What would Unreasonably Invulnerable be? Solid Core?
The Practice War [Complete]
- Thread starter Snowfire
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
What would Unreasonably Invulnerable be? Solid Core?
Wrong quest?
- Location
- Staring into the void
Amazing omake, but I found this really jarring.
Going from "immune to cold" to 0oC +/- 10o being an issue. It came across as forced to make the scene "cute".
Going from "immune to cold" to 0oC +/- 10o being an issue. It came across as forced to make the scene "cute".
- Location
- Somewhere out there
I think it's SUPPOSED to be jarring. Iris is explicitly playing at teasing her non-human nature, and the contrast between how she knows the human experience ought to feel and the way she's capable of manipulating her senses is, I think, SUPPOSED to poke at the Uncanny Valley.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Well, half that. The other half is, it's the first time she's been in an unpleasant environment and she didn't realize how annoying it'd be.
(The third half is, she's too stubborn at times.)
Iris is a mostly invulnerable super robot (-girl), but her default tuning makes her feel the world like a human form her age would, and she hasn't quite teased out the difference yet.
Last edited:
- Location
- Ekaterinburg, Russia
Actually, I find this exchange can be read as a lame joke. And this fact (not the joke) is hilarious.
No, really.
"What makes a good musician?""The fact they aren't heard."
It's in the same vein as "what is the cheapest way to get to another country?""be born there" joke.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
That's awful, and you should feel awful...Actually, I find this exchange can be read as a lame joke. And this fact (not the joke) is hilarious.
No, really.
"What makes a good musician?""The fact they aren't heard."
It's in the same vein as "what is the cheapest way to get to another country?""be born there" joke.
I hadn't caught that joke, and Iris didn't either. She genuinely listened to a few of their songs in that five-second period, so she was being perfectly honest.
However, Aya may have. I wonder which is true...
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'm not sure what that actually is, but possibly?
I'm not sure what that actually is, but possibly?
Crystalwatcher's magical girl quest protag.
We may have overinvested in being durable...
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
*reads some stuff*
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!?!?!
Well.
Anyhoo. I wonder who the most common species for sensor techs are.
It's not really overinvestment when dealing with a multiversal war that's been going on for millenia.
- Location
- Ekaterinburg, Russia
It's really not overinvestment when we bunk with the person who can one-shot us and just the day before (in-quest time) took five straight hits to the face from another person known for never failing to one-shot someone if they landed a hit. And not ten minutes before that, were very nearly scorched alive from inside.
In fact, I'm continually screaming in frustration that we can't get another character to actually become that good at face-tanking as we are - and they can do that.
Mini-turn: Second Contact - Part 15
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
"I read all of your contact packages, Emissary," you said, temporising a little as you tried to find the right approach. You were torn, still, between simply expressing the opinion that you knew she and the entire Contact Fleet shared, or leading her to the answer to her own fear. The first was so very tempting, so easy, but would it be right? You didn't think so. "But there's only so much you can learn from reading material."
The look on Kendl's face, if you imagined a human one mimicking her signs, would have almost been comical. Total confusion could be like that. "I'm sorry," she said hesitantly. "Envoy, I'm not sure I-"
You shook your head. "And yet, as I've talked with you and the other delegates, I've started to wonder. Why did you set out to find us?" A raised hand and the coming answer faltered. "You offered us friendship, and so we did in return, but neither side looked deeper than that; we couldn't," that wasn't exactly a lie, Insight had had other priorities during your time as President, "and the snapshot we gave you couldn't answer that question."
"Envoy," Kendl said firmly, confusion still present but lessened. "I appreciate whatever this is, but, if there is a point to it?"
"I'm getting there," you signed sincerity, promise, and then hope and she subsided for now. That was all you needed. "Tentative contact, we understand that. We still hoped that there might be friends out in the stars, races that wouldn't be like the Shiplords. But we thought we'd have to go and find you ourselves, not that you'd come to us. How a race would even know," you trailed off a little, feeling a little bad for how you did know, at least a little. That said, it would be a question she might expect.
"How we found you," Kendl began, almost fiercely, then stopped suddenly. For a moment you feared you'd been too obvious, that something had leaked through. Then her fingers relaxed, forming a sign of reluctant acceptance. "It doesn't matter, does it." You kept any joy from your face, or your hands. She 'd realised, she must have. "How we got here, the path we took, none of it. That we're here is all that really matters." She looked over at someone outside your field of view, and gave her race's version of a deep sigh. "Isn't it."
You nodded. "If it was only one ship, or one race, maybe it wouldn't matter. Maybe it could have been luck." She signed the feeling of a rueful headshake.
