come_sailaway | [OTA] Looking for answers

Who: Arilanna Tayrey and OPEN - meet the newbie!
What: Looking for logic on an illogical ship
When: Late October
Where: Various places (general catch-all intro post)

i. O my fair North Star (outside, on deck)

[Accustomed to second-shift as she is, Lieutenant Tayrey works best at night. She's up on deck, starboard side, and a fair amount of her time is spent pacing back and forth, back and forth, as if she owns the place. She's thinking. She's trying to puzzle all this out. When she's not pacing, she's tapping at her slate computer, or leaning over the side, holding out a black rectangular box. Or she's making marks on paper, some sort of chart. Once or twice, she seems to be using a genuine, old-fashioned sextant, wherever she managed to get hold of that.

She's not interested in the sea, or where the ship is headed. No, the way she'll get her bearings is by charting the stars - but no matter what method she tries, there's something decidedly odd about them.

Do come and join her, but try not to disrupt her concentration! She might not be too happy if you do.]

ii. A little bit stronger (the gym)

[Ari might not be too happy with the state of the stars, or indeed the state of the ship, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to appreciate about her new (and temporary, she reminds herself. Very temporary if she has it her way) home. Every other day, she's in the gym, and this girl lifts heavy.

There she is, squatting down with an impressive amount of weight on her back, and when she finishes the set, she turns around with a tired smile for any nearby fellow gym-goers]

iii. Lost in space and time (Spirit Halloween)

[This store can only be infinite, thinks Ari, if there's a loop in the programming. She might have to walk a very long way before she finds the loop, but it has to be there.

It's not what she's planning to do today, however, because it might be a very large loop, and it's best to be prepared, treat it like an expedition. No, what Ari Tayrey is looking for today is much simpler. Basic clothing. Plain white shirts. Socks. She arrived on this ship with only one set of clothes, and she's been doing her best - laundry in the sink in her cabin every night, making sure that uniform of hers stays fresh and clean - but there comes a point where enough is enough. She's found a way to justify it as not-theft, even by the exacting standards of the Tradelines. She'll take what she wants.

She's utterly dismayed to find only row upon row of ridiculous costumes. No. No. She has some dignity; any amount of laundry is better than this. Still, her frustration spills over.]

This is ridiculous. Completely ridiculous! If I could file a complaint, I'd...file it!

iv. Wildcard!

[Want to find her somewhere else on the ship? In her initial explorations, she could end up in any (public) place. PM me to plot, or just start something and I'll roll with it :) ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He's not incredibly familiar with a handshake like that, but it's close to something the Luxans like D'Argo use, so he takes it in stride. He's not shy about touch in any way.]

I was flight commander of a solo missions for the International Aeronautics and Space Administration, of Earth. Civilian, experimental. [He's a scientist, not a soldier like so many assume, based on the pulse pistol he wears strapped to his right thigh.] But, and it's a long story, before I came here I was on a ship named Moya and her captain is Ka D'Argo. Still, uh, civilian. Sort of.

[He's wearing an apologetic smile, as if to say he's already sorry for how much of this is going to make no sense.]

And, yeah. The reason those charts are never going to line up for you is because all of this is a fabrication made by the Captain. And, he makes it up as he goes, from what I can tell. I know it's hard to give up old habits, but this one is an exercise in futility.

I see! So you're a civvy spacer. [From some Tradeliners, this might have been a critical description, but Arilanna manages to make it sound almost affectionate.] Still, being in command isn't nothing. I was born on Cardalek. That's a Company-owned colony, but don't worry if you don't know it. Nobody else does - but I'd never heard of Earth before I got here, either, so that evens it out.

[She's not entirely sure how to deal with his next revelation, and there's a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes.] I know a lot of captains would like to think they control the stars, but - you're being literal, aren't you? It's part of this temporal bubble or simulation or whatever we're going to call this.

[She sighs, softly.] I'm used to being on duty twelve hours in twenty-four. I already don't know what to do with myself here. If this is futile, then...[she trails off. It's just one more difficulty.]

Commander? Can I ask you something difficult? [The worst he can do is say no, right?]

I'm a scientist. Was a scientist.

[He has encountered less favorable reactions to his being a civilian before, so he might have a slight chip on his shoulder about it. He can keep up with a gunfight these days now, anyway. He's not that civvy anymore.]

None of my crew on Moya had heard of Earth before me either, so I'm used to it. Besides, we've got all kinds here.

