Downtime 1

Following the end of your inaugural mission, the division was left with a chunk of downtime – upwards of a week, it would turn out – to get used to the satellite, wind down, pursue their personal pursuits, whatever they wished within certain restrictions. You aren’t allowed off the Black Knight, and access to the WDN is only available for a brief window on Thursdays (unless you put in a specific request and they allow it), but you have relatively free access to the private comm stations that can contact Earth and items can be shipped to and from Black Knight. You have free use of the various facilities on the station save for the teleporter and the Moonflower; in Corva’s case, the limitations on their chip’s door access have been unlocked. The Black Knight app contains full maps of the three rings.

By the time your debriefing has been finished, everything each of you has sent up from Earth has been delivered to your rooms. They’re fairly spacious quarters, with a king-sized bed, desk, and armchair as the only provided furniture (though you may have brought more from home). There are en-suite bathrooms, configurable chiplocks on the doors which by default only you can open (well, you and “select administrative staff”) and security cameras that are disabled but available if you want to activate them.

As you all left the debriefing, Colonel Lazard told you where her office and quarters are. “My door’s open for you all any time of day, if you ever want to talk about anything or have questions - though Captain Okawa, I’d appreciate it if you could let me know if you’re coming given your psychic situation.”

I’d like to see what the team does after the mission, whether it’s together or apart; beyond that, feel free to spin off in whatever direction you like, here or in new threads you create. Ask any questions here or in Discord, and make sure to tag any new threads as Downtime 1 in the title.

Discord wrote:Corva- Today at 9:19 PM
@Midboss should I post in the downtime thread with my downtime?
Also are we doing the Major-minor-minor structure?

Midboss - Today at 9:24 PM
We are not using the Oracle downtime system at all
Downtime is just "stuff that is between missions", I am flexible with whether people want to schedule out stuff or just post threads as things come up, and we'll go with that until things reach decent end points/enough IRL time passes that it feels like time for another mission
Basically, think of it like the "does anyone want to do a thread" part of being between weeks in Oracle

Upon their return to the satellite, and being allowed out of the limited areas they had been confined to, Corva immediately starts exploring the rest of the station, and avoiding the rest of the group. They seem confused by many of the more luxury areas, like the games bar or the karaoke, but fairly quickly seem to establish a very careful regime of training and exercise.

If not in their room, which they retreat to fairly often, they can be found in the pool, occasionally in the gym where they appear to be unfamiliar with much of the equipment, at the firing range or most often in the lab.

The best way to get their attention is to show them something new. If a film is on in the lounge when they pass through it they usually leave.

Zushe can generally be found in the gymnasium, practising combat techniques, or in the study lounge, apparently studying or at least reading.

He also spends a lot of time in the hanger, looking over both his own copter and the UIG shuttles. He also regularly disappears into the private communications stations.

He's quite happy to talk to people or hang out.

Lester writes on his data pad, sending a bunch of emails home. He does research on the internet whenever it's available, taking care to use basic encryption for most of his stuff, but computers aren't really his forte. He cooks meals; if it becomes obvious no one else likes to cook, Lester will begin to do it for breakfast and dinner every night. He cooks well, if traditional food, as if he's not bothered by Multymeat's new fancy meal marketing. He spends a few hours a day alone, and socializing and wandering about for the rest of the day.

James will split his time between training and practising his sword techniques in the gym, making completely innocent personal calls to his aunt back in E.I. territory (who he appears to be on very good terms with and tells everything he can get away with, and who happens to also work for E.I. *cough*), and playing games whenever he can (making sure to keep up with all the latest info).  He also spends some of his time socialising with the rest of the team and the general crew of Black Knight in order to get to know them better.

It should be noted that, while he is happy to leave such things as his armour, equipment, games etc in his chip-locked room while he is not there, he keeps his sword with him at all times, unless the UIG make it very clear that he is not allowed to.

