driftfleet | Captain's Log 11 - Calling All Captains

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Captain's Log 11 - Calling All Captains

Who: Kirk + Fellow Captains and First Mates
Broadcast: Yes
Action: Yes; On the Marsiva
When: After this post

[ Broadcast ]
Given the recent events, I think it is prudent that all current captains and their first mates meet. It has been some time since we've had one, to my knowledge, and I believe it to be in our better interests to discuss the change in circumstances.

I'll secure a space that can fit us all, and let you know where and when soon.

[ Action ]
_{[ Kirk had secured a space that was both relatively private and large enough to fit all of the captains and first mates. At least being on the Marsiva meant that everything here was more or less neutral ground, even if it didn't feel like the safest place to meet per say. But putting this off until they got off it didn't feel right either, so best to make the most of it.

Hopefully all the captains would come, and their first mates, and they could try to make sense of the most recent events. Because someone had to, right? ]}

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It seemed everyone who wished to come had come, and there wasn't anything to be gained by waiting longer. If someone came in late, they could be filled in briefly and they would carry on. But every moment that they postponed talking of this, the worse it all seemed to Kirk.

He took his seat and looked around the table at those who had decided to assemble, feeling like he was back in his proper element. Though what a hell of a time to feel that, huh?

"Thank you, everyone, for coming," Kirk said, continuing to sweep his gaze slowly over the assembled. "I'm sure everyone is aware of the... change in Atroma, or at the least of those who speak to us on Atroma's behalf. Which leaves us with questions, and possible decisions to make. What does this mean for us, and can we do anything about it?"

Short and sweet, and now the floor was open.

Sokka is always willing to be around to discuss things with the other captains and first mates. Exchanging ideas and beliefs is the best way to work out just about anything. To hash it out, see things from every angle- find a solution that might actually work. Public speaking isn't really his thing, it's always been a weakness of his. But this is important.

"I think the root problem is one that's always been here. They've got eyes and ears everywhere, literally following our every move," he sits back, exhaling. "I used to think the Iskaulit was safe- that it was never theirs, but now we can get upgrades there? We don't even have that place to get privacy from them. Whatever we plan, they're going to be ten steps ahead of us unless we find a way to discus things without them catching on."

"Be that as it may, if we're going to be discussing anything at all, the Marsiva is one of the least private options available to us." Pointedly. In Nami's eyes, there isn't much that can be discussed on the Atroma's own host ship at all. Sensitive stuff should stay well out of this meeting.

"Though it might all be moot. I mean-- there's no reason our augments aren't doing all the recording for them."

"Could build a shuttle from found items. Seems to work for weapons. Wouldn't solve the augment problem, though. We need to find a way to isolate them. Maybe get the lab techs to continue to look into it?"

Not that people haven't already done that, with some near-disastrous results, but what Nami says is true; anything else they do won't matter much if Atroma still has access to everything they see/hear/feel through the augments.

"I assume we drift based on where they want us to. So even if we come across something that seems free from their influence we should still be careful. As what had likely happened is that they wanted us to come across the things we find.

Like the Iskaulit. They could have had that set up to spy on us before we even came across it." He's never personally trusted the Iskaulit. Too many chances for their host to eventually get on it if they hadn't from the start if they really wanted to. Especially now that they were all trapped here.

"Except of course, for that time we were attacked, I get the feeling that wasn't exactly part of their plan."

"I'm not sure about that," Nami says. "If the Marsiva was as well armed as we've been shown, why were the Atroma so quiet when those raiders threatened to drag all of us away?"

Conceivably it's because the Atroma knew they could revive the dead and retrieve prisoners, but all the same. That would take all the suspense out of their beloved and supposed television show.

"The raiders could have all been part of the show. Sweeps week."

Kitty is auditioning for the least optimistic.

"I think the augments are the biggest problem. They can influence and control us and it must have at least some awareness of what we're doing because it knows to act if we try to remove it." She definitely tried and it was bad. "Building a shuttle or finding more private ways of communicating doesn't change that."

Edited 2017-06-24 15:14 (UTC)

"I think we need to go on the offensive. Even if we could neutralize the augment, they have control over what we do. If we can strike a big enough blow against them, that may buy us some time to think." It didn't matter what they used to monitor them if the people doing the monitoring were disabled.

"But what would we be attacking?" Kirk countered, having been quietly listening until now. "I'm not saying it's off the table, but just striking at something randomly will probably do more harm than good. There's the augments to consider, and the fact that any action we take could very well mean repercussions for everyone, not just us. If we attack, we need a solid target we are more than sure would, for at least some time, disable Atroma."

