sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #7

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!tdm

TEST DRIVE MEME #7

1. before she hung up, she said she was a skeleton

[there is no note in your cabin. no forces stall your legs if you decide to walk anywhere but the atrium. in fact, for the first time in hundreds of years, newly arrived passengers on the Serena Eterna are waking up with absolutely no guidance. nothing but your fellow passengers in the halls - or maybe in your bed.

perhaps you end up in the atrium eventually anyway. it is where guest services is, and where Gal Friday… actually hasn’t been in a few days. until today. and she is visibly frazzled, her hair uncoiffed, her suit rumpled, something a bit like a bruise blossoming down from her hairline and over her smooth features. more papers than ever cover her desk, and when she turns to face you, her voice is as cheerful as ever, but audibly strained.]

Welcome aboard the Serene Eterna! [a pause] You know how to work a life vest, right? Everyone knows that! You don’t need me to teach you that!

[a light bulb burns out behind her head.]

… I’ll get right on that!

[freedom includes the freedom to not know what the fuck is happening. maybe you should reflect on that.]

2. grandma went and can't stop screaming

[it’s something about the lighting fixtures, this month. has the Bellona always had a massive chandelier? maybe. who knows. don’t ask questions. either way, in the stillness of the night, or day, or late afternoon, there is a noise like a cord being cut, and the chandelier plunges into the audience below.

it hits nothing, of course. no one is ever in the theater. and that, perhaps, is what the trouble is.

so, the chandelier starts to… travel, one could say. it starts to hang in various rooms: the dining halls, the bars, the clubs… sometimes, if you’re out on the pool deck and suddenly realized you’re under a shadow, you can glance up and see it suspended 20 feet above your head, securely fastened to nothing in particular and yet remaining perfectly in place.

until it isn’t. until it falls, crystal shattering on whatever surface it lands on: floor, table, person… and, wherever the chandelier goes, a lilting childish voice follows it, singing without any obvious source.]

Ring-a-ring of roses, a pocket full of posies… ashes, ashes, we all…

3. jeff bezos murdered the infinite tommy bahama

[the lights of the Infinite Tommy Bahama go out three days into October.

barely an hour after its closure, the lights go on again, and a new banner is unfurled.

physically, it is the same store. you can even see the old signs hidden behind the new ones. however, long gone are the tropical prints and khaki dress shorts. now, one can purchase any number of officially licensed or legally distinct Halloween costumes, decorations, and various other haunted accoutrements, leading back as far as the eye can see, and then farther still. is that a Gal Friday mask? spooky! well, at least you’ll be good and ready for the Halloween party at the end of the month, which is absolutely just a normal party and in no way whatsoever anything even remotely resembling a trick. there are only treats at The Infinite Spirit Halloween!

note: bahamanuel is still here! somewhere! it kinda looks like dan bongino.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He smiles as it becomes clear why she likes guns too. Yes, good, good bwahahaha.] Exactly. You'd probably get along well with one of my former vassal and samurai: Kichou. Maybe Mitsuhide Akechi, my left hand too. He designed the Tanegashima, and then it's been in production for the last two years, just rolled out six months ago for me. Well, 8 now, I suppose.

[He takes a sip of the absinthe.... and instantly makes a face! That is disgusting. Ugh! European drinks are so weird!]

[A little hoarsely and with a cough:]

I'm a little reluctant to use the matchlock here, no idea how difficult it will be to get more gunpowder, but not firing it might be just as bad, it's not something I've ever tested before. No range specifically. We've been lining up empty bottles and shooting them on the top of the sports deck. And Crichton... [His hand goes to the pulse pistol again, then he just chugs some of the green drink!] My friend. We shot over the side of the ship to see if we could see how far out the ocean exists.

[Red eyes go a little crossed, and he pinches between them. Damn he underestimated how strong this drink is!] Starfleet is more about exploring than trade.... though I'm not sure how deadly their pirates are. They'd probably take me though. I've fought a lot of pirates. Er... [Ugh. He's so woozy! His head is spinning and pounding at the same time?!] On the ocean. Ocean pirates. [Rubs his temples. No more absinthe ever!]

[He perks up with interest about the armor though!] What's it made of? Can it handle the stun setting?

I'm free. Ships go places. I'll explain Hell to you sometime when I haven't drunk this green venom monstrosity. Just know... power isn't freedom. The more power you accumulate, the less freedom you'll have. That goes for the Captain here too. In my world, in my time, there is no one more powerful than me. But all my strength comes from others believing in me. Believing in our mutual ambitions. The more strength I borrow from them, the greater the obligation to see our dreams through and fix our cursed land and timeline.

