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Personal log, Lt. Adele Mundy, TSN Eagle, 4 LD (in temporary exile)
30416-2237Choose the loci, and start placing the paragraphs.
The Rotunda, facing the staircase:
I know, from a structural point of view, this is no way to start; but this isn’t a story, and I shall have no readers except an older and forgetful self, if I live that long. And since I would have to delete this log too, like the previous one, if I wrote it, only to reconstruct it if and when we resolve the conspiracy and return to our station, my immediate-future self had better put those old Ciceronian techniques into practice again. The memory palace holds the last shift’s log safe in my mother’s drawing room, so far. Time to start working my way up the stairs for this week’s log.The newel post with the scrollwork my little brother, known as The Little Horror, carved his initials into:
A call from the maintenance team reporting that the Captain’s gig’s thrusters were out of alignment meant the safety checks I needed to carry out were delayed until the realignment was completed. But there was no way I was going to cut them short. With the luck we’ve been having, I’m double checking every seal and every bolt and every damn switch… So I made it on board Eagle at the last possible moment, without even hearing the briefing.The portrait of my grandfather, with his patents unfurled like ancient scrolls on the desk beside him:
The training sims were plagued by systems malfunctions, as our network and the Hjorden station’s are not quite compatible. We had new crew members on board, too – Cadet Max Power, who has been with us long enough to be eligible to take his Ensign exam, and Cadet Zahn, fresh out of the Academy – how they managed to reach us, considering our current status, I do not know, and had not the time to ask.The portrait of my great-aunt Adelaide in uniform, on the steps of City Hall:
As we waited for our mission to begin, I had a moment to ask Lt. Assassino to summarise our orders: we were to act as a rapid response team against pirate and Skaraan incursions, as repayment for hospitality on Hjorden S-12. Then, just minutes before launch, Assassino was dispatched to Dauntless – we have to shuffle crews around more than usual, to optimise our limited resources. With Capt. Evans commanding Eagle, I settled into Science and Comms (for some reason, after being told to conflate the two stations some months ago, we are now being told to separate them again; I’ll see if any explanation is forthcoming); Lt. Jr. Adam Parra took Helm, Cdt. Max Power took Weapons, and Cdt. Zhan went to Engineering.The portrait of my grandmother on the passenger observation deck of the liner Thorvald, on route to Paragon:
The live fire exercise was interrupted by Hjorden stations signalling for help against Skaraan and pirate attacks, so we raced to assist. The action was intense enough to be relaxing, if that makes any sense: in combat, my attention needs to be on the Captain’s orders, on the ships I’m scanning, on the comms console, on Helm’s need for course settings, and on Weapons’ need for beam frequencies. And while all that happens, there is no time for idle speculation about political conspiracies and their consequences. Eagle has no beams to speak of, so that leaves extra attention for scanning the sector, which proved necessary, because our scanners’ range was limited by our agreement with the Hjorden, meaning that hostiles were able to get closer to us than they normally would before being detected.The painting of the newly-completed Chatsworth House, with my grandparents, and my father, aged three, standing under the front colonnade:
When I heard comms reports of a singularity opening, I was expecting Caltrons to pour out, and, while relieved that Dauntless was standing guard, I was trying to remember how much ordnance we had left, and plotting a course towards the singularity so no time would be wasted when our current engagement was concluded. Then the Fleet Captain’s voice announced the emerging ship as the Ximni light cruiser Rolling Thunder; there was a quick exchange of confirmation codes, and a division-wide cheer followed.On the landing at the first turning of the stair, the portrait of my grandfather in his newly-acquired Baronial finery:
So, a happy, if not yet triumphal, return to base. Fleet Capt. Xavier Wise is alive, and back with us after daring adventures. We heard a quick summary from him: after finding out (from an unnamed contact in USFP intelligence) the information Capt. Evans relayed to us from the smuggled data stick last shift, Xavier realised that though he couldn’t allow the alien Weapon to be used, his actions would have inevitable repercussions. He had set up a secure subroutine that sent a message to a trusted contact (again, unnamed), who pulled him out of the transport just before chaos erupted. As it happened, we arrived on our rescue attempt almost at the same time, adding to the confusion; and while the Ximni allies moved Xavier away just before the Skaraans attacked, the transport ship he had been on was destroyed, and with any luck he may be presumed dead by the conspirators.The portrait of my parents on their engagement:
