaries. You know something that's timeless enough that Slade and the rest would instantly know but also something that under absolutely no circumstances would any kind of colonial junior officer, secret commissar, or bourgie civilian observer desperately trying to ape their aristocratic betters would ever allow themselves to participate in for the sake of their Aquillian honor...

...Say do we happen to have some recordings of the Newton's karaoke night and Mr. Tal'on's performance therein?
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Genius.

Sheer genius.
 
[X] Act honestly and openly - you overheard them, let them know it.

I'm still hoping to de-escalate the situation. We all ultimately have the same (or at least not-contradictory) goals.

Could we just email them the last 20-some years of news reports, documentaries, etc? Would the Aquillians put so much effort into pretending to have lost a war 800 years ago?

Hell, here's a thought.
[X] Send them a copy of the movie from the start of the episode. Would Aquillians put that much production value into a lie about losing a war?
 
[X] Act honestly and openly - you overheard them, let them know it.

[X] Invite Tai'lon to talk and convince them that he is not some kind of political commissioner.
— Tag his By the Book trait by making as formal as a debrief of the hows/whys of the Empires collapse as possible, including whatever arrangement was made to get him on a boat captained by a Vet. of the war (with the scars and certs to prove it)


How long was the Empire-Earth war again?

Hmm if they didn't check their math very well... Could they have looked for an excuse to just not go back?
 
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[X] Bury them in data - the fall of the empire actually happened and you've got the history books to prove it.

OOC: Are there any veterans on our crew the runners might know?
 
Elero said:
If it meant disarming a doomsday ship capable of wiping out several planets? Maybe.
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Fair point. But would Aquillians have had time to prepare so much faked footage?

Even the Scorpion crew have to admit that it's unlikely that the Aquillians would outfit every human auxiliary ship with such elaborate lies on the off chance that they ran into a bizarre situation like this.
 
The problem is that the Runner fleet is already acting highly irrational.

If we truly were Aquilans, we would never have come aboard the ship.
If Tai'lon truly was an Inquisitor, he would have gladly sacrificed the captured auxilary crew for sending out a message.

On top of that we have to considered that the Runner fleet is operating on essentially zero knowledge about the Aquilans.

DragonCobolt said:
They first is they were our first bussard ram equipped FTL rockets, with a theoretical range in average density space of almost four hundred light years without stopping to take on remass, and at remarkably low radiation signature. The second is that they were equipped with passive cryogenic suspension systems, based on the ones used on Aquillian mining stations, which would allow the crew to enter suspended animation for as long as three decades if needed.
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The Scorpions were build very early in the war, given that they are the first bussard ram equiped FTL rockets, so I think they predate even the Liberty rockets.
What information they had at the time was what they could salvage from the fleet that attacked Sol, and maybe some nearby platforms they overran.
The Runners meanwhile know nothing more than what they could glean from random broadcasts.

Given that with a bit over 20 years distance, the guy can no longer recognize human civilization, I don't think we should count on him not believing that the Aquilans have changed in 900 years.


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Anyway, the problem is that the Runner Fleet is already teetering on the point of a conspiracy. They fear the Aquilans, and I'm not sure that an approach which plays into their expectations of the conspiracy (namely, transmitting a bunch of propaganda) will help, even if logically it should. Because what's happening here is fear, combined with what I suspect with an inability from the human personnel to accept the truth. Note how it is the human commanders onboard the Scorpion who are the ones proposing that we're an elaborate fraud, while it's the Runners who're advocating patience and different options.

So, we need a response to that fear, beyond just mere logic.
 
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[X] Act honestly and openly - you overheard them, let them know it.
[X] Send them security footage of tai'lon interacting socially with the crew, preferably in some way that an aqualian soldier would find beneath them.

I know that the karaoke thing what is a joke, they liked it.
 
[JK] Oh no! We're having computer problems and every single one of our techies is stuck to in malfunctioning bathroom. Please come over and comb through our entire mainframe. Literally all of it; procedures and such. You know how it is.
What's that? It's deliberate ham-fisted self-inflicted sabotage? Oh, looks like a prank got out of hand. You know how it is, on long hauls.
 
10ebbor10 said:
The problem is that the Runner fleet is already acting highly irrational.

If we truly were Aquilans, we would never have come aboard the ship.
If Tai'lon truly was an Inquisitor, he would have gladly sacrificed the captured auxilary crew for sending out a message.

On top of that we have to considered that the Runner fleet is operating on essentially zero knowledge about the Aquilans.



The Scorpions were build very early in the war, given that they are the first bussard ram equiped FTL rockets, so I think they predate even the Liberty rockets.
What information they had at the time was what they could salvage from the fleet that attacked Sol, and maybe some nearby platforms they overran.
The Runners meanwhile know nothing more than what they could glean from random broadcasts.

Given that with a bit over 20 years distance, the guy can no longer recognize human civilization, I don't think we should count on him not believing that the Aquilans have changed in 900 years.


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Anyway, the problem is that the Runner Fleet is already teetering on the point of a conspiracy. They fear the Aquilans, and I'm not sure that an approach which plays into their expectations of the conspiracy (namely, transmitting a bunch of propaganda) will help, even if logically it should. Because what's happening here is fear, combined with what I suspect with an inability from the human personnel to accept the truth. Note how it is the human commanders onboard the Scorpion who are the ones proposing that we're an elaborate fraud, while it's the Runners who're advocating patience and different options.

So, we need a response to that fear, beyond just mere logic.
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Well, their fear is actually a rational one. And the points that they made are likewise reasonable. In fact, they're kinda-sorta correct.

Telling them about the Divine Empire or whatever it's called might actually help us here. There's a massive chunk of the Aquillian Empire that's still out there and as awful as ever. The war caused their overextended and empire to fracture, not disintegrate, and some of those fractions are democratic leaning and allied with us against the ones who aren't.

Basically, they want to be afraid of the enemy they were prepared and trained for, so let's give them what they want. It's not lying, just presenting the truth from the right angle.
 
You know it's actully kind of strange that the crew of the scorpion (and by extion the runner fleet) are oblivous to the fact that the emipre has fallen.

Like they should have heard of it's (the empire's) fall from any of the Antimatter-Age civllations the runners trade with other since this event is litually galaxy changing.
 
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