Outcast Quest [Updated 10/10/18 - Turn 14]

[dragoongfa]

Loroi Survivors (1d50): 24

[joestej]

...Loroi. Wasn't expecting THAT one.

As a First Contact group the Colonel and Sasha were the last set of people I'd have picked. Neither of them are any good at this.

Based off the collars, infighting, and mix of alien life present, I think it's safe to say that this is/was a slaver ship, likely run by the Snouties with Loroi and Human prisoners. If the Humans were trying to rescue the Loroi, the Loroi MAY have seen humans before and know we aren't total jerks (or at least are better than the slaving Snouties).

I largely like dragoongfa's plan, though I have a few concerns before I vote one way or another.

First, we know there was a battle for control of the ship. Either the Humans won, the Snouties did, or there killed each other. If the Humans had won (and their objective really was to liberate the Loroi), we wouldn't be seeing the Loroi still locked up. This means either both sides died (unlikely), or a handful of Snouties are still around. I suppose we MIGHT have killed them all when we took out their weapons, but that also seems unlikely. Since we can only track the collars, whatever is left of the actual crew is probably still around somewhere. We'll want to watch for that.

On to our First Contact. As dragoongfa said, I think we're going to want most of the marines out of here. The Loroi are kids in a ship they don't know how to run and their best weapon is a piece of metal pipe. I doubt they're a serious threat. Normally I'd say risk pulling off our helmets to show the similar biology, but there is a non-zero risk of alien germs and other contamination so probably wait until the Doctor gives us the all-clear. I like the idea of trying to get them to wait while either we go over in person or send someone else with a high diplomacy. Might want to wait until we're sure the ship has been cleared.

We also have to worry about germs going both ways. If we bring the Loroi back to our ship, they've got as much risk of catching something from us as we do of getting something from them. Normally I would say the difference in Loroi and Terran biology would keep both sides pretty safe, but maybe not. We won't know more until we can run some medical tests, and we can't do that until we get them to trust us.

Things to prioritize:
1) Making sure the ship is fully secure.
2) Establishing the best possible relationship with our new Loroi friends.

From there we can pretty much do whatever the heck we want. The ship is stable and we pretty much own it, and once the Loroi trust that we're trying to help they'll be much more likely to help us learn their language (or learn ours) and to let us run enough medical tests to feed/treat them. We can also decide what to tell the civilians. I recommend full disclosure. The truth will find its way out sooner or later, and having our alien guests be known as kids we saved from slavers will make them much less threatening and help smooth things over. Plus we military folks get points for saving a bunch of kids in a dramatic rescue, instead of losing points for putting them in danger by engaging an unknown alien ship.

[Nugget]

Loroi Survivors (1d50): 24

fug

[dragoongfa]

Quick question:

Were the dead humans we run across really humans or Loroi who have decomposed to the level of being indiscernible from humans?

Even if a Single snootie was still around they would have cleaned things up already after at least two months of the fight. The same with the Loroi survivors. It's a possibility that one side 'won' but the survivors were too injured and bled out. Has happened plenty of time in various wars.

In any case, you are right making sure the ship is fully secure is a priority:


Plan: The ones with guns should be the responsible party v2.

SpoilerShow

[X] Defuse the situation by having most of the marines back away, leaving only a squad visible but in safe distance with weapons lowered and visibly relaxed. We know that Volkova nor the Colonel are 'people persons' and thus they should stay calm and wait for someone competent. They should try and pass the message that someone will be with them shortly with hand signals or something.
-[X] Have the marines make sure the alien ship is fully secured. Have more marines sent if needed and secure a working airlock for better access while allowing the assault shuttle to leave its latching point (after the hole is patched up).
-[X] We need someone with high diplomacy on board the alien ship, preferably without a space suit in order to instill a sense of trust. We ask the Doctor about the possibility of a plague and according to his answer we send both Izumi and him with or without space suits (Both should jump for such an opportunity). Izumi because of being a linguist and the doctor in case he could provide some medical attention (while also looking for possible contagions and data about both alien species).
--[X] Once Izumi has some basic understanding of their language we should make sure that the elves understand that we mean no harm to them and that we are not related with their captors.
---[X] We then ask about their collars, what they are and how to safely take them off them (Have Volkova look into the technical stuff), no one takes them off or fiddles with them without making sure that they are not rigged to explode or something.
-[X] In order to avoid passenger unrest (the rumor mill can be quite nasty) we inform the passengers about what happened and that we freed what looks like blue elves that were enslaved.

