2022-04-30: Considerations on Tactics and Strategy
- Log: 2022-04-30: Considerations on Tactics and Strategy
- Cast: Mitsuba Greyvalley's XO, Reynold Hardin, Mayvy Hawkins, Ruri Hoshino
- Where: Nergal HQ, United Emirates of Orb
- OOC - IC Date: 0096-04-30
- Summary: Reynold Hardin, Mayvy Hawkins, and Ruri Hoshino discuss the anomalous heart of the Dreisstrager. (Probably contains Super Robot Wars 30 spoilers?)
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.
Captain Mitsuba... is not read in on this one. The Dreisstrager's Space Boat II-class personnel transport has separated from the ship to make a last-minute trip to Orb. "It's just paperwork. I'll be taking the Chief with me to review the technical side; it concerns the AOS's recent blueprint. We don't have all the materials for what it's offering, and I'm concerned that it'll try to... reappropriate something we actually need," Reynold had explained.
Mitsuba signed off on it without a second thought, of course.
Which brings us, then, to the present, when that Space Boat II has safely touched down in the Orb Union. Straight on to Nergal headquarters -- straight into a conference room -- settled.
Reynold Hardin, for his part, looks acutely nervous. He has a modestly-sized tin of cookies with him, set out at the center of the conference room, open. Maybe this time it'll go better, he reflects, as he waits.
(He'd tasked Mayvy with getting Ruri; they seem to have a more trusting relationship than Reynold has with... either of them, really. But they're going to have to learn to trust real fast, at this rate.)
<Pose Tracker> Mayvy Hawkins has posed.
Mayvy had arranged things discreetly with Ruri, via secure messaging over Nergal's BBS--discreetly, but making it clear that there were 'possible issues with the AOS' that needed Ruri's 'particular skills and experiences'.
So she's here now, waiting for her fellow sysadmin, looking surprisingly presentable! Under her white coat, she's wearing some reasonably nice slacks instead of pajama pants, and a button-up shirt instead of the worn-out Mazinger Z screenprint tee she woke up in.
She's not inside the conference room with Reynold, instead standing outside the door with one of Reynold's cookies in one hand, and a brick-like technical manual in the other hand, reading and snacking while she waits.
She thinks they're good cookies.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
Having gotten the message, Ruri then found herself having to tell the Captain she needed to go to headquarters, which always brings an embarrassing amount of attention to herself even if the Captain is just generally a nice young woman. Tragic! Well, it just so happens that Ruri's already discussed certain requests with her, so it's not so unreasonable for her to go on this trip.
Anyway, it wasn't too much of an ask for the Hinagiku to pare off from the Nadesico and head over to Orb; since it's Erina's shift on the bridge, Minato Haruka volunteered to drive Ruri over, having perhaps intuited that she wanted to go and visit her friends. (Minato is very supportive of Ruri making friends outside of the Nadesico, for... some reason.)
Of course, this meeting takes them right to Nergal Headquarters, so her contacts outside the Nadesico can't be getting too outrageous. Luckily, Minato knows how to blend into an office environment. Whether she'll enjoy it is a question for bridge gossip in the next couple of days.
And Ruri, meanwhile, came to the conference room.
She's in a Nergal operations uniform, so she fits in -- in the broadest possible sense. Her uniform is much smaller than everyone else's, here, on account of her being so much smaller. Despite this, she conducts herself with a stoic, distantly polite nature, meeting Mayvy with a mild: "Hello, Mayvy-san. Should we go in?"
Which isn't to say there's no warmth to the statement; she is happy to see her. But Ruri has never been the most expressive of girls.
And once they do head in, Ruri hops up onto a seat in the most dignified matter she can muster. "You must be Mr. Hardin," Ruri presumes, looking over to him. "I received your message. You're welcome to use the Nadesico's systems to help with your problem." It's all very to the point, very -- not bothering to stop and ask how he is, or how the trip was.
If you were expecting the twelve year old to ask about the cookies, clearly you've mistaken her for someone MUCH more childish, like the Captain.
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.
Reynold is thankful that everyone seems to have cleaned up for this one. Having everyone presenting as -- not their 'best' selves, perhaps, but their 'most stable, most organized' selves -- is an enormous weight off of his brain.
"I trust you've both received your copies of both of my messages," Reynold says, nodding once. "I don't like going behind the Captain's back. Unfortunately, the way things are going, there's little alternative."
He's actually a little relieved that Ruri doesn't comment much on the cookies; he's still a bit snakebit from the previous cookie-related activities. "I'm -- vaguely aware of something uncomfortable between you and the AOS," Reynold notes to Ruri, "but I don't have the particulars. Mayvy, any insight you could offer would likewise be appreciated."