Here, I have no political restraints. I'm not beholden to anyone or defined by my birth. I'm able to take risks, to do things even if I fail, because no one but me will suffer those consequences. I've made... friends, for the first time in my life. If I have a romance, I don't have to worry that it sends a weird message to the future about castes and cults. I can spend my days doing absolutely anything I wish. Whether that's playing in the arcade, doing karaoke, or meeting astronauts many many centuries into my future. I'll probably get bored eventually, but I rather doubt it.

This isn't like a hermit crab moving to a bigger shell, but it's still just a shell. For me... I always told myself, once I ended the Endless wars, I could travel. Leave the desolate barren isles no one else has. See what the rest of the world has to offer. This is so much better than that. Alternate worlds, alternate universes, people from all corners of time and space. This is.... certainly more freedom than I deserve, so I will make the most of it in ways others can't begin to imagine. I'm sure it's difficult for others. I hope I can free them as much as I have been.

[It's somewhat surprising to see him keep drinking the green stuff after the face he made the first time, but Ari doesn't feel it's her place to try to prevent it. For safety's sake, she won't agree to any gun demonstrations of any sort now, she decides, before pouring another measure of brandy for herself.]

I fought a lot of pirates too. Or at least, I did the maneuvering. Someone else was doing the shooting. My armor's made of composite synthetic polymers, with liquid between. I'd show, you, but [here she actually blushes a little, young as she is] I wear it under my clothes. It'll handle more than just the stun setting. Any kind of energy blast, projectile, or blade. Here. Bring your bottle, let's sit down.

[She has no intention of drinking the whole bottle she chose, but she can always take the remainder back to the cabin they put her in. She's not thinking of it as hers, because it isn't. It's too big and everything's unsecured and there's odd, antiquated technology and she really doesn't like it that much. She leads him over to sit at a table.]

Citizen Oda, [even now she can't bring herself to drop the formality] I'm glad that you're happy here. Honestly, I am. But where I'm from, power is freedom. If you're a captain, you can fly wherever you want, take whatever trade contracts you want. You know, they'd take you on the Tradelines if you wanted, I'm sure of it. Temporary contract, a year or two. You're too old for command training. [She can't guess his exact age, but it's safe to say. The cut-off age is fifteen.] But from what you're saying, I'm trapped here. I don't feel free right now. I don't begrudge my responsibilities at home. I want to fulfil them, that's my choice.

Composite synthetic polymers... I better write that down given this green stuff. [He actually does take out a notebook and green glitter gel pen and writes down... something, it might be incomprehensible to anyone but him.]

[But he grins at her blush. Cute!] Ehhhhh there's no way I'm drinking anymore of this vile viscous secretion. [But he finishes off the glass he poured for himself, because it's wasteful not to! And... stumbles out from behind the bar, carrying... he hopes(?) a bottle of juice. And over to a table. Though the way he attempts to sit at the table on a chair makes him look even more drunk than he actually is. Spoilers: He doesn't know how to handle chairs. They don't exist when he's from.]

You're a copy. [EHHHH YEAH probably shouldn't have drunk that stuff without knowing what it's made of. Maybe it's some sort of hyper-potent super future alien drink. He just let himself be beguiled... by himself.] Simulation, right? This is all bonus. Invert your thinking. Wait... invert? What's it called in photography? When you make black and white reversed. Negatives. [Waves a hand. He has no idea. It's super futuristic to him, and super to the past for her. Point is:] If you really want to, set your mind on breaking the rules. Even Gods have rules they abide by, but we're not gods, so it's okay to break them. Nothing happens in your time without you. Temporal bubble, wasn't it? [He has a photographic memory, especially for new words and terms -- for better or worse. It also makes him an information sponge. Again, for better or worse.]

Don't -- don't you worry about me. [Laughs and opens the bottle. And smells it. PLEASE BE JUICE! And takes a sip.] I don't expect people who could rank up to be pleased with -- [Rolls a hand in a circle. He thinks it's juice, but it's not clearing his brain yet.] All this. But -- [He snaps his fingers. OKAY YES GOOD. When he's drunk he can't snap, so it must be juice! More drinking!] Think of it like... bonus. It's all bonus. An extra life. Simulation. You should talk to the others about win conditions. Skullduggery the skeleton, Max is -- [Nobunaga kind of has a word for "robot," but is hesitant to use it on account of Maeve and Klaus, and even Bastion so he just says:] Like me, red eyes, but his armor is his skeleton. And he wears suits. He is good with currency, so he'll understand the Tradewinds stuff really extra well. Make this life, one you'll be proud of. You aren't missing your old life, you're living it, it's just that this is like... an additional divergent timeline. If you want to break the timelines, then figure out how you're going to do it. And I'll take care of me and my soldiers. [Squints and nods. Yes. And then shakes his head.]

