yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (hxx clock)
[personal profile] yhlee posting in [community profile] hexarchate_rpg
Time: 361
Place: out-rift near Station Moongray

The Wasp's cockpit/command center:
Kaliyan notes that the Butterfly Lens asks for a docking maneuver with the Wasp, and approaches slowly and politely on the assumption that this is approved. In the meantime, the second vessel, which Sasha and Yehan previously identified as some kind of Naxorian Rosemallow House starship, decelerates and holds position some distance from the Wasp, lingering without initiating communication.

The Wasp's Engineering room
Anyone in or near Engineering will notice what almost feels like a quaver from the Wasp at the second starship's approach, as though the Wasp is nervous.

[Skipping ahead a bit with the logistics--feel free to add any other preparations that the team would have made before the meeting proper.]

The Wasp's airlock, welcoming party
The ship-to-ship docking maneuver goes more or less smoothly--partly due to Kaliyan's vigilance, partly due to adroit piloting on the Butterfly's end. Two individuals emerge from the other ship. The first is a tall alt with long, rippling hair, their eyes wide and anxious. The alt is not wearing Nirai colors, but instead wears shades of desaturated blue with a blue-and-silver pin that declares that they are a Contact Specialist, Second Class. Their companion appears to be the alt's assistant, a tidy older man with his hair in braids, all wrapped up in a black coat with silver buttons, as if he's used to warmer temperatures. Neither of them resembles Nirai Remi.

Ankat doesn't spot any obvious weapons--it looks like the man could be hiding something beneath his coat, but he'd probably have difficulty getting it out before Ankat could react or call a warning. Probably.

"Ah, snacks!" the alt says, looking sharply at the edible fidget spinners. "You must be from one of those timelines, where the Liozh--" They flutter their hands. "You know."

"Manners, Contact Specialist," the man in the coat says. "You mustn't insult their way of living. We have special dispensation about...alternate orthodoxies, remember?"

"Indeed," the alt says. They will address themselves to the welcoming party in general, although it's clear that they're trying to identify Andan Rii. (As a Contact Specialist, they've probably learned not to make too many hasty assumptions.) "I'm Contact Specialist Andan Bokali, Second Class, and the Nirai have given me the honor of welcoming you and the rest of Bumblebee's crew to Station Moongray. [Referencing this message from Move 4.] This gentle here is my liaison on the station, Nirai Pavn." They smile, eyeing the fidget spinners again as though they suspect some of them are rigged to blow. "It is very good of you to provide refreshments. We were going to feed you back at the station, you know, but--" Andan Bokali smiles wryly. "The cooking there is not always the most festive." Their gaze drifts to Ankat's Scadrian whiskey, and their eyes brighten.

[Feel free to introduce yourselves to the NPCs, mingle with them, discuss terrible space snacks, ask them about the other ship, etc.]

[If you need clarification from me or from another PC, please don't hesitate to ask/message!]

Date: 2017-08-08 04:03 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] pengwern
Mikodez would have been delighted to hear all about Station Moongray’s policies on the Hexarchate. If only he had intended it. As it is, he lurks behind Iawa like he can avoid Ashari’s gaze. They could have said something earlier if the spinner snacks were wrong for the occasion, okay. Nobody even disturbed the plate when it was in the fridge for an entire eleven hours. The ombres came out so nicely, especially the dash of arsenic for Vidona emerald.

Going by the way Andan Bokali was looking at the spinners, Mikodez isn’t even going to try offering the plate to them. He could eat at least half the plate himself, once Ashari finished the introductory browbeating. He watches as Bokali continues their chat with Virmad, and uses the hand to the other side of Ashari to be obviously surreptitious in sneaking a silver-dark wheel to eat, in case Nirai Pavn noticed his staring.

