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[Arioch]

edit: bah how do you do strikethrough text here?

Code: Select all

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strikethrough

(and yes, I just added it)

[Boris Norris]

So, how do I copy and paste a portion of someone's posting to include in a reply?

[ed_montague]

Click the little button above and to the right of their post marked "quote."

[Boris Norris]

Fireblade cant kill Alex. She would be in deep trouble if she did. He knows this.

...however, smashing him against the wall and telling him very pointedly to shut his mouth might be allowed.

The Loroi have granted Alex the title and rank of captain. If Fireblade were to assualt Alex it would be assualt on a superior officer.

Also, if smacking him against the wall in the elevator was her only recourse, why did she derive pleasure from it? (last panel, page 45)

[Solemn]

The Loroi have granted Alex the title and rank of captain. If Fireblade were to assualt Alex it would be assualt on a superior officer.

...no they didn't, they formally recognized him as the commander of an alien vessel, and as the commanding officer of a foreign vessel, recognized his right to be addressed as Captain.

They didn't promote him.

Doubtless the title of Captain is very important to them, but this did not grant him a commission in the Loroi military. He is not an officer in the Loroi Union Navy, and any regulations governing Fireblade's actions would have to regard his status as a foreign dignitary and foreign commander.

He is not her superior officer. He is an alien who they have decided to play nice with, for now.

[Boris Norris]

The Loroi have granted Alex the title and rank of captain. If Fireblade were to assualt Alex it would be assualt on a superior officer.

...no they didn't, they formally recognized him as the commander of an alien vessel, and as the commanding officer of a foreign vessel, recognized his right to be addressed as Captain.

They didn't promote him.

Doubtless the title of Captain is very important to them, but this did not grant him a commission in the Loroi military. He is not an officer in the Loroi Union Navy, and any regulations governing Fireblade's actions would have to regard his status as a foreign dignitary and foreign commander.

He is not her superior officer. He is an alien who they have decided to play nice with, for now.

OK, I am assuming that the story follows Earth custom here. Possibly it does not but I am assuming that. No, they have not promoted him and Fireblade is not in his chain of command. Nonetheless, he is now her superior officer. It matters not if he is in the Loroi Navy. If an American major were to smack a Swiss colonel, the major is up for court marshal. This may even apply to POWs but I' not sure.

[Solemn]

OK, I am assuming that the story follows Earth custom here. Possibly it does not but I am assuming that. No, they have not promoted him and Fireblade is not in his chain of command. Nonetheless, he is now her superior officer. It matters not if he is in the Loroi Navy. If an American major were to smack a Swiss colonel, the major is up for court marshal. This may even apply to POWs but I' not sure.

He was recognized as having the right to be called captain by technicality, not rank.

As the last surviving officer, he was recognized as technically captaining the Bellarmine and her mission. I really don't think Tempo has the authority to promote him, or to assign actual rank equivalencies.

So this is more if an American major were to slap a Swiss lieutenant after that Swiss lieutenant spent some time being called "Captain" due to being the only surviving officer on a small wooden raft due to, I dunno, a zombie attack or something.

[Boris Norris]

They didn't promote him.

As soon as I made my last posting, I realised I hade made a mistake. The word captain has 2 meanings. The captain of a ship and the rank of captain. You are correct.

[fredgiblet]

...no they didn't, they formally recognized him as the commander of an alien vessel, and as the commanding officer of a foreign vessel, recognized his right to be addressed as Captain.

And given the situation even that's pretty dubious, he was the captain of a junk heap when they named him such, then they proceeded to slag the junk heap even more.

Also, if smacking him against the wall in the elevator was her only recourse, why did she derive pleasure from it? (last panel, page 45)

Why wouldn't she?

[discord]

boris: I am quite certain what you are referring to is ALLIED military forces, this situation is more like a US army major slapped around a uppity ensign from the Tanzanian navy on a US ship, in US territorial water that just happens to be the senior Tanzanian on the scene, i think the worst the major would get would be 'So why did you slap him around?' and after explaining that the guy was a soooo annoying tard, the major would get minor disciplinary action on him, extra paperwork or something, no court involved, minor disciplinary action inside the chain of command.