I have no idea if I'm making sense to you. [He didn't make sense to Skullduggery either, but it's hard when he's used to talking in metaphors and thinking even more abstractly.]

[Ari listens, and she follows most of this well enough. The rest? It could be culture, or temporal displacement, or it could be the fact that her new acquaintance here seems to have become very rapidly intoxicated. Well, drunken spacers were hardly anything new, and Ari once had to deal with a drunken ambassador, so she can be delicate about it if she has to.]

Tradelines. [It's a pointed correction, no small amount of pride in it.] I'm with the Tradelines, and I don't want to break the rules. [Maybe if she had her way she wouldn't do everything exactly by Tradeline code - but Ari signed a contract to abide by the rules, and Ari keeps her word.] I'm also not a copy. I'm a real person. You know, even if you think the other people here aren't real, it's best to behave as if they are, because what if you're wrong? [He's probably not sober enough for simulation ethics and thought experiments, but she has to make the point. If you treated people like copies, simulated data without rights, that could lead down an exceptionally dark path.]

But you're making sense. If it's a temporal bubble, I want to pop it. Find the win conditions, like you said, and send everyone back to where they ought to be. I've got plans, and even if time's not passing outside the bubble, if I'm here too long my skills will get rusty and maybe that's the end of my career. [And nothing matters nearly as much to Ari as her career.] Look, I'll do what I can while I'm here. Those repairs. I'll chart the stars, if it's really true that nobody's done it. I'd offer to stand watch, look out for pirates, but you say you've already got pirates on board the ship, so... [She laughs at the absurdity of it. Pirates. Skeletons in spacesuits - although it's possible that they're life-forms in need of a different atmosphere, and he's describing them as best he can.

She eyes that second bottle of his, carefully.] I hope you'll introduce me to your friends when there's an opportunity, but right now I've got another question. Does this place have Cardalek coffee? It's from my homeworld. I imported it for my private stores when I was shipside. [At no small cost, especially out of a junior lieutenant's salary. She won't be happy if she has to go without it now.]

Tradelines.

Why aren't copies real? [Nobunaga doesn't think anyone's a fake version of themselves, it's one of the things he got close to fighting with the others about. What's the difference between this timeline and any other?]

I don't want to go back. You'll have a tough time forcing me. Will against will. [Back to Hell? Nah, no way, he's good.]

I don't know about coffee. There is a coffee shop, Sand Dollars. Ava is a friend of a friend, and has taken to bartending it while the ghosts are away. But I usually drink tea. It's a matter of nationalist pride. [So Ari probably gets it. Maybe.] If it isn't there already, it can still come, just late.

I don't want to force anyone to do anything. [There's a thoughtful look on her face now. He's right. If people wanted to stay in the simulation, who was she to tell them it was wrong to?] What we need, then, is not an ending but an exit. So that people like me can return to our real lives, and people like you can choose to stay. [Spoken like a good libertarian Tradeliner. Of course, maybe that won't be possible, but she'll deal with that problem if it arises. Ari's not going to stay trapped here. Sometimes you have to weigh up a difficult matter and make tough decisions that not everyone would agree with, but there's no sense in quarrelling over hypotheticals.]

Copies aren't real because they're made of code, not flesh and blood. [That's simple enough. She's less happy about the coffee, although she nods when he explains about the tea. It makes perfect sense. Not just pride, but a familiarity, something of home when you're very far from it.] Hold on, I think I want to try some wine. [Ari stands to look at the bottles, but the bar is very quiet, she can still call back to him.] If there are shops here, what do you use for currency? I'm guessing I won't have access to my accounts.

Oh, then you're not a copy, because people here definitely bleed. A lot. [He's been mopping it up. Yeah. It's a hobby.]

There's no currency. It's even crazier than Hell. I made the first currency for Hell. I told Max he should work one out, and if he does, I'll work out how to get people to use it. So "shops" is definitely with poetic license. [License? Ehhhh sure. He's too drunk to fuss that much over the translation mechanics right now.] Everything's free. And the ghosts used to be in charge of making things run smoothly. Either they're taking a break, or the Captain is punishing us this month, but they're not right now. So that's been... interesting.