Either the Andan at the bars could afford to be smoother jackasses to skulking Shuos cadets, or the heptarchate had left a less than stellar Andan in a station this far into their own space. Or protocol had ossified in 841 years. Or something else. With a little luck, Ashari would scent weakness in their direction and sweep after them, rather than turn the fury of an Andan event planner defied onto his head. Anyway, Ashari couldn’t be an event planner. Nobody else had been left bleeding or crying or with their hair totally redyed to match an antimacassar.
Edited (spelling) Date: 2017-08-08 04:05 am (UTC)

Date: 2017-08-09 05:49 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] pengwern
“No but I’m starting to think we must have passed by one, the last time we picked up supplies through a rift, and I didn’t notice,” Mikodez says, in tones more thrilled than appropriately horrified for someone who could never imagine living with less than seven factions. “Have you seen many ships like that? The molds for these were from a kit, and I just assumed that it was for the Web-as-foundation to bear the other factions in place, but the instructions didn’t make much sense even when I ran it through my tablet. And our grid - really, our matter printer too --”

He pauses to check the drinks passing around, and to offer Pavn the plate again. “I’m so glad we reached your station. Our engineers, very nice people, but they’ve been more interested in running experiments than this moth after the last rift. Not that they tell us what’s going on, but I get the feeling like they were using the last days of their lives to brew something strong enough so that they could ignore the radiant wilt.”

[Completely off topic for Mikodez, but I tried looking up diseases of moths or butterflies and it seems (aside from parasites) that most affect the larvae/caterpillar stage. Do mothcrews have anything to worry about when it comes to biomechanical upkeep, or can they snipe the space mites/wasps/whatever with artillery...?]

Re: [moth maintenance]

Date: 2017-08-10 06:15 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] pengwern
Mikodez grabs two spinners himself, grinning, and flips them through the fingers of one hand. “Take the rest of these for you and your lab! I’ll attach a label with the flavors for each color, in case anyone’s allergic to sweet potatoes or mango.” The structural integrity of the snack is solid enough for fancy tricks, so he fiddles with them until the blades spiral around each other in a blur of blue and orange.

“Hexarchate, and Pentarchate.” He doesn’t have to feign incredulity. “You said something about the Liozh, but - don’t tell me - Andan and Shuos finally merged. More work for your faction in whatever year it happens, right? But unless I see it myself, I’d never believe that the bickering could stop.”

[Re the moth: aw, no chance of sabotage with custom diseases during construction, then. Also, hand to foxes he's not trying to poison anyone - the spinners are just a lure for Remies. Mango allergies are annoying!]
Edited ((will a rahal or liozh or kel or whoever please jump in and chase the bit about historical divergences to a pulp because mikodez is too busy with saying mango significantly at the air)) Date: 2017-08-10 06:35 am (UTC)

Re: [moth maintenance]

Date: 2017-08-10 03:49 pm (UTC)
venndaai: (windbreaker)
From: [personal profile] venndaai
Sulen's been best friends with an Andan event planner too long to give the fidget spinners more than a second glance, but they are fun to play with, although they hate mango.

"What kind of historical divergences?" Sulen asks, desperately curious, although aware that this may be a dangerous line of inquiry considering they have no idea who should be answering their guests' inevitable questions about their own timeline. "Calendar shifts, different interactions with foreigners, faction regime changes- ?" Of course, those other ships probably had almost as much incentive to lie as the crew of the Wasp do, but Sulen's suddenly realizing how intriguing the concept of alternate history is.

Re: [moth maintenance]

Date: 2017-08-11 04:12 pm (UTC)
venndaai: (windbreaker)
From: [personal profile] venndaai
"Interesting." Stars above, the amount of paperwork destroying a faction must involve... "Which faction had the Hexarchate ships lost?" Actually, there's a more important question. "Did these people from alternate timelines visit the station?"

Sulen is getting extremely suspicious. It's hard to imagine anything more heretical than an alternate timeline with a different number of factions. If they were in charge of this station, they'd want to keep anything coming through the rifts isolated until it left again, or just destroy it to be safe. They definitely wouldn't want to expose a whole station to such visitors. But then, it sounds like the Rahal here are corrupt and incompetent, so maybe this friendliness is believable after all.

Re: [moth maintenance]

Date: 2017-08-12 03:49 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] pengwern
Well, you can take a wolf from the pack, but not the killjoy voice of responsibility from...what was Sulen, an Inquisitor? Luckily this was working to their advantage, as Pavn didn’t seem like they were going to clam up before a Rahal.

The news about the pentarchate was unfortunate but not unexpected. Rhetoric from other factions after Hellspin fortress had not been restrained by any measure. While there were plenty of classified Shuos files analysing those threats, and yet more classified ones building on those that he hadn’t bothered to check, none of them could be as useful as actual testimony. Mikodez makes a note to find any interview records made during that moth’s visit, and refocuses on Nirai Pavn.

