I'll send an SOS to the world

[astrogator]

Who: Everyone who wants to!
What: Messages for the outside, NOVEMBER PLOT
When: Mid-October onwards
Where: By Phil's signpost, the lounge, Ari's cabin
Warnings: None yet, will update as needed
Notes: Credit to Batya for the first prompt!



1. Hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore

A day or two after the signpost goes up, a small table shows up next to it, with a large blank notebook from Sundries. It has been labeled on the front, in careful printing: MAIL CALL.

A nearby note, in the same printing, reads:

If you could send a message back home, or onward to the next place you want to go, what would it say? Write it here for posterity.

Pens and markers are available, in a tall cup scavenged from the buffet table.

2. Only hope can keep me together

In the second half of October, Ari will be in the lounge and other communal areas with her laptop. Anyone who passes by, whether she knows them well or not, will be asked to help her with a project. She doesn't want anyone to be forgotten, she says. She wants a record, because existence is so uncertain. Her injury made her value the people here on the ship more, she'll say, - and the bandage still around her head might speak to that. She encourages people to let her make a recording of them, talking about themselves.

'We can do it however you like,' she'll say. 'Flatvid, looking direct into the camera, or I can activate the holorecorders, give you your own holovid. If you don't know what to say, I'll ask questions. Please?' Are you really going to turn down the earnest young Tradeliner?

3. Sendin' out an SOS

Late in October, Ari calls a meeting of her co-conspirators. She gives them each a different time to arrive at her cabin, so the first arrivals will get to spend time helping with video editing or rocket construction while they await the others. There's time for private chat - but when everyone who decided to come along should be there, discussion begins in earnest.

[ooc: prompts divided up below for organisational purposes; contact me or Batya if you'd like to do something different!]

Comments

[astrogator]

'I personally will not take any steps to protect my captor. I will not.' She says it plainly, because she won't misrepresent herself to these people, the ones who are trusting her this far. Honesty matters.

'I'm not such a cynic as to think that the people who find our distress signal are likely to be hostile to us. It isn't impossible, but let's not overestimate the probability of it, and dissuade ourselves from taking this step towards freedom.'

She needs to refocus. To hold this together. 'I'm concerned with the launch,' she says, 'and you're all here today because you believe in it. That it's possible, and that it's valuable. Worth the risk. Once that probe goes up, free of this place? Our joint mission ends, and you can all act according to your own consciences. We don't have to agree on anything past that.' Tayrey cracks a smile. 'We haven't all agreed on anything before, not in the details.' She knows what she's planning to do, if they're found, but she won't drag anyone along unwilling.

[neverleave]

You know what? They really don't have to agree on anything past that.

"I'm not trying to dissuade anyone, or argue. We all had enough of that. Just wanted to make sure we're aware of all the risks."

And if it's every passenger for himself once that probe goes up, so be it. Natsuno doesn't care about the captain or Sparkles, barely cares about the other passengers. As long as Rita and Fio can make it out...

"Anyway, we're obviously not mentioning the word jinn. It's best to go over all messages before launch, to make sure no one gives unnecessary information."

[astrogator]

She nods, and when she speaks to Natsuno again it's more softly. 'I didn't think you truly meant to, and it's good that you raised it. On launch day I expect efficient action from everyone, no arguments and no delay, but in here? Say whatever you want.'

One reason why Ari's not so worried is because the sheer scale of space isn't lost on her. Even if someone's within range of the probe's beacon immediately, won't it take time for them to get close, to investigate, to make decisions? She'll have to manage expectations about the speed of a rescue, she thinks - but that can be left until after the launch.

Of course her daydream won't be a reality. Sparkles and Ari and their little team leading every prisoner on the ship to freedom! Some won't go. Some might want to be free but think their cage is safer than the uncertainties of whatever lies beyond. But that's not her concern. It can't be. She only has to get herself out, with those who do want to join her.

'I'm collating the messages and cutting down the videos,' she adds. 'It's like marketing, we have to be selective. No jinn talk, nothing about people being happy with the prison ship.' A pause, as she looks momentarily uncomfortable. 'I'd welcome a second opinion on this, but I don't want to use material from anyone who we know would be very opposed to this project. If Ava or Skulduggery come by when I'm filming, I'll invite them to join in. It'd be suspicious if I didn't. But I won't send off any of that footage - because I know how I'd feel if someone used my image in some kind of...Fake Captain Appreciation flatvid.'

[not_the_last]

"Agreed," says Cassandra. "It's a fine line, but ... I don't think the success or failure of the attempt can possibly depend on whether or not we include material from any one of us. I don't see that do us any harm to leave it out."

[abhorrently]

It's a bit, after they've circled this point, before Fever speaks up, arms folded across her chest.