"We got too clever. Prepared for something that wasn't, a race like ourselves even when-" she shook her own head, like you had. The gesture was easy. "It doesn't matter." A moment, gathering herself, then she called up a symbol beside her. You recognised it. That was- her voice intruded. "This is the symbol of my people, the Nilean Community." More symbols flared into existence, six in total, and a delicate finger touched each in turn. "The Telas Luminary, Cich'swa Confederacy, Sarthee, Marionettes, Schorvan."
"And they are who you represent, between you?"
She hesitated as you asked the question, the one that had always been coming, but that neither side had been able to guess when or where it would come. "It is, Envoy Hawk."
"Then I will visit your ships," you said firmly. "As a guest of your nations, to give you the security you require for what has been said here to go beyond this room." She signed faint confusion.
"That was it?" She asked, and you nodded.
"Knowing who I would be doing this for was important, and not just to me." You smiled slightly. "Perhaps once this is done, we can start preparing for the real negotiations." There was uncertainty in her sign, but it was steadier than you'd expected as she silently expressed maybe. "When should I be at the docking area?"
"Ten by your measure." Kendl fumbled for a moment. "Thank you, Envoy Hawk."
"Thank me once it is done, Emissary. Not before."
The next day, after one of your more sleepless nights since stepping down from the Presidency, you were standing in the docking area for the Contact Fleet. Your Aegis was fully extended, and patterns of lambent energy rippled across its surface. You hadn't been sure that greeting them in a full combat stance was polite, but Adriana had overridden that opinion with a harsh practicality that concealed deeper concern. Not all of that was for you as a person, as you'd expected, but most of it was.
:Their escort party is cycling through.: The message flickered out of the complex, mostly subconscious connection that you shared with your Platform.
:Thank you, Sidra: You sent, almost without the words involved. :Are you ready?: As head of the Unisonbound, you'd practiced with them many times over the last few years, but even then this was different. Training could only be so real, after all, and this hadn't been something you'd directly prepared for. Scanning a small party as part of a welcoming group was one thing, but even the lowest estimates for the Contact Fleet spat out a crew total in the multiple thousands.
:I am.: Sidra replied. You'd done more than a little work in the last few years on finding and neutralising Shiplord subversion systems, but the simplest way was Speaking. Fortunately, you'd had years to get better at using Words on demand. But it was still the most obvious expression of your Practice, as Kendl and the rest of the initial contact party had discovered. :I'll be running at full acceleration from now on, and I'll pull you in the moment I need to. Like we talked about.:
Your Platform would watch for those threats that you couldn't and would be operating on a much higher perception frame than yourself. They'd spent a lot of time talking to various members of the current Ministry of Security and some of your fellow Unisonbound in preparation for this. Hopefully, none of it would be necessary.
"Envoy," Kendl greeted you, hands open in a pattern of nervous certainty that was easy to pick apart. Certainty for the course ahead, but unsure of where it might lead. You could sympathise. "Thank you for agreeing to this."
"As Lightseeker Hylmc put it to me, friends share." You opened with a sign of your own, this one of welcoming sincerity. "I would hope that this, if nothing else, would make us that." There was no official weight behind the words. Despite the vast differences between you, you'd grown surprisingly close to the other Contact Fleet representatives in the few weeks since their arrival. They were just people, when all was said and done. Different people, with very different perspectives and experiences, but people nonetheless. You could be friends with people.
Kendl dipped her head in a human-style nod, then gestured for you to follow. "It is my hope, too." There was a strange edge to her voice, almost like what you thought fear might sound like. Maybe full battle extension had been a bit much, after all. "If you will follow me, we've prepared things as your government requested this morning." Another thing you hadn't had a say in, but Adri didn't want you interacting directly unless it couldn't be avoided. Given how good you were with detection, she had a point.
"Thank you." You fell in beside her, legs moving as if walking even though your feet never actually touched the ground. After a few moments, she recognised the lack of footsteps, looked over, and then looked straight back up again. Silence followed you back to the airlock after that, but surprisingly it wasn't an uncomfortable one. Simply accepting, as if your guests had finally started to recognise that trying to understand everything you could do was an exercise in futility.
Passing through the connection to the Winter Moon went without issue, after you thanked them for the ultimately unnecessary modifications to their atmospheric mix. They could survive human norms, but the compromise mix for the Contact Fleet was a little different to that. Close enough, if it had mattered. The smooth corridors of the ship were at once familiar, and very strange. There were only so many ways you could build a ship for bipeds, after all. Yet the most interesting thing, and the strangest for you, was how the different races were almost…comfortable with each other. It wasn't unexpected, the years of travel would have built camaraderie; especially if the scars on their hulls were a result of battle damage as you suspected.