“So you could confirm that there is, in fact, more than one timeline? That's marvelous. Ah, I mean,” with a sideways glance at Sulen. “One should hope that stability can be achieved far into the future without unnecessary upheaval.” Like General Jedao. “But imagine if it was possible to find a different version of yourself, under different environmental conditions. No more need for twin tests. One of me could sleep in, while the other worked on fixing our grid -- oh.” He switches to a register several levels more formal, and says, “Honored Nirai, the crew would venerate you forever if the station could help us with lattice connection. We’ve been out of lattice access for the past thirty nine days, trying to find a specific planet with moonsables for our employer’s project, and I know Inquisitors Virmad and Sulen must be wanting to catch up with any general announcements or official dispensation documents from the Rahal and Liozh, now that we’re back in civilisation.”
Edited Date: 2017-08-12 05:32 am (UTC)

Re: [moth maintenance]

Date: 2017-08-12 01:38 pm (UTC)
zuhrovet: A green frog (Default)
From: [personal profile] zuhrovet
Sasha stares at her playback screen in shock for a moment. Did the child just offer the opponents access to her network? Isn't he Shuos? Shouldn't he know better? Is his expertise in three-card jeng-zai or something? Sasha pulls up his personnel file.

Re: [moth maintenance]

Date: 2017-08-12 04:16 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] pengwern
[HELLO REBELS IT'S SHUOS BACKSTAB TIME no, I'm sorry, Sasha's welcome to take it that way, but I meant this as asking for the station wifi password plus trying to get a look at these "special dispensations" by using the authority of a Rahal. I must have misunderstood the plans you were making about the glitchy comms/moth repairs?]

Re: [moth maintenance]

Date: 2017-08-13 01:52 am (UTC)
zuhrovet: A green frog (Default)
From: [personal profile] zuhrovet
[GOOD TIMES! Do get the station wifi password if you can! I was planning to use Sasha's flailing as an excuse to put her in the same room as Alaric.

Sasha didn't get a chance to stage the grid crash, and the visitors can tell the Wasp's lattice access is working, since one of them is cheerfully downloading figure skating through it. On the other hand, there would've been an unexpected pause in that download due to the firewall. If Mikodez complains about not being able to get downloads to work, it should be sort of plausible.]
Edited Date: 2017-08-13 02:08 am (UTC)

Sasha invents a new nickname

Date: 2017-08-13 02:06 am (UTC)
zuhrovet: A green frog (Default)
From: [personal profile] zuhrovet
[Let me know if Sasha gleans anything about Mikodez' technical skill from the personnel file, since that's ostensibly what she's looking for. Otherwise I'll assume she got his name and the injunction to keep him safe.]

Sasha emerges from her research half angry and half perplexed. Murdering Avrayen or Mishka or whatever-his-name-is-today is apparently counterindicated. She could invoke Ashari, but Ashari's at the reception and only listens to Sasha about one time in four on a good day. She'd love to talk to Kaliyan, who seems calm and good at threat assessment, but Kaliyan hasn't answered Sasha's note, which means she's probably doing some important pilot thing and won't welcome interruptions. That leaves Alaric.

Sasha asks the grid to stream a text version of the reception chatter to her antique tablet, and sets alarms in case her decryption routines bear fruit. She's not expecting much from the Butterfly, unless she's lucky enough to catch them making one of the classic implementation mistakes, but she has hopes that the Rosemallow ship will have messed up somewhere.

She already has a special alarm for messages from Kaliyan. Not, she tells herself, that she should expect to need it.

Re: Sasha invents a new nickname

Date: 2017-08-13 12:26 pm (UTC)
ursula: bear eating salmon (Default)
From: [personal profile] ursula
[Are they infected with the wriggly virus?]

Re: [moth maintenance]

Date: 2017-08-12 04:15 pm (UTC)
vass: Gold Iawa (OC from The Intolerable Clock) (Iawa (gold background))
From: [personal profile] vass
[Reminder to self: do not drink anything while catching up on [community profile] hexarchate_rpg]
Edited (html fail (who would win: vass or one lonely quotation mark in a tag?)) Date: 2017-08-12 04:17 pm (UTC)

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