----[X] Knowing that the alien ship is a barely flying mess, we demonstrate that to the elves and then invite the elves on our ship as passengers with the promise that we will allow them to return to their people once an opportunity arises while also informing them of the situation we are in. Proper screening is of course a priority for medical reasons. We should also keep them isolated from the passengers until we are certain that no misunderstandings arise.

-----[X] The moment we have a basic level of communications with the Loroi we have Izumi decipher the Snoutnosed Alien charts and then have her report her findings. (this is for later)

EDIT: Also I would like to point out that my far fetched theory I kept for myself was 70% right with the only caveat that the Snootnosed aliens were the original crew .

[Razor One]

Quick question:

Were the dead humans we run across really humans or Loroi who have decomposed to the level of being indiscernible from humans?

Even if a Single snootie was still around they would have cleaned things up already after at least two months of the fight. The same with the Loroi survivors. It's a possibility that one side 'won' but the survivors were too injured and bled out. Has happened plenty of time in various wars.

Yep. You were operating off incomplete information at the time and the decomposition was bad enough to render them all unrecognisable as Loroi. Or rather, Loroi resemblance to humans (and vice versa) is so close that you can't tell the difference without a degree in biochemistry and some careful checking. The Colonel is the one with the most experience dealing with corpses out of the two, and the only thing he noted was that they were women, which was odd, but her surmised that the men had been kept more secure due to them being a greater risk.

The Colonel has pretty much come to the conclusion that anyone that was left bled out and died. His report will show that the firefight for the detention block was quite fierce. Once the Snouts lost control of their ship they knew what the goal of their prisoners was and setup a final stand there with the intent of using their remaining prisoners as hostages. The surviving free Loroi charged the Snouts ramshackle stockade and both sides wiped each other out. A few Loroi corpses are fairly close to the door, so it's a fair bet to say they won but bled out in the end. All the corpses lying around (mostly) untouched was a fairly big clue that there was no one left to attend to the bodies.

Spare a thought to the former prisoners though. Volkova didn't look too closely, but the Colonel noticed that those that died inside the prison cell have been... well... you do what you have to when you need to survive and the food stops coming.

[dragoongfa]

Okay...

Plan: The ones with guns should be the responsible party v3

SpoilerShow

[X] Defuse the situation by having most of the marines back away, leaving only a squad visible but in safe distance with weapons lowered and visibly relaxed. We know that Volkova nor the Colonel are 'people persons' and thus they should stay calm and wait for someone competent. They should try and pass the message that someone will be with them shortly with hand signals or something.
-[X] Have the marines make sure the alien ship is fully secured. Have more marines sent if needed and secure a working airlock for better access while allowing the assault shuttle to leave its latching point (after the hole is patched up). They should also see if they can find some short of food storage, hopefully that storage wasn't at the lower decks.
-[X] We need someone with high diplomacy on board the alien ship, preferably without a space suit in order to instill a sense of trust. We ask the Doctor about the possibility of a plague and according to his answer we send both Izumi and him with or without space suits (Both should jump for such an opportunity). Izumi because of being a linguist and the doctor in case he could provide some medical attention (while also looking for possible contagions and data about both alien species). Some crates of food should also be sent as well, with the doctor overseeing the former prisoners eating in the case of complications.
--[X] Izumi should start by having the elves follow them at an other compartment, cleaner and with no bodies laying around. Give them the food there, if they feel nervous about it, have a volunteer (if the doctor didn't give the ok about contagion) eat something in front of them.
--[X] Once Izumi has some basic understanding of their language we should make sure that the elves understand that we mean no harm to them and that we are not related with their captors.
---[X] We then ask about their collars, what they are and how to safely take them off them (Have Volkova look into the technical stuff), no one takes them off or fiddles with them without making sure that they are not rigged to explode or something.
-[X] In order to avoid passenger unrest (the rumor mill can be quite nasty) we inform the passengers about what happened and that we freed what looks like blue elves that were enslaved.