Different uniforms, different beings, but all of them sharing a purpose. A purpose that was very close to being fully revealed by those behind it, even if you already knew it. Yet as you walked deeper, your senses spread, like a vast cloak washing across the ship in your wake. Rippling branches of turquoise and deep forest green twined around your body, manifestations of Sidra's protection in more than just your Aegis. And yet…so much more than that, too. Manifestations of your Focus weren't just a shield for your body. It had been your extended Aegis that had let you detect the subverted individuals in the contact group with such ease. Reaching deeper into the soul, and bringing what you grasped into the world, that was what a Unison Platform did. And for you, to whom Shiplord subversion was a cancer of insidious chains and horrific power, the result was simple.
"Envoy?" The words penetrated slowly, but you were distracted. The group around you had stopped, you noticed, almost absently. Your primary perceptions were elsewhere, after all. "Is everything alright?" Kendl asked, and you wondered what she meant. Why would she be worried? You were simply – the reality of the situation slammed into you. Aboard the ship of a foreign power, reaching into your Focus in a way you hadn't done for years, not in an environment as different as this one. Not one with active Shiplord subversion mechanisms, either. You knew where those unlucky souls were now. No need to even see them, the almost hatefully familiar feeling of forced control and underlying pain with no understanding of the reason why was like a beacon.
"I'm," you stumbled a moment, pulling back as delicately as you could from the very core of your Focus, the part of you that had unleashed Purify upon the Medicament six years ago. "I'm fine, Emissary. I have just…come to a realisation."
"What do you mean?" There was worry in her tone, in the handsign, a concern and almost slight fear. You could understand that. Did they have a way to detect Practice after all? What would those sensors be telling them about you right now?
"That the preparations you have made for me," you turned to her, stretching out your right hand to grasp something invisible at shoulder height, "are unnecessary." The energy within your soul rippled, enforcing an existence on reality as your fingers closed around an object and weapon that you rarely drew forth from your soul. The staff you'd wielded against the Shiplords, a thing of pure Practice, and if you'd had any doubts that at least Nileans could detect the energy of Practice, they were soundly removed by Kendl's reaction. Still, she kept her composure.
"What does that mean, Envoy. And why does it need," she gestured at the rippling rod of light in your hand. "That." She wasn't quite in a combat posture, but she was approaching it. Better to head that off now.
"It means that I can do everything you had asked me to do right now." The response she gave you was almost incredulous, but only almost. She knew what you were capable of, after all; footage of the Second Battle of Sol had been in the network snapshot opened to the Contact Fleet. "I've already isolated all of those aboard this ship. There aren't many." She blinked at you, a reaction you understood now as one with far more weight than the human one. "I can do it, Emissary Merizan." That she hadn't dismissed you out of hand meant she knew that. "Simply tell your fellows, warn them of what is about to happen."
"And what will happen, if I do that?" She asked warily, and you realised suddenly the reason for the concern. She had been caught in the backblast of your Word, and to do something like this on such a vast scale would surely affect others.
"Nothing but what you have asked." You told her firmly. "It will not be subtle, but I can direct this, now that I know what I'm looking for." She signed an almost amused confusion, and you sighed. "There are ways to focus what I can do, and I chose the wrong one before. I won't do so again."
Trust the Unknown: 50 + 31 = 81 vs DC 80. Success.
In a human, you could have read the expression of conflict, but in the case of Kendl that was impossible. Her body language and fingers were another story, however. And yet, it didn't take long. "You have been honest with us thus far, in as much as you can be." She said, almost unwillingly, as if the words cost her something that she'd never expected to have to give. "I will inform the other ships." Something flickered in her eyes, her posture shifting faintly, becoming almost more fluid. Was that a stack activation? You weren't sure. In the current moment, you didn't really have to care, though.
You let yourself sink deeper again into harmony with your soul, locking in the presences of the subverted aboard the Winter Moon and then extending your senses out to the other ships of the Contact Fleet, all clustered around the single docking bay. Single and overlapped pinpricks blossomed in your senses, each one a being subverted by the Shiplords. Not nearly so many as had been feared from the first encounter, the Shiplords were picky, it seemed. Good for you, and bad for them.
"It's done." Kendl spoke, the words ringing strangely in your ears, but you did recognise them.
"Thank you." Power swept at the edge of your own words, and a small motion raised your staff from the deck, its head shining with a dimmed nova of energy. Your Aegis shone with a pale reflection of the same, a miscoloured echo of a moment six years past. And yet somehow, the word was exactly the same, just spoken differently.
Freedom Purifies: 100 + 55 + 32 + 20 = 207. Natural Critical reroll: 55! Overwhelming Success.
Purify.
