"Listening to others, considering well what they say" (Part 3: Maingate Hotel)

[cityship]

The Maingate Hotel was pretty extravagant, and an entire section of it had been eked out for the crew's use during their stay. They had several suites, three communal areas, a conference room, their own kitchen with a chef on call if they required her.

They were all teleported from the main teleport pad of the hotel into the conference room, which was a large enough room to be able to hold a group their size and had plenty of chairs arranged in a circular pattern so they could mostly all face each other or whoever was in the middle of the room.

Everyone had to settle down so they were all able to talk, and the meeting itself would have to be carefully controlled so they wouldn't all talk over each other. But they were up for the task, right?

[ooc: Guardian Setup, General Mingling, Clone Checkup, Newbie Briefing, General Briefing, More Mingling, Back to the Meeting, and The Idea Guy sections are open. Backup characters introduced to the plot can join in the mingling subthreads if they want. The opening of new subthreads will be announced here and the ooc. Please read the linked OOC post for a plot timeline.]

Comments

[encourage]

"The city was something else. I'm not much for architecture, if I get the feeling everything's designed after someone's model of a beautiful metropolis." Given the name of the city itself? "We took an unplanned detour up an anti-grav fountain. Past that, a few places of note, a little information on the attack sites, and then a brief tour of one of the more recent attack sites." She breathed in, then exhaled slowly.

"Civilian." She looked to his data pad, focusing on what it could tell her that Lex's released information couldn't. "I'd love to see the specifications. What did you see?" Her tone carried additional inflection on the see, placing more weight on that word than it strictly deserved.

[theboywhowaits]

"Up a fountain?" He arched an eyebrow, quietly questioning as he grabbed one of the tables to show her what he had. "So they are attacking civilian targets then? Did they give you any information or were they vague and reticent with your group as well? I got a distinct feeling that they wanted us to be as afraid as they were and were trying to make it more frightening by telling us nothing. Or maybe they just wanted to keep us in the dark until they were done marking our friends." He scowled briefly at the Data-pad, shaking his head and directing his focus to the information.

"We didn't learn as much as I would have liked, though we did see a surgery and a regeneration, for the most part they pointed at shiny metal boxes with lots of lights and attachments and told us what they did, which sounds amazing, but rather difficult to apply practically. The woman guiding us was evasive and reserved and wouldn't let us speak to any of the doctors at the facility. So as far as seeing goes, we saw very little. We heard more. It was very well planned out, they knew exactly what they wanted to show us and tell us, I think."

[encourage]

"Lash gets hands on," was her only comment on the fountain. "Councilor Asmin refused to get into specifics. I asked if there was a high occurrence of twins on Galilee." She'd noticed, eventually, but hadn't thought more of it at the time. "Asmin supposed so. She didn't want to discuss specifics on the 'terrorists' outside of pointing out the places they had attacked, and that attacks had gradually increased in death rates."

Sakura paused, frowning. "Now I'm not even sure if she's counting clones in her numbers of casualties." Just as likely they were part of the property damage figures that had been loosely verbalized.

She looked over what he had to share. "They've been avoiding letting us see much anything directly. With Henderson-sama here, they might be slightly more willing to open up access to actual medical professionals." It would be necessary. "Did you see anything along lines of more practical application?" The regeneration was amazing, presumably at speeds that would be next to impossible for her to imagine for anyone without an advanced regenerative system as it was. But if it was hard installs, it was practical after the fact. Not on the battlefield, and not in handling people in spaceships.

Accounting for that was another kind of headache altogether. Where were the space medic training courses?

[theboywhowaits]

"...Is that something we should mention to Psych? It seems rather reckless, considering the nature of this mission." He shook his head, frowning faintly. "It was much the same for us, if Councilor Bal was asked a direct question about what they meant for us to do, she evaded by saying the diplomats would be given the information. She seemed...unwilling to voice any opinion of her own. She showed us a pair of orphans, which seemed almost engineered to generate sympathy." He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "It feels horrible to cast doubt on things like that, but their treatment of us so far makes me cautious. I think if Doctor Henderson could get into their medical facility, it would be better."

He shook his head. "There were a few small things being used during the surgery that I would have liked a better look at. One isolated the bleeding, preventing it from pouring into the cavity and another seemed to stasis lock the patient while they removed organs, all were palm sized. The rest of the tech was too large to be easy to apply on the battle field, though still useful enough. What I'd really like a look at is one of their emergency response kits. Whatever they would take to a battle site, I think that would honestly be more useful to us than a big machine that takes up too much room but can regrow limbs."

