Move 2.1 Recap

Sasha and Sulen; memo to the team

Sasha invites Sulen to a meeting in Communications. They arrive one minute early, their eyes somewhat shadowed; Sasha stands as they enter, and offers tea or brandy, which Sulen refuses, wondering if Sasha is the sort of person to modify the tea. They bow deeply. Sasha asks, "Did you intend to curse our mission? Or are we chalking that up to cultural differences?" She's referring to Sulen's refusal to toast a new leader, at the party Ashari arranged. Scornful of foreign superstitions, Sulen says, "I'm afraid I know very little about curses." Sasha answers, "Right. Then I'll assume you simply dislike me, and next time I offer you a toast you'll take it. Fair?" Sulen replies, "-I insulted you. Of course. I apologize. Actually, I thought you were insulting me." They tell Sasha they weren't angry at her, and promise to "participate in the ritual in future." Sasha tells them, "Look. I'm about to take a team that's designed not to work on an unauthorized mission to the wrong side of a warzone right before a major battle. I wouldn't blame you if you wanted no part of that. And I think, unlike me, you have a choice." If Sulen's not going to transfer away, she continues, she wants them not only to obey her direct commands, but to tell her what she should have requested. Sulen thinks Sasha overestimates their degree of choice, but confirms, "I'm here by my own decisions, and I'll fulfill my responsibilities." They ask what she meant about the warzone. Sasha tells Sulen they are headed to Lanterner space in the ninth century and asks them to "take second in command, in charge of people": "it's either you or one of the foxes." Sulen bows and acquiesces.

Sasha asks Sulen how much to tell the new team members "about the mission responsibilities involving Quill": "I don't think it's practical to keep foxes truly in the dark, but it might be safer for them not to know officially." Sulen advises telling everyone the complete story, to avoid the complications of the last meeting. The exception is Mafyyil: "You might want to give her a simpler version..." Sasha asks Sulen to adapt Ashari's letter into a briefing for the team, "except for the teenagers," and tells them about the meetings she has planned.

Sulen offers Sasha their notes on the other team members, which they have "painstakingly edited" to obscure their Inquisitorial instincts. They ask about her plans for Gerae and Remi, adding, "I'd advise you to be careful with Reshad. She reminds me of Ashari." Sasha notes that Gerae's skill with locks and memorization may be useful later, and comments on Remi's work with the moths. Attempting to appear casual, she asks what similarities Sulen sees between Ashari and Reshad. Sulen says, "Similarly flexible. Good at lying." Avoiding Sasha's eyes, they continue, "I predict she'll be a great asset. But you might have a repeat of the, ah, personality conflict problems." Sasha is surprised that Sulen seems more worried about her than about "the beautiful Shuos operative." She attempts to reassure them, "While we're making comparisons--Ashari reminds me of my mother. It wasn't clear to me, at first, that they believed the obligations of command go both ways. I hope we've reached an understanding." She reflects that allegiance to Ashari is the better bargain, and expresses her intention to look after all the team members, including the former Shuos. Sulen says, "Ah... I've heard that mothers can be difficult." They ask how else they can help, noting their experience with "tedious paperwork". Sasha wonders whether Sulen's mother is "a being of purity and light," but assumes it's more likely that none of their parents are women. She lists a set of tasks, including writing profiles of team members to share internally.

Later, Sasha messages the team, informing them that she is now in command, with Sulen serving as second: "We'll have an all-hands meeting at 19:00. I will be meeting with many of you between now and then. Please familiarize yourself with our destination, and get ready to ship out in two days." She attaches a version of Ashari's letter that omits their personal comments about Sasha; the version sent to Mafyyil and Mikodez also omits some of the suspicious commentary on Quill.

