EVENT LOG 007 | AFTERMATH

[larkers]

WHO: The Displaced! Plus a surprise.
WHERE: New Beijing, a train, and then New Amsterdam.
WHEN: The tail end of the operation and the two days after: January 26th-28th.
WHAT: Finishing up the operation, hiding out, and going home.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Violence and unstoppable soldiers. More to be updated as necessary.

> EVENT #007 AFTERMATH LOG

At the turn of midnight in New Beijing, the true risk to this plan comes to light. There was always a chance, always a point of awareness that Cassius wouldn't be able to buy his foot soldiers enough time. He knew that this could go poorly, so he was prepared for just that. He knew that the Displaced would, potentially, treat the UNA soldiers as personal enemies. They showed this face with their foolhardy desperation during the EMP's effects, and given an opportunity to assault a weaker, unexpecting bunch, they wouldn't hold back.

After all, not killing the soldiers hadn't been a suggestion made by Cassius showing some sign that he had a conscience or was worried about the death of citizens. No, killing the soldiers would make his job harder: and it did.

After scrambling the distress call for forty-five minutes, Cassius' efforts finally fail when the base finally gets the word out for reinforcements. Switching gears, Cassius sends along a word to the Displaced still in the base, letting them know that their time is running short. They need to get moving, and the UNA has wisened up to Cassius' tactics with the fabricated terrorist attacks on the other side of the city. If it were just one thing, the UNA may not have turned back, but their installed software quickly began to recognize many of the tactical patterns that Cassius employed: they weren't that different from the ones executed by radicalized Morningstar agents in other cities.

The lack of traffic in the city means the deployed soldiers return swiftly. Unlike the ones at the base, these soldiers are heavily armed and prepared for the worst. Even though Judas is definitely offline by the time they arrive, their systems remain operational for now. After all, Judas wasn't online as it was, as he was isolated from the world on a localized quantum server. The weight of Judas' impact on the UNA and its systems are still up in the air for anyone to guess. It's hard to tell what they might have been using him for, and just what weight his own additions had made on their current operations. What's clear is that these soldiers can still move, act, and attack, and there are hundreds of them rushing back in a steady stream of military might.

For anyone in the base, it's time to move. Being caught here probably will mean the end of the road for everyone involved.

◉ The soldiers who show up are not beatable. They will be working in formation and predicting most of what's coming their way, and given the numbers sent out, they will be unstoppable. Unsurprisingly, the larger the unit, the stronger their ingrained instincts happen to be. Think of these soldiers as the boss battle you can't even beat for an achievement. It's the one where you're meant to lose, if you engage at all.

◉ We're fine with any degree of Judas Hot Potato that goes on in the final stages of the base, and recommend that you all work that out on our event aftermath post.

◉ As for who finally hands Judas off to Cassius, we have sign ups at the aftermath post, too! The person who wins that doesn't need to be the person with the potato in the end; some creative juggling can go down for that stage, too!

◉ Anyone who dies on the base will need to be dragged out and taken to a medi-unit or they will be permadead. We are not asking for anyone to have their characters killed here! Everyone can get out safely and unharmed if they haul ass. Or even if they don't! Maybe they got lucky.

◉ Cassius will be wiping any records of the interlopers, making it so that their existence can't be traced. He'll be covering the surrounding areas of the base for a three mile radius. After that, everyone is on their own: they'd better have a plan of escape.

> LAYING LOW

While Cassius will be covering the immediate area of the base, everyone will want to make sure that they don't appear suspicious as they hit the streets of New Beijing. The best place to hide? The lower levels of the city. Despite the frequent police raids, someone can move through the lower levels until they're close to their hotel. All they need to do is move up once they're just beneath their temporary residence. Discarding any unwanted goods along the way down there probably wouldn't hurt.

For anyone who's been injured by the soldiers or by their fellow Displaced, they'll want to stop and do some quick first aid on themselves. Hitting a hospital or clinic like this is risky. For the dead, it's not as if anyone has any choice, so their pal better cook up a good story for what happened along the way. The good news in all of this is that injuries and all, none of the hotels are likely to ask too many questions. The drones that do the room service aren't sentient, and the people who work the front desks simply aren't paid enough to care.

By 9 AM, all the news beats around the city refer to a series of attacks that rocked UN landmarks. While the attacks on the UN government buildings had the mark of Morningstar radicals from New Prague and New Johannesburg, they are not citing them as the individuals most likely to be culpable for these attacks. There is no information about what happened at the UNA HQ, though it seems unlikely that none of that information would have gotten out during the flurry of hasty exits.

Even so, it's likely a good idea that everyone lays low for the final couple of days in New Beijing. That doesn't mean that everyone needs to say cooped up in their hotels. Still, they'll likely want to be cautious while the city is on high alert for suspicious activity.

As for whoever has Judas, they'll get a message late in the evening of the 26th telling them to meet with one of Cassius' resources in the morning. Cassius won't be up for much conversation when the message comes in. Despite all previous communication, any messages sent to him now will be a dead end.

> YET ANOTHER TRAIN LOG!