It wasn't sung this time, or cried, the word simply came to your lips and passed out into the world as your staff came down. Not quite a whisper, nor a shout, but it echoed in the world as the energy you had collected turned inwards searching for purpose. This was a very simple one. Shiplord subversion was a disease, in the same way the Medicament had been a cancer to your senses. That you would use the same word to counter it made sense, for it wasn't true healing that you were trying to create here. Simply freedom. You had considered that word, but it was too wide in its reach, even focused. Like Healing had been for Kendl, too close to you to avoid its effects.
A sphere of light sprung from you and your staff both, the centre some point between you, racing out across the ships of the Contact Fleet. The space between shone with the colour of your Aegis, and the Winter Moon blazed like a brilliant star at the centre of the field. The scattered handfuls of Shiplord agents aboard the vessels froze as the light swept through them, and you felt every single one of them fall in the same instant. Not dead, but you'd need to ask to see them again later. The wounds they'd suffered, you weren't sure anyone would know how to deal with them. To lose your freedom, and not even know it had been taken until you were freed, it was hard to even begin to understand.
:Kendl is staring at you in shock.: Sidra's voice pierced the faint veil brought by the scale of the working you'd wrought, and you felt humour in their voice. :Again.: Amusement bubbled back and forth between you for an instant, then the world returned in full.
"It's done." You said, perhaps needlessly, letting your staff fade into nothingness again. It was no longer needed, and there was no reason to shock or scare your hosts further. You'd probably done enough of that, and all over again, too. At least this time they'd been prepared for it. Something like this coming at them cold, it didn't bear thinking about. "There weren't many, in the end."
"You really aren't scared of them, are you." Kendl whispered, and you smiled sadly. If only she knew. There was a shock deeper than that you'd seen in her eyes before, and for a moment concern flashed across your mind, had the Word spread too widely. But no, this wasn't the question of one shaken by a Word, it was the wrong type of reaction, anyway. But she'd seen what you could do now, the power that had brought your people victory over a Tribute Fleet with the loss of less than a hundred thousand lives. Looking up found the question still hanging between you.
"We fear, as any would fear death," you began, and Kendl shook her head harshly, fingers moving between denial and emotional pain.
"No." She pulled you aside, into a room off to the side of the corridor. A single glance cleared it, a small mess hall, if your assessment was correct. "That's not the point, Amanda." You were so shocked by her using your name at last that you didn't even protest as she half-pushed you towards a seat.
"That's…two thousand years. We have seen destruction and fear and pain at their hands that you cannot even begin to imagine. And yet I have never seen anything like what you just did. I know that you can't tell me more of how Practice came to be in your hands, or what it is in truth. But just from our Contact Packages, you must have known what what you just did will have done to those who know what it was. How," you almost wanted to complete the sentence for her, but if you did it would do so much more harm than help. So obvious, now, in hindsight, and the next words she spoke held fear and pain older than modern science.
"How can you give us hope?"
How could you even begin to answer that question?
[] Write-in
The look on Kendl's face, if you imagined a human one mimicking her signs, would have almost been comical. Total confusion could be like that. "I'm sorry," she said hesitantly. "Envoy, I'm not sure I-"
You shook your head. "And yet, as I've talked with you and the other delegates, I've started to wonder. Why did you set out to find us?" A raised hand and the coming answer faltered. "You offered us friendship, and so we did in return, but neither side looked deeper than that; we couldn't," that wasn't exactly a lie, Insight had had other priorities during your time as President, "and the snapshot we gave you couldn't answer that question."
"Envoy," Kendl said firmly, confusion still present but lessened. "I appreciate whatever this is, but, if there is a point to it?"
"I'm getting there," you signed sincerity, promise, and then hope and she subsided for now. That was all you needed. "Tentative contact, we understand that. We still hoped that there might be friends out in the stars, races that wouldn't be like the Shiplords. But we thought we'd have to go and find you ourselves, not that you'd come to us. How a race would even know," you trailed off a little, feeling a little bad for how you did know, at least a little. That said, it would be a question she might expect.
"How we found you," Kendl began, almost fiercely, then stopped suddenly. For a moment you feared you'd been too obvious, that something had leaked through. Then her fingers relaxed, forming a sign of reluctant acceptance. "It doesn't matter, does it." You kept any joy from your face, or your hands. She 'd realised, she must have. "How we got here, the path we took, none of it. That we're here is all that really matters." She looked over at someone outside your field of view, and gave her race's version of a deep sigh. "Isn't it."
You nodded. "If it was only one ship, or one race, maybe it wouldn't matter. Maybe it could have been luck." She signed the feeling of a rueful headshake.