Reshad and Sasha

Reshad arrives at Sasha's office on time, dressed simply and professionally. She says, "I read your briefing, sir. That time-and-place is... known." She asks about Sasha's goals. Sasha is slightly unnerved by Reshad's presence, but stays in her seat and offers her something to drink. She warns Reshad about Quill, "She's a rebellion 'facilitator', involved with personnel choices. You might have noticed that our initial mix of specialties was a little bit odd; that's Quill's fault." She goes on to explain that Quill let "Mishka," a Shuos cadet with a Crowned-With-Eyes signifier, go from a Shuos boxmoth to the Cantata without checking his augment. Disconcerted, Reshad says, "It may come as a surprise, but your Mishka looks a great deal like a man I know as Mikodez. He's been the Shuos hexarch since just before I entered the academy." Sasha calculates that Mikodez in Reshad's time might look rather like "the brother that Mishka called an evil clone," Istradez, and asks the grid to display a picture. Reshad confirms, "That looks like him. Is it live?" Sasha tells her, "No, it's a saved image. That's Mishka's brother Istradez. They had a fight which left Strashik with a concussion, amplifying a pre-existing condition, so he's not coming on this mission." Reshad says, "I don't think I knew he had a brother." She muses to herself about whether Mikodez' rumored doubles were created through surgery, or "the oft-denied Shuos exotic ability." She asks whether Mikodez is coming on the current mission. Sasha says that he is, and that she will task Aymad to keep an eye on him.

Sasha doesn't want to let Reshad watch her process the news about Mikodez, so she changes the subject: "Our overarching goal is to figure out what Quill is doing: the push into Lanterner space is at her initiative, and it seems she doesn't have our organization's best interests at heart." She tells Reshad that the team will be posing as weapons dealers, and asks her to serve as spokesperson. Reshad offers to help with Mikodez, then says, disturbed, "The group organizer may not have your best interests at heart? You may be in severe danger, on this or any path. What interest do you think she follows?" She then asks about the cover story for the group, its wares, and the moth. Sasha grins at Reshad's reference to "severe danger", which she considers a hilarious understatement. She tells her they are trying to find out "whether Quill is simply amassing personal power, or working with a group within the Shuos." She adds that because the Lanterners are monitoring the rift, "we should consider where and when we'll claim to be from, as well as who," and explains that Cantata shouldn't be too hard to explain as long as it refrains from singing too loud.

Reshad mentions fungal weapons while musing about weapon designs. She remarks, "If I met someone claiming to be from another timeline, I might be more suspicious rather than less. That one, perhaps we should keep in our sashes as a cover for slips." She notes that she's curious about the Lanterners, and then asks, "Do you suspect anyone of having the sort of difficulties in memorization that will make special tutelage necessary?" Sasha is saddened by the mention of the fungal weapons; she tells Reshad that she's "from very early," but has heard of the fungus. She notes that motivation problems are more likely to be an issue than memorization, for cover stories: "Both of the teenagers, Mishka and Fyedlet, are going to be problems, and Alaric doesn't know how to be scared. I'm honestly tempted to bring Fyedlet to the first meeting with Flute, and let her assume our whole team is a disaster."

Reshad is relieved by Sasha's lack of enthusiasm for fungal weapons. She proposes a cover story: "Let's discard any idea of blending in. We are already flamboyantly different; Fyedlet in particular. Let's use that to our advantage, such that the larger differences hide the smaller, that we wish to conceal. We have blueprints; very well. We stole them. We're the worst fear of several light-years, pirates from some no-name system. Small fish who have escaped into a larger pond, and wish to swagger." She asks Sasha whether there is "a way of handling" people "who think they're worse than us." Sasha answers, "I wouldn't want to engage in a fair fight, but our resources for sabotage are extensive. You'll find Alaric is a very useful distraction, I think." Reshad offers, "I lack somewhat in military skills, but when it comes to jamming the gears of bureaucracy or shifting attention..." She asks what Alaric is interested in, besides the mothlings, which Sasha already referenced. "Explaining how brilliant he is!" Sasha answers; she's amused, but also suspicious of her own positive response to Reshad. She continues, "We might be able to fake a change of orders for Flute, if we really needed to confuse things. Perhaps if we dropped a message pod near the rift."