The fact remains, the 4th Light Division has gone rogue, and the conspirators are still at large and need to be tracked down before they can unleash war in the system. There are possibilities for action, if we can stay undetected: the Ximni might be persuaded to aid us getting into the sector without attracting attention so that we can gather information; a waypoint has been found that seems to be a strong MoonSec holding; and, following up on theories about the destructive events in Cronus, we might attempt to use Daka generators to stabilise the new rift. Of course, that would mean stealing the Daka generators from the Kraliens. Lt.Cmdr. van Leigh might still get to fulfill his piratical ambitions, despite an explicit warning that eyepatches should not be worn during official duty shifts.The portrait of my father in his Baronial finery:
It also appears that someone is paying the Skaraans to hunt down the Division. One might echo the immortal “I am shocked, M. Rick, shocked!” outburst, with a similar level of credibility. However, it would be better to put the energy into following the money; which ought to be possible, as long as it doesn’t worry our Hjorden hosts.The portrait of my sister Hasmita and her future husband Alex on their engagement:
The excitement about the Fleet Captain’s return then extended to his ship: Rolling Thunder is a fine-looking vessel, but more than her looks, what caused comment was her engine. Everyone is eager to try out the Ximni jump drive, and there is a general agreement we need to train on how to use it, with the idea being bandied about that Ximni vessels could be used to infiltrate TSN space while undercover.The empty space on the wall, set aside for portraits of future generations:
With as much formality as could be mustered in our current situation, Capt. Evans returned command of the division to the Fleet Captain, amid general cheers.The first floor gallery (because my grandfather was obsessed with the history of the Napoleonic Wars, and inspired by the Regency country houses of the English upper classes, Chatsworth kept to the English systems of naming the storeys of a building):
Just to make sure we didn’t abandon all restraint, crew members with no other assignments were sent off to a couple more exercises. Eagle’s now reduced bridge crew was split up to make up the numbers on Dauntless, Montgomery and Hunter. I was sent to Montgomery, where I experienced first-hand the ease of working with officers who are used to each other: Cmdr. Jemel in command, Lt. Aramond on Helm, Lt. Hall on Weapons, Lt Finley in Engineering. They laughed with me, not at me, when I suddenly remembered, part-way though an early engagement, that Montgomery has beams. It was smooth sailing, as relaxing and satisfying as that familiar stretch between Striga and the minor islands, before the troubles with the harbour gangs…The watercolour of a group of children, including my older sister, myself and my little brother, playing with toy boats around the fountain in Perez Park:
And later, as we were milling about after being dismissed, chatting in excitement about the Ximni ship and its jump drive, Ens. Slate mentioned her experience with jump drive ships. So a few of us found an empty sim suite, and started learning the basics. It’s a new way of thinking, and I’ll need some practice, but it would certainly shake up the Skaraans if we could use jump against them. Also, Ens. Slate was not exaggerating her experience. Her training presentation deserves a commendation, and, odd as it might look given her current rank (ranks change, and besides, there are always brevet ranks and field promotions), in future training on jump ships I’d like to see her in command of one.But dammit, I might have to have another look at trigonometry.
//well, the italics got all mangled in that… They didn’t transfer correctly from my file, and I must have mis-keyed as I tried to add them back in. The descriptions of the objects at the beginning of each paragraph were originally intended to be in italics. That’s the text that actually appears in the log. They are mnemonic cues to the paragraphs that follow, which are not written down anywhere, but memorised.
// And I nearly forgot to add, No-Prizes, as always, for spotting references in the log. Udae should make a pretty clean sweep this time…
//If you use the trick from this post, you can update your original topic post and fix the italics as you see fit.
//This was a very nice log, and with the addition of the memory palace, it gives a different look on Adele, one that we don’t explore enought during usual roleplay.
//I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
//And it really is interesting to be on a ship crewed entirely by Lieutenants. That was some fun flying at the end.
// Also, completely non-TSN but it was such a great time I have to mention it, we did a full weekend LARP years ago that involved mashing up the plots of Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, Morocco, To Have and Have Not, Beau Geste, and I forget how many more. Having stood up to sing the Marseillaise in Rick’s café with a bunch of other crazy RPers is not an experience you easily forget 🙂
//I’ve only seen the ‘memory palace’ before on James May’s Man Lab where he used it to memorize the riders for the Grand National.
It’s neat and I like seeing this as the differences between how Officers are recording logs in a trying time. Some are putting them on paper, other memorizing, and then you have Feil, hacking into the black box of is fighter.Think anyone else will come up with other ways to record a log securely?
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