Sea of Stars - OOC III

[rax]

Probably like...4 Orks?

[Leon]

Fix the ship to at least be mobile and significantly armoured at least on the prow, find Abaddon's ship ~ confirm he is on it and then ram it and unshackle the warpcore

[Haval]

You want Hannabel to reply IC, or do you want to get in some more questions first based on the info above?

Expanded the post a bit

[Destro_Yersul]

I'm sure we can take him, right? We narrowly defeated 3 orks, how much tougher can Abbadon really be?

Well I don't have stats for him, but it can't be that bad. The man has no arms.

Fix the ship to at least be mobile and significantly armoured at least on the prow, find Abaddon's ship ~ confirm he is on it and then ram it and unshackle the warpcore

That just punts him into the warp, and he's best bros with all four of the chaos gods, no guarantee that kills him.

[Leon]

Just the Plasma core then and have made sure to stock the ship with all the torperdos we can fit into it

[PotatoGolem]

Well I don't have stats for him, but it can't be that bad. The man has no arms.

Crap, he's immune to being disarmed! And he doesn't have an off-hand! He may even be a 5 or 6 ork challenge

[rax]

On a business trip from today through Wednesday and just arrived at my hotel. Looking to post IC tomorrow so as not to hold things up too much, but no guarantees.

[Destro_Yersul]

I have come down with a cold, or something similar. Still here, just feeling very under the weather. Just waiting on you guys to come up with a plan forwards.

[Haval]

Hope you feel better. I have a dentist appointment to go to, but I'll get a post up after that.

[PotatoGolem]

Sorry, I'll try to post tomorrow as well
Yesterday was busy with Thanksgiving, and our dog got super sick today, so it's been a bit hectic

[Blarghy]

I think it's pretty unlikely that the Stalker knows someone is closing in on her--to the point that she's covering her tracks at the expense of killing her own allies--but wouldn't also know that it's us. So if she walks into a trap, I suspect it'll be because she thinks it's really a trap for us, and she's got a damn good chance of being right. We're not really a party of warriors in this sense; pirate-killing masters of ship-to-ship combat, sure, but our track record of person-to-person brawling isn't so inspiring. Macharius is our only frontline fighter. Does Potato want to tank for us against this killing machine? The fight would be him and Hannabel doing most of the work, while the rest of us pitch in as we can. Unless our plan is to try to bury her under waves of Praetorians and Rings until she suffocates under the weight of their corpses.

It's a fun plan--maybe horribly unsafe, but still fun--so I'm not voting against it. Just pointing out that we might be permanently burning some Fate Points by the end.

Option two, as I see it, is to turn over all of Thule's data to the authorities and let them pick through it to draw their own conclusions eventually. This is less fun but a whole lot safer. I don't like outsourcing plots to NPCs, especially a plot we've spent months on, but we have sort of solved the mystery, which was mostly what I cared about. I'm still curious about the "why," but based on all those spoiler boxes lately, it appears that this is a personal matter for Hannabel. As such, I imagine that we'll get an answer sooner or later.

I don't think Destro would decree that it's "too soon" for us to get to the end of this plot, if we remained determined and kept putting in the work, but if it's something bigger than it first appeared, then maybe we shouldn't rush to try wrapping it up here and now. I defer to Rax on this, just as I would want to take the lead on issues regarding the Castermares. If we give the local authorities all of Thule's stuff, head on our way, and keep an ear out for word of what comes of it, then that seems like a strong strike against our shadowy enemies here. A setup for the next confrontation, whenever it reappears. Is that satisfying enough? Not for me to say, but I won't complain, for my part.

[Haval]

I think it's pretty unlikely that the Stalker knows someone is closing in on her--to the point that she's covering her tracks at the expense of killing her own allies--but wouldn't also know that it's us. So if she walks into a trap, I suspect it'll be because she thinks it's really a trap for us, and she's got a damn good chance of being right. We're not really a party of warriors in this sense; pirate-killing masters of ship-to-ship combat, sure, but our track record of person-to-person brawling isn't so inspiring. Macharius is our only frontline fighter. Does Potato want to tank for us against this killing machine? The fight would be him and Hannabel doing most of the work, while the rest of us pitch in as we can. Unless our plan is to try to bury her under waves of Praetorians and Rings until she suffocates under the weight of their corpses.

