http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat

I figured a little game theory might help out in this situation. She helps us, we help her. She fucks with us, we fuck right back. Works especially well in the Prisoner's Dilemma, which is particularly apt right now, as even though we have power over her, she can fuck with us by bringing this whole charade down around us, leaving us dead and fucked, just like we can do with her.

Wasn't that mentioned on Numb3rs once? I do seem to remember it being used. Seemed to work well enough.

EDIT: Also, not to armchair interogate, but might mentioning Arketta offhand be good? As an example of cooperation?

One thing at a time, good sir.

1 kL (kilolatz) a day is a bit much. We only have about...140-ish, so that's a rather signifigant investment. I'm almost wondering if it might not be better to leave her at a nice, safe place, not here. I was going to sugest multiple jumps when we leave (Gate to one destination, turn around, fly back through to another, ect...) and we could leave her at our first waypoint. She really doesn't have any worth that Arketta can't provide for a signifigantly smaller amount (whatever the US Army pays Delta Force operators), and I'm not sure I want her at my back when we go into a fight. If we don't tell her anything important (Gatecode for Earth, identity of contacts in rebellion), she can't hurt us if we just leave her someplace. She's tough. She'll take care of herself, and we don't have to spare the time worrying about her.

My thoughts exactly. Give her a bit of a tip on the way out. The more allies we have, the better.

Man, all this conniving and backstabbing stuff is making Davis like this woman more and more. How much do you think she'd ask for a date?

Great, it'd end up like Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

"He's a secret agent on a suicide mission stranded millions of miles from home. She's an alien bodyguard who tears it up on the dance floor. Together, they fight crime!"

Umm, noffense Punkey, but isn't the an "agent" standing in the room with us? If so, it might be best not to actually directly mention that we're paying this Turai to lie to him. Just, you know, a thought. On the other hand, maybe I misread ADS's description. Could we get confirmation?

Luis, Davis, and Ngawai were in the Morningstar's mess hall during that conversation. The port boss, Leno, was outside the ship, in the hangar, talking to Hugh and everyone.

Currently, however, EVERYONE is outside.

From one asskicking to the next...

Gatac

Gatac wrote:

From one asskicking to the next...

Gatac

Max will be hanging back and fixing the ship. Also he's of the type to call upon when you people need rescuing from the big, bad aliens. :wink:

Sticking with the ship, helping repair the CIC. Once the sensors are patched in, Luis'll spend his time running sims. Oh, and this tme, let's stick to Imperium tech, please. We don't need the Port authorites asking questions.

Aw, how sweet...

Yeah. She was originally just a henchman with an Aspect die, so she'd be tougher. Now I gotta figure out a suitable ex-profession for her.

So we've got Max and Luis sitting this one out. It's not a bad idea, as you'll have some people around in case more dicketry is attempted, or if things go really really wrong. By my count, that leaves the following people currently either undecided or committed to assaulting Malenko's hangar:

Hugh
Semo
Angel
Davis
Arketta
Mellish
Ngawai

You sure as hell have enough weapons to outfit everyone with beam rifles if you wanted to.

Hugh's in. Let's grab beam rifles and whump those suckers. I'm not averse to finding a way to kill them before they can try to talk themselves out of this mess, if that can be arranged. The last thing we want is for the turai to somehow come up with the proof that this is our fault.

Gatac

Guys, I’d like to once again sugest that we re-examine our priorities for the mission, perhaps reviving the old Not-Quite-Out-Of-Character Thread or something.

Basically, the reasoning is this: when we started, the goals were to act as a forward scouting unit and obtain data about the Imperium’s socio-political structure, and in particular try to make contact with any rebel groups who could serve as the basis for an Earth-supplied insurrection. Consider this one checked off. Next was to get “data”: Gatecodes of planets where we could make insertions, possible allies, government and military databases, ect. We were going to do this based on the theory that we would need this data if we were going to have to start our own insurrection.

However, the paradigm has shifted. With access to an existing rebellion’s intelligence-gathering system, that might not be as critical. We also need to really make a decision about how we will be fighting the Imperium, since most decisions will eventually have consequences on Earth. The longer we keep the secret, the more pissed the public in general (national and international) will be when they find out. The high-levels may know, but they aren’t what’re important. And make no mistake, eventually we will have to go public. Even if we keep things low key, rumors will start to leak out about some astounding new weapons, or armor, or medical technology. Or if we bring back the specs to a spacedrive for reverse-engineering, eventually somebody will spill. The other possibility is that we (the higher-ups) clamp down so hard on information flow that we (Earth in general) can’t get much useful done and we gamble that we can discretely fund and supply a rebellion successfully without a leak in under thirty years, and if we’re wrong we just kiss our butts good-bye when the Imperium shows up on our doorstep and all we can field against them is a couple of aging spaceplanes.

I think we need to call the mission a success so far, meet up with the rebellion, and then introduce them to HQ through a nice, secure Gate somewhere secret. We need to insure that the data we have gathered at the moment (the rebel contacts, the spacedrive, the experience of our team) isn’t lost before it can be reported for the guys back home to chew on. It’s worth thinking about seriously, but we could do it and keep the main thread of plot going simultaneously, at least at this point.

I agree that we might want to consider recontacting Earth, especially after using most of our supply of armor-piercing rockets and high explosives. Also, now that we have weapons to spare, we should get more SCARs and use those whenever possible, as they've been much more effective than the beam rifles have been when facing multiple targets. Also, a few crates of them would go over well with our new friends. Finally, we could take some of the resistance and our other alien friends to Earth, show them that we're not making it up when we say we're from the Homeworld.

However, we should still push on towards the the ROBS. First, the resistance might know some things, but the ROBS knows everything. Every single secret they have is contained in that building, and that will give us a huge intelligence advantage over them. Plus, if we just wanted intel, we wouldn't need a strike force. The mission against the ROBS isn't just about gathering intel, it's about hitting back. The Imperium attack against Mesas Negras was Pearl Harbor, and this is the Doolittle Raid. The Imperium thinks that they can strike at us at their leisure, and this attack will prove to them that not only can we hit back, but we can hit them where it hurts. This will not only do a massive amount of damage to Imperial military confidence and serve as the opening salvo of the revolution, but will force them to consider every important site a potential target, forcing them to spread out their forces to such a degree that targeted strikes will become easier.

Also, as far as informing the general Earth populace goes, it really won't do any good either way. No matter how much we refocus society to invasion preparation, we will lose if we don't stop the Imperium from arriving in the first place, or somehow build a orbital gate and send a massive fleet through, neither of which will happen if we don't start putting some serious hurt on the Imperium right away. I agree that we will eventually have to go public, especially when we put the orbital gate up, but as of right now, it doesn't make much of a difference until we hit the ROBS. Plus, when we hit the ROBS, we'll get their shipbuilding technologies, and can start working on ways to take them out or build our own. I'd bet, given how sci-fi tends to go, we'll discover some way of making warp technology work on a ship-portable level.

I'm going to copy your last 2 posts over to the NQOOC thread, actually.

I'd still like to keep this OOC thread open for the more immediate problems.

Leno has Malenko's ship locked in its hangar. I don't think you have to worry about her leaving on her ship. What you have to worry about first is making sure she can't convince Leno of her innocence. Then not only will you guys be in trouble with the shadowport, she'll be free to leave and THEN cue the Needleships.

Also, if everyone's cool with just moving the scene forward to "outside B91", that's fine with me. Will you indeed pay Ngawai her thousand lats up front?