Eventually, it's January 28th and everyone will be headed back to New Amsterdam on a train. It feels as if there's almost a lack of closure, as Judas is most likely gone, the devices that were meant to hold him unable to go through customs. Unlike the previous train, this ride will be an non-stop express from New Beijing to New Amsterdam, and will be largely uneventful. The lack of stops along the way makes it impossible for any temporary havoc to break out. Even the Displaced who didn't pick up express tickets will find that their itinerary has been changed. While the more luxurious seats will remain the same and will offer a bed for anyone looking to rest over the long journey, everyone else's upgrade will treat them to neck pillows and thin blankets to help them stay comfortable.

An event-free ride probably won't mean much for the feelings stewing among the Displaced. Everyone is bound to be feeling something after everything that just happened, so there's still a lot of room for tension now that everyone's been crammed in close quarters on a non-stop train ride. Let's just hope it doesn't get too nasty in there!

◉ El will purchase all of the newcomer Displaced tickets for the way back. All of them will be traveling to New Amsterdam for new job opportunities in the wake of the city's losses, and will be directed to make a statement of intent to move to New Amsterdam permanently.

◉ El won't be purchasing that upgrade, though. If anyone thinks it's Cassius' doing, just blame it on Cassius.

◉ Everyone will be arriving in New Amsterdam around 4 PM with varying amounts of jetlag (or trainlag).

◉ Upon arriving, everyone will begin to see garrish advertisements for both Valentine's Day and Carnival.

> FINAL OOC NOTES

Thanks for the great event, Larkers! We have a lot planned to spin out of this one, so we hope that you enjoyed what we cooked up here. Our OOC Aftermath Post is live, which is where we'd like you to direct all of your aftermath questions. We also encourage you to discuss any loose ends for the plot and plan anything else out that's needed!

Otherwise, we intended for this to be more of a low key log while everyone continues to thread out the event. Our next log will be up on December 13th featuring our new arrivals, giving everyone some time between now and then!

> NAVIGATION

Comments

[forcevisions]

[ When he probes at the bruise on her head, she winces, retreating slightly. As ever, Rey is obviously not adept in letting other people prod at her injuries. Her body language speaks of a life alone, one where these things improved over time, not with attention. But she pushes through it. ]

What are you supposed to do then? [ She doesn't often look for advice, but the EMP efforts stand out as a time when maybe she should have asked for more, when she knows that she needs to rely on the experience of her friends. And Stephen has a lot of experience. ] When you know the worst is coming, and you couldn't stop it?

[ Because it is. Hopeful though she is, determined to find something to do, she nonetheless feels lost. Judas is a military AI with every reason to resent humanity for using him, and Cassius is a murderbot with a grudge. They're a dangerous combination, and Cassius was dangerous enough before. ]

[rehandle]

[ So it is a blame game: she vs herself. He assumed as much. Rey's an unfortunate type of hero, she acts from a place of hope and in doing so believes herself heavily responsible for maintaining that hope. The way things have gone will have shaken her badly.

He reaches into his pack with one gloved hand in search of a cream, keeping things moving as a practical counterpoint as he talks. ]

First of all, you appreciate that the odds weren't in your favor. Judas is gone because others were working just as hard as you were to different ends. [ To a lot of different ends. Too many cooks, not enough broth. ] It had to go somebody's way.

[ It deals with the self-accusation but not with her actual question. He continues as he twists the lid off the tube. ]

Then you give yourself some time to regroup. Ideally without catastrophizing.

[ Which is easy for him to say with his not so long ago abject refusal to believe infiltrating the UNA base was going to end in anything less than everyone dead, but in these kinds of things there's a fine line between hypothesis and fiction. ]

[forcevisions]

I don't think it counts as catastrophizing if there's solid evidence of prior catastrophe.

[ Just saying. Maybe it's not fair for her to be so matter-of-fact about her data, but Rey isn't one to be needlessly pessimistic. She's just dealing with the very real facts -- that Cassius has done this before, and now he has more power and more help to do it again.

They need a way to stop him. They need something to rally around in regrouping, and fast. ]

[rehandle]

It counts as catastrophizing if assuming the worst gets in the way of interrogating the reality.

[ They know what Cassius is capable of and what he believes, but they don't necessarily have a clear insight into his motivations or how they'll manifest next. They know what Judas is, but neither El nor Cassius seemed convinced of how his function would inform either his relations to the other AI or his actions going forward.

They don't have enough information to assume that Judas + Cassius = Cassius to the power of Judas or vice versa. It's bad math and it will get in the way of solving the smaller problems that could cripple them before they have a chance to combat whatever threat the combined efforts of the AI may hypothetically bring down on them. Whatever unknown tragedy may be scheduled to unfold, they'll be no use against it until they've done something about broken trust, a core of damaged combatants and a great many unresolved tensions in their ranks. ]

We don't know what this will mean. Experience implies it'll be bad, I'll give you that, but we don't know how bad. Judas is an unknown variable. We don't know what he's capable of and therefore can't prepare for it, we don't know what his intentions will be irrespective of his capability and we don't know for certain if or when Cassius is intending to recruit him and to what end.

