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The Secrets' Crusade

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[X] Mir Hayes – Apart from you and Vega, the only Speaker on the mission. Mir also possesses a truly rare Focus of Peace, and believes that he may be able to turn this to your advantage in seeking undisturbed access to the Shiplord memorial site. His request to join this mission was oddly intent.

[X] Witness
 
mastigos said:
They unleased specifically soul destroying weapons against the 223 back in the last battle Amanda fought in.
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Not so much soul destroying as inhibitors for the ability of Potentials to project power through their souls. Presumably capable of destroying an Uninvolved from what they've told you, but also apparently something the Shiplords have never done.

They have the capacity, certainly. But they haven't used it as far as you're aware.
 
I cannot vote this option hard enough:
[x] Experience
(Though to be fair, it's because it was my idea. >.> )

[x] Kalilah Mishra
[x] Lea Halwood
[x] Mir Hayes
I'm voting for Amanda's health and safety here. Putting Iris at risk would make Amanda even more likely to go off the deep end if something were to go wrong, and bringing along as much of Amanda's heartcircle as possible seems like the wisest approach.

Additionally, beyond just being in Amanda's heartcircle, there are also good reasons for each Potential to come along:
* Kalilah straight up wants to go, according to the vote description.
* Lea is a Mender and her skills may be necessary to help Amanda in her current state.
* Mir is a Speaker of Peace. He may be able to put the brakes on a problem with a single word.
 
I don't think I want Kalilah along necessarily. I get the wrong vibes off her for this, and she's prone to rages.


[x] Lea Halwood
[x] Mir Hayes
 
I'm not worried about Kalilah losing control. Kalilah is in better shape than Amanda is right now, and Mir is the perfect yin to Kalilah's yang so even if something did go wrong we have the most suited person in the galaxy to be able to intervene if necessary. I would much rather have Kalilah there to support Amanda than to leave her behind out of fear of her Destruction focus. If anything, consider that Kalilah asked to go on this expedition, and going against that desire because we're afraid of her is only going to poke at her insecurities even more.

Re: emotion, I'm not sure that ANY of the options are going to be emotionally safe. Remember that Witness was still hard enough last time; it wasn't safe. And given that we already know what Witness is for sure and while we didn't see Remember on-screen we know that Vega went to see it so we know the general intent behind it. It might be the case that Experience could be less emotionally impactful. We already know that Witness and Remember are oriented around highlighting Shiplord society's emotions surrounding those historical tragedies.

So we should ask... What would it mean to "experience" the past? In particular, "experience" must necessarily be distinct from "witness" and "remember," so it's not going to be "experience how we feel about it" because that's what the other two were for. But "experience the situation we had to deal with" seems like something that would be... less direct, in terms of emotional impact. The emotional side of it, if I were to guess, would be more implied than stated. Such a presentation I imagine would be more about letting the pilgrim find the emotions on their own instead of reiterating how they're supposed to feel about it.

For a Shiplord, that might have a more profound long-term impact, but in the sense of something deep that takes a lot of reflection to explore, instead of a gut-punch that makes an immediate, raw reaction that's more intense but also more shallow. For our team, that might be exactly what we need -- something that gives us a deeper understanding of history (which is one of our primary missions here!) while being a more manageable level of impact when we're shaken and weak.
 
So I'm going to try and explain some of what's actually going on here, from the knowledge you have and what your enterprising cast might guess. These guesses are going to come from Amanda and Vega as at the moment the rest of the group is a Schrodinger until the vote is over. You have three options here. Two of them you've seen before, so you have a pretty good idea of what they'll involve. Experience, however, is new, so there's only guesses there.

I talked with my betas today and they pointed out that there was a general lack of information on what the choices might represent, which might be choking discussion or voting. It's my hope that this may help fix that.

Article:
Witness
Amanda chose this path at the Tomb of the Zlathbu, and found within the towers of the Shiplord enclave a shard of the world that had once existed before it was ended by the Shiplords. A member of the Hearthguard, the Shiplord organisation who maintain these systems, provided a recorded explanation of what occurred in the star system. How the Shiplords found the race, and how they eventually killed them. Once that was complete, the chamber would provide access to an extensive repository of documentation and other recordings focused on specific points within the history of Shiplord interaction with the Zlathbu. Expect a similar base recording and repository here.
Amanda: It's reasonable to assume that this will be much the same as before, though I'd suspect that the base recording will take place on a more strategic scale. From our vision, the Shiplords were not present in this star system when the Uninvolved acted, and therefore may not know what actually took place.
Suggested support: Technical expertise was of considerable use in the last Tower, as the Witness recordings contained highly detailed sub recordings seeded into the main repository data. Unison Platforms are capable of detecting these now.