"We got too clever. Prepared for something that wasn't, a race like ourselves even when-" she shook her own head, like you had. The gesture was easy. "It doesn't matter." A moment, gathering herself, then she called up a symbol beside her. You recognised it. That was- her voice intruded. "This is the symbol of my people, the Nilean Community." More symbols flared into existence, six in total, and a delicate finger touched each in turn. "The Telas Luminary, Cich'swa Confederacy, Sarthee, Marionettes, Schorvan."
"And they are who you represent, between you?"
She hesitated as you asked the question, the one that had always been coming, but that neither side had been able to guess when or where it would come. "It is, Envoy Hawk."
"Then I will visit your ships," you said firmly. "As a guest of your nations, to give you the security you require for what has been said here to go beyond this room." She signed faint confusion.
"That was it?" She asked, and you nodded.
"Knowing who I would be doing this for was important, and not just to me." You smiled slightly. "Perhaps once this is done, we can start preparing for the real negotiations." There was uncertainty in her sign, but it was steadier than you'd expected as she silently expressed maybe. "When should I be at the docking area?"
"Ten by your measure." Kendl fumbled for a moment. "Thank you, Envoy Hawk."
"Thank me once it is done, Emissary. Not before."
The next day, after one of your more sleepless nights since stepping down from the Presidency, you were standing in the docking area for the Contact Fleet. Your Aegis was fully extended, and patterns of lambent energy rippled across its surface. You hadn't been sure that greeting them in a full combat stance was polite, but Adriana had overridden that opinion with a harsh practicality that concealed deeper concern. Not all of that was for you as a person, as you'd expected, but most of it was.
:Their escort party is cycling through.: The message flickered out of the complex, mostly subconscious connection that you shared with your Platform.
:Thank you, Sidra: You sent, almost without the words involved. :Are you ready?: As head of the Unisonbound, you'd practiced with them many times over the last few years, but even then this was different. Training could only be so real, after all, and this hadn't been something you'd directly prepared for. Scanning a small party as part of a welcoming group was one thing, but even the lowest estimates for the Contact Fleet spat out a crew total in the multiple thousands.
:I am.: Sidra replied. You'd done more than a little work in the last few years on finding and neutralising Shiplord subversion systems, but the simplest way was Speaking. Fortunately, you'd had years to get better at using Words on demand. But it was still the most obvious expression of your Practice, as Kendl and the rest of the initial contact party had discovered. :I'll be running at full acceleration from now on, and I'll pull you in the moment I need to. Like we talked about.:
Your Platform would watch for those threats that you couldn't and would be operating on a much higher perception frame than yourself. They'd spent a lot of time talking to various members of the current Ministry of Security and some of your fellow Unisonbound in preparation for this. Hopefully, none of it would be necessary.
"Envoy," Kendl greeted you, hands open in a pattern of nervous certainty that was easy to pick apart. Certainty for the course ahead, but unsure of where it might lead. You could sympathise. "Thank you for agreeing to this."
"As Lightseeker Hylmc put it to me, friends share." You opened with a sign of your own, this one of welcoming sincerity. "I would hope that this, if nothing else, would make us that." There was no official weight behind the words. Despite the vast differences between you, you'd grown surprisingly close to the other Contact Fleet representatives in the few weeks since their arrival. They were just people, when all was said and done. Different people, with very different perspectives and experiences, but people nonetheless. You could be friends with people.
Kendl dipped her head in a human-style nod, then gestured for you to follow. "It is my hope, too." There was a strange edge to her voice, almost like what you thought fear might sound like. Maybe full battle extension had been a bit much, after all. "If you will follow me, we've prepared things as your government requested this morning." Another thing you hadn't had a say in, but Adri didn't want you interacting directly unless it couldn't be avoided. Given how good you were with detection, she had a point.
"Thank you." You fell in beside her, legs moving as if walking even though your feet never actually touched the ground. After a few moments, she recognised the lack of footsteps, looked over, and then looked straight back up again. Silence followed you back to the airlock after that, but surprisingly it wasn't an uncomfortable one. Simply accepting, as if your guests had finally started to recognise that trying to understand everything you could do was an exercise in futility.
Passing through the connection to the Winter Moon went without issue, after you thanked them for the ultimately unnecessary modifications to their atmospheric mix. They could survive human norms, but the compromise mix for the Contact Fleet was a little different to that. Close enough, if it had mattered. The smooth corridors of the ship were at once familiar, and very strange. There were only so many ways you could build a ship for bipeds, after all. Yet the most interesting thing, and the strangest for you, was how the different races were almost…comfortable with each other. It wasn't unexpected, the years of travel would have built camaraderie; especially if the scars on their hulls were a result of battle damage as you suspected.
