Emodriver Plot Role Info

[powersthatbe]

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Comments

THE AURIGAN PRINCEPS - ALLURA

[powersthatbe]

Your Imperial Highness was told that your beloved Consort was killed by the humans on Mars. You are certain that this is false. They were captured, not killed. They're still alive, in EDF custody. You have to believe this, that the dreams you’ve been having are a cry for help rather than a trick of your mind.

You spare human lives both because excessive bloodshed does not become an Emperor and in the hopes of finding some clue to the whereabouts of your beloved. If the humans were just to return them, and make formal amends, the war would be over.

Instead, they spread their morale-destroying bioweapons and feign ignorance. Until such crimes are redressed, your Imperial fleets will fight for the Empire, for honor, and for your lost beloved Consort.

Plot skill - Noblesse Oblige: Grants considerable plot armor when fighting on behalf of the people you are leading.

[reallymean]

This is just too perfect.

[ninjayeehaw]

hey queenie

guess what

[reallymean]

Is it good news? She could really use some good news.

[ninjayeehaw]

83c bae's good, we just gotta find him properly

Questions

[reallymean]

1) Am I correct in assuming that Allura wasn't on Mars when shit went down, or was she just separated from her Consort in the fighting?

2) Can I have a brief run-down of what's solid Jaunt-canon about the Consort, and what I have freedom to come up with?

Re: Questions

[otomechapilot]

1) H.I.H. Princess* Allura was evacuated early in the fighting (for obvious strategic and morale reasons) and got separated from the Consort.

2) She was married to the consort, it was absolutely arranged and political and she loved them, and they're blue-skinned space elf nobility from a planet that wasn't the throneworld. Other than that, go nuts!

*Your choice whether to go by "Princess" or "Princeps," by the by; the second is the gender neutral term.

Re: Questions

[reallymean]

As much as I'd like to commit to the gender neutral title, I know no one's going to remember it since it's one letter off from her actual out-of-Jaunt title, so I'm just gonna surrender to the "Princess" in advance.

I am deeply committed to sticking with the trend of Allura's plot role lovers being women, though, so her Consort is definitely a wife. I'm sure the aliens who have bioships would also have the biotech to render the issue of heirs negligible.

[reallymean]

So, what's the Emperor like as a ruler?

And the general Imperial approach to combat, conquest, and dealing with independent powers?

Week 1 check-in

[reallymean]

Alta has mostly spent the first week doing what she can to keep up morale and taking the temperature of the troops, both new and old, regarding the progress of the war. She's currently still determined to bring it to a close without losing too many of her people, and without excessive slaughter of the humans. She doesn't have confirmation yet that her wife is still alive; that may or may not change how she proceeds, depending on what she does eventually find out.

I have a couple of questions going into next week:
1) What is the general content of the dream communication (?) she has with the Consort?

2) What do the Imperials know about the spread of the X-pressure virus in the humans? Have they managed to capture any infected human soldiers prior to Jaunt start?

Re: Week 1 check-in

[otomechapilot]

1: A very stylized, impressionist dream of her trying to reach Alta - from her perspective; Alta sees her own back - through a field of flowers on her homeworld before everything burns.

Except her homeworld had three moons, not two...

(Also, does the Consort have a name?)

2: The Impies have captured a few, and all of them had to go into quarantine as well. There doesn't seem to be a single one you've captured without at least dormant X. Pressure. Reports on it's spread are fragmentary and being translated, but it appears to have originated about 200-250 Earth years ago?

[reallymean]

Faline. Let's name her Faline.

Re: Week 1 check-in

[reallymean]

So hey, would it be reasonable for the Princess to have a mecha of her own? A custom job that is strikingly feline, even?

Re: Week 1 check-in

[ninjayeehaw]

I think she'll receive Tentative Confirmation of the Consort being alive this week, actual status TBA while Texxant investigates further.

Re: Week 1 check-in

[reallymean]

Will he be able to give any details, or just "alive, watch this space" for now?

Re: Week 1 check-in

[reallymean]

So hey, Texxant will get a message near the end of the current week warning that there appear to be psy-blockers in effect where the Consort is being held because how the hell else do you interpret seeing through a mech's sensors, finding her is a priority but proceed with caution.

this is Admiral Caine's icon mule

[weallgettogohome]

your highness can we talk

i found your girlfriend asleep in the tub what do i do

Re: this is Admiral Caine's icon mule

[reallymean]

not use her as a science experiment for two years, that's what.

There's. Probably old diplomatic channels she could use to arrange a parley. I'd assume.

Re: this is Admiral Caine's icon mule

[otomechapilot]

yeah I’ll bring that the fuck up with CEO Fucking Corentin you’d best believe

Thank you.