He entwined his fingers on the table, trying to seem relaxed and in control rather than frustrated.

"We could reasonably guess how the previous hosts would react, too. We're dealing with new players here and they don't sound nearly as... lenient as the previous pair. That is something I think we should all keep in mind."

"Yeah, I don't think a big show of force is the way forward. Not when we know they're packing that cannon, can literally play inside our heads and who knows what else. A full front attack would just get us super dead, super fast. We need to be cleverer than they are."

This, at least, Sokka is good at. Tactics, planning, war. He hates that they don't have the information they need to make any real good go of...well, anything.

"We've also got to think about what comes after. Say we, somehow, mange to defeat them, then what? We're in space no one recognises. I've been collecting star-maps every time I can, but no one seems to recognise anything. Maps are pretty useless if you don't know where to aim yourself to go. We'd need a plan for that eventuality, too."

"Personally I think we should take a blow at the Marsiva. We're already at war, already on the defensive. Already under attack. As far as the after, I think once we have the ability to direct our own movement it will be relatively easy to figure out a path.

"Or we figure out then how to get ourselves home." Which was all Signy really wanted.

"We're in a singular place in time and space and the multiverse right now and people need to get to lots of different points, so not super easy. But I'm definitely pro not having them in charge of us even if it leaves us lost. However, I'm anti blowing up the ship we're currently occupying unless we have a really good plan for it not taking us out too."

"That still leaves a lot of ifs," Kirk reasoned out, expanding on Kitty's thought as well as getting out his own. "Again, all we really know is the Marsiva has a huge canon, and if it's been hiding that all this time, what else is it hiding? I'm going to bet the Marsiva has shields of some sort, and nothing on any of our little tug boats is probably going to be able to punch through that."

He leaned back in his chair a bit more.

"And the after is even more complicated than that. Sure we're in space, but that's all we know. Like Sokka said, no one recognizes these star maps and that could mean a lot of things. Like Kitty said, it could be we're in another galaxy, another universe, and we don't even know what time we're in. Getting home isn't going to be all that easy, and since we've been discovering what look like other Marsiva type ships? I'm willing to also bet that Atroma has the resources to send another ship after us. Just downing the Marsiva doesn't solve the problem for good. And can our own ships even warp without the Marsiva?"

He shook his head. All of this was way, way more complicated than he thought any of them realized. Not enough information, that was the problem.

"Honestly, we need more information. There's to many gaps."

“I wasn’t planning on being on the ship when we blow it up,” Signy said. “Although having access to the interior may be able to help us with accomplishing such a mission.”

She wasn’t going to repeat the idea other than saying that, other than pointing out, “I think the after isn’t as important as the present, which is that we’re at war and haven’t fired a single shot. We’ll know the shape of our foe better once we’ve tried to get in a hit. I’m open to however we want to do that, but I do think it needs to be done.”

It's how Signy gathers information, at least.

"So we've basically decided we need to do something but we don't know what and we don't have any information that helps, so that's all very useful." Don't take Nami personally. She's been in a bad mood for days, and she knows that's not very fair. Doesn't stop her, though.

"I get it, I really do. This whole situation grates, and just sitting here and taking it doesn't really sit well with any of us. ...most of us." A quiet amendment. "But I don't think we're going to work out a plan of action here, on this ship. It's their home ground, and they pulled us in precisely so they could have the most control over us possible. Hell, I bet you anything if we managed to come up with some brilliant scheme we'll have all forgotten it after tonight because they'll be paying razor close attention.

"Complaining about it doesn't help either, I know. But I'd suggest people individually compiling all the slivers of information they can and maybe the captains touching base with each other a heck of a lot more often. As a start."

"That's the truth. We're in no place to do anything, and we don't have any information to fall back on even if we did."

It's the same old story. Atroma have more cards than they do, and until that changes, they're sitting ducks. He rubs the back of his head.

"I'm all for us touching base more often. Maybe make it a monthly, bi-monthly meeting? Something like that? Share whatever we find out. The only way we stand any chance is sticking together, after all."

Kirk nodded. "Agreed with touching base more often. Any one of us is free to call the meeting if they feel they have anything of note or, as we've said, touching base."

He leaned forward again, steeping his fingers fingers.

"But before information - I think we should all check in on our different crew members and get a feel for how they're taking the recent changes. I'm sure we all know that the mental battle is half the war in this place. Let's make sure we're at least keeping ahead of them on that front, especially after the calibrations."

Kitty nods. "Just working as a team instead of separately should be something." And it feels like they mostly have nothing here so, it felt worth adding. "We can get more accomplished together. And these calibrations are going to take a toll which they probably want."