[ A dab of cream on the bruise. He carefully covers the area with one ever-tremoring fingertip as he talks. ]

Before we can be of any use, no matter what the threat, we have to stabilize ourselves. Our group and its cohesion is the most immediate casualty here. The damage has already been done. If we can't pull together, we'll go into this just as fractured as Cassius found us and we'll make just as many mistakes despite being able to afford them even less. This can't happen again.

So when I say give yourself some time to regroup, I mean it. You need to be rested and rational before you can approach this effectively. We all do.

[ This mess came about from a lack of majority organisation. They can't let that be their downfall a second time, not with the stakes always climbing.

She's right to be worried. He's worried too. But there are practical steps to be taken - worry can't be allowed to be the loudest voice in the room. ]

[forcevisions]

[ Rey puffs out a sigh, irritated but nonetheless scolded sufficiently into doing something wild like taking care of herself, trying to calm down and manage her feelings instead of just diving headfirst. She chews on the inside of her lip, mulling something over for a moment. ]

Cohesion.

[ Group bonding isn't a bad idea, but it's a conversation they've circled for six months. She twinges a little when his shaking means the pressure of applying the cream is a little too much, but she doesn't wince or demand to do it herself, at least. ]

Clarke and Damian want to lead. [ Maybe they should let them. Although ... She studies his face a moment. The furrow of her brow makes it hard for the cream to get at her bruise, interfering with what he's doing. ] ... You. [ It's a simple, obvious answer. And it evokes a question, immediately thereafter. ] They didn't know we were coming. You said you warned them.

[rehandle]

[ Cohesion. Rey finds her rallying point and Stephen works hard to keep the smile off his face. There. She may be a little quick to leap sometimes but that doesn't mean that her energy focused in on something else wouldn't be formidable. Something like group cohesion, for instance.

Then the furrow of her brow pulls his focus away from her words and his actions and earns a brief frown, one that doesn't quite have time to shape into confusion or disapproval before she's come to her conclusion and followed it on.

Ah.

Back to the poker face, Stephen draws his hand back, giving up on treatment for now. ]

I did, didn't I?

[ And yet. ]

[forcevisions]

[ A smile tugs across her features. It hadn't mattered in the end, but there's some consolation in knowing that for all they lacked cohesion, for all that so many of them had readily turned to Cassius for petty rewards, Strange hadn't really outed them. It had been a good plan, and a better one for the fact that it had never needed to be true to work in the first place.

Or, to work as well as it would have anyway. ]

Clever.

[ Clever in a way she doesn't know how to be. Rey is pathologically straightforward. She reaches up as if to touch her bruise, then draws her hand back. No. Better not. Instead, she drops her hand back to her lap. ]

Clarke said that we can't work together because we don't have enough in common. We're too different. She was right. We would rather fight each other than keep our lives. We need common ground, if we're going to pull together. Any clever lies for that scenario?

[rehandle]

[ Well, that makes another of a small handful of people not ready to condemn his decision outright. He watches her reach for the hurt, almost ready to advise her against it - but she stops herself. A quick study, however straightforward she may be. ]

No clever lies. Generally speaking, they're better avoided. [ This mission was an outlier and shouldn't be counted. White lies and withholding of truth is obviously a completely different matter upon which nobody should question him. ] But I don't think Clarke was quite right to say we've no common ground. Being here is our common ground.

In this case, we'd be better to employ clever truths.

[ It's the outline of something, very faint. Just the barest assurance that he's working on it, that he has hope even despite the mess. They're not lost yet. ]

[forcevisions]

[ It sounds like he has something in mind. Just hearing that affords her a sense of calm, just as Leia's insistence that they were well-equipped to fight the First Order's enormous force had. She drums up the faintest of tired smiles and nods. ]

I think on this one, I'll follow your lead.

[ It's probably for the best that she does. Obviously, she can do everything that she thinks is right and still lose; it's time to look more honestly at what teamwork really means, and it's more than just alerting people before she does something stupid. ]

[rehandle]

[ Somehow, despite years of reformed behaviour and teamwork, he's always struck surprised by the warmth the simplest offering of trust and camaraderie can strike up in him. It's the byproduct of years of being borderline intolerable, and he never quite gets tired of it.

Tube of cream closed up, Stephen holds it out for her. An offering for an offering. ]

You're going to be fine, not that that was ever in any doubt. Keep putting this on your bruises, they'll heal faster. It should help with the tenderness, too.

[ He smiles, pushing himself back up to standing. ]

And rest. The sooner you're fit, the sooner we can get to work.

[ Be careful what you say, Rey, who knows what path he's going to march you down!! (He's playing.) (Mostly.) (But really do rest.)]

[forcevisions]

[ She closes both hands around the tube, simultaneously possessive and grateful. The kind of acceptance of a person who isn't used to being gifted with any offhand supplies, let alone those that are implicitly attached to interest in her personal wellbeing.

Mouth set in a resolute line, she nods. ]

I'll be fine. [ Ready whenever, she means, regardless of her state of recovery. She has shrewdly avoided mention that she was unconscious for any length of time, and the worst of her fatigue from emptying the well of her power has mostly passed with three square meals and rest. ] ... Thank you.