Yeah. I'm being literal. Call it magic, call it an illusion, call it a simulation. Doesn't matter how you rationalize it. The important part is he's at the helm and we can't get out. We're at his mercy, and he hasn't got any to spare.

[She gets a sympathetic look after she explains her duty hours. Christ, she's going to have a hard transition.]

Go ahead and ask. Can't promise you will like the answer.

[Ironically, Ari's inclined to think well of spacers of almost all kinds. Scientists, she has more mixed feelings about, but here she's inclined to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. And he's both, really.]

I'd prefer not to rationalise it away. [Especially not by calling it 'magic' - that earns a little roll of her eyes, spoken by a scientist.] I'd prefer to identify what we know as a group and what we don't, objectively, and to see if we can increase that knowledge. That may be our way out of here, ultimately.

[That's the spirit she's asking her question in, even if it seems mad.]

Well, Citizen Oda mentioned you to me, but he - told me that you were dead. [What's the question? It's not are you dead? because he's clearly not. She decides to simply wait, and see how he responds.]

You're going to drive yourself a little crazy if you don't learn to let the details get fuzzy here or there. Trust me on that one. [He's not going to keep pressing her on the magic is real front, even though it really, really is here. She's going to find that out one way or another.

Besides. She's gonna love his answer to that unspoken question.]

Oda...Oh! Nobunaga. Yeah. He's a character, isn't he? He didn't lie to you if that's what you're worried about. A little while ago, I got attacked by one of the guys here who's possessed by a vengeful ghost. He murdered me in the Spirit Halloween store. I was dead for a whole three days. Usually, it should only be one, but with the ship going to hell all around us, I guess Friday's running a little behind on her duties. That's what I mean about not sweating some of the details. Death here isn't permanent.

[She cannot appreciate how hard it is for him to keep from throwing in a Monty Python "I got better" at the end of that statement.]

[Fuzzy? That doesn't sound like the attitude of a scientist either, but Ari lets it go. It's not necessary that they all react in the same way to things, and if he finds that not wanting to know what's really happening brings him comfort, it's not her place to tell him differently.]

I like him. He's been kind to me - but yes, that's what he told me. [She speaks more slowly now.]

That you were dead, but you wouldn't stay dead. Here's the proof of it. It tips the probabilities a little, as I'm concerned. Do you remember what happened to you in-between? During those three days?

I like him, too. He's a good friend, don't get me wrong about that.

[He is wearing such a sympathetic look for her, despite him having been the one to die. He gets it. He was a scientist, after all. He liked the idea that the world has an order to it that can be studied and predicted. It still does, of course, it's just that he now knows that the rules aren't always the same for every universe and he refuses to let himself be driven any more insane trying keep track of it all.]

Nope. Nada. It felt the same as going to sleep with no dreams and then waking up. But, you know, with more pain involved.

[She's resolved to keep trying, even if maybe telling everyone isn't the best of ideas. Ari knows herself well enough to say that getting to the point where she'd be accepting spurious spiritualist explanations for things really would be part of a slide into madness for her, and she can't allow that. She just has to put up with this place until she can escape or some other starship rescues her - although with the stars as they are, she's not so sure about the latter. All on her, then. No pressure.]

I'm sorry that it happened to you. It's cruel, all of it.

It is. It's meant to be. The Captain is using our intense emotions as fuel. The more it happens, the better for him.

[A heavy sigh.]

This one just happened to hurt worse because the ghost that killed me was wearing the face of a friend. And I don't know if that friend is going to wake up after all of this and remember doing it. I hope not.

[It isn't really Ari's business, so she's hesitant to say too much, but she feels that she ought to say something.]

I understand why you'd hope not, but it might be easier if the friend does remember. If not, you have the risk that someone else will tell them, or that you'll... react to them in some way, and they won't know why. It'll be worse in the short-term, but if you could talk about it, maybe you could both move past it?

[It's what she would want in that situation, anyway.]

But you said intense emotions - does that mean that the way to beat him is to make ourselves indifferent to everything here? [That doesn't sound psychologically healthy either.]

Trust me, it's really not better. It's really not. I never said I wasn't going to tell him what happened. He deserves to know. I just... I don't want him to remember what it feels like to hurt a friend. He can know about it without knowing what it feels like to actually... do it.

[Speaking from some unfortunate personal experience.]

Maybe. But, if you can make yourself indifferent to the suffering of people around you then I think being here will be the least of your worries. Besides, you run the risk of him getting bored with you and turning you into one of the ghosts around here. That's a fate arguably worse than death or torture combined.

[OTA] Looking for answers

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