[The blood could, equally, be made of code, but that's not something Ari's about to point out. No need to introduce any confusion. She knows she's real.] Right. I am going to try not to end up bleeding. I'm sure your friend - Tendi, did you say? - is competent enough, but I try to avoid infirmaries.

[Ari selects a bottle. Fruity red, with a label that means very little to her, because there's not one standardised calendar even for her sector, let alone wherever this place is meant to be, or represent. She returns to the table, sitting opposite him again, and takes a little rectangular box out from one pocket. A couple of taps on its side, and a corkscrew emerges from one end. She grins as she sets about getting the bottle open.]

Now that's almost exciting. Being part of the birth of a new currency. [She has no reaction to his talk of Hell, because to her it just sounds like an unknown, foreign place in the same way that Japan is, or Earth.] There could be a lot of opportunity there. [Not that profits really mattered, if you were stuck on a simulation sailing-ship, but it's the principle of it.]

Could you advise me, about the captain? Is he... capricious, that way? [Ghosts is clearly some programming nonsense, but a captain possibly being that unclear about punishing people - collectively, at that - is a big red flag in her eyes. It's true whether he's a real captain or just the individual responsible for this little bubble of theirs.] I mean to say, presuming I'm stuck here a while, is it a better idea for me to keep pushing to meet him, try to establish some line of communication, and reach an understanding? Or is it better, all things considered, to not attract his attention at all?

Good plan. [Dryly, because saying you intend to, and then actually doing so are different things.]

I think you still have it backwards. I created the currency for furtherance of my ambition, it wasn't a chance to exercise my ambition, I already had the most power I could accumulate.

[There's a small wince about the Captain.] The Captain is ignoring me, and that's fine. Everyone who knows him better says he's -- [An annoyed groan.] All of my flaws. It's... annoying. Childish, easily enthused about small things, treats everything like a game, sadistic, unsympathetic, seeking apotheosis and god-abilities while being able to divert gods' paths and put them here supposedly. But I have no idea for myself, because he either understands that is the easiest way to torture me, or I'm not worth his time. Oh, and he uses torture because he thinks suffering and despair is the easiest form to get energy from us. So it's probably easier if you subvert that. Unless you're a masochist, in which case I can offer you better than him.

[Ari sips at her wine - not bad - as he speaks, but his description of the captain makes her look up from her glass in disbelief.]

I'd have thought you far stronger than that. He ignores you, and you call it torture? It's a psychological trick. He wants you to think that he thinks you're unworthy, and for it to infuriate you, because he meets with others who don't have your status and accomplishments. It's an irritation, Oda, but if you're calling it torture, you aren't much of a sadist.

[That last is said lightly, to lessen the blow of the criticism. Ari takes another long, slow sip from her glass.]

You're also frighteningly self-aware. Here's my trouble. Everything you're telling me about the captain indicates it's in my best interests to stay well clear of him - but then you say you have those very same faults? How do I know you're not going to play some mind game with me for your own amusement?

I said it was fine! It's just the easiest way for him to deal with me. This way I don't try to torture him back. [Nods!]

[But he's pleased! He DOES have a lot of accomplishments. Somehow he was forgetting here where they are meaningless.] What makes you think I haven't started already?

[It's defensive, almost childishly so, but Ari isn't going to push at it. It seems to her that a lack of attention wounds his pride - but she has no reason either to try to harm him or to talk him round from it. It's not her responsibility.

That next remark gives her pause, though. What if he has? For all she knows, everything he has said to her so far has been a lie. Ari sighs. She's tired, and the worst part is that she's completely alone here. Savitskaya would know how to deal with this. Her captain would. Ari? She's trying to figure it out as she goes along.]

Maybe you have. It'd be an unsound decision, because I'll find out, and I'm much better as an ally than an enemy, but I don't know you. Maybe you don't make optimal decisions.

[VERY childish. And that's exactly right. His pride is his most obvious flaw, naturally. That's what it means to be the demon king of 6th Heaven.]

[Red eyes glitter with amusement.] It would be especially foolish given how I've constantly reinforced that you should check with others to verify the reality behind my statements and claims.

[Oh, but he was the Fool of Owari. Just not for things like this.]

