audio; un: stargirl

[bossily]

[There sure have been a lot of informational hits to the earpieces lately. And she's really sorry to add another one to the mix. But this is something she feels the need to get the deets out to everyone quickly. You never know when the next mission will be announced, after all.]

Right so, my name's Clara Oswald. Think I've met most of you by now, though there seems to be some of us that are new wandering about.

[And just so everyone is aware, she's smiling and waving like you all can see her but this is audio so you can't. Anyone that's near her in the sunlight room is free to see this happening in real time.]

I've been here long enough to agree with the assertion we need a sense of organization moving forward. So Rosinante and I have come together to start working on gathering a list of our current inventory. The plan is to make checklists and supply kits to take with us on our missions. We'll have to use whatever we currently have on the station, obviously, but thought that maybe we could come up with an organized list of requests for Viveca.

[She's a teacher back home. Checklists are her life. Being organized is also a+, so she sounds incredibly excited by the prospect of being the one to actually get to do some organization.]

Soooo, [Yeah, that's stretched out and almost comes out in a whimsical, playful lilt.]

If anyone has any supplies they'd like to list off, request suggestions, or would like to be one of the first to take a supply kit whenever our next mission pops up...

[She trails off there. She figures everyone here will know what to do if they're interested. If you're watching in the sunlight room, she fingerguns at thin air. It's hard being an expressive person that uses their hands to talk in wild gestures when attempting to deliver a simple audio message.]

Comments

video, un: silent

[callada]

Knife's a good call for a general purpose kit, I agree. Otherwise I'm hesitant to just give out pistols to everyone when they might not know how to use them yet. Or have a way to conceal them in the field. Things get stolen and used against you.

Sounds like you know plenty, though, so if the weapon machine doesn't give you what you want, talk to the folks in the lab. They've got weapons we took from the last world that they're working on replicating, like some kind of energy whip.

And this is Rosinante, by the way. Hope you don't mind me jumping in.

[Not much of an introduction, but he'd rather keep to the point. It looks like he's joined the conversation from the training room, and in fact when he stops talking around his own cigarette, he gets to reloading his pistol.]

[kovach]

By all means. Takeshi Kovacs.

[ introduction remains vague on his end, too. he honestly doesn't mind the sudden appearance of a third party, particularly if said party at least knows what they're talking about, which it sounds like he at least has good instincts. ]

I'd suggest along with those supply kits, you compartmentalize people by their skills, so that the right people do keep themselves armed, possibly even arranged by skill level from there to know who gets what kind of weaponry. If we have limited alien tech to work with from whatever world you're talking about, we figure out the best people to actually use it.

[ it's the old military fighter kovacs talking now, even if it's been a long time since he's been on the field with a group. but at least he has the experience. ]

Give everyone standard first aid materials, but give those with higher medical experience the more advanced items. I imagine we don't have an endless supply of everything either, so if we're sorting things out, we get things to the people who are best going to utilize them.

[callada]

All good ideas, but maybe a little beyond the scope of what we're aiming for here. I think it'll be easier for folks who know what they're doing and know what they need to have those things on hand rather than expect us to dole them out.

I know Syrlya's trying to keep a list of who's good at what around here, though, so we do know who has what skills. If you haven't, go talk to him, let him know what you're interested in helping with.

[kovach]

Syrlya, huh? Guess I'll look him up.

[ because if he's going to be working with these people, he wants to get a better idea of what they can do. the gossip memo he came across hardly gave him anything to actually work with from a mission strategy point. ]

So, with all the people we have running around here, how exactly does it work to keep organized for actual missions? Is it all voluntary like this? No assigned leaders to sort these groups? Seems messy as shit.

[callada]

I'd compare it to herding cats except nobody's actually trying to do any herding.

We got lucky last mission. We were thrown into it without much time to prepare beyond just a quick briefing, but we got everyone out by the end without any losses on our side. I'm not counting on that happening every time, but enough people here have so much experience from so many different situations that I'm not even sure how one would start trying to come up with a "leader". All the organization you're seeing now, from gear to food to specialties, is the best effort we've made so far.

Other than that, it's hard to plan specifics. I'm hoping Viveca gives us more time with the briefing before we get dropped into the next mission this time so we can try to work out details on who's going to handle what aspects of the brief.

[kovach]

For a first and only mission from what I've heard, yeah, that sounds lucky.

[ considering the variety of people thrown around here, he has to wonder about how challenging it might've been, though considering clara mentioned the risk of running low on supplies, it really does sound like they pulled their luck. ]

I'm sure everybody's got their talents and all of that and I'm impressed you've all gotten this far, but in my experience, too many heads is eventually gonna land everyone in shit if they don't all rally onto the same page. Hell, even voting on a few squad leaders would salvage things a bit more.

