ROLE — MISSION CONTROL 🚀

[dropoffs]

MISSION CONTROL

welcome, RODION.

On MONDAY afternoon some hours after landing, then the new amenities to the ship, Rodion will hear a familiar notification ringing from her I.R.I.S. It takes one look, one gesture, and a gold message screen displays in a cascade.

... The message is sparse and carries a rigid aura.

You want answers, don't you? Come to the command room right now.

CALLISTO

Rodion has seen the command room before in passing. It's the room where the senior crew often check all sort of stuff from metrics, diagnostics, navigation, supply, inventory... You get the point. There are a number of terminals, all of them Rodion is aware she wouldn't have access clearance.

There waits Callisto with their arms crossed, staring intensely at the main supercomputer. How you want to interpret it is up to you, but they do lift their head when they sense her peek through the door. They proceed to say nothing.

Just come on in.

RULES

As the role responsible for mission control, Rodion is expected to follow a few rules:

1. For now, keep your new designation a secret. Should this designation be shared with anyone without prior authorization, consequences and termination of position are possible. This can be revisited at a later date.
2. If you distribute any information acquired, it must be done anonymously or without referencing the source. This can be revisited at a later date.
3. Rodion will be given the opportunity to uncover one file from one of three directories in a hacked console.

🚀 EUDORA, an uncovered bank of ship data audits and previous mission dossiers.
📓 JOURNALS, an isolated cloud of otherwise private I.R.I.S. files.
👥 CREW, files that contain historical personnel records.

4. Selection is due by WEDNESDAY and information will be dispensed as soon as possible, but ideally before the next week.

NAVIGATE
LOCATIONS STATUSES PROFILES AUDIENCES REPORTING PRIVATE CONVOS MURDER SUPPLY SHOP COMMS DOSSIER

Comments

[inequals]

[ I THOUGHT YOU'D DO IT IN A 2 WEEK OR SOMETHING NOT IN A FULL GAME!!! The way Rodya's reaction is comparatively so much more underwhelming because she has no stake in this. ]

Oh, cool? Kinda concerning for a big hunk of metal that's careening us at lightspeed through the void, but hey.

[ Twins, huh. ]

So you, what, walked into the open role?

[dropoffs]

[ I felt bad when you said you were looking forward to NPC role cr.... Rodya doesn't know what you're going through right now. ] But fitting for primitive human technology. [ I HAVE BEEN BECOMING MORE RACIST AND CHURCHY EACH WEEK ] That's right. Once I stepped onto the ship, it trapped me.

[inequals]

[ No this works honestly. If it was going to be any bitch, Rodya would handle it best. Could you imagine the AU where Ryuki got stuck with Knives. ]

Ehh, sure? I guess it is kinda clunky. The WARP trains could get us planet to planet in probably hours.

[ Know that she's still testing the limits of this arm's length enforced bubble. ]

And your brother just... didn't come back from work one day or something? Just to get this picture.

[dropoffs]

[ I feel bad... Being mean all the time. HELP THAT IS NOT GOOD FOR HIM ] Nut & Bolt I read has better ship models now. [ So like. What the fuck? ] ... I sensed him here, invaded the ship, and did not find him, but the files that were available to me pointed that he was here. [ SIGHS ANGRILY AND MASSAGES his temples. More grumbling to himself. Guy needs to vent. ] We could have been not part of this whole mess, if he didn't run off to lick the wounds he himself created.

[inequals]

[ You chose this, now lie in your grave. ]

You feel up to telling me more? Anything helps when it comes to solving this spaceship's loads of problems. If your brother was involved in whatever incident that caused your memories to get wacky, it'd help to know so I have a direction to steer in.

[dropoffs]

[ im in mobile and don't feel like icon ]

If it helps us understand what happened and return those gone. Adrastea has been an incredible annoyance with their rising suspicion of me, so I can't play this charade for longer. Not that I wanted to. [ His goals are aligned for now. ] I don't have memory issues because I was never part of the winter tour to begin with, but the influence that had made us all stellar employees at the beginning was out of my control which I had thought were nanites having been forced into me. Much to my disappointment, they were not.

[ No easy solution. ]

I know less...

[ Everything he has said about the Eudora is wikipedia'd or parroted from other seniors. ]

[inequals]

[ Have you seriously just been LARPing your annoying twink brother in the presence of all the other senior crew, help. This is what you deserve. ]

So, we got a funny little balance of you not being under Nut and Bolt's overview and don't have any secret memories we gotta drag out of you, but it also means you're not briefed as much.

Win some lose some -- the usual thing.

So you're nanite-free? Do you have access to the entire ship like everyone does? What about access that regular crew don't get?