On this, I think I am superior to the Captain. I had greater success in my past making allies rather than treating the multiple universes as only my enemy. [The easy choice: join Oda or die.] I even have friends now. [He's as proud of this as not killing anyone for 2 months. It's great.] I'm not sure you should avoid the Captain, you'll have to decide for yourself. Ask the others who've met with him. Though I will advise against violence on him, it doesn't work. Oh, and hugs are violence. I don't know if you already knew that.

[She nods.] That's so, but lies aren't the only game you might be playing. You and I have no contract between us. [They have no need for one, but in Ari's society, contracts are the building block of society, and breaking them is considered exceptionally wrong. No contract meant no obligation to behave in any particular way.] Maybe there's more to this than I can see, but you're the first person who has had any real time for me here, it'd be equally unsound for me to quarrel with you. I'll take you at your word until I have a reason to do otherwise.

[Ari has perhaps more respect for rank than she should have, so it says something about her that she thought it was far more likely she'd shoot this captain than hug him. Hugs? Really?]

Have no fear of that. I'm not exactly the hugging type. I'm not a needy child. Now, when you say it doesn't work, do you mean that if I shot him, he'd wake up again the next day, just as you say everyone else does?

[Hugs are a thing someone did, and Nobunaga wanted to desperately explain when he was trying to explain his own personal weaknesses, that is in no way what he meant.]

No, the bullets wouldn't do anything. Not even a physical death. Clarke Griffin is the next one you should speak with. She cracked him open with a lobster cracker, and he's just void inside.

The way to fight wormholes is not directly, you will just lose whatever is thrown at them. You must circle it and neutralize it. Determine what it's after, and create a balance that softens it out. Like a whirlpool.

I'm always playing many games at once. Would you like a contract with me?

[Ari shivers a little at the thought of cracking lobsters. Of course there would be people here who ate the flesh of other creatures, it was all so very pre-Lorentzen. It bothers her more than the void does.]

Generally speaking, wormholes don't want anything. You can't negotiate with them. Your choices are to go around, and stay safe, or to take a chance on sending something through. [She has to say that, but Ari can also see his real meaning, very clearly.] But you're right, in a way. If you don't know which to do, because the data's insufficient, then you stay at a distance, and observe, and carefully experiment.

What sort of contract would you be interested in?

Right now I don't have anything specific in mind, I suspect an opportunity will present itself more in the future. I'm interested in what you might desire, however.

Even though you don't believe in souls, the Captain does seem to anchor us with a thread connected to it. So be very careful in negotiations here on out. I've had a personal habit in the past of negotiating for things people dismissed as unimportant. I never let them regret it, but on this, I believe the Captain and I also differ.

It'd be fair contract if we agreed not to attack one another, for a start. [That's so basic that it can be agreed informally, but after all the talk of people bleeding and dying on the ship, one can't be too careful.] An offer of mutual friendship, goodwill without any other obligations just yet.

[The rest she nods politely at, but she's not really taking it seriously. If anything is going to stop her from selling her soul, it's the thought that the contract wouldn't be valid, since she doesn't have a soul to deliver.]

You're telling a Tradeliner to be careful in her contract negotiations? [Ari smiles.] I think I'll do fine. I've experience of negotiating trade deals with frontier colonies. Mutually beneficial, everyone's content with the outcome. [Reasonably content.]

[Nods slowly.] Can the contracts be mutually updated at later points? There was a "battle royale" the captain made everyone play to kill all each other with only one survivor. Although he supposedly follows the same rule as me; never to repeat the same tactics twice, there could be similar circumstances that can't be avoided.

[For all that Nobunaga isn't LiTeRaLlY from Hell, (he actually thinks he is now, yes) he still takes all this stuff seriously, because his anti-deism took a hard knock from meeting literal goddesses and the rest. If he has a soul, he figures, he really did let it get eaten by his inner demons to become the Demon King of 6th Heaven, and now is in a fight not to lose the rest to the Captain.] How long have you been at it? [She looks young, but looks can be deceiving.]

They can be dissolved by mutual agreement, yes. [Ari says this quietly. No need to mention that she wouldn't agree to dissolve a contract because someone wanted to play a cruel game. She'd force an alternative. As if her opinion of the captain couldn't get lower, too. That man can't really be command-qualified, behaving like that.]

[She is young. She takes advantage of the vagueness of the next question, because the answer she would give another Tradeliner is half a year. Half a year since she passed for lieutenant, and that's what's supposed to count - but he didn't ask how long since she qualified, specifically. He gets the answer that outsiders do when she thinks they're doubting her competence.] I've been out on the lines for about four standard years now.