Vash has been quietly listening to the discussion. So far the only thing he's really come to a conclusion is that Signy reminds him too much of the crazy "shoot first ask questions never" type from back home for his liking. Not that he would ever outwardly show that.

"I think leaving things like this for now is for the best. For us to focus on the things we see on this ship while we're here and then coming together to put together what we can find and remember.

The last time this happened the longer we stayed the more we could see and notice of the ship." Vash's eyes flicks towards the people who have experienced calibrations like him before. "I remember writing down something about a media file and then after found they add those clips and music to our communications.

Now, that was mildly useless in the end, but maybe this time we could find something a bit more helpful?" He doubts it, but he likes to be the hopeful type.

Tyrion has been playing with his glass of wine, well in the back of this group. Sitting quietly and listening, mis-matched eyes thoughtful, before he stated simply.

"We could do nothing at all."

He leaned over to take another sip, and glanced at the others, "Passive resistance, I believe it is called. They clearly want us to do 'things'. What if we do ... nothing?"

Edited 2017-06-30 12:06 (UTC)

"Nothing."

Sokka takes a moment to let that sink in.

"Like...at all? Won't that just force them to make us do something? They need those ratings, after all, and they're not afraid to use our augments to make that happen."

"Aaaah, but there's the thing. They can use the augments to make us do things -- but are they at all natural? No. I cannot remember a single glitch where the person acted in any way short of disturbing. It was not, as you might think, 'a fun watch''." Tyrion arched an eyebrow at all of them.

"What do we have to lose?"

"I think your view on augments is limited," Nami says. "Many of the ones I've seen happen seem keyed to generate drama around them. Or comedy. Either are audience draws. People have been made grievously sick, people have turned into walking advertisements for the Atroma. Suddenly turning into kids seems popular. They're all disturbing, granted, but that's because we're finding them disturbing. We are not the target audience. It's easy to find these things entertaining when you're not directly involved.

"Aside from that--" And she frowns. "There are two other problems with that. I mean, it's really, really tempting to spit in their face no matter how we can. But you'd have to get the entirety of the Fleet to agree to sit and do nothing, and that just isn't achievable. Even if it were, you couldn't sustain it. We're not built that way.

"And even after all that, if we somehow managed to achieve such a massive dip in ratings, I'm not confident that would result in any favourable outcome to us. If we were useless to the Atroma as a way to get ratings, what's to say they won't just switch us off, or jettison us out into space? Wipe the board, get a new group more willing to comply?"

Playing the long game is their only real option.

Kitty was trying to take in the passive resistance idea. It has some merits. Of course it does. Tyrion came up with it. Nami has a point that executing it would be hard. It might be one thing if they were captains of crews that trained for this and signed up with them, but they aren't. They're just people who took charge or were randomly assigned it. That doesn't mean it's impossible, but it won't be easy and what if the Atroma run them into a fleet of raiders? Are they really going to do nothing while they're under attack? Or they could just set off the augments as mentioned. It always comes back to that.

"So, we've crossed out doing something and doing nothing. We're really on a roll." The sarcasm is strong, but she doesn't mean it harshly. It's just a hard situation. She spent so much time in the prison she was in before waiting and gathering info and trying to cultivate a team and none of it ever got them anywhere. Maybe it would have been more emotionally satisfying and better for morale to just try and blow something up. They might have at least learned something useful from it. But she'd be risking a lot of lives on that bet.

"What we are sure of is that we don't know nearly enough," Kirk reminded everyone, giving Kitty a look over the sarcasm but otherwise letting it slide. Not constructive, but he understood the frustration. He felt it too, this sense of powerlessness, and no way to form a real plan. They could do something, but there were just to many outcomes that didn't work out for them.

"I know it seems frustrating, but I suggest we continue as we have. We continue playing their game, even though I feel like we don't have much choice. We watch. We listen. We remember as much as we can. Eventually, Atroma will make a mistake. We will find something they didn't mean for us to find, and we can use it."

He sighed, because he already knew how a couple of people would feel about that, his gaze flickering to Signy briefly.

"Patience is as much a part of a battle as the actual strike. When we do strike, we need it to count. We might get only one chance, so we need a more than solid chance it will work. We cannot and should not count on the ability to make a second attempt. To Nami's point, that means meeting up more often, and I would suggest on planet when we can."

A little bit further from Atroma's reach, though they were still there, hovering, watching. But perhaps less so. And maybe, maybe one day a planet will be able to jam Atroma's signals somehow.

"I realize this isn't a solution, not right now, but it can lead to one. And I think that needs to be our focus, since I don't see us coming up with the solution with the information we have today."

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