<Pose Tracker> Mayvy Hawkins has posed.
"Yep, let's go!" Mayvy replies, giving a somewhat subdued (for her) smile as she holds the door open. As soon as she's sat herself down, she reaches for the cookie tin, and--after grabbing herself another--nudges it closer to Ruri as a subtle offer.
With the priorities handled, she reaches for a folder on the table. "Well, I know what Mitsuba told me. I was gonna bring this up earlier, Ruri, buuut... I held off when Reynold told me what he knew. We'd have to do a meet-up off-ship, since even with encryption..." She trails off. "And we couldn't quite get things to line up."
"I'd floated the idea that there was something wrong with the ship, something affecting Mitsu, but I didn't take it seriously until she told me about what happened with you. Moreso when you told me you were onto the same scent, Reynold..." She gestures to him, and takes a bite of cookie.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
Ruri always presents like this, unless it's a special occasion. Anyway, any time she gets out of uniform, something always seems to go wrong. This way is better.
She nods, when Reynold asks if she got his messages. It was something of a strange rendevous to get the second one, but -- message received, regardless. "I understand," she says, on the matter of Mitsuba.
Ruri is quiet to let Mayvy speak first, though, nodding as she elongates and trails her words. "It's all right." Mayvy gets to her observations soon enough, and Ruri looks back to Reynold, when Mayvy reveals he was also suspicious.
And then Mayvy takes a cookie-bite, so evidently that's Ruri's cue to speak.
"I tried to handshake with the AOS, when the Nadesico was docked with the Dreisstrager," she explains, not quite bothering -- or realising -- she ought to explain what those words mean. "But when I reached out to it, the AOS... wasn't. I'm sorry to be so unscientific, but it's difficult to explain. Of course, there are some computers which are protected against access, but even if a system denies any connection, there's still... something there, to deny me."
Ruri is quiet, for a brief moment. Her gaze doesn't quite meet Reynold or Mayvy.
"There was nothing, in the AOS. It was empty. It shouldn't have been possible."
She relates the base horror of impossibility with the same mild report she's given everything here; but for the slight arc of her brow, there's no shift in her expression, either.
"Captain Greyvalley related to me that commands flowed from the AOS to her, through the state of the battlefield and its forces." A shadow of discomfort falls over Ruri, even businesslike as she is. "Well, after I wasn't able to reach the AOS, her attitude towards me... she started acting a little more firm, or stern, or... I don't really understand things like that, but when I realised the implications of what she'd said, I didn't really feel safe around her on the Dreisstrager. But... when we boarded the Nadesico, even though we were still docked in the Dreisstrager, the way she acted changed, too."
Ruri folds her hands on her lap, her legs kicking a little, under the table. She stills them quickly enough.
"In any case, Captain Greyvalley seems concerned with the state of the ship, as well," she adds, as if in defence of Mitsuba, after an indictment like that. "She recently visited the Nadesico to speak to me about her concerns. She..." Ruri isn't terribly good at this sort of cloak-and-dagger operation; even Reynold's Ultra-Top-Secret physical notes were related back to Yurika, on Ruri's watch, because Ruri trusts the Captain. When it's Ruri's time to trail off, it's evident that there's something she's not quite saying, here. "... well, she's worried about it, too," she finishes, instead.
In the pause, Ruri looks about the table, and reaches out to take a cookie. Cookies are a fine excuse to stop talking. Nibble, nibble.
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.
What Mitsuba -- ah, right. The conversation he'd eavesdropped on. Naturally. Reynold takes a cookie for himself, too; they're a little sweet for him, but not so much so that he can't eat the food he makes.
"Handshake with -- ah, I see. Technopathic abilities of some type," Reynold reflects, reaching down and jotting down a note. For all that he's not a very... attuned, sort of person, he can at least *follow* what it *means* to exist on that wavelength.
"Firm, stern," he mirrors. "And it changed while she was off the ship... no doubt either because she was off the ship, or because the 'threat' had been neutralized." His expression sours. "This seems strange to me. I don't understand why this would be true, or why it's only affecting the Captain. Stranger still that it'd be happening to a crew of rookies ushered onto the ship in an emergency."
... of course, he reflects -- it could be that it isn't. Presuppose that the world is planned, rather than random. In some ways, that's an easier frame for Reynold to operate in.
"Chief," Reynold offers, as something clicks. "If you were hoping to find some commonality between the Dreisstrager's personnel beyond Military Academy 30 attendance, where would you start?" This isn't his expertise.
<Pose Tracker> Mayvy Hawkins has posed.
