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Main Sim - A Rare Meeting - tag XO, COS

Posted May 26, 2022, 1:20 p.m. by Gamemaster Matrix (Gamemaster) (Sage Pennington)

Posted by Commander Dantius Massana (XO) in Main Sim - A Rare Meeting - tag XO, COS

Posted by Lieutenant Maria Beckett (Chief of Security) in Main Sim - A Rare Meeting - tag XO, COS

Posted by Commander Dantius Massana (XO) in Main Sim - A Rare Meeting - tag XO, COS
Posted by… suppressed (9) by the Post Ghost! 👻

SNIP

They descended for a while. About ten minutes. The only sound around them was a motor powering the elevator.

The doors opened again to reveal a large space, about thirty people immediately visible inside. They resided in tents and sheet metal shelters. Conditions appeared to be.. lacking. The automatons led the crew towards a large double door on the far wall.

-GM

Commander Massana was definitely perplexed. Official reports stated that four members of the research team had been left on the planet, but they were presumed dead. Although he knew that the automatons could not answer the questions he wanted to ask, either because the questions would be seen as hostile or because they lacked the information required, he decided to comment to the rest of the crew with him.

“Temporary shelters in an underground area. Do you or anyone on your team have experience building such things, Beckett?”

“Well, I’m engineering certified, sir. Grew up on a ship, so I can build stuff like it. And then there was Academy survival training and some further stuff since. But it wasn’t really geared toward occupancy, but field self-reliance and self-sufficiency,” she said, keeping a weather eye on their surroundings. As usual, scanning with her wearable tricorder, slurping up as much data as she could.

When they stopped at the door, Dantius paused.

“Are we meant to open the doors ourselves?”

  • Commander Massana, XO

“We can take you no further.” The automatons replied. They opened the doors before the Memorial crew, but made no moves to enter. The room on the other side was harshly lit, there were four large chairs, split two to the right and two to the left and what seemed to be a throne at the end of the room. All were thus far unoccupied.

-GM

Dantius led the way, making normal strides, hoping that he appeared neither hurried nor languid. He doubted that the automatons were programmed to tell the difference, but he knew that whoever was supposed to be in here was likely to notice. He did not glance backwards as he passed through the door. He walked directly to the center of the room and waited, standing at rest.

“And now, I suppose, we wait until whoever is in charge here enters.”

  • Commander Massana, XO

The whole way into the room, the team could feel eyes on them. The eerie silence of the space was broken only by the sound of their footfalls. The automatons slammed the doors behind the away team. Dantius’ remark echoed around the stone walls. “Enter… or are made known to you?” Replied a feeble voice. An old man with a walking stick hobbled out from behind the throne. “Oh dear…” he clicked his tongue. “This doesn’t bode well at all.”

-GM

“Are?” Dantius asked simply. “Are the occupants of every chair behind them?”

Commander Massana found himself intrigued. He was not certain why the man considered the situation to bear ill tidings.

“Regardless, I believe an introduction is in order.”

  • Commander Massana, XO

The bots didn’t seem to recognize their weapons as weapons. Or they didn’t care. Or … It didn’t matter. That latter possibility bothered the intelligence officer. But for now she kept it to herself, yet stayed close to Massana, a silent shadow just behind and to the right. He was doing a pretty bang-up job in dealing with these synths, better than she would have. Not to mention her own worries, they were… Odd. Internal processing seemed strange. So far he’d avoided the mines in the proverbial minefield they’d been traversing with them. And now this.

Quietly she muttered, “Did we step into Narnia or something?” Not that any of them would likely get the reference, it was an obscure story from a few hundred years ago.

Lt Beckett, COS

((OOC: So sorry for being absentee boys and girls. Burnout sucks, and then the situation going on with the Viking was really sucking the life out of posting. But all is good now. Let’s see what these tin cans and their king want.))