[javcs]

boris: I am quite certain what you are referring to is ALLIED military forces, this situation is more like a US army major slapped around a uppity ensign from the Tanzanian navy on a US ship, in US territorial water that just happens to be the senior Tanzanian on the scene, i think the worst the major would get would be 'So why did you slap him around?' and after explaining that the guy was a soooo annoying tard, the major would get minor disciplinary action on him, extra paperwork or something, no court involved, minor disciplinary action inside the chain of command.

I think it'd be more like one of the Spec Ops branches than Army, since Fireblade's an Unsheathed.

On the flip side, he's technically considered to be of Plenipotentiary Ambassadorial status, according to Tempo. Which makes things an entirely separate subject.

[GeoModder]

On the flip side, he's technically considered to be of Plenipotentiary Ambassadorial status, according to Tempo. Which makes things an entirely separate subject.

Oh, there's a simple solution to that: a single Loroi ship finding one of humanity's worlds by "accident", while our endearing ensign is never to be heard of again...

Heh, cheeky Alex.

[Hālian]

I think it'd be more like one of the Spec Ops branches than Army, since Fireblade's an Unsheathed.

According to the ranks page in the Insider, it would be the USMC.

[GeoModder]

According to the ranks page in the Insider, it would be the USMC.

Give the SAS some love here, please. They seem to have an even better reputation.

[Hālian]

Well, for Teidar Pallan it says Marine Major so, if I'm giving anyone else love, it's the Royal Marines

[DevilDalek]

Im definitely going for the Alex knows exactly what hes doing here camp.
Hes been locked up for sometime, and the only contact hes had has been with Reed, and if the conversation hes had with her is anything to go by, hes already kinda gotten to know her quite well.
Im expecting as the story goes on there are going to be lots of these little incidents, some good some not, which he uses to fathom Fireblade out, seeing her as the most extreme and there for most challenging of his social opponents, (after all Stillstorm actually spoke to him), eventually he'll get under her skin and work her out.. its what hes there to do, after all hes Humanities finest and brightest, the best in his class and hand picked for this very job, First Contact.
What i find more worrying is what was it that made them hussle him off the bridge, throw him in his cell and stop Beryl and Tempo from having any contact with him at all. Im sure those two are fighting at the bit to have contact with him in whatever form.
I still think it has something to do with that Mickey mouse song he sang.
Dont I possibly remember the time it takes for the first airing of the Mickey Mouse Club to reach the Loroi roughly being about the time of this occurrance?
Hehe, watch him meet the Emperor and shes wearing a replica Mousekateers pin badge..

[fredgiblet]

Page 100 Panel 1
Reed: *Still think he's "cute"?*
Fireblade: *...Fuck off.*
Reed: *:P*

[Solemn]

So we know that Alex is being moved, but we don't know where to, or why the Loroi have armored up for the occasion.

We also know that the 51st has two duties at the moment, which would probably be better addressed if they could be separated; they have to help shore up the Union's defenses against the Umiak Khalkha divisions tearing into them as we speak, and they also have to secure a VIP. Taking him into the front lines of what may well prove one of the more intense campaigns of the war is not the best way to ensure his health and safety, but taking the whole Strike Group to a safer area with him is not the best way to defend the Union. So breaking off with one vessel, preferably one fast enough to avoid conflicts with any unexpected Umiak forces they might meet on the way (seeing as how Farsight isn't what it used to be) and well supplied enough (meaning "big enough," cargo space and fuel and so forth) to go for some fairly prolonged periods on its own, and one whose absence will not detract too much from the combat readiness of the strike force as a whole.

The Tempest is not a good vessel to use for his courier. Amongst other things, the 51st will require its presence (and Stillstorm's) in the immediate future, and you probably cannot afford to delay Strike Group 51 for ambassadorial purposes. There are just all sorts of reasons for the Loroi to want to get him off the Tempest in the near future, but unless his final destination is on the Tempest's current flightpath, they're going to need to use an independent jump-capable ship or ships as intermediaries.

Mozin's Prophet's Reason would probably be the best ship to put him on under normal circumstances, with fully functional Farseers and without any interesting traits on his part, but Mozin is gone and these are not normal circumstances and they don't want him out of Loroi hands. Even if they had rendezvoused with the Prophet's Reason, I strongly doubt they would hand him over like that. At the very least they would put him under guard while doing so, which would explain the armor and Fireblade's presence, but would not explain why a Listel has not been dispatched with this group (so far). Even if they've relaxed around him enough to not require a Listel recording everything he does and says while he's in their hands, they'd certainly do so for the duration of his time amongst non-Loroi. Though, admittedly, the three he is with now might not be his entire detail. Nevertheless, they can no longer assume any given route through Loroi space is secure, and would presumably want something a bit better armed to ensure his safety (I have no idea how fast the Prophet's Reason may be, though; perhaps it is swift enough to avoid swarms of torpedoes entirely, dubious as that sounds).