----[X] Knowing that the alien ship is a barely flying mess, we demonstrate that to the elves and then invite the elves on our ship as passengers with the promise that we will allow them to return to their people once an opportunity arises while also informing them of the situation we are in. Proper screening is of course a priority for medical reasons. We should also keep them isolated from the passengers until we are certain that no misunderstandings arise.

-----[X] The moment we have a basic level of communications with the Loroi we have Izumi decipher the Snoutnosed Alien charts and then have her report her findings. (this is for later)

[Siber]

Hm. Something we might want to consider is that since we got good access to the ship's computers, there might be files on the Loroi language. They might also understand the language their captors used, though that might not get us off on the right foot.

[dragoongfa]

Hm. Something we might want to consider is that since we got good access to the ship's computers, there might be files on the Loroi language. They might also understand the language their captors used, though that might not get us off on the right foot.

We don't actually have much understanding of the snout language or their computer systems at this point and the Ensign should be sent where she is most needed.

The problem I have is that the ensign is a little meek which is why I want the doctor to be with her as mental backup. Maybe add the colonel as well as a backup scary cop.

[joestej]

Quick question:
Even if a Single snootie was still around they would have cleaned things up already after at least two months of the fight. The same with the Loroi survivors. It's a possibility that one side 'won' but the survivors were too injured and bled out. Has happened plenty of time in various wars.

Logical. Forgot how long they'd been drifting.

...which would also explain why I didn't connect the dots about the dead bodies being Loroi instead of Human. Of course in advanced stages of decomposition they'd pretty much look the same, and I missed when he said they were all women. Considering all the bodies and the state of these kids, safe to say the ship is all the way dead.

This brings up the question of how the Snouties were even able to subdue so many Loroi in the first place (especially with this level of technology), but that's a meta issue and something we'll no doubt have to find out on our own.

[X]Plan: The ones with guns should be the responsible party v2.

I like the choice of Izumi as a diplomat, and we're definitely going to need that doctor. Doubt we'll need any Bad Cops, simply because they're half-starved and we've got power armor. If they're even half intelligent, they'll know they've got no chance of stopping us if we want to do anything.

Still, I had a thought. If they had slaves, they must have had food for them somewhere on the ship. Odds are good they will be more interested in their own food than trying any of ours. Giving them something to eat will go a long way toward convincing them we're here to help.

EDIT: Vote changed to later version of the plan.

[dragoongfa]

We probably blew up the place where they stored everything but I am going to alter the plan a little anyway.

[Razor One]

Logical. Forgot how long they'd been drifting.

...which would also explain why I didn't connect the dots about the dead bodies being Loroi instead of Human. Of course in advanced stages of decomposition they'd pretty much look the same, and I missed when he said they were all women. Considering all the bodies and the state of these kids, safe to say the ship is all the way dead.

To be fair, the bodies being exclusively women was something that your viewpoint character, Volkova, didn't notice. Her main concern was in the technology of the ship, hacking doors, bitchslapping their language, and basically walking all over their computer systems. She only tended to take notice of her environment when the technological stuff was over with or while she was idle, hence why she could casually ignore dead and decomposing bodies or brutal impalements without much sweat while Mitchell was a bit more environmentally minded and threw up in his suit for the trouble, though it certainly helped that the suits kept the smell out.