Reshad ponders, ostentatiously tapping her lips and showing off her manicure. "We can generate a distress message to store on the pod; one that will pull people to some backwater of space. That could be useful." She asks Sasha how much time there will be between the team's arrival and the battle of Candle Arc. Sasha is distracted by the contrast between her own grooming and Reshad's. She tells her, "We'll have two sevendays, if everything's on track. Maybe a few days less, if the rift is unreliable or the timeline is shifting." Reshad lays her hands on the desk, watching to see if Sasha's eyes follow, and responds with a mixture of curiosity and concern: "I'll plan for a short engagement, then, and if we have longer, that's margin for error." Sasha meets Reshad's eyes and points out, "When you're trying to change history, sometimes it changes faster than you expected." Reshad muses, "I suppose one must be careful not to use the same name before or after an event that makes the history books," while pondering Sasha's reaction. Sasha tells her, "It wouldn't have to be very public. One future fox or wolf with a taste for archival research could cause us a lot of difficulties." Reshad says she will go by Vhi Eres: "The family name is simply one I like; the personal is an iteration of mine."

Sasha, Sulen, and Virmad

Virmad is disturbed to learn that the team is returning to the date of Candle Arc and may be in proximity to Jedao. He extracts a Lanterner emblem from his baggage and hangs it around his neck on a string. He shows up for the meeting in the commander's office (now Sasha's) a minute early, and debates whether to knock. Sulen greets him and says, "I've been given the job of- well, I don't actually know what my job title is, but I'm assisting Sasha with, management? First officer, I suppose, if we really were a ship's crew. So, ah, let me know if you have any ideas or concerns in the future." They observe that the prospect of returning to their own century is "odd". Virmad says, "Yes."

Sasha hears voices outside her office and commands the door to open. Virmad hesitates, then enters, saying, "You wanted to speak to me — to us?" Sasha gestures for the two Rahal to sit. She decides not to offer Virmad brandy, since she expects he will defer to Sulen and she doesn't want to force another argument about toasts; she pours tea for them instead. She asks how Quill might want to interfere with the battle of Candle Arc, tells Virmad they will be posing as arms dealers, and asks whether there are potential problems with the team's reliance on the high language.

Virmad summarizes the significance of Candle Arc: "If Quill's goal is to destabilize the Heptarchate's calendar, ensuring a Lanterner victory at Candle Arc — especially if they can arrange Jedao's death in the process — would upset the balance of calendrical terrain throughout what will later be called the Glover March." He notes that Lanterner and heptarchate culture are quite similar, though "their calendar doesn't require mass human sacrifice to function." Sasha tells him, "Reshad and I had discussed posing as a group of people with piratical leanings, from some small and obscure system." She points out that Ione has some experience with alternate worlds, and that the version of Virmad in the destination system might be more like a twin than a precise past self. She then asks how Quill might try to stabilize the calendar, perhaps in coordination with the Shuos who sent Mikodez: "Should we expect to see Flute undercutting the Lanterners, then?" Virmad first says, "I can't see what Quill would want to accomplish by trying to undermine the Lanterners' campaign — Jedao did — does — will do that well enough by himself." He then points out that "maybe that's a premature assessment" and Hellspin Fortress was also important in the campaign against the Lanterners: "Whatever Quill wants to do with the calendar, I think it's fair to assume it will hinge on Jedao.”

Iawa, Ione, and Mafyyil

Sasha messages Ione and Mafyyil, asking them to chat with Iawa about heptarchate norms. To Iawa, she adds, "i owe you"; to Ione, she writes, "pls. make the teenage girl see sense if you can." Ione replies to Sasha, "Her definition of 'sense' and mine may not be the same but so long as she is willing to accept mine for a given value of 'we are following these rules right now' we'll be okay. I just have to convince her I'm not completely insane first." Iawa confirms receipt of Sasha's message, wondering how the change of leadership occurred and whether Sasha has effected a coup, and tells Ione and Mafyyil to come to their room. Cantata helps Ione find the room by singing different tunes for "hot" and "cold". As she arrives, she thanks the ceiling. Cantata responds with a swelling chord.