He would like an update for the tech, it seemed that mostly it had been left to learning on the job. Something he had struggled with and spent quite a few extra hours learning. "The nanites they used for the brands are also interesting, if not in that application. I'd like to know if they use them in any other ways, it's very advanced tech. I just don't see how most of this could be of use to us. It's either too big, relies too much on optimum conditions, or relies on clones to work."

[encourage]

"If it's not already on her profile, I'd be surprised. Lash has been remarkably restrained so far. She's on her best behavior for her trail run." What that said about her behavior the rest of the time was up for liberal interpretation. Sakura didn't have a good check yet, given the nature of their time on the last mission they'd both been on.

Listening to Rory's recap, she nodded. Her sigh was largely internal as she made herself focus, pushing aside the emotions linked to what had happened. Everything that had happened. "Henderson-sama will be able to tell us more, I think, pending we ca get him in to speak with the doctors themselves. If we had some idea of what 'the full extent' of Galileean resources really meant... but for now, I want to see about getting a look at these mobile technologies. Larger equipment would be ship installations if the negotiations are both maintained and then successful."

Emphasis on the if, and dis-including the smaller technologies in that if. Kon had been right to mention they had ninja on this mission. Walking away with nothing didn't have to be an option unless they wanted it to be.

"The nanites are responding to each other coherently, and staying otherwise separate from the system's functions. It's remarkable, really. Working like that, there's so much they could do within a system that would leave a medic drained." The question of depending on clones for things to work left her contemplating. "Or we haven't seen what makes their technology heavy-hitting enough for the GIA to merit us being here in the first place. Speed? Yes, from what you've said, they have speed in plenty. What else is it they have that the GIA wants? The numbers? It's one hell of a shitty battle plan if that's it."

[theboywhowaits]

"If it's not, I feel we should make note of it. How did the councilor react?" He wasn't sure if he wanted to deal with this girl on a normal basis, if swimming in an anti-gravity fountain was restrained behavior.

Rory nodded, not commenting on the odd choice of wording. "I hope that Doctor Henderson can manage more than I was able. They offered the potential to meet with one of their doctors later, but it seemed strange that they were trying to sell us on this tech and our guide was a councilor. Not a doctor, not someone who dealt with the tech, but a councilor. A politician. Also interesting was that we were allowed to see some tech in operation through glass, they didn't let us near the inoperative tech. It made it feel more like a show or a trip to a museum. I understand another group actually went to a show of some sort. What are they doing, playing politics are preparing to propose?"

There was a tiny frown and he shook his head, looking at the data pad. "At the moment, I'll be happy if we manage to make a trip through the souvenir shop and yield something useful from that. I somehow doubt we will." He scowled, hands twitching against the table. He hated this, hated the situation they'd found themselves placed in. He was a nurse, not a warrior, this situation, this application of tech, made his skin crawl. He wanted a weapon, or at least something that would allow him to react. "The nanites are interesting, and not just because I want to remove them from their current application. If we could find a way to redirect their orders, who knows what they could be used for?"

He stared at her, shocked and aghast for a moment before his face hardened, hands clinching against the table. War was a dirty monster, a creature that consumed and consumed and left both sides with too many graves to fill, too many tears shed. They were at war, as often as it became easy to forget sometimes. As silly and impractical as the ship often was, they were at war. They were warriors. His voice was flat when he spoke again, lips pressed into a thin line. "Bodies, of course. To run a war, you need disposable soldiers. Soldiers you can program, can make in a lab and send off to war and not worry about morality or disobeying orders. If that's what they want, I think we should seriously reconsider all our alliances."

[encourage]

"The councilor acted more annoyed for the distraction and misuse than anything else. She lost focus on it quickly." The implication being she'd been distracted -- Asmin, that is.

Sakura was startled into laughter by Rory's particular turn of phrase. "I hope politics. Marriage proposals are too personal. People might get offended." She didn't manage to keep a straight face, if this humor was more dark than she liked indulging in.

Thus her pause was short lived, continuing to address other things that Rory had brought up. "We'll make sure this isn't a total loss. Even knowing something more about this planet is some kind of win. For the databanks." If she knew that walking away empty handed was something she personally wasn't interested in doing.

Especially considering what might be going on. "There's no more efficient force than the one raised, trained, and programmed together. If you don't give them room to fear, or think, or feel independently, they're willingly disposable. You get what you need, and they're nothing more than casualties you accepted before they were even born." She used born deliberately. Birth was one method of creation; abstracting the word 'created' only worked to be desentientizing clones as a whole. "It's an effective technique. I've seen it first hand."