- This topic has 9 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 1 month ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Personal Log, Lt.Jr. Adele Mundy, TSN Hawk, 2nd Flt. 4LD
5316-2237I’ve tried starting this log several times now, and no approach seems to do it justice. The age-old royal advice goes: begin at the beginning, and go on until you come to the end: then stop; but my memories are all drawn to the explosion, and briefings and sims and even missions pale into insignificance. I am considering Matsiyan’s medicinal alcohol.
People got promoted, and we cheered; the sim exercise was plagued by software glitches and instruments blackout; Hawk and Lancer went on a patrol mission to protect whales from poachers in Atlantis Sector. I was assigned to Helm, and didn’t crash into anything. Normally I’d be quite elated by this, given all the librarian-who-can’t-drive jokes I’ve heard. I could give you the ISBN numbers for the books where they appear…
Never mind. Explosions. Traitors. But that all comes after. This is getting as bad as one of those 21st century vid things, when there was that fashion for flashbacks as a stylistic device. So glad the fad didn’t last long. A glass of wine with you, sir?
The second mission seemed so quiet, too. We were escorting some transports through Arietis system, and everyone was fretting because those things were so damn slow, they were really easy targets for the USFP ships. So perhaps it was boredom that led Phoenix and Hawk to follow the two Stage 1 Biomechs around as they went on their way, apparently minding their own inscrutable biomech business. I was busy scanning for Unuks when the situation changed, so I can’t say whether something provoked the biomechs to attack, or if Phoenix engaged first. We dispatched the Biomechs with no trouble, they were only little ones. And then the Stage 4 turned up, heading to the location where the two Stage 1s had been. We couldn’t help speculating whether it was an adult looking for the cubs – which means we’re ascribing sentience and at least animal-like empathy to the Biomechs, and we should be more objective than that until we have more solid data. But the thing was broadcasting, and the translation program rendered the transmission as:
Que*stion C
areful HrehviGH
Freedom% Curious #Tolerate*
*further garbled transmission, stand by*
w–h–y 43543253 frewwvhfje chldrn – r34123112 hrmd ******
*end of transmission*I read that as “why children harmed”. Am I anthropomorphising? Are the numbers a code we haven’t worked out yet, or mechanical sounds the program is reading as numerical? We’re at war with xenophobes, and we may be randomly killing other sentient species ourselves, just because we don’t speak their language.
To the human species, ever more far-sighted and broadminded. Cheers.
I was reflecting on that when we reached the base and delivered the transports at last. We were gathered in the Mess Hall at one point, when del Pino said something mysteriously apologetic and went out. It took everyone gathered there just a little too long to realise that Cessna was gone too. Hydra’s systems registered Cessna and del Pino on board. The Assistant Duty Officer went to report the anomalous situation to the senior officers, and just then Hydra undocked.
Dammit, if I have to have this psychic link thing, why couldn’t it be actually useful? As in, let me find out who the traitors were? But no, I get the really helpful superpower of knowing when the coffee is ready on Hydra. Except that there’s no Hydra now. Poor Matsiyan lost his second best coffee maker… Just as well he wasn’t on board at the time…
Everyone scrambled to their ships – apart from Hydra‘s crew, obviously, who were hurriedly redistributed aboard all the other vessels, and we gave frantic chase, trying to capture Hydra before she could escape through the Poseidon gate. Somehow, Cessna found time to broadcast taunts at us, calling us alien-lovers and telling us we needed to put humans first – does nobody remember the Inhuman Purges back on Earth in the 21st century? I know that’s an episode that historians have tried to hush up since the beginning of space colonization, but those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
Then there was no time to reflect on the lessons of history, as we needed to stop the Unukalhai ships from pouring through the gate to attack. I didn’t even have time to wonder where The Little Horror might be… Everything was rushed, loud, and bright, until the shocking brightness that overloaded the screens as Hydra self-destroyed, attempting to take some of the fleet with her. We hoped there were no other TSN crew members on board. Hail Hydra.
When the dust settled and we made it back to base for debriefing, it was confirmed that del Pino and Cessna were Unukalhai sympathisers, USFP agents who had infiltrated our forces. It seems del Pino had been under observation since the malware incident, but Cessna had managed to go unobserved. And there may be one more spy whose identity is as yet unknown, so security is continuing their scrutiny. Cheerful news. Another glass of wine may be called for.
Meanwhile, the Division is short one ship, and will have to draw on the reserves. I wonder what the shipyards are going to send us. And how many cadets to crew her.
The hell with alcohol, this is too serious. I need chocolate.
[end log]
//OOC game resumes: spot the references to Earth popular culture in Mundy’s log.
Are Unuks like eunuchs? If so, I’m full support of this slang. Let the traitors have nothing but humiliation!
*pours a drink for the Hydra* Hail Hydra!
//Inhuman purge? Do you know something about the MCU that I don’t?
//I’m extrapolating a bit from the Terrigen stuff in the comics up to last year, when they decided to get rid of mutants (again) but they brought in Attilan and the Inhumans. The way the new no-they-aren’t-really-mutants-but-they’re-weird-and-scary-anyway were being treated, I could imagine them being rounded up “for safety”… And maybe some of the ones with the less obvious traits might make it off planet, so there may be descendants out there, with recessive genes; which is where I’m going to claim Adele’s minor and somewhat unreliable psychic ability comes from.
//Right, completely forgot about the comics. Silly Marvel, we like mutants more.
Of course, this brings up the thought of 616 shenanigans being in the past of the USPF…GMs, this is not an invitation to bring in a time travelling Iron Man. No one is prepared for that!
//I always wonder how you roleplay that psychic ability. Have you elaborated anywhere on it? If not, would you like to?
//OOC game: Marvel’s “Hail Hydra”, flashbacks in movies, George Santayana’s quote about history. Any hits?
//The psychic ability started as a joke, because Matsiyan and I are in the same room, so even though we’re on different ships I know what’s going on wherever he is. When things get really busy there’s no time to look at his screens, and I try to tune out his conversatio, but when thigs are more relaxed it’s easy to keep track of events on his ship. So rather than pretend I don’t know, we decided there was a psychic link. It isn’t really powerful (though I can make pretty good guesses about what he’s thinking and what he’s going to do, that just comes from knowing each other for a long time!), but it can be a fun quirk.
//As for elaborating on it, I was thinking about it recently, it just hasn’t come up as something to write about in logs.//Yes indeed! Three hits! There are two more, word for word quotations from books…
//@ Aramond, I’m still catching up with the 616 shenanigans. The Marvel online subscription is both helpful, in that everything up to 12 months ago is available, and overwhelming, because there is just So Much Stuff. I am beginning to hate cross-overs with a deep and intense passion.
//Marvel Unlimited is a full year behind? Could have sworn that it was 6 months. Either way, I’m still getting through all the Secret Wars stuff by using…less reputable sources*.
*Aramond does not advocate the use of these “less reputable sources”
//You could be right about he 6 months, I don’t check that carefully. I tend to not look at MU for weeks, and then binge…
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.