Different uniforms, different beings, but all of them sharing a purpose. A purpose that was very close to being fully revealed by those behind it, even if you already knew it. Yet as you walked deeper, your senses spread, like a vast cloak washing across the ship in your wake. Rippling branches of turquoise and deep forest green twined around your body, manifestations of Sidra's protection in more than just your Aegis. And yet…so much more than that, too. Manifestations of your Focus weren't just a shield for your body. It had been your extended Aegis that had let you detect the subverted individuals in the contact group with such ease. Reaching deeper into the soul, and bringing what you grasped into the world, that was what a Unison Platform did. And for you, to whom Shiplord subversion was a cancer of insidious chains and horrific power, the result was simple.
"Envoy?" The words penetrated slowly, but you were distracted. The group around you had stopped, you noticed, almost absently. Your primary perceptions were elsewhere, after all. "Is everything alright?" Kendl asked, and you wondered what she meant. Why would she be worried? You were simply – the reality of the situation slammed into you. Aboard the ship of a foreign power, reaching into your Focus in a way you hadn't done for years, not in an environment as different as this one. Not one with active Shiplord subversion mechanisms, either. You knew where those unlucky souls were now. No need to even see them, the almost hatefully familiar feeling of forced control and underlying pain with no understanding of the reason why was like a beacon.
"I'm," you stumbled a moment, pulling back as delicately as you could from the very core of your Focus, the part of you that had unleashed Purify upon the Medicament six years ago. "I'm fine, Emissary. I have just…come to a realisation."
"What do you mean?" There was worry in her tone, in the handsign, a concern and almost slight fear. You could understand that. Did they have a way to detect Practice after all? What would those sensors be telling them about you right now?
"That the preparations you have made for me," you turned to her, stretching out your right hand to grasp something invisible at shoulder height, "are unnecessary." The energy within your soul rippled, enforcing an existence on reality as your fingers closed around an object and weapon that you rarely drew forth from your soul. The staff you'd wielded against the Shiplords, a thing of pure Practice, and if you'd had any doubts that at least Nileans could detect the energy of Practice, they were soundly removed by Kendl's reaction. Still, she kept her composure.
"What does that mean, Envoy. And why does it need," she gestured at the rippling rod of light in your hand. "That." She wasn't quite in a combat posture, but she was approaching it. Better to head that off now.
"It means that I can do everything you had asked me to do right now." The response she gave you was almost incredulous, but only almost. She knew what you were capable of, after all; footage of the Second Battle of Sol had been in the network snapshot opened to the Contact Fleet. "I've already isolated all of those aboard this ship. There aren't many." She blinked at you, a reaction you understood now as one with far more weight than the human one. "I can do it, Emissary Merizan." That she hadn't dismissed you out of hand meant she knew that. "Simply tell your fellows, warn them of what is about to happen."
"And what will happen, if I do that?" She asked warily, and you realised suddenly the reason for the concern. She had been caught in the backblast of your Word, and to do something like this on such a vast scale would surely affect others.
"Nothing but what you have asked." You told her firmly. "It will not be subtle, but I can direct this, now that I know what I'm looking for." She signed an almost amused confusion, and you sighed. "There are ways to focus what I can do, and I chose the wrong one before. I won't do so again."
Trust the Unknown: 50 + 31 = 81 vs DC 80. Success.
In a human, you could have read the expression of conflict, but in the case of Kendl that was impossible. Her body language and fingers were another story, however. And yet, it didn't take long. "You have been honest with us thus far, in as much as you can be." She said, almost unwillingly, as if the words cost her something that she'd never expected to have to give. "I will inform the other ships." Something flickered in her eyes, her posture shifting faintly, becoming almost more fluid. Was that a stack activation? You weren't sure. In the current moment, you didn't really have to care, though.
You let yourself sink deeper again into harmony with your soul, locking in the presences of the subverted aboard the Winter Moon and then extending your senses out to the other ships of the Contact Fleet, all clustered around the single docking bay. Single and overlapped pinpricks blossomed in your senses, each one a being subverted by the Shiplords. Not nearly so many as had been feared from the first encounter, the Shiplords were picky, it seemed. Good for you, and bad for them.
"It's done." Kendl spoke, the words ringing strangely in your ears, but you did recognise them.
"Thank you." Power swept at the edge of your own words, and a small motion raised your staff from the deck, its head shining with a dimmed nova of energy. Your Aegis shone with a pale reflection of the same, a miscoloured echo of a moment six years past. And yet somehow, the word was exactly the same, just spoken differently.
Freedom Purifies: 100 + 55 + 32 + 20 = 207. Natural Critical reroll: 55! Overwhelming Success.
Purify.