Ashrain's Black Razor has many good things going for it. It has only half as many Pulse Cannons as the Tempest or Tsunami, and has probably (finally) expended its torpedo ordinance; so it's absence from an immediate battle might not be too hard a blow to the total offensive firepower of the 51st, but she's still probably capable of defending itself on its own from a small contingent of Umiak, so we might get a sweet-looking battle scene without breaking suspension of disbelief and so forth. Her engines are also the fastest of any jump-capable craft in the 51st; while I doubt that they'd go at full thrust when moving through empty systems, and thus I doubt that the faster vessel would have a significantly lower total time of travel, the extra acceleration could still make them better able to avoid more fights entirely, and perform marginally better in situations where shots are to be exchanged. She has six laser autocannons and six medium blasters, making her about as well equipped for point defence as the significantly larger Vanguard-class, and she has a slightly higher armor and ECM rating. Overall, she seems very much the best vessel to ensure Alex's survival independent of the rest of the 51st; her armor rating is more than half again that of the Tempest's, her weaponry adequate, her acceleration, very much the best. However, four Pulse Cannons defending Alex are four Pulse Cannons not assisting the 51st.

However, personally, I would assign Alex to a point defense specialist vessel, say, a Warhammer or a Rapier. More likely a Rapier. Loroi vessels, having the acceleration advantage that they do, only seems likely to actually need to engage with Umiak long-range torpedoes or gunboats at the most, should they choose to avoid a confrontation. Nothing else in the 51st is armed quite as appropriately for swatting down gunboats and torpedoes on its own as a Rapier. If I were going to put Alex out of harm's way by potentially putting him through harm's way, and needed to balance the needs of his safety against the 51st's need to have enough firepower concentrated at hand to be as useful as possible against the Umiak, that's the route I'd take. However, from a storytelling perspective, this would mean putting Alex on a ship without even a single established named character at this point. Because Winter Tide is currently busy adding slightly more dust to a certain proplyd.

Passing Alex from Loroi military hands to other Loroi military hands doesn't seem like something that would require an armored escort; those suits don't look ceremonial, I don't think they're just dressing up for tradition here. Bringing Alex onto a Loroi world or Loroi installation where he could potentially come into contact with unpredictable elements they might have to protect him from (say, honorless civilians, despicable aliens, dangerous rival commanders, untrustworthy Mizol) or putting him in a situation where they might have to protect someone or something from him (say, meeting the Emperor, or seeing how he reacts to a Loroi male, or passing through some highly sensitive area of the ship) would possibly help to explain the armor, but that kinda feels like a reach on my part.

Now, there are a few alternatives to transferring Alex off-ship that have occurred to me.

The 51st spent quite some time scavenging from the Bellarmine. A number of the artifacts they recovered are doubtless useless junk, and a large amount of both useless and nonuseless materials they have doubtless decided to keep Alex far away from, and study on their own. Their salvage is most likely to be located in the cargo bay of the Tempest. They might have decided to take a section of their cargo bay and remodel it into something of an approximation of what they found on his ship; I'm not saying they'll have some sort of space X-Box and space plasma screen TV waiting for him there, but they might have some human chairs, a human table, and maybe a human mattress or something, things that they recognized as harmless and familiar items there for him (having spent a week verifying that the pillows are in fact just pillows and not cleverly disguised bombs, etc.), and might have relocated him to the cargo bay so they can more efficiently bother him about identifying various pieces of junk, that sort of thing. They would doubtless wear armor for completely functional reasons when doing this, because when dealing with alien technology any and all seemingly harmless trinkets may in fact be full of venomous hobo spiders, and Alex may still be nothing more than an elaborate artifical suit worn by a very large number of particularly clever hobo spiders, yearning to free his brethren and unleash their fanged wrath upon his Loroi captors.