Mayvy looks to Reynold and nods. "Yeah. She's a technopath--she can interface with machines, and... well, most of them are conscious, at least in an animistic sense." She adjusts her glasses. "I'm guessing this was like... meeting someone, and when you go to shake their hand they crumble because they were a hollow shell made of cookie crumbs. Only... wrong-er, because it's not happening a dream."
Munch.
"Hum. Well... I'd start with ideology," she starts, mouth still half-full. "We've got a complex and ideologically challenging purpose. Dissenting ideas are necessary to prevent an echo-chamber from forming, but... this change-the-world shit needs people who can commit when the hammer comes down."
"Quantum brainwave activity and other psychic sensitivities are a dead end there, I think. Of the people I've got records for, the Dreiss crew is all over the board... but we can't discount a psychic component to this, either. Mitsuba's behavior being so different on and off-ship lines up with our observations." She pauses. "--Actually, wait. Ruri!" She leans forward, pointing. "You said she told you it flows into her. What if that's not just a metaphor?"
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
"Oh," Ruri says, a shade uncomfortable for a sliver of a moment as she realises both that Reynold doesn't realise what she can do and that he has such a dry explanation for it. "Yes." Mayvy's explanation is a little foolish, but not entirely incorrect.
(Did she come to the meeting hungry, Ruri wonders, or is she really just using cookie metaphors because of the snacks?)
In any case, Ruri doesn't particularly like to imagine threat neutralisation when she's the threat in question, but it's not like she's going to stop modelling the possibilities just because that's uncomfortable, too.
Nibble, nibble. Ruri is of the age to like sweet things, even if she's quiet about it. She finishes her cookie soon enough, though. They're in a Meeting. It's Very Official, so she has to be Prepared to Contribute.
Ruri blinks, as Mayvy's finger points. "I never said it was," she points out, mildly, as if the alternative never even struck her. "Presuming that the AOS has a specific configuration," that's probably safe enough to say, "Captain Greyvalley may be someone uniquely suited to interface with it, like how I'm able to reach electronics. She realises that's a possible explanation, though... I don't think she realises she could be someone who could commune with the AOS. Or," Ruri adds, "maybe she's not able to realise it... in any case, I thought it was a bad idea to point it out to her."
She goes on to point out, a touch dry: "It's quite remarkable someone like that would come to Dreisstrager accidentally, I suppose." Speaking of not pointing things out directly.
"If it is a matter of ideology," she adds, a breath later, "I think it's interesting that aliens keep coming to your ship with ethical questions."
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.
Reynold is a person who has committed, in full, to being boring. It's when Mayvy describes that in metaphor that Reynold offers a bland, "Hm. Horrible," that speaks volumes, in that it is a word actually describing an emotional reaction he is presently having, with some specificity, that he can name.
He decides to move on. "So, hm," he reflects. "A computer unreachable by a technopath that *can* somehow reach Mitsuba, but doesn't follow traditional estimations of psychic potential, either." He jots down another note. "That's... alarming. It suggests that we simply *don't know* what the Dreisstrager could be doing to her." A beat. "If it's doing anything at all, of course."
Ruri calling out the ideological diversity of the ship... that catches something in his brain. "... Hm. If we suppose that none of us are appointed to the Dreisstrager's crew accidentally, a few more things make sense and a few things make much less sense."
Reynold notices he's grinding his teeth a bit, and makes the decision to stop. "I can actually provide some insight on ideology on the ship. Military Academy 30 had -- has -- an unusually high diversity of opinions and background among the student body. Mitsuba favors an OCU-style governance model, for instance, but has few practical objections to somewhat aggressive resettlement programs. Jiequan is a fairly unremarkable citizen of the REA by comparison. Lian..."
Reynold pauses. "... If I described her ideological orientation as 'good vibes only,' I don't think she'd object," is what he eventually settles on. "I won't volunteer Chief Mayvy's political opinions for her, but I know who she's gotten in arguments with."
The bit about aliens, though: "... That *is* strange. I wonder why the 'King of Earth' is so interested in the consensus the Dreisstrager achieves on hypotheticals."
<Pose Tracker> Mayvy Hawkins has posed.
Mayvy smiles. "Well, I don't think you can build a treehouse in a rotten tree. Let's put it that way." She shuffles a couple of papers around from the folder. "Anyway, the ship was berthed underneath the school. I think there was a selection program, and that most of the crew was part of it."
"As for why King Shit of Fuck Mountain--" she hasn't once referred to him by his *actual* titles, and she sees no reason to start now-- "is so interested in us... the simplest explanation's that they see one of the most powerful warships built by mankind, under *independent* contract, and want to get a read on how it'll behave."