If you'd taken the Colonel's point of view, you'd have noticed that straight up but wouldn't be able to surmise they were aliens from a glance. You'd have also noticed a lot of other environmental details, poked about with their weapons, such as a primitive high caliber rifle, think a bigger and heavier version of an AK 47, and would have gone into more detail making a threat assessment of the Snouts in personal combat.

You still get all of that in the final report, just more generalised and compact than it would have been if it were in the story.

[dragoongfa]

Alright, final plan and the one that gets my vote:

[X] Plan: The ones with guns should be the responsible party v4

SpoilerShow

[X] Defuse the situation by having most of the marines back away, leaving only a squad visible but in safe distance with weapons lowered and visibly relaxed. We know that Volkova nor the Colonel are 'people persons' and thus they should stay calm and wait for someone competent. They should try and pass the message that someone will be with them shortly with hand signals or something.
-[X] Have the marines make sure the alien ship is fully secured. Have more marines sent if needed and secure a working airlock for better access while allowing the assault shuttle to leave its latching point (after the hole is patched up). They should also see if they can find some short of food storage, hopefully that storage wasn't at the lower decks.
-[X] We need someone with high diplomacy on board the alien ship, preferably without a space suit in order to instill a sense of trust. We ask the Doctor about the possibility of a plague and according to his answer we send both Izumi and him with or without space suits (Both should jump for such an opportunity). Izumi because of being a linguist and the doctor in case he could provide some medical attention (while also looking for possible contagions and data about both alien species). Some crates of food should also be sent as well, with the doctor overseeing the former prisoners eating in the case of complications.
--[X] Izumi should start by having the elves follow them at an other compartment, a cleaner one and with no bodies laying around. Give them the food we found or brought there, if they feel nervous about it, have a volunteer (if the doctor didn't give the ok about contagion) eat something of ours in front of them.
--[X] Once Izumi has some basic understanding of their language we should make sure that the elves understand that we mean no harm to them and that we are not related with their captors.
---[X] We then ask about their collars, what they are and how to safely take them off them (Have Volkova look into the technical stuff), no one takes them off or fiddles with them without making sure that they are not rigged to explode or something.
---[X] Treat the elf dead with respect, gather them somewhere and ask if the survivors have some short of rituals for their dead. Have the Snout dead taken out of the way.
-[X] In order to avoid passenger unrest (the rumor mill can be quite nasty) we inform the passengers about what happened and that we freed what looks like blue elves that were enslaved.

----[X] Knowing that the alien ship is a barely flying mess, we demonstrate that to the elves and then invite the elves on our ship as passengers with the promise that we will allow them to return to their people once an opportunity arises while also informing them of the situation we are in. Proper screening is of course a priority for medical reasons. We should also keep them isolated from the passengers until we are certain that no misunderstandings arise.

-----[X] The moment we have a basic level of communications with the Loroi we have Izumi decipher the Snoutnosed Alien charts and then have her report her findings. (this is for later)

[Suederwind]

Has cost me a while to catch up with what happened.
I agree with dragoongfa that someone with better stats should talk to them, but doing that in that (for a lack of better words) hellhole might not be the best idea.
We also have no idea that those are Loroi and our charcter has never heard of them. We only know that they look like blue elves, hold captive for a while and are starving or even ill.

I therefore suggest plan B - Necessary force:
-Have the marines disarm the blue elve and take the others prisoner without lethal force.
-Examine the subdued aliens (again without harming them) for diseases or injuries.
-Provide first aid as a sign of good will, give them some of our water (there will be some in the shuttle or in the marine sprovisions, I hope) and try to lern their language by talking to them.
-Have our ship prepare some kind of quarantine station for them.
-Take them back to the shuttle (without lethal force) and bring them there.
-Let our doctors take a look at them and provide further help, as well as food and water.
-Let others do the talking in a safe enviroment for both sides.

[dragoongfa]

Remember that they are practically slaves that have been starved to the point of cannibalism. Doing things violently may turn sour (by having them doing something drastic on themselves) if they get in their heads that they are about to be enslaved again.