As with most of the team, Voja will be spending a lot of his time fully exploring the Black Kinght. Due to the magic of smeaker, he can also take a lot of this time to talk to his family and keep up to date with what was going on back home. (though he does take the opportunity to make a video call when the WDN is available.)

He does spend a decent amount of time in the gym, (even with cybernetics, that level of muscle needs to be maintained) and he will be happy to help out any other members of the team that look like they want it.

He will almost always be willing to hang out with people, you need to know your teammates if you are going to work effectively together.

Voja also carries Jonnochka round with him everywhere, since she is a valuable prototype.

(I am very sorry but unless Ben rules different, smeakers only have a range of 250 KM, meaning that all of us are isolated with, gulp, each other.)

(I was assuming that with future tech we would be able to Smeak to whatever radio equivalent is being used for communications, since it would mean we wouldn't have to go to our rooms to talk to earth people.)

(Smeaking is future tech? But.. Yeah but we only have the internet one day a week and they seem to be restricting information. So, Ben'll need to rule.)

(How is Smeaking not future tech? And we have access to private comms systems, I figured Smeaking to them would be within the capabilities of the UIG. But I guess whether they bother letting us do it would be a different matter.)

(Smeaking is future tech, but the book says it only goes 250km. It might have a booster, sure, probably at a loss of security for an increase in distance, but as far as I know it's not canon and the UIG seems to be controlling coms, so.. *shrug*)

Okay, my rulings on all this:

• You can't directly connect smeakers into less-secure long-range networks, because that compatibility would make them fundamentally more vulnerable and defeat the big point of them.
  
• The UIG has longer-range secure comms, you're all-but-certain, but they haven't mentioned anything of the sort to you (or ever in public).
  
• Even if there is such a thing, Black operates on such a heavy communications lockdown that it probably wouldn't work freely.
  
• All that said, as one of the agent team Voja can get regular access to the comms stations if he wants to talk to his family earthside. It's certainly less convenient, but it's there.
  
• As an addendum, smeakers do work within the station, and you can communicate to each other that way. Other members of staff may or may not have smeakers.
  

"Uh, pardon me Colonel but... Come again?" Amp seemed genuinely perplexed by the Colonel's comment and glanced around at the rest of her division, giving them each a concerned look. In the shocked aftermath of hearing that a major intercorporate incident had occurred and she was powerless to do anything about it, Amp wasn't exactly sure her ears were working anymore.

****

Captain Okawa spends an inordinate amount of time in the private communication station, even more than Zushe. When she isn't talking to who knows who about who knows what (not Black Knight) Amp can be found swimming in the pool, practising her twin heavy firearm style in the firing range or seeking company. Which is a little odd as she is always, always accompanied by Prince. Yes, even in the pool.

"Sorry for picking you out; I'm often engaged in meditative or biokinetic activity, and it could be... problematic for it to be suddenly disrupted, so a heads up would be nice, that's all." The colonel shrugged a little, playing it off as not a big deal (and failing her Pres+L&A roll by 3 if anyone wants to try and see that actually she is uncomfortable with sudden void appearances.)

Amp's lips parted slightly and she turned between the colonel at the others once more. The lawyer frowned to herself and then requested, "You know Colonel, I'm not sure I know to what you are referring. However," and here she took a step forward and tipped her head to her new CO, "I would like to take this opportunity to formally request access to the UIG's files regarding myself."

Corva tilted their head slightly, following the conversation. They had noticed that the prescence of Amp was somewhat unnerving, however, not being aware of what a void was, they did not realise the significance. They made a note to enquire with the colonel later.

The Colonel nodded and tapped a couple of times on her computer. With a bleep, a copy of the (a?) UIG file on Amparo Okawa came up on Amp's device. Of relevant note was a bullet point that read "Multiple TEOs have confirmed subject is operating without a license for disruptive-type Telepathic Anomaly status. Subject to be retained, categorised, and a license issued on next available opportunity."

Amp, feel free to ask about anything else on the file.