[bossily]

Are you nominating yourself for the job, then?

[kovach]

[ he scoffs a light chuckle, shaking his head. ]

Hell no. I'm not leader material.

[callada]

I agree.

[Just. For the record. But he's only one person and he's used to operating within a military framework. That said, with a lot of military folks here, maybe they'll find some shared sentiment. He can hope.]

If you want to propose a vote for or against named leaders, I guess that would decide it.

And if it helps any, we did vote on big decisions the last mission, so in lieu of an actual leader we were able to come together that way. But we also had fewer people than we do now and it remains to be seen how that will change things.

[kovach]

So we actually managed a democracy. [ that's actually impressive too, since it usually doesn't work. he almost laughs at imagining it. ]

You know, if we could maintain that, it'd actually be better than a leader — always hard to get one who doesn't let the power get to their head. Just rare to see the alternative actually work, since people tend to prefer someone else to make the tough choices for them. Be nice if I get proven wrong.

[callada]

[Democracy indeed. He's not pleased with the end vote, but everyone did get their say and he was in a minority, and that's how it works.]

I've rarely seen democracy work on a country-wide scale, but how things work at home isn't how they have to work here. We might have just a small enough number of people - good, smart people - where it will work.

I'm willing to see if it does, and make changes down the road if it doesn't. Giving everyone a shot at having a voice feels like the fair thing to try first.

[kovach]

Even getting two people in a situation to be on the same page is a pain in the ass to pull off. What number are we escalating up to now?

[ from what he recalls of that list of personality quirks, there were a good number of them already listed, and that didn't count the apparent newcomers that came along with him. ]

Guess what's the worst that could happen? We all get fucked and real death'd? Them's the breaks.

[callada]

["Real deathed?" Huh.]

You say that like there's fake death. Is that something from back home?

[Or it's a figure of speech, but honestly now he just can't tell anymore, people have said weirder things since he's been here. So what if he has to ask dumb questions? Better than ignorance.]

[kovach]

[ he keeps forgetting that most people don't have the experiences of stacks and sleeves like he does. actually, so far, he hasn't met a single person who deals with them — almost like he might have dreamed it all. at least he'd think that if he didn't still feel the scar for his stack at the back of his neck, along with being in a body he wasn't born in. ]

Yeah, uh — back where I come from, if something happens to the body, it's just organic damage. A person's entire consciousness is just data — long as that's undamaged, a person can switch from body to body, usually if they have the money for it. But if you destroy the data, person's gone for good. Real death. [ as it should be. ] But from what I hear, that shit's not the case here, so it sounds like no one's got backup anyway.

[callada]

[He sits back and thinks this over before recording any further response.

People, consciousnesses, separate from bodies. So if someone is killed in combat, they're not killed, they just lose that body.

Takes a lot of the permanence out of conflict. Probably makes for a completely different philosophy on life.

He fiddles with the cigarette in his hand before deciding, finally, to reply, and keeps his face neutral as he does so. Mostly that's just to prevent the existential questions from coming tumbling out until he's had time to process this.]

No. No one's got backups. We're all we've got. Viveca's warned us before, there's a lot she can do to protect us here on the station but out on a mission, we're on our own. So we have to work together and watch out for each other if we want to survive.

Guess that means most people want to get along as a team.

[kovach]

Guess I can deal with that.

[ he'd fought in a rebellion to stop the continuation of stack tech. maybe being here is a good way to see what kind of world that'd really be like. ]

So you say most people, right? We got any problematic strays around here? Anybody that looks like they want to make it harder on everyone else? I know they say we're all in the same boat here, but doesn't mean enemy infiltration isn't possible.

[callada]

Only saying "most" since I don't know everyone here yet and can't vouch for them all. So far, everyone I've had the chance to meet seems genuine and helpful. The few who might be abrasive around the edges still cooperate.

[So far. And he's never sure there isn't someone in there playing the long con. The aim is obvious enough if the orbs are that powerful - an infiltrator could absolutely seek to join them in order to access those things.

Even if Viveca claims that's impossible, because it's hard for him to imagine that anyone, AI or human or otherwise, actually knows everything they think they know.]

[kovach]

Well, the easiest way to encourage cooperation is to give people what they want.

[ he hasn't forgotten that none of them are doing this for free. just like he made a deal out of this, he fully expects they all did the same. ]

If that's even actual possible. Course this could all turn out to be bullshit and someone or a few end up not too happy about that and decide to turn. Guess we just have to wait and see.

[ ever the optimistic. ]