A show of good will with the subtle reminder of having overwhelming force should break their initial resistance.

[Suederwind]

Remember that they are practically slaves that have been starved to the point of cannibalism.

Yes, and the best way of showing that is getting them out there, give them food/water and provide first aid. We can't talk to them, so thats out of the question at least for the moment.
We are the more powerfull party here and need to act in a way that ensures the safety of all of us (them included). So, whatever we do, it might end in violence, but we can still get through them if we treat them nicely (so no handcuffs or whips) afterwards, by showing them that we do not regard them as slaves or food. Also: we need to find out more about them and we can't do that here, in that cell with rotten corpses and scared kids.

[dragoongfa]

Remember that they are practically slaves that have been starved to the point of cannibalism.

Yes, and the best way of showing that is getting them out there, give them food/water and provide first aid. We can't talk to them, so thats out of the question at least for the moment.
We are the more powerfull party here and need to act in a way that ensures the safety of all of us (them included). So, whatever we do, it might end in violence, but we can still get through them if we treat them nicely (so no handcuffs or whips) afterwards, by showing them that we do not regard them as slaves or food. Also: we need to find out more about them and we can't do that here, in that cell with rotten corpses and scared kids.

There are two reasons I disagree:

First, a sudden and violent (even if non lethal) change of environment will cause them extreme distress. They may be among bodies and refuse but it is the environment they have known for months. Now aliens with heavy armor and weapons passed through their door, there was a yelling match but they didn't act violently.

In my opinion they need immediate psychological help and violence should be used only for self defense.

Second and 4th wall breaking here:

They are Loroi and we know about their telekinesis. There is a possibility that one of them is a telekinetic. We don't want a telekinetic feel threatened because it will turn into a slaughter if a couple of marines suddenly drop.

[joestej]

Has cost me a while to catch up with what happened.
I agree with dragoongfa that someone with better stats should talk to them, but doing that in that (for a lack of better words) hellhole might not be the best idea.
We also have no idea that those are Loroi and our charcter has never heard of them. We only know that they look like blue elves, hold captive for a while and are starving or even ill.

I therefore suggest plan B - Necessary force:

SpoilerShow

-Have the marines disarm the blue elve and take the others prisoner without lethal force.
-Examine the subdued aliens (again without harming them) for diseases or injuries.
-Provide first aid as a sign of good will, give them some of our water (there will be some in the shuttle or in the marine sprovisions, I hope) and try to lern their language by talking to them.
-Have our ship prepare some kind of quarantine station for them.
-Take them back to the shuttle (without lethal force) and bring them there.
-Let our doctors take a look at them and provide further help, as well as food and water.
-Let others do the talking in a safe enviroment for both sides.

I'm with the Dragoon on this one. Seizing these kids by force would be a HORRIBLE idea.

We don't know who/what a Loroi is, but we DO know that they're the only living aliens any Human has ever encountered. We don't know where we are, or even how the local laws of physics work (if we are indeed stuck in another universe). We also know they're kids (we've seen adult bodies, so we know the difference), were captives, and are almost starved to death. A bit of kindness and compassion would be much more in order than stomping in power-armor first.

Remember, from their perspective they've been trapped in that room for weeks, their parents and everyone else they've ever known is dead or gone, and SOMETHING just hit the ship they were on, hard. Now a race of freaky aliens in armor just kicked in the door and stormed the place with guns. They're probably scared out of their minds right now.

If we back off/lower our own weapons, that communicates that we are friends and here to save them. If we grab their weapons and bring them down with force, we're just a new group of slavers trying to take over. Giving them medical care later will not convince them differently. Slaves must be healthy to work, after all, and we don't speak their language.

Our ship is only a safe environment for us. They won't find it safe at all, especially if we drag them there by force. Right now they pose zero threat as far as we know. What, is the starving girl going to stab our power-armored marines to death with her spear? Extending a kind hand by sending most of our marines away and letting the aliens keep their improvised weapons puts us at almost no extra risk, but will go a long way toward convincing them that we're the good guys.