It wasn't sung this time, or cried, the word simply came to your lips and passed out into the world as your staff came down. Not quite a whisper, nor a shout, but it echoed in the world as the energy you had collected turned inwards searching for purpose. This was a very simple one. Shiplord subversion was a disease, in the same way the Medicament had been a cancer to your senses. That you would use the same word to counter it made sense, for it wasn't true healing that you were trying to create here. Simply freedom. You had considered that word, but it was too wide in its reach, even focused. Like Healing had been for Kendl, too close to you to avoid its effects.
A sphere of light sprung from you and your staff both, the centre some point between you, racing out across the ships of the Contact Fleet. The space between shone with the colour of your Aegis, and the Winter Moon blazed like a brilliant star at the centre of the field. The scattered handfuls of Shiplord agents aboard the vessels froze as the light swept through them, and you felt every single one of them fall in the same instant. Not dead, but you'd need to ask to see them again later. The wounds they'd suffered, you weren't sure anyone would know how to deal with them. To lose your freedom, and not even know it had been taken until you were freed, it was hard to even begin to understand.
:Kendl is staring at you in shock.: Sidra's voice pierced the faint veil brought by the scale of the working you'd wrought, and you felt humour in their voice. :Again.: Amusement bubbled back and forth between you for an instant, then the world returned in full.
"It's done." You said, perhaps needlessly, letting your staff fade into nothingness again. It was no longer needed, and there was no reason to shock or scare your hosts further. You'd probably done enough of that, and all over again, too. At least this time they'd been prepared for it. Something like this coming at them cold, it didn't bear thinking about. "There weren't many, in the end."
"You really aren't scared of them, are you." Kendl whispered, and you smiled sadly. If only she knew. There was a shock deeper than that you'd seen in her eyes before, and for a moment concern flashed across your mind, had the Word spread too widely. But no, this wasn't the question of one shaken by a Word, it was the wrong type of reaction, anyway. But she'd seen what you could do now, the power that had brought your people victory over a Tribute Fleet with the loss of less than a hundred thousand lives. Looking up found the question still hanging between you.
"We fear, as any would fear death," you began, and Kendl shook her head harshly, fingers moving between denial and emotional pain.
"No." She pulled you aside, into a room off to the side of the corridor. A single glance cleared it, a small mess hall, if your assessment was correct. "That's not the point, Amanda." You were so shocked by her using your name at last that you didn't even protest as she half-pushed you towards a seat.
"That's…two thousand years. We have seen destruction and fear and pain at their hands that you cannot even begin to imagine. And yet I have never seen anything like what you just did. I know that you can't tell me more of how Practice came to be in your hands, or what it is in truth. But just from our Contact Packages, you must have known what what you just did will have done to those who know what it was. How," you almost wanted to complete the sentence for her, but if you did it would do so much more harm than help. So obvious, now, in hindsight, and the next words she spoke held fear and pain older than modern science.
"How can you give us hope?"
How could you even begin to answer that question?
[] Write-in
There will be an eight hour moratorium on this vote.
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Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
To be clear in this, I am asking you to construct a simple write-in as a direction for Amanda to go with her reply. More complex pieces aren't going to be unwelcome in the slightest, but they aren't required. Amanda is one of the characters who, as you might have recognised, takes direction and then writes her own dialogue (I really don't have much control over this).
Sorry for how long this took, and thanks again to @Jeboboid for helping me get the last few paragraphs right. What I had before just wasn't going to work, but what's here now I'm very happy with. Before anyone complains, this response was always going to come along eventually, but you might have missed out on it making it into the narrative if not for the natural crit you rolled here, prompting a far more spectacular cleansing of Shiplord subversion mechanisms than had ever been planned. That roll didn't just apply to the Word, but it was best placed there, as it was also the roll that let it happen. Hope you enjoyed this, and happy voting once the moratorium finishes up. The reason I'm putting that in is so that you can (I hope) discuss possible avenues for Mandy to take this. I'll do a general response post to proposed ideas when I wake up.
Questions to the usual address.
Oh hey…it's only 1am this time.
Yaaaaaaaaay
Sorry for how long this took, and thanks again to @Jeboboid for helping me get the last few paragraphs right. What I had before just wasn't going to work, but what's here now I'm very happy with. Before anyone complains, this response was always going to come along eventually, but you might have missed out on it making it into the narrative if not for the natural crit you rolled here, prompting a far more spectacular cleansing of Shiplord subversion mechanisms than had ever been planned. That roll didn't just apply to the Word, but it was best placed there, as it was also the roll that let it happen. Hope you enjoyed this, and happy voting once the moratorium finishes up. The reason I'm putting that in is so that you can (I hope) discuss possible avenues for Mandy to take this. I'll do a general response post to proposed ideas when I wake up.
Questions to the usual address.
Oh hey…it's only 1am this time.
Yaaaaaaaaay
lol
of your more
Did you mean "party"?