Meanwhile, Mafyyil becomes lost while looking for Iawa's room. Sulen finds her in the hallway and asks whether they can help. Mafyyil thinks that Sulen is "the rude person" who "was so offended by the kangaroo loss they just ran off!" She attempts to fake a polite response, since she does need help finding Iawa. Sulen asks how she is settling in. Mafyyil responds with overblown enthusiasm, though in fact she is in pain and frustrated that the flowers now attached to her have aphids. She clarifies, "I mean, I think it, um, will be wonderful, as soon as I get the chance to do my duty properly. I'll make good for my failure to be complete, I promise!" She adds that she has written a celebratory poem entitled "tractors in the early morning sun of holy barley fields." Sulen says the poem sounds interesting, but can't quite bring themself to ask for a copy. Mafyyil says that she wrote it "in the hexarchate style", and enthuses about the helpfulness of people (perhaps Virmad?) who shared examples with her. Sulen says, "I'm glad to hear you've had support from the others. I've been made second in command on this mission, so if there's anything you need, let me know." They point out their own door, and Iawa's. Mafyyil says she is honored, then pounds on Iawa's door, saying, "Hellooo? Can you hear me? You wanted to talk?"

Iawa tenses at the noise from the moth's chord and Iawa's pounding, forces themself to relax, and opens the door. Ione lets Mafyyil enter first. Mafyyil says, "Hello! Very honored to meet you again! You wanted to talk to me about alternatively civilized behavior?"

Alaric, Sasha, Seyli, and Remi

Seyli arrives at Sasha's office dressed for action and armed. They greet her, "Sir?" They smile slightly, acknowledging Sasha's discomfort (to put it mildly) with her new role. Alaric shows up and says, "Sir? Ma'am? Comrade citizen? Is that a thing we're doing now?" Sasha tells him, in a friendly way, "Don't you fucking start." She asks whether Alaric knew "some version of Mishka is a future hexarch." Alaric says, "You mean he's that Mikodez? The scary-smart young one who murdered some cadets or something on his first day? I suppose that's slightly better than my first guess for why you were all freaking out about him, which was that he was actually baby Jedao. I just figured Mikodez was a common name. I'm not an onomasticist." Sasha points out that Mikodez "got caught hacking the station" and gave his brother a concussion, then tells Alaric, "I am from the year 228. I haven't memorized all of future history. If you notice something that seems relevant, could you at least mention it?" Seyli reacts incredulously to the reference to a future hexarch, explains they're from about a century after the team's destination, and accepts Sasha's offer of tea. Alaric points out Mikodez is a common name: "There's probably a Rahal Sasha who had a planet flogged because they bake pies at a calendrically inconvenient temperature and no one's assuming you're them. But if I see anything else that seems suspiciously coincidental, I will mention it." He adds that so far Mikodez has been "more of a mild nuisance - which is to say a teenager - than a terrifying spymaster."

Sasha pours tea and tells Alaric, "If we ever encounter something you consider genuinely scary, please tell me immediately, so I can make my way to a different galaxy." She asks Seyli and Alaric what weapon designs they can sell "that will seem exciting, but won't necessarily alter the course of history." Seyli suggests, "Defensive weapons and shields would always be useful, without particularly swaying the course." Alaric says "advanced invariant technology" is at a premium during wars: "People don't like to spend money on it because it's not as sexy as exotic weapons, so they end up scrambling to upgrade when a war actually happens." Sasha replies, "If they're throwing money at exotic technologies, maybe we should help them along?"