It's a fun plan--maybe horribly unsafe, but still fun--so I'm not voting against it. Just pointing out that we might be permanently burning some Fate Points by the end.

You're probably right, and even if she does have suspicions I'm not sure if it changes much. When we found Thule dead I think Destro suggested we hadn't been subtle enough so I can see it going either way.

Not opposed to having to burn fate, but feel if we have to outfight her something's gone wrong. Otherwise I am really ok with whatever here.

[PotatoGolem]

She may or may not be willing to talk it out, as well. Clearly, she doesn't want to be exposed, or she wouldn't have been so secretive. At this point, if we contact her her best option is to talk to us. We could go to the Commissariat easily enough, so the fact that we're asking to talk implies that we're not necessarily going to kill her. And trying to turn it into an ambush against us doesn't really solve her problem- we would of course have told other people on the ship to tell the Commissariat her secret if we die, so killing us doesn't protect her identity anymore. In the circumstances, meet with us and hope there's a negotiated compromise available is probably her best bet.

Or she's gone totally nutso and will try to murder us all. Macharius can try to tank, I guess. And if we have enough marines in quick-entry positions then a mob can take her down- that's a threat to Space Marines, after all.

[rax]

I think either way, we're not going to get any further without speaking directly to Kindjal the younger. She's the one we've identified as the killer, and if we want to find out why she's been killing nobles, she's the one to tell us (plus we have direct leverage over her).

If we don't care about the why, we can just turn over our evidence to the Comissariat and let them deal with it. Obviously we'll need to concoct a story as to how we we're able to determine the identity of the killer so quickly, and there's the slight problem that her identity isn't clearly shown in any of the camera footage, but we can probably work something out.

For the OOC record, Hannabel cares more about the why than actually seeing Kindjal junior punished for her crimes. Lots of dead Scintillan nobles aren't a huge concern for her.

[Haval]

I like the dead man's switch approach. Between us we should be capable of talking her down from getting violent immediately.

I am also interested in the why question.

[Blarghy]

Alright, I'm down. Do we want to offer any carrots along with this stick? If Anika's right and the aunt is the real problem, are we willing to give the niece asylum? Smuggle her out of the system with us when we leave? Adopt her into the Absalom dynasty so she doesn't lose the lavish lifestyle she's used to? Because Hax doesn't seem like the forgiving, understanding type.

Kennoch will probably still continue to grumble about this, because it's what he does best.

[Destro_Yersul]

I'm ready to go as soon as you decide how you want to approach Lady Kindjal the younger. Whose name I suppose you would know, to be honest. It's Alia.

[rax]

I'm ready to go as soon as you decide how you want to approach Lady Kindjal the younger. Whose name I suppose you would know, to be honest. It's Alia.

St. Alia of the Knife? How fitting...

[Haval]

I have reservations but it would get her off Scintilla. The aunt being worst doesn't mean Alia is that much better.

I have to travel on Wednesday to Friday but I'll try and get something up before that.

[Destro_Yersul]

St. Alia of the Knife? How fitting...

Got to be more subtle with my big nerd references, I see.

Or not. It's no fun if nobody gets the joke, after all.

[Blarghy]

Awww! I liked Alia in the books! ...Well, I had sympathy for her, anyway. Dune, to me, was very much a story without heroes, but rather a spectrum of flaws and viewpoints. Much like how I see 40k. I'm more inclined to help our Alia somehow, if we're able.

I think we need to offer her something positive, in exchange for her cooperation. "Tell us everything you know, betray your House, and in return, we'll ask Hax to kill you quickly" is a very Warhammer negotiations tactic, but as we discovered from the last pirate captain we captured, it won't win us any loyalty.

This presumes that nobody is suggesting we offer to actually lie for her and hide her involvement in the murders, of course. I doubt that Anika would agree to let her keep on killin' so long as she gives us the "why." Kennoch would be pretty ticked. Not more than he already is about Galimina, but there would probably be some squawking from the little Navis.

[rax]

Hannabel is fine with lying to her and then putting a bullet through the back of her head once the why is cleared up, but knowing the why may open up other options, so getting her to talk is the most important thing as far as Hannabel is concerned.

[Blarghy]

Hannabel is fine with lying to her and then putting a bullet through the back of her head once the why is cleared up,

You're supposed to be the nice one!

[PotatoGolem]

Super busy through tomorrow, will try to post tomorrow afternoon or maybe (not likely) tonight

Macharius is probably open to keeping her on as an assassin. It's always useful to have people like that, and we can always dress up another corpse as the Stalker and say Macharius heroically killed her. Or if she becomes a problem, we gas her in her sleep/vent her berth to space.

[Haval]

Radical isn't always nice

It depends on how she reacts. Aside from my reservation that Anika has no reason to know about, she did kill a lot of people. It might be down to family loyalty, or because the aunt has a hell of a hook in her. It might be because she's enough of a sociopath behind closed doors that she was a willing participant in the whole thing, which might make her deeply untrustworthy. Maybe we need to hire a crew psychiatrist to check.

Anika is more interested in (redacted) at the moment then whatever happens to Alia Kindjal. Effectively she will be deferring to others here.

[Leon]

If your going to damage the skull make sure to save the rest, no need to waste it all

[rax]

You're supposed to be the nice one!

Hannabel is nice unless there's a threat to herself or her friends. Then she has no problems with large or small scale violence.

[Blarghy]

First of all, why in the unholy Warp would we have an NPC do the sniping when we've got Hannabel? By all means, give rifles to some of the officer Rings too, but I see no reason to keep our best shooter out of the fight. If she's worried about being recognized while the rest of us are being murdered, then give her a mask, or a scarf and a wide-brimmed hat or something. If she's unwilling to even be in the same room with the Stalker, then Kennoch definitely won't want to come along and stick out his own neck. No one has said that Hannabel wouldn't be doing this herself, but Anika has thus far only mentioned...

we can post actual snipers, and armsmen who can shoot well enough to do the job honestly?'

...so I just want to be clear and urge that we put the professional on sniper duty.

Second, I vote the observation dome. My biggest worry here is that Alia is going to run off and set up her own ambush, or regroup with her aunt and launch a proper war against us if we can't contain her, as per Destro's clear warning:

but there were plenty of avenues of escape, including whatever shuttle she arrived on, and if the Stalker slipped into the maintenance areas, they would be hard pressed to catch her again.

I strongly suggest that we don't let her leave until we've either secured an agreement or chopped her up into tiny pieces. Lack of ground-level cover in the dome is unfortunate, but I think we're all basically gonna be cowering behind Macharius anyway if this turns violent, and if he goes down, then I don't think it really matters after that. By all our information so far, the Stalker is a melee fighter, and a speedy one to boot, so she's just gonna run at each of her enemies to slice us up one by one. Hunching down behind a potted plant in the arboretum won't save us.

And finally, am I the only one concerned that Galimina seems to think there will be a day when she can act openly, in plain view of all humanity?

That information cannot leave the ship, not yet. I am not prepared.

Maybe somebody should follow up on this, and ask her what her long-term plan is.

[Haval]

Honestly, I didn't want to make any assumptions about Hannabel's part in this. I'm just looking for ways to get leverage if we can.

Probably agree with the observation dome. The cover of the arboretum might make things easier for Alia as much as for us.

Is there anything we can to do to make it harder for her to get out once she's in there? Welding shut bulkheads and the like. Maybe the assumption is that she might be able to cut through anything like that anyway but we shouldn't make it easy for her.

In England till tomorrow night so might be delayed.

[Destro_Yersul]

it's a spaceship, it's got doors, especially around a point of weakness like a big glass dome. You can seal the access points you don't plan to use, even weld them shut if you want.