(Just to do a quick catchup in a relatively neat post: On her way in Beckett would have been able to get the sense that the shelters were not so much for protection from the elements as they were for safety and privacy for individuals or small families.)

The old man once again clicked his tongue at Massana. “Indeed. But do take care what you wish for. Not all you want is what it seems.” He banged his walking stick on the floor and something in the light shifted ever so slightly. In the five chairs were now five people. As if they had been there the whole time. “Speak with caution, Massana and Beckett.” The old man warned.

The figures sat for a moment before one stood on the small plinth her chair rested on. “Have you come in war or peace?”

Another rose. “It must be war.”

Another. “No. See their weapons. Unused.”

Another. “War or peace, they cannot stay.”

At the end of the room, from the throne, softly a young man spoke. “Silence. All of you. Let them answer the question before we pass verdict.”

-GM

Maria surveyed the five and visibly relaxed. Though the situation hadn’t changed much, the last thing she wanted was to give them a reason to consider either of the a threat. Sure, she could be. That was a large part of her training, after all. But so was diplomacy and peacekeeping. De-escalation of situations and verbal jujitsu. Commander Massana seemed to have been doing quite well in that regard, but the situation was still on thin ice. As the officer in charge of the away mission it was his job to speak up, and not hers to speak out of turn for the group. So, for the moment, she kept her tongue.

Lt Beckett, COS

The old man had advised caution. That meant that giving one of the answers provided in the binary may not be the wisest approach.

“We are not hostile to you,” Dantius decided to reply.

He found it interesting that the four on the sides all stood, while the one in the center remained seated. Whatever the hierarchy here, it was definitely full of posturing. He was not sure whether it was for his benefit, part of their cultural mores, or true infighting. However, given his tactical training, he recognized that, if this was a ploy instead of true sincerity, they were following a normative order of operations.

One asked a question which designated responses. One replied with one of the responses. Another replied with the other. Another declared the responses irrelevant. And finally, the one who appeared in charge provided room for an answer. If this was a formalized structure, he would definitely need to consider his next steps carefully.

  • Commander Massana, XO

“Not hostile. So I said.” The one furthest on the left said.

“If you look for deceit, you will find it.” The one opposite him countered.

From the end of the hall “Truth. Speak and be known. You are not hostile, then what brings you to us?”

-GM

“A signal requesting aid. We are trained to respond to all such requests, especially if the request provides no further instruction. We came to investigate what aid was needed.”

  • Commander Massana, XO

Maria nodded in agreement. “We are explorers and peacekeepers. It is our moral and ethical duty to render aid to the best of our ability, should it be desired. Outside of certain stipulations. Plus most of us get all warm and fuzzy inside when we help people.” The last part was perhaps a little glib but no less true.

Lt Beckett, COS

Dantius tried to keep himself from shooting a look at Beckett for the little inclusion of an idiom. It was likely that the people here understood figures of speech common among the citizens of the Federation (for example, Commander Massana he was certain, albeit this was partly personal bias as a native of the Caribbean, that the term “three hour tour” for a brief trip that instead led to being stranded indeterminately would still be in use centuries from now, even though it originated four centuries prior). However, it was still an unguarded moment that, if taken literally, would give question as to their biology, and why rendering assistance made their crew ‘fuzzy’ internally. He decided to redirect.

“The automatons mentioned that a traitor was the one who sent the signal,” Commander Massana replied. “If this is the case, we do not wish to bother you further, unless we can assist in locating this traitor in the event that the traitor is a danger to the rest of the people here.”

  • Commander Massana, XO

They considered for a moment and then the four who had remained standing sat down. “So it’s true then.” The nearest one to their right said.

From the opposite side “So it seems.”

The one at the end stood up and walked down to where Massana and Beckett stood. He locked eyes with each of them. “You came here on an ill-gotten invitation. Though you did not know. You will turn around, and leave. And you will tell no one that this place is here.”

-GM


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