Edited 2022-10-17 14:15 (UTC)

I wouldn't want to dissolve anything. [The Captain is not a leader, correct. That's what Nobunaga meant about being superior.] Protect my friends. I have a contract with my left hand at home to see our mission through completely, even if it means working against me. I can't promise I can't be -- [Thinks about magic, his soul being eaten, the rest.] controlled. Same as the Captain, I think people could compromise him in such a way. But in those instances; Commander John Crichton, and Klaus Hargreaves, protect them. I don't know if your contracts work like that, but that is how I would make mine. Their safety means more to me than my own.

[So he thinks she must be in her early 20s, maybe around the same age as Clarke Griffin, but older (he thinks!) than Ruby Rose and Jinx. Either way, he knows himself and his right & left hands at that age, and best leave it alone, she'd learn.]

[An uncomfortable look briefly crosses her features.] If I'm understanding correctly, that's a different type of contract. An agreement between the two of us, concerning only the two of us, I'll confirm right away. If you want me to protect your friends, what are you offering for it? Considering that they're strangers to me, and I'd be putting myself at risk.

[It's what their ships do for the colonies, in a way. The insured colonies. She doesn't object in principle.

She'd be pleased by his overestimation of her age if she knew it - knowing her she'll probably wreck it by someday mentioning how young she was when she signed up, but for now it's all good.]

[The mention of her age upon signing up wouldn't instantly connect in his brain, but he might someday realize she's actually younger than his Ranmaru later, and have a very confused reaction over it!]

[Nobunaga just grins about the contracts.] And so we come back to what you'd be interested in. Information is the most useful to me, but an exceptionally clever individual like you can get it fairly freely. [Also why he values Crichton and Klaus and April and a few others more than himself -- they are repositories of information, irreplaceable. Also his first two friends. Ever. A treasure that couldn't exist in his own world and time.] Ah, but I'm not looking for a bodyguard situation. Crichton was recently killed by something... [Just "yesterday" to Nobunaga.] So if it was a matter of preventing harm to reach them, I couldn't expect someone to outdo me. More like a defend yourself, but look out for them and aid however you can.

[All this gives him various insights. Even as drunk as he is - it's the games he warned her that he's ALWAYS playing. Clues to how her contract negotiations were probably not specifically with her, she was after all, a lieutenant to someone else. Educated in how to conduct it, yes, but her practical experience hadn't gone too far off of what was typical or expected.]

I'd also ask you to employ a bit of ninja arts so that neither of them are aware of what our contract entails or that they're being helped. [He has used ninjas, hired ninjas, and destroyed ninjas. Usually Mitsuhide handles the underworld so Nobunaga can stay the public face, but even with that, Nobunaga doesn't leave his left hand to make all maneuvers without Nobunaga at least making plenty of his own. Insurance for the future.]

[Exceptionally clever? Ari likes to think he's not far wrong, but that's also shameless flattery. Not always a bad negotiation tactic.]

My condolences. For Commander Crichton. [She's quite serious, a sign that she's beginning to accept the reality of all this. That these are people he cared for, not just names in impossible stories - and even if this man is coming back from the dead, that didn't mean that death stopped being something to feel sorrow over. That way lay madness.]

I'm not entirely familiar with ninja arts, but I can keep our contract secret, unless I'm asked directly. I can't outright lie about it, but I can arrange things so that I'm extremely unlikely to ever be asked the question. As for what I want? I don't know yet. I don't know enough about this place to say what will be of most use. Maybe we can put the negotiation on hold, until I can do it from an informed perspective?

[It's sensible to know your own limitations, and not rush a decision when there's no real urgency. He's also right about her - back home, Ari has the authority to open negotiations on behalf of her ship, and to carry them out, but someone more senior always has to sign off on the final deal, so she can't stray too far off-course in what she offers.]

[Red eyes dim softly and he nods.] Doumo. [He got so flustered and trying to make sure he got the words out, he said it without the translation kicking in. Nobunaga has no idea how to grieve. How can he be more upset over this one life than any others? His own brothers? He just falls into his old detached ways, but at least he's not fully snapped back, still letting himself be a little upset about it -- though more about "failing" his friend, even though he'd promised to protect Crichton from at least old foes.]

[All the same, at the last part, Nobunaga laughs softly.] Excellent, that would be my preference as well. Like I said, I've no doubt opportunities will present themselves.

Ninjas are not just assassins or warriors, they are also adept at being eyes and ears in places they are needed. [Spies, in other words.]

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