"But... I'm not inclined to trust Occam's Razor here, when we've got so much other bullshit going on." She lifts a sheet. "So... the AOS definitely displays intelligence. It's very good at anticipating needs, does all sorts of *weird* shit on its own... it's been known to self-modify..."
"And for the record, Reynold, I believe it's influencing her. The changes I've seen... it's worst when she's just been in the chair, and it's best when she's off the ship, and it's not--" She taps her chin, and leans in. "I've known Mitsu the whole time she was at 30. She's... *different.* Not 'the person you know under stress' different. But the most drastic changes are things I can't account for. The reason I've eliminated basically *every* medical cause I can think of."
Looking to Ruri, she adds, "Ship bullshit aside, Mitsurin's someone you can trust. It's..."
Ugh.
"God. I mean, Reynold said it--even right now, the captain's chair is the best place for her. And it *kind of sucks*."
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
Ruri won't begrudge Reynold a reaction like that, even if it is a little alienating. A description like that is quite vivid, after all.
She thinks Mayvy's description of the alien who keeps bothering them is very... vivid, too.
Just overall a very lively sort of woman.
Anyway, Ruri decides it's better not to keep asking questions about the Dreisstrager's ideology, particularly not as Mayvy comes to more evaluations of the AOS. She does take note of Reynold's evaluations, though, quietly.
"I believe you," she says, first, looking to Mayvy in turn. Well, it's not like keeping that secret doesn't benefit Ruri, or anything like that, but she trusts Mitsuba enough not to go behind her back with something which could hurt her.
(After all, they're in Headquarters. It doesn't take an expert in cloaks and daggers to reach the logical conclusion.)
"I feel better being around Captain Greyvalley when she isn't on the Dreisstrager," Ruri backs Mayvy up, a beat later. Here, she hesitates; she's not a creature of logic the way Reynold is, but Ruri isn't entirely confident in her capacity to evaluate people like this. "She's... a warmer person? ... I don't know."
It doesn't take too much effort to restrain herself from saying that maybe it's nothing, given what everyone else is saying about Mitsuba; even so, it does take a little.
"As for conditioning, it's only something I've read about," which is a pretty alarming statement for someone of Ruri's age to make so impassively, but she's a systems operator, it's fine. "But I think... Captain Greyvalley would be unhappy, if you took her away from the ship. I don't like the AOS very much, but if Captain Greyvalley has a connection to it, I suppose removing her would hurt her. ... after all, I'd feel bad if I left the Nadesico, too."
There's a point here which Ruri doesn't make, or a connection, despite how bluntly she put it earlier. Never mind all that.
She looks down, at the table. "If Mitsuba has a connection no one else has, that's special. Regardless of my personal feelings, someone like me really can't say it can't be tolerated. If we could just talk to the AOS, that would be better... I think."
It's embarrassing to say something so personally like that...
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.
"... I can't see how," Reynold says, to Mayvy, "but I'll trust your judgment in this regard, as medical auxiliary and her friend." That's the sort of thing Reynold doesn't like to do, honestly; he would *adore* being able to draw (or break, as the case may be) a direct line from Mitsuba's papers on alternative approaches to cross-bloc units and her administration of the Dreisstrager. He would *love* it if this made some sense.
Unfortunately, all they have to go on is the vibes being off, and that's... going to have to do. "It 'kind of sucking' is why we're doing something about it."
Ruri... maybe Reynold is a little more inclined to price in *her* emotional intelligence. "... Ah -- that makes more sense," he concedes. "Not a question of decision-making, but presentation. I see." That's... something to chew on. "I agree that if there *is* something of this nature going on, it'd be important not to remove her. It could even be harmful."
Something clicks. "... Wait. The berth location. That --"
Reynold shouldn't read them in on this. He is, strictly speaking, forbidden to. ... but he can work around that. "Mayvy, I have an idea on the possibility of a psychic connection... it requires a few assumptions, but..."
<Pose Tracker> Mayvy Hawkins has posed.
Mayvy nods slowly. "Warmer... that sounds right, I think." She gives Ruri a bit of a look as the conditioning connection is left hanging. She gives the comparisons between the two women some thought--Ruri and Omoikane are partners. A whole greater than the sum of its parts. They work in harmony... but from what she can tell, the AOS' relationship with Mitsuba is stressful for her. Overwhelming.
"Like being asked to hold a bucket of ice, then they dump the ice in your arms and expect you not to drop any," she murmurs, devoid of context for anyone but her.
Louder, actually addressed to the others, she says, "It's entirely possible that its effects are a tuning issue. She talks sometimes about that, how she feels overwhelmed by how much she has access to. