INTRO LOG - APRIL/MAY 18

[phantasmods]

Eventually, Charm starts herding people towards the parked exploratory drone, a few at a time, mostly people who have finished their noodles or other business. "It's almost nightfall at the Station," he says, "and with this many new arrivals, we're going to have to make multiple trips."

(For those who might ask, he also explains that they've chosen not to stabilize the noodle shop for the time being, as the other androids will almost certainly want to speak to Viella, and have no other way of doing so, due to the fact that they don't dream. Aside from that small region, the Fissure is largely stable.)

It in fact takes four trips total to get everyone to the Station. Those of you who don't fall asleep on the way there - the minute you hit stable reality, the inability to sleep vanishes, and most will be hit with a wave of exhaustion - will find that the Station Annex, a building off to the side of the main station, has been finished, at least outwardly.

By the time the first group arrives, the sun is dipping towards the horizon; by the time the last gets there, it's set, leaving a few pink-tinted clouds in the sky. The drones drop everyone off (and that is everyone, even though of you who have fallen asleep) on the observation deck, where those of you who didn't get your fill of noodles will find several buffet-style tables set up with...

...Pizza? Yeah, pizza, in damn near every variety you can think of, including a few things that only loosely fall under the heading of "pizza." Half a table is full of calzones of various varieties; another significant chunk is things that are just desserts in the general shape of pizza, including a couple of iced cinnamon pastries, a pair of brightly-colored "pizzas" made of canned fruit over cream cheese, and a two-layer cake that's just decorated to look like a pizza, with strawberry jam and round slices of strawberry 'pepperoni' sandwiching yellow icing. Finally, the last third of the third table is just three baskets of breadsticks with varying amounts of cheese and garlic, accompanied by two turrens of dipping sauce (one white, one red) and a tower of little plastic dipping cups.

(Those who opt to head directly to bed will find that the banquet gets packed up and moved back to the kitchens around midnight, though it stays warm under a stasis enchantment for roughly the next day before someone packs the remainder into the fridge.)

In the common room, meanwhile, the usual boxes of clothes and trading post sign are set up. Unclaimed rooms can be claimed by writing your name in on a list set up next to the boxes, on what seems to be a broken music stand with a large ROOMS AVAILABLE sign hanging from it. There is also a rather hastily assembled, hand-poked Braille version of the sheet (with the paper punched through in one or two places).

Those who go looking will find that the androids are somewhat more absent than they usually are after an expedition; save obviously for Charm, and Strange who arrives on the deck as usual not long after, you'll have to go looking. Considering the amount of the station you have available, they could be just about anywhere... But perhaps it'd be worth checking over in that new building...?

[Mod note: Strange is the only NPC with a top-level this round, but others may respond to your top-levels, especially in the Annex areas! Consider it a fun surprise. c:]

Comments

Annex Roof

[dubiouslychthonic]

[Jetshard, on the other hand, has no difficulty recognizing the new addition.] Oh, they put in a solace cauldron!

[bulletnews]

Oh, so it's some kind of elixir instead... That's disappointing.

[Congratulations, you threw her off a lot.]

They sure are making a lot of it, though.

[dubiouslychthonic]

Elixir...? No, it's a topical soak. Can be therapeutic, but mostly they end up being used recreationally anyway.

[bulletnews]

Well that's what I thought, and then you called it a cauldron.

[dubiouslychthonic]

[Jetshard chuckles.] Too long running in primarily lowblood circles does a number on a person's vocabulary. I couldn't remember the technical term off the top of my head.

[bulletnews]

So what, your upper classes have a habit of boiling the lower ones alive?

[Cauldrons do tend to be for cooking things...]

[dubiouslychthonic]

Only the very eccentric ones.

More to the point, highbloods have much lower core body temperatures than lowbloods. Most bluebloods would overheat rather quickly in water that's a comfortable temperature for a goldblood.

[bulletnews]

Interesting. That's not something I'd expect to vary a lot between members of the same species, even if they are different types.

[dubiouslychthonic]

Trolls are nothing if not incredibly diverse. The violetbloods and imperials are fully amphibious.

[bulletnews]

So the leaders of your whole society can just retreat to nigh-unassailable underwater fortresses in the event of an uprising?

That sounds incredibly convenient for them.

[dubiouslychthonic]

One of the few advantages of the entire adult population being moved off planet is that they can't really do that anymore.

Not that it's easy to get access to the Battleship Condescension.

[bulletnews]

Your leader must be having a delightful time ruling everyone with an iron fist, then? This sounds perfectly imbalanced in such a way that it's almost impossible to break.

[dubiouslychthonic]

So far as I can tell, she's been enjoying herself immensely for well over two thousand sweeps.

The current cohort's heiress presumptuous is in a good deal better position to make a challenge than any I can remember in my lifetime, but I think it's still a bit early to really predict how she'll do.

[bulletnews]

So the potential empresses need both the right blood and to defeat their predecessor in some kind of contest?

...actually, based on everything else you've said they need to kill the current one themselves, don't they?

[dubiouslychthonic]

Well, the royal color is generally believed to be functionally immortal unless killed, and if Her Imperious Condescension was going to abdicate, she'd have done it by now. She doesn't suffer her potential heirs to survive long enough for two or more of them to join forces, either. Lifetide's been smart and very lucky - she'd need to be, to live long enough to take an adult name - but she won't be able to evade her ancestor's enforcers indefinitely.

[bulletnews]

Well, it sure sounds like she can't, given every advantage the imperious condescender has.

Still, I think the heir can take it. There's probably a way she could be worse than that current empress, but I can't see what it is from here.

[dubiouslychthonic]

At the very least, she's got a few decades before she starts outliving the people who remember when she was a dumb kid and feel able to call her to task because of it. I don't think the Unsigned's going to stand for much abuse of power on her part, and half her supporters would leave with him if he walked.

[bulletnews]

Who is the Unsigned? Is she working with him as an equal? If so that just makes me like her more.

[dubiouslychthonic]

Wigglerhood friend of hers, although honestly I'm not certain how an off-spectrum mutant becomes acquainted with the imperial heiress in the first place. Possibly they know each other through one of the others in their circle.

But he's a better strategist than she is, and there's a couple of hemoequalist religious cults that have decided he's the second coming of their prophet and I'm entirely unsure whether he actually buys into it or if he's just sympathetic toward their ideology and canny enough to lean into it to get them mobilized behind the Heritrix.

[bulletnews]

Politics must be harder than I thought.

[dubiouslychthonic]

Yes, well. I like to know what's going on, but I'm just as happy that my actual responsibilities are limited to keeping everyone in one piece, or at least as close to one piece as is feasible.