[dropoffs]

[ YOU WOULD CALL VASH A TWINK NOW

yes, but not well and he didn't try hard at all which is why people are suspicious now. He literally did not try aside from copying senior officer knowledge. ]

I never cared for their protocol. It is below me.

[ But he had to larp. ]

Those things are still in me and I don't know how... I must have been incapacitated and administered, but how. [ Grumbled, confused and paranoid. Big low snarling aura. ] Using my brother's position, I have access to everything he should have had.

I'm not as privy as the rest of the officers and I have no memories to recall.

[ So... Yeah.





Knives is just a guy. ]

[inequals]

[ He's twinky in Stampede. Also the energy is definitely twink.

Anyway that's so funny he really got nanite'd in secret. ]

Well... you found this terminal, so that's good?

[dropoffs]

[ He is just a baby.... ]

... Do you think it has been useful?

[inequals]

Objectively? Yeah.

If you want total transparency, it hasn't been enough for me to grab a totally clear picture yet, but more stuff to work with is better than less. And it looks like other people agree.

Charlie and the rest told me they want to look into the past crew roster anyway, so I think looking for more information about the crowd your brother used to work with is a good ballpark right now.

[dropoffs]

It could be, if you all are stuck on the roster. From what I've seen, it affects the senior officers' memories... Whether it will tell us how to solve the problem we're in, it's uncertain.

This feels much larger than an isolated shipwreck.

[inequals]

If they knew the old Callisto, then jogging their memories of him should help you get hints, right? So win-win.

...What are your real names, anyway? Those might help when we're trying to patch the pieces together, like if his name shows up anywhere.

When are you gonna tell the rest of the crew? And what are these "wounds" you're talking about anyway?

[dropoffs]

I'm sure at this point they're aware I'm not him. [ Adrastea has not been very discreet abut him. ] His name is Vash. [ the other mods are not awake so i can't ask if we can reveal their names ] But he likely shows up in these documents as Callisto. ... Letting himself be hurt by humans—those are his wounds.

[inequals]

[ She's math ladying a bit on what that means. She'll keep an eye out for Vash, even if probably he's just going to show up on a majority of docs as Vash (the Stanpeat). ]

And why would coming on this job help him deal with that?

[dropoffs]

... I'm sure he wanted to run away from what happened, when we fought. [ BOY LOVES RUNNING. ] I don't completely understand him.

[inequals]

Okay, fine. You totally owe me a looot of context, but I can't blame a guy for trying at the least.

[ And since it's mutually beneficial anyway -- role crowd wants to know about past crew. ]

We'll look into it, yeah?

[trenchant]

[ He just stays quiet... ]

[inequals]

[ You know all those memes that are like 'Knives could've been stopped by one person and her name is Millie Thompson', that's how I feel about this role shakeout. ]

[trenchant]

[ SHE CANNOT MAKE HIM LESS RACIST HE TOLERATES YOU BECAUSE BRAIN ]

[inequals]

[ Cool she's going to collect this log but also look at the profile? ]

Oh, is this him? You do look alike...

[ She's reading the info. Wow did Knives have to re-write his profile when he infiltrated the squad. Looks at the status. ]

"Reactivated"?

[trenchant]

It's him.

[ Like mirrors and Knives stares at the profile. She can ask though. ]

I'm not sure what that status means, but I think it may coincide with me taking his role.

[inequals]

But it says he was last seen before reactivation at the waste disposal.

Does that mean he was actually like, decommissioned or something between things? I haven't seen another status other than active and decommissioned...

[trenchant]

[ THE LORE IS THAT HE DID NOT... EVERYTHING YOU SEE ON THE PUBLIC CALLISTO PROFILE IS VASH'S. Callisto goes quiet because he doesn't... Know. And he doesn't want to think about decommissioned's general description. He has only seen it here as being death.

For a moment, as he's thinking about it, he massages his temple. ]

... What happened to you, Vash? Where did you go? I refuse to believe...

[ That you could have died. ]

[inequals]

[ To be fair Vash has 'died' before like two separate times if you count Badlands Rumble, three if you count the end of the series so who the fuck knows, that man is the real roach. ]

Whoa, look. The other guys, the ones we saw their actual bodies on an autopsy table, still clearly got something going on -- even if that's just neurons, it's obvious they're talking to us and stuff. I don't know what it's like where you're from, but it's not that hard to move consciousness into mechanical bodies, and I'm from a company department where our whole shtick is literally being able to rewind death, so.

[ You know. Don't jump to conclusions and go postal on us or anything, not that she thinks he seems like he's about to. ]

We got nothing on Vashie yet, but we'll work on it.