"Lieutenant. I want to ask you a question, but you're not going to like it. Do I have your permission to continue?"

[astrogator]

That doesn't sound encouraging, but she'd told Natsuno he could say whatever he wanted to. She has to be consistent.

'You can ask, but if it's excessively personal I might not answer.' That's her best guess for why she wouldn't like the question.

'What is it?'

[abhorrently]

"If, as Cassandra's pointed out, Sparkles and him are still connected, there's almost a guarantee that it comes down to this: you save both, or you save neither."

Her eyes do not move from Tayrey's face, watching for even the slightest twitch. The slightest flicker of visible emotion.

"Are you prepared to make that call?"

Save her captor to save the child, or condemn them both. Neither option is perfect. Both will have consequences.

[astrogator]

Tayrey looks back evenly, taking a moment to consider the question. She'd had ethical dilemmas thrown at her all the time in training, only this one she's not obliged to calculate by Tradeline priorities.

They help, though.

Her decision is quick. 'I expect that at that point it won't be my choice alone. If it is? Sparkles comes with us to safety and freedom, if it's willing to go. Our captor does not have a seat on that rescue ship. That is the right action. If it has other consequences - that's the rule of double effect. If he still lives on here because I saved the child, it's not that I chose to save him too. I only refrained from killing him.'

[abhorrently]

"No, Tayrey. You're not answering my question. You're avoiding it and only focusing on one angle."

There's no mercy in that expression. No quarter given, no room for what ifs. Because the real situation will be complicated, messy, and full of magic stipulations. This is a test, to see how far she can trust Tayrey - if she really can expect that she'll take responsibility for it all.

"If you have to make that choice - to save neither, or to save both - if both go on your rescue ship or neither - can you do it?"

[astrogator]

She had answered the question honestly. She doesn't like this at all. Fever seems to be trying to trap her in a corner - to what end? Her eyes narrow.

'Your question is based on false premises. If I'm in charge of who gets on the rescue ship, I've told you what I'd do. If I'm not in charge of who gets on the rescue ship, then it's out of my hands anyway.'

She doesn't break Fever's gaze. 'But I know what you want from me.'

Rational spacer Tayrey, who could make the tough decisions in an instant. The promising young lieutenant. Is she still there, under a standard year of trauma from captivity? Code and Charter and contract - and in the end, her conscience. Rules to keep and rules to bend.

'Our captor gets no seat on that ship. Even if it means Sparkles chooses to stay behind. Even if it means my efforts to get Sparkles out fail.' If the little shadow dies on the flight out because of the severing of that connection. 'It's no life, being tied forever to a monster. And I will not allow a torturer of thousands the opportunity to start his horrors again in a new place. I will not facilitate it.'

That same stare, unwavering. 'But by that same hypothetical token, if my own true death could save the child, I'd consider it fair contract.' A contrived scenario with the same vanishingly low probability as the one Fever pushed her into answering for, she reasons. And an answer just as honest.

[abhorrently]

Then she can make that call. Good. It means that she can take the responsibility needed should this all fall apart.

Ultimately, she decides to not bother with pointing out the obvious - that given the number of people here versus who isn't, who'd also like a way out but who are more sympathetic, there's not a chance in the hells that Tayrey will be the one deciding who goes or not. No, likely that'll fall to those who have been here longer, or who managed to charm the population.

And very quietly, there's another resolution in her - that if the child won't survive without the other, and thus the demiplane falls apart when the child and Captain die, dooming those who need it to survive - there'll be an answer crafted then. She'll improvise, as she always does, because she trusts no one in this room enough to have a plan for that already arranged. Certainly not herself, when she knows her own planning skills .

The cold and unflinching gaze is broken, and instead, there's a little smile.

"Then you're considering all your angles. That's all I wanted to know."

No one likes evaluating potential costs. But it has to be done, in such schemes. Fever is used to gambling with her own life, and so equally high stakes are expected from anyone else.

[astrogator]

Tayrey sees it differently. She thinks those decisions will ultimately be made by their rescuers. It'll be their ship, after all, and their choice who boards it - but certain decisions can be primed for. Encouraged. It's why she and Cassandra are carefully curating the data they'll be sending out, omitting any mixed messages. It's why Tayrey's positioning herself and her trusted allies as the ones to talk to or to negotiate an agreement with, since they're the ones who called for assistance. Who wanted it - needed it, badly.

Nothing is guaranteed, but she's at least giving probability a good nudge in the right direction.

She gives Fever a curt nod. Yes, she considers all angles. She knows where her red lines are, the ones she won't cross no matter what happens. And she knows what's negotiable.

'Of course. I won't falter at a critical moment because a decision isn't easy,' she says simply. 'But we'd do better to focus on the practical problems.'