Remi arrives and apologizes for his lateness: "One of the mothlings had to be extricated from the matter printer. I didn't think you'd fancy mothlings trying to figure out how to work the machine from first principles." Sasha sums up the meeting thus far, and shares information she has gathered about Flute's resources. She then asks Alaric and Remi a "very speculative" question: "How hard would it be to disable the harnesses of other moths?" Remi says that manually disabling the harness is the surest way. Nodding at Alaric, he adds, "Doing it en masse--that would probably take some kind of exotic and, to be frank, a larger R&D team and budget than you have access to, unless you have some insight that I'm overlooking?" Sasha asks for more information about how the harness works: "I know there's software, hardware, and biological components, as well as the influence of the calendar, but I don't know what the mix looks like, or in what ways the harness is protected." Remi observes, "Fucking up the hardware is the best for a long-term solution. As far as we can tell from examining the Cantata's, tuning a moth harness is a delicate business." He explains that he and Alaric have disabled "some of the better-hidden components" of the Cantata's harness along with the software, and are running a dummy program in case of hostile inspections; "If you didn't care about being caught, then of course nuking the harness is easier. Pardon my language." After a thoughtful pause, he adds, "Once freed, you could teach the moth how to break the harness itself in case of further attempts at enslavement. But given that our communication with moths is imperfect and we don't yet know what they want, I wasn't sure you would want to jump to that measure."

Though Sasha is nervous about how the others will react, she tells Remi, "Where I come from, they bind people into ships. Not because it does anything useful, but because they want someone there to be responsible... I left because I couldn't stand it and I couldn't see how to move against it. With the moths, in the rebellion, I think maybe we can." She continues, "I don't think we have the political pull to free more rebellion moths right now, not if we want to keep them safe afterwards. But moths that aren't ours--or if we enter open conflict with Quill's people--fucking up a mothdrive sounds like a weapon."

Seyli isn't fazed by the revelations of Naxorian enslavement, but they feel at sea in this technical conversation. They say, "Point me in a direction and I'll fight or guard, or display weapons, but I don't have the experience to help you or anyone else with moths." Remi admires Seyli's physique, saying, "In case of physical sabotage, we're going to need--crudely put--muscle and tactical expertise. Maybe Alaric here is secretly a master of martial arts, but if you sent me in alone on a moth crewed by, say, hostile Kel, I would be mincemeat in short order."

"I'm not sending any of my people onto an enemy moth alone, if I can help it," Sasha protests. She asks Alaric and Remi why she can't write a virus to disable moth harnesses. Alaric explains that each harness uses "a unique cryptographic key derived from the moth's own physiology in order to prevent remote access... It's why the hexarchate can't just shut down rebel moths." He adds that, although the team might be able to sell a tool that disables moth harnesses, they might have difficulty explaining its superiority to "the latest and greatest railgun." Sasha asks whether a drone could access a port to hack the harness, or whether access to the moth's body is required. Alaric tells her, "Nothing needs to be done to the moth directly. That we know of. Obviously we haven't had a chance to experiment with what happens if a moth tries to forcibly extract itself from a disabled harness and the rest of the ship." Sasha asks Alaric and Remi to design "orientation information" in consultation with Cantata, to share with any moth they might awaken. She tells Remi that he is authorized to teach Cantata how to break a harness. She then asks Seyli whether they can help choose paths that a drone could take in order to reach engineering while evading human interference. Remi agrees enthusiastically, and suggests that Cantata could teach the mothlings how to disable harnesses, just in case. Seyli agrees to analyze the maps, though they note they'll have to check whether military training in the mission time is different from their own time. Sasha tells them that there is information in the grid, and Aymad can help them further; she assumes that, although Seyli is clearly suspicious of the Shuos, they will manage to be professional.