We have mutual enemies and need more time. Both of our people could use a ceasefire and it’ll help me think of a way to get her to you.

Week 2 check in

[reallymean]

This week, Alta argued with Hacet over the self-destructs, joined the battle on Mars, managed to briefly contact the Consort and got herself infected without realizing it, found out that not only is her Consort still alive, she's being used to power one of the humans' war machines, and visited a captive Nina Mars on the Aurigan quarantine ship.

Speaking of the quarantine ship, she would have locked it down and revoked access from anyone she doesn't personally authorize, which would be medical staff and people she's personally vetted (so PC-wise, Juni, Aura, and herself), which would go into effect end Week 2/beginning of Week 3. Her reasoning, which she would share with the medical staff and vetted guards, is that in the wake of Hacet's speech she's concerned that people might take "better dead than infected" to heart enough to harm or kill the people who've been quarantined. Because these things happen when there's fearmongering afoot.

Week 3, she'll be organizing a public ceremony to add the names of those fallen in the most recent battle to the wall of the fallen kept at the heart of the Imperial station. She will also at some point (depending on when the human admiral actually contacts her) declare a formal week of mourning for those who have so far been lost to the war, leaning on old Aurigan tradition to effect a ceasefire. It's dishonorable to add more names to the book of the dead during a mourning period, after all, unless it's in a formal duel.

She will, of course, make use of much of this time to begin planning a rescue mission using the positional data and information on defenses around the Philia Core that Dusty provided, as well as any information the ground troops might have recovered from AEGIS or any human military installations hit during the attack. Dusty's a good operative, and she generally trusts his judgment, but she doesn't trust the humans as far as she can throw a dreadnought, and is prepared to act if they don't come through in the time she's given them.

She's also going to try for an hour each night to contact her Consort telepathically, focusing on the dreams and trying to follow any psychic threads they've woven back to the source. If she's successful, she'll try to acclimate to the sensory feedback now that she has an inkling of what it is, in hopes of helping the Consort take control of what's been done to her in case they can't break her out immediately. If she's not successful, she'll...keep trying.

BTW, what would the Aurigan forces have been able to get from AEGIS/other Martian entities?

Re: Week 2 check in

[weallgettogohome]

I just added that note about the memorial stone to the mingle; that's good stuff. Is referring to it as a "plinth" kosher?

They would have gotten the name of a biologist, Dara Eskandar, who fled AEGIS scant months after the Battle of Tharsis - and speculation as to where she fled.

They would also have gotten valuable intel on ESDF designs and previous iterations of the Phileon project, as well as data on some sort of para-psychic ability they call Social Techniques and the manipulation and amplification thereof with "Emodriver" equipment.

Re: Week 2 check in

[reallymean]

Plinth definitely works.

Let's get some of our more talented psions looking at those Social Techniques and see if they can't start working out some counters.

Re: Week 2 check in

[reallymean]

Updating this to clarify - once she's spoken with the Admiral, she'll unilaterally declare a week's ceasefire (for mourning, of course) and order the withdrawal of all Aurigan forces except for a few scouting ships meant to keep an eye out for any human treachery back to Jupiter.

Don't want to give the humans the excuse of pretending she broke her word for breaking theirs.

Re: Week 2 check in

[otomechapilot]

Presently I have the Aurigans gaining ground in the belt; in light of that, are you willing to amend that to reinforcing Pallas and Jupiter and otherwise withdrawing?

If not, I’ll edit the mingle draft.

Week III check in

[reallymean]

This week, Alta attended funerals, attempted to contact her wife telepathically, and made contingency plans with one of her loyal squad captains against the possibility of the human admiral betraying her trust after getting the ceasefire she requested.

Week 4, she will hopefully be getting her wife back. She'll receive the human ship on one of the quarantine vessels, which she will lock down ahead of time to prevent interference by more militant elements. The only people she will allow in the docking bay with her will be a medical team and contingent of guards, both of whom will be telepathically vetted for loyalty.

Assuming she is reunited with her wife, she'll assign her a guard contingent that is likewise telepathically vetted and personally loyal to her. After his whole "better dead than infected" stunt, she doesn't want Hacet or any of his people near her beloved.

She will also be sending encrypted messages with a biometric key back to the Empire proper through whatever relay system they have through the wormhole (preferably physical and transmission-based for redundancy), advising that the Sol system be blockaded for reason of quarantine, as the dominant species in that system has a highly-transmissible disease that bypasses species barriers entirely, and standard infection control protocols cannot be relied upon. She'll include several recommendations for commanders, and a compiled report of Hacet's insubordination and reckless disregard for the well-being of their troops as reason for why he should be recalled rather than stationed near Sol in command of any quarantine.