Why not get it on Earth? Every hour we spend here is fifteen back on Earth and in the Imperium; you spend seven hours asleep and wake up to half a week gone by. Let's just dial Earth and worry about this on the other side.

I'm pretty sure we're not coming back here, at least not for a while, right?

Probably not. It'll be a few weeks to a month, minimum before we can turn around and come back--if we even come back to this Gate. That's two or three days aboard the Gateship to just sit around and hope we didn't happen to line up with a regularly scheduled check-up mission or something. Even if we do want to leave a crew, Dunamis and Ngawai are the last two people I'd want left alone on the Gateship. Simply put, on my list of NPC trust levels, they're the lowest. I'd trust Ngawai at my back in a firefight, and I trust Dunamis to not screw us over as long as his survival rests with ours. However, the idea of leaving them unsupervised and out of contact seems risky. Additionally, it's likely that our mission plan will undergo rapid developement, refinement, and finalization while on Earth. If that changes to say we don't go back via the Gateship, having a crew to collect from there just adds more complexity. Finally, what would a crew of ours be there for? It's not like we need to hold the Gateship, it's not going to be a permanent base or anything.

Frankly, I say they come with us. There's a lot of reasons to not leave theose two operating independently, and very few reasons to leave a crew on the Gateship at all.

Erm, Gatty old friend, I think you might be confusing Napai and Boronai. Napai's totally stealth, we're going in completely under the radar and not going loud until we're already someway into the ROBS. The role of the Boronai raid is to create a large enough distraction to get the whole of the Imperium looking somewhere else, and there weren't even close to that many ships described on Boronai.

Punkey's impression was the same one I had.

Right, fixing.

Gatac

I say we shoot it.

For all values of 'it'.

I gotta say I enjoy the differences in philosophy. Davis is all "This leads to this and here's how we pull it off", Hugh goes "Woah, let's focus on not getting our asses killed" and Luis consistently goes for "Do the right thing".

Gatac

Yeah, I find it neat too--though it should be mentioned that Luis and Davis' exchange is essentially a recreation of a conversation Punkey and I had on AIM a few days ago. It wasn't really intended to be, but we're both apparently playing characters who think in ways very similar to the way we both actually think. I raised the issue in character because it seems like something Luis would think of too, and Punkey stomped on it because his views fit with Davis' mindset.

I'm just hoping all this isn't giving a bad impression to our guests.

Actually, I prefer a little more oversight with my top secret missions then we've got going on here, since situations are rarely this clear-cut in reality, and if I recall correctly, CIA men declaring wars has gotten us into a bit of trouble in the past. Still, while I'm all for dying for your principles, it seems a little unfair for everyone else to die for them as well.

Not arguing the point about history....

If that's how you're feeling and the thing in the IC thread is how your character feels..well, nice roleplaying, Punkey.

Hey, ADS, out of curiosity, do Gateships carry an orbital gate keg? I know they have a personal Gate, of course, but do they carry the keg to use on for the orbital gate at their destination? 'Cause if we could loot one of those...could have some strategic value.

Nah, the Gateships carry the actual orbital gate. Since an orbital can't pass through one of its siblings, the expansion of new space gates is limited by the speed of light and so tying up an orbital gate keg over decades/centuries of travel is much less feasible than keeping it close and sending out several Gateships as the keg makes new gates.

A keg will fit through a gate, though, so moving production once you've got the Gate at a destination isn't much of a problem.

Also, a bit of planning that I couldn't think of a way to slide in. We need to think about the gate in the Spire. It's very probably the best-defended location on the planet, and will turn into their Alamo. The problem is, will they just constantly throw people through the gate in an attempt to hold the building, or will they just toss a huge bomb through it and say "fuck it"? Either way, it's the one gate we won't have easy access to. Varos knows the gate code, but his access codes have surely been cleaned out since we burned him, so we either get the access code to the gate, take out the elevator platform that it's on and let the rubble block the gate, or we need to insert a team to get to it, plant 5-10 second delay charges, get through the gate and blow the elevator. Otherwise, we either have to deal with a stronghold with a constant source of resupply or a really big bomb to deal with.

You can't blame yourself for what gorillas did!

Yes, yes.

Now that everyone's in place and on board, Davis wants to make sure that everyone's okay. It's just mild paranoia, but we haven't heard from Swims or the shipkid since we came through the gate, and they'll both be useful for the upcoming missions.

To be honest, I forget that there's a bright red child running around with you guys most of the time. I have an idea for him, though, but it fits better in the NQOOC thread.

For now (and because I forgot to hand it out for so long):

You all get 12 XP. You can raise Traits, buy new Specializations, raise Aspects, buy new ones, or add to your permanent stock of Wild Dice.

Traits cost XP equal to the NEXT HIGHEST die type. If Semo wants to raise his Move from d8 to d10, it costs him 10 XP. If Max wants to bump his d6 Shoot to a d10, he must first spent 8XP to bring it to d8, and then he has 4XP left over so he can't ALSO raise it to d10 in one go.

Specializations cost XP equal to the Trait's current value. If Max just wants to specialize in Submachine Gun with his d6 Shoot, it costs him 6 XP.

Raising an Aspect works like raising Traits - XP equal to the die type you're raising it to.

A new Aspect costs 4XP and starts at d4. It can be raised normally after that point. So with 10XP, Max wants to buy an Aspect called "Stabmaster". He pays 4XP and gets "Stabmaster" at d4. He then spends his remaining 6XP and bumps Stabmaster up to d6.

Raising your permanent Wild Dice limit costs 2XP per Wild Die.

You guys should all be updated on the Wiki. A few of you have bonus Wild Dice that you never needed to use - that's why some have 9/8 Wild Dice for example.

I want to compliment E of Pi on his latest IC post. I thought it was excellent.

Thanks, DK. Over the summer, theatre class made me wonder why Luis (who I mentioned in his backstory had been in college for some period of time, implied to be at least a year or three) had quit to join the Army as a grunt. This whole idea of him being a person who didn't have the drive to suceed for the self, but could do anything when the team needed him came out of that. I've had these backstory details (and a few others that didn't really fit in) sitting around since then, waiting for the opportune molment. I wondered up until recently whether the justification made sense, but about a month ago my government teacher had a Army Intelligence officer who'd graduated from our school come in to talk to us about his experiences. In passing, he actually mentioned that there are guys who will get some education, yet still enlist instead of go for being an officer. So, anyway, thanks.

Oh, dear. I know I saved my XPs at some point, so I may be running around with as many as 24 of those suckers to blow. I'll go prowl the archives, then I need to get into a spending frenzy.

Gatac