The small amount of extra short term safety Plan Necessary Force provides is not nearly going to be worth how hard we'll have to bust our asses in the long term to make up for such a horrific first impression.

EDIT since I didn't notice Dragoon posted a new plan:

I have some concerns about our ability to pick up the rudiments of the 'Space Elf' language fast enough for all the communications your plan requires, and I would like to get these kids off the Good Ship Rustbucket sooner rather than later. But those are minor details and not worth the effort of another discussion/rewrite. Consider me on board.

Final Vote:

[X]The Ones With Guns Should Be The Responsible Party v4.

[Suederwind]

Reason 1:
The marines and our character are not psychologists and we do not have the equipment to help them here. Yes, being transfered (even with minimal force) to an unknown enviroment can be very distressfull or even traumatising. But, ask yourself: can it get even worse than as it is now? I do not think so. It might cause some harm, but in the end they will understand that we just wanted to help them.

Reason 2:
Yes, thats 4th wall breaking.
But, lets go there: Yes, we as players know they are Loroi and we know about their telepathy. We do not know if they are telekinetic or if thats a band of proto Teidar (I guess/hope not, since the one has spoken to us). So I would guess the risc that one of them will make the head of our character explode, is minimal.
Whats more disturbing, is that this is most likely some kind of captured diral of Loroi. That means they will be even less open to diplomatic solutions or talking and will only open up over time. We can't even be sure if they will accept our help, especially if provided by males. Thats why we need to show them who is in charge, but doing so in a respectfull way and get them out of there in a safe and protected enviroment. We can observe them there, communicated and provide assistance.

[dragoongfa]

Reason 1:
The marines and our character are not psychologists and we do not have the equipment to help them here. Yes, being transfered (even with minimal force) to an unknown enviroment can be very distressfull or even traumatising. But, ask yourself: can it get even worse than as it is now? I do not think so. It might cause some harm, but in the end they will understand that we just wanted to help them.

Our doctor however has a very high diplomacy score for this very situation and our ensign has a high diplo as well. We don't need to provide counseling, we just need them calm, fed and not afraid of us. They aren't a threat to the marines in any way of form (that we can know about) and thus we can afford some hours of trying to get through the language barrier in a calm manner.

Reason 2:
Yes, thats 4th wall breaking.
But, lets go there: Yes, we as players know they are Loroi and we know about their telepathy. We do not know if they are telekinetic or if thats a band of proto Teidar (I guess/hope not, since the one has spoken to us). So I would guess the risc that one of them will make the head of our character explode, is minimal.
Whats more disturbing, is that this is most likely some kind of captured diral of Loroi. That means they will be even less open to diplomatic solutions or talking and will only open up over time. We can't even be sure if they will accept our help, especially if provided by males. Thats why we need to show them who is in charge, but doing so in a respectfull way and get them out of there in a safe and protected enviroment. We can observe them there, communicated and provide assistance.

Remember some of the wounds that the snouts suffered (collapsed ribs, broken arms and legs). If the Loroi aren't significantly stronger than our females then it would be extremely difficult to do all that quickly enough with 13 (37 - 24 = 13) people armed with only make shift weapons. That was the clue which made me think that Loroi had their hands on this mess.

Then there are their collars to consider, the Loroi spoke to its comrades. She didn't need to do that so I guess that it is some form of telepathic suppressor. However even we don't know if telekinesis can be suppressed in the same way that telepathy can (and it is a plot point of my story that its a related power but works on different principles).

[joestej]

To add more to the 4th Wall stuff:

WE know about their telekinetic abilities, etc. But our characters don't. To them, this is a bunch of very human-looking kids. As near as we can tell, they've got the same strength and abilities a bunch of Humans of similar size would have, which isn't much. They haven't acted hostile to us, just defensive. Thus, as far as our in-character knowledge goes, they pose zero threat.