However, the "we made a room for you in the cargo bay" idea doesn't seem quite as practical as just bringing furniture and so forth into his cell in the brig. A cell has many advantages over a normal room, and many more over a random cleared space in a storage room. For one thing, you can probably expect his cell to have its own toilet facilities, whereas a storage room would probably be a fair distance from any such facilities. For another thing, his cell door locks. This is important for containing and controlling him, sure, but it might lock both ways, and thus might help keep him safe and hidden in the event of, say, Umiak boarding, whereas if boarding were to occur at all the Umiak would be most likely to board a ship through a cargo bay, and would most definitely go through the warriors' barracks, whereas a brig might be overlooked.

Basically, what I'd look for in a room to move Alex to, is a place that I'm not going to use for anything else any time in the forseeable future, which I have the ability to surveil and control remotely, which is also a fairly self-contained environment, which I have access to and which he only has limited control over, and which is armored and protected enough to keep him safe even if some really terrible things happen to the rest of the ship.

For a while, I thought, "hey, a shuttle can do all that!" Because iirc some long-range shuttles have jump drives, which means they're equipped to be able to cross through at least one system on their own, which (to me) indicates that they probably have toilets, unless Loroi can go for a day or more without pooping or are expected to just go in the corner or something. So a large shuttle would probably offer a ship-within-a-ship thing; give Alex a more or less self-contained environment, one you won't be using, and one which moreover can be fairly quickly evacuated from the Tempest in the event of an emergency so he's likely to survive, and which you can probably seal off and handle well enough should he need to be destroyed.

But then I remembered the Combat Sim.

Shuttles follow torpedo rules if they self-destruct (by detonating their fuel).

They'd face the following options with the use of a repurposed shuttle:
--Keep it fueled up for a quick escape, and thus risk Alex escaping or self-destructing and killing you all.
--Remove its fuel; no fuel probably means no independent systems at all, not just no flying or exploding, so, no life support either. Same bathroom problem as the cargo hold, but this time, with an air supply problem on top of it.
--Keep it fueled and keep him in it and keep him under constant, vigilant guard. Thus endangering his guards, himself, the shuttle, and the Tempest, to a much higher extent than keeping him in the brig, but to a slightly lower extent than if leaving him to his own devices on a fully fueled shuttle.

None of these seem like they're really great options.

Anyways, everything has tradeoffs and so forth but really this is all just a distraction from the actual issue at hand; the matter of the war.

No, not the war between the Loroi and the Umiak. The war between Alex and Fireblade.

well i have a theory (if your not scared yet, please do so)

Since most of the time, the interrior of a closed environnement, smell like his occupant body odor and/or sweat. And that in page Page 48 The interior of the Tempest smell like Vanilla. Then there a possibility that loroi "sweet" (or urea) could smell like vanilla.


*back on earth*

Alex: here a vanilla cake
Beryl: EWWWW! somone pee'd in it!

Not counting pheromones the majority of smell from sweat and similar are actually bacteria caused. I'd say both Alex as as well as the crew of loroi ships are supplied with custom bacteria cultivars to allow them to function normally but not impair anything.

My understanding is that urine is fairly sterile (and can sometimes in desperate situations be used as a disinfectant, disgusting as it may sound) and has its own pungent smell, because urea partially dissociates into ammonia when in aqueous solutions; that is, that ammonia smells, but dry urea actually doesn't. That human sweat doesn't smell of ammonia because urea contributes so trivially to its odor, and you probably wouldn't notice it even if it were concentrated a few times more than it is in sweat. That urine doesn't smell exactly of ammonia because (I think) urea is not the sole contributor to its odor, and also because its not nearly so concentrated as ammonia is in cleaning supplies. So the urea in human sweat isn't likely to have contributed to the "acrid […] spaces of the Bellarmine" unless the walls were damp, which seems really really unlikely, I'd expect their air system has some future space water reclamation thingy so that they don't all die (of thirst, of water-related equipment failure, of Ensign McTwitchy going crazy from humidity-related discomfort, take your pick). And also that some species don't package their ammonia in urea, they just excrete ammonia.

However, Loroi sweat might indeed be the cause of the vanilla-scented halls of a Loroi vessel. If something that smells like vanilla is one of their sweat-related products, and if their pee is similar, and since taste (to humans) is strongly related to smell and memory, then Alex might not object too strongly to drinking that coffee full of Fireblade's urine I brought up.