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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Oh, Kendl, don't you see? We already have.
More specifically I would say that our very existence and every single action we have taken have shown them hope and en-kindled it within them, they simply haven't realized it. That is the first part of the answer.
The second is showing them that through unity the Shiplords can be defeated.
E: Kendl's basically asking them to teach them how to not fear opposing the Shiplords. That's the real fear she is referencing here.
E2: Freaking amazing chapter here by the way.
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*cringe* Eek, that was close.
I definitely agree that our response should emphasize what we're trying to give hope about.
And of course it crits. I mean, why would it do anything else?
It really was. I mean, a 50% chance of Kendl refusing, and that only after our literally supernatural Diplomacy bonus? What would have happened if that roll had failed?
Oh man, the inflections alone on this one statement can change so much:
"How can you give us hope?"
"How can you give us hope?"
"How can you give us hope?"
"How can you give us hope?"
"How can you give us hope?"
"How can you give us hope?"
I mean, those are literally seven completely different questions, each with their own answers. Even if I'm fairly certain that the actual question being asked is either 1, 3, or 6, well, how can we choose just one?
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- Somewhere out there
You listed six questions, not seven. >.> And I think 5 is a reasonably likely candidate too ("you have hope, how can we get some?"), moreso than 3 IMO.
EDIT: For the purposes of discussion:
1. By what means will you give us hope?
2. Why is it possible that you can give us hope?
3. What makes you so special that you can give us hope?
4. You clearly have hope, but what makes it possible for you transfer it to us?
4a. With a slightly different inflection: What makes it possible for hope to be given at all?
5. You clearly have hope, but how does that hope apply to us?
6. You've given us a gift, but is it possible to grant hope?
And a different inflection might also give:
How is it that you have hope to give us at all?
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BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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I have to agree with you Coda, as it seems to me that Kendl is basically saying, and asking why, we don't fear opposing the Shiplords whereas the G6 Races do on some level and she is self aware enough to realize that fear. They are basically asking for "How do you do it?" and the answer is actually really simple in my view. We've already shown them hope and given it to them just by existing in their presence and doing things like curing their fleet of Shiplord Subversion, and then we could show them why we think that opposition is possible by stating our knowledge that the Shiplord position is precarious enough that they could be dethroned through cooperation between our seven races.
- Location
- Somewhere out there
We don't actually agree there. I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing that Kendl is seeing that we haven't succumbed to hopelessness yet, since we haven't been fighting an interminable war for millennia yet. We haven't given up yet. I think she wants to know how we can bring that dream of a bright future back to their peoples after they had lost it long ago.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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I equate giving up to opposing. Basically the way I see it is that the Shiplords through sheer weight of time have ground down the will of the G6, and so opposition and expecting to win are something they have lost. They now merely oppose by rote, because that's essentially what they've been trained to do. And thus, as you say Kendl want's to know how we intend to give the G6 their will and bright future again.
So I would say from here that what we think is pretty similar, at least to me, though I may not be expressing myself right.
- Location
- Somewhere out there
Hmm... I'm not convinced, but maybe it's just the word "opposing" that's carrying the wrong connotations for me.
What you describe sounds like the type of hopelessness that Humanity feels regarding the Second Secret: the fear that there's a line that mustn't be crossed, fear so strong that the idea of crossing it is utterly unthinkable. And I certainly agree that the G6 feels this.
But I'm thinking about it from a broader perspective, beyond just the Shiplords. Humanity believes in the future. We have aspirations that go beyond just opposing the Shiplords. We have dreams. And the G6 has lost this. Fighting the Shiplords is all they have left. At least according to the way I perceive the words, they're not afraid to oppose the Shiplords, because it's obvious that they do, and I think the Shiplords actually EXPECT the Tribute races to want to oppose them (I get the feeling they'd nuke any civilization that simply accepted the Tribute cycle). What I think the G6 are afraid of is breaking an unknown rule. They can't imagine anything beyond playing the game.
But there's a really good point in there, so I'm going to bring this up in the context of the vote:
We can show them common ground through how Humanity feels about the Second Secret.
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
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- Lickwidget
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You basically get what I'm talking about. The G6 has been trained, to fight and grow, but never reach and actually truly oppose the Shiplords. Humanity reaches and thus truly opposes the Shiplords. It's essentially degrees of opposition that I am discussing. G6 races do it by rote and hopeless routine while Humanity opposes because they know winning is possible.
I also agree that that point you made about the Second is a very good one that should be included. We can also somewhat link it to Practice.
E: Perhaps a way to re-phrase this is that Humanity can imagine the defeat of the Shiplords, while the G6 cannot. And thus Kendl is asking us how we can imagine that defeat.
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Well said!