Remember
Vega travelled to this section of the Zlathbu's enclave, whilst Amanda remained within the Witnessing Tower to examine deeper records and support other members of her Heartcircle. Remembrance in this case took the form of a quasi-formal ceremony, recognising that which was lost, and attempting to take responsibility for the mistakes that led there. It's a solemn thing, and deeply personal to the Shiplords who undertake it from everything the Harmonial could glean. It also provides a possible viewport into the feelings of current Shiplord culture where the events enshrined in the enclaved are concerned. Vega talked with more than one Shiplord about it, and gleaned a great deal.
Vega: This path is one of emotions, and one that I believe the Shiplords would find most terrifying for us to know of. This is their heart, unshaded by the layers of control that we're used to seeing from them, and I do not know if that visceral pain would be good for any of us. At the same time, though...there is a power in sharing the pain of a witnessed horror. As ways to heal go, it's a very risky one, but we've done crazier things.
Suggested support: The ability to remain calm in the face of this experience will be paramount, and may require specifically tailored support.

Experience
You've only got guesses for what this one might mean, but some of the complex meanings from the translation software imply that this means more than the word. The Shiplords lack any sort of ability to access racial memories like the Marionettes do, but something similar seems to be implied. Maybe a simulation, maybe something more visceral. It's difficult to be sure, given the lack of data, but that it's presented as its own option means it must be distinct from the others.
Amanda: Something new implies importance, perhaps something unique to this system alone. I'd like to see this, but is it the right first choice? I'm not sure.
Source: Options
 
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[x] Experience

[x] Kalilah Mishra
[x] Lea Halwood
[x] Mir Hayes

On the characters, I fully agree with Coda. Were I going for Witness, I'd probably substitute Iris for Lea (what with the sub-recordings/technical expertise), but I'm not. I suspect Experience or Witness would probably reduce any potential shock from Remember, which I feel to be a high-risk option*.

*Early on, we should favor caution to avoid making subsequent locations more difficult: we can step up the risk as the mission progresses.

In any case, it seems to me like the options are the following:

Witness: more like a traditional museum visit or movie.
Remember: A ceremony involving discussion in a group.
Experience: Something of a simulation. You come in not knowing what is to come, and you experience what it would have been like for the Shiplords of the time, trying to figure out what the right thing to do is.

In any event, it's all a Mystery Box of Fun.
 
Doing a quick tally. I'll close this on the weekend. The first choice vote is surprisingly close.

Adhoc vote count started by Snowfire on May 6, 2021 at 6:56 PM, finished with 20 posts and 10 votes.
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I also caught up on the 4BOS interludes. Losing numerous FSN servicemembers, including four Unisonbound, isn't fun, but there was always going to be some pain and loss. The Shiplords being Shiplords and doing Shiplord things guaranteed that.

A few questions:
1) Will President Thera send word to our allies to look out for Savino?
1a) It's kind of unfortunate that all Amanda knows is "we lost four of our own", and not "but one of them is a Shiplord captive". Our crew is probably in the best possible position to search for Savino.
2) Is the Orrery trying to predict where a War Fleet vessel will run to, or using faint sensor data to find them? The former seems like it would be vulnerable to changes in War Fleet jump algorithms.
3) We really need to work on making mobile Orrery systems, as purely defensive wars are a good way to let your enemy figure out how to crack your defenses.
 
Starman4308 said:
A few questions:
1) Will President Thera send word to our allies to look out for Savino?
1a) It's kind of unfortunate that all Amanda knows is "we lost four of our own", and not "but one of them is a Shiplord captive". Our crew is probably in the best possible position to search for Savino.
2) Is the Orrery trying to predict where a War Fleet vessel will run to, or using faint sensor data to find them? The former seems like it would be vulnerable to changes in War Fleet jump algorithms.
3) We really need to work on making mobile Orrery systems, as purely defensive wars are a good way to let your enemy figure out how to crack your defenses.
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  1. Probably, yes, though perhaps not to all of humanity's allies. Though to be honest, any recipients are just going to send a pro-forma reply to keep an eye out and write him off as KIA. As he was taken by a War Fleet, he'll be expected to be within Shiplord core territory within a few weeks at most. Finding him, let alone anything else, will be almost impossible at that point.
  2. A bit of both. The Orrery systems were designed to crack Shiplord jump algorithms to predict fleet movements, but can also use their distributed sensor capacity to try and pinpoint ships between jumps. The latter method is much less effective, but having it there was seen as a good idea. Sol's Orrery also has Vision running it, and she had algorithms built by the Elder First that allowed her to act as the vehicle for their Project Insight analogue. Those were deleted when the Elder First sealed the vault, but she was still largely built for this sort of massive data analysis. It helps a lot. Does this mean each Orrery will require an AI to function properly? You'll just have to see.
  3. You're still working on perfecting a static version. Making a mobile one work is going to be fiendishly complex, mostly due to how complicated setting up the sensor coverage required in a way that can't easily be poked out is likely to be.
 
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