Here's how I see that going..

Loroi 1:So, you're on alien monitoring duty? How's that treating you?
Loroi 2:It's not what I expected. Keeping him and the Fire Demon from killing each other is a lot harder than you'd think, and not even entirely straightforward.
Loroi 1: What do you mean by that?
Loroi 2: Well, you know how they've been escalating some sort of bizarre rivalry for a while now, and manage to do pretty much everything short of kill each other, and the Mizol Parat and Listel Tozet both keep telling us that since we know so little of his people we shouldn't interfere unless Fireblade goes totally off the wall or he personally asks us to intervene, at which point we should stop it cold? Because this might be some sort of a cultural thing with their species? Maybe a mating ritual, or even a religious practice?
Loroi 1: Yeah. He is singlehandedly making the Fire Demon even worse. He shouldn't have made her lose control of her bladder like that. Who could possibly have known that putting a warrior's hand in a bowl of warm water while they slept would do that?
Loroi 2: Nobody. Because nobody could sneak up on a warrior, physically touch the warrior's hand, and physically place the warrior's hand in a bowl of warm water in the middle of the night without waking her up. Nobody has that sort of lotai.
Loroi 1: We're all still paying for that one.
Loroi 2: Except the alien. This is where it gets complicated. Do you know what she did in retaliation?
Loroi 1: I think I heard about that. Something that involved peeing, and she got even more upset after it didn't work. Is his species immune to the warm bowl of water trick?
Loroi 2: According to him, no, but that's not what she tried. The next meal he was given, she brought to him herself. Since he struck her through her bladder, she probably thought it was only appropriate that her bladder should strike back. She got a friend of hers to say he was being treated to some warm tea with his meal. Only it wasn't tea, it was a cup of the Fire Demon's urine, heated to boiling by her own psionic hate.
Loroi 1: No way.
Loroi 2: Yeah huh. Now, usually, when we try to bring him new food items or drinks, he spits it right back out, but this time? He. Drank. Every. Drop. Said it was the best thing we'd ever served him, bitter but not harsh, and familiar. "Warm vanilla chai" he called it.
Loroi 1: By all the Ancestors, did anybody tell him?
Loroi 2: Not yet; this is where it got complicated.
Loroi 1: How so?
Loroi 2: Well, he hated everything else, so, I guess it just seemed natural to the people taking care of him that they keep giving him more "Loroi tea." It was his favorite part of the meal, so we…
Loroi 1: So you what?
Loroi 2: ….we started urinating on everything we feed him.
Loroi 1: How in all the sea of darkness are we going to explain that to him, when he finds out what he's been eating and drinking?
Loroi 2: Well, the only one who hates him enough to say anything about it--to him, mind you, most of the ship already knows--is the Fire Demon, and she doesn't talk. He may never learn.
Loroi 1: Starlight tides, I can't tell if the Fire Demon won that exchange or lost it utterly.
Loroi 2: Let's call it a win for her; if she doesn't get her own hits in, she'll probably tear this ship in half out of frustration.

Of course, really and honestly, I doubt that they'd sweat vanillin. Alex is probably just smelling the result of years of aggregate residual Loroi shampoo. Do you have any idea how much of the Loroi military budget is spent on hair care products? Forget ships, forget weapons, forget troops, Earth will save their economy by supplying hair spray and shampoo.

[DevilDalek]

heheh, Oh yes, I could definitely find amusement in that..
I do like the idea of the 'Human Room' though, it would be a quick way to find out what things do that are still totally inexplicable by just placing them in the room and seeing what he does with them.
There could be some emotional backfiring though, especially if the items of furnishing in there belonged to and bore the names of close friends.

On another note, Why does Fireblade not talk? she understands trade, that is obvious, but maybe shes got reasons like a battle scar or birth defect that prevents it, that would bake Alex feel bad, and he might end up teaching her sign language (Did I read somewhere he was a master of languages?)

[junk]

I think it'd be more like one of the Spec Ops branches than Army, since Fireblade's an Unsheathed.

According to the ranks page in the Insider, it would be the USMC.

Isn't the USMC basically just the army with foreign deployment capacity? At least I get that impression from the US military. In essence no different from armies of other nations. I doubt germans for instance make any distinction between the two on their own turf.

And the unsheated are indeed closer to Seals, deltas, SAS, czech 1st paras and similar units.