Sasha suggests returning to the topic of ordinary sales offerings: "What is flashy enough to impress people, but not so dangerous we can't build a prototype?" Seyli asks whether the goal is to equip infantry, and suggests, "Shields, body armor, shit like that isn't going to get us killed building prototypes. If we can come up with something with invariant offensive weaponry built in, that might catch their interest." Sasha confirms that they are selling designs to equip infantry or private security forces. She says, "Might be something as simple as designing a lighter-weight battery, for shields? What would built-in offensive weaponry look like?" Seyli makes some suggestions, concluding, "Anything we can design that's lighter, slimmer, allows for better range of motion than that they have should be appealing. Especially, if it's priced just above what they're already paying. Less would be suspicious." Sasha notes, "Aymad and I get to add armor pricing to our list of things to look up once we're at our destination, then." She asks, "Is there other information you need from me, before we enter the rift?" Alaric notes there are "a few advances in universal powerpack designs that I think are due to come out around that time," though he considers them "pedestrian". He asks Sasha to look out for information on raw materials. Seyli notes that pedestrian might be safer, since "exceptional might get the kind of attention we're not looking for." Sasha confirms, "We're going to seem strange no matter what we do. Reshad suggested posing as pirates, and I think that makes sense. But the less seriously people take us, the easier it will be for us to accomplish our true goals." Silently, she promises the saint of vines that if the mission is successful, she will go back in time and plant a forest in their honor.

New Combinations and Intercultural Adjustments

By and large, the team acquiesces to Sasha's assumption of leadership, despite her confession of violence at the last team meeting, and despite the scene she and Ashari made at the welcoming party. Interestingly, Iawa, who skipped the party, is more suspicious of Sasha's new role than the rest. Iawa has very valid reasons not to trust Sasha, but may be overestimating her talents for political maneuver.

Sasha attempts to navigate between Naxorian and heptarchate expectations for her new role. In particular, Naxorian culture recognizes important conversations with toasts, usually involving some sort of alcohol, though caffeine is an option for those avoiding alcohol for medical reasons. Sasha is carefully memorizing the beverage preferences of her team. She confronts Sulen directly about their response to the toast Ashari proposed, and the two work out an accommodation. Sasha and Sulen are making significant efforts to promote team unity, despite their deep personal differences; Sulen, in particular, is very committed to the success of the new mission, despite their natural frustration with Ashari's assignments. Virmad has strong personal reasons to be interested in this mission, and shares useful cultural information.

Remi is surprised and pleased by Sasha's willingness to protect Cantata in particular, and moths in general, from harnessing. Sasha has won significant loyalty from him, though of course a commitment to moth freedom may draw the team into conflict with other interest groups within the rebellion, as well as the hept-/hexarchate as a whole. In the same conversation, Sasha explains the more idealistic factors in her choice to leave Naxarat. This revelation signals Sasha's increased emotional commitment to the team. Though Alaric, Remi, and Seyli do not appear to recognize this shift in her allegiance, they also refrain from criticism that might have weakened Sasha's willingness to bond with other team members.

The newly constituted team is not, however, free from problems. Sulen is quite right to point out that Sasha's reactions to Reshad may pose future issues. Sasha is correct that she has greater problems with authority figures than with people who submit to her authority, but she is reluctant to face her own discomfort with people whom she might find attractive. This may cause future misunderstandings with multiple team members; Reshad and Ione, whose presentation is quite feminine, are particularly likely to encounter unexpectedly strong responses from Sasha. Reshad has already noticed that something is amiss. Meanwhile, Seyli is uncomfortable with deceit in general, and with the specific prospect of coordinating with former Shuos. Since Reshad is likely to play a key leadership role and Aymad is the team member with the second-greatest skill in conventional weapons, Seyli's discomfort is likely to create difficulties for the team's operational effectiveness.

The most obvious potential difficulty, however, is the team's response to Mafyyil. Sasha makes some efforts toward her cultural integration, but is not inclined to respect her skills or provide significant mentorship. Meanwhile, Mafyyil is both energetic and overconfident. The leadership's decision to withhold information from her may simplify their actions in the short term, but is likely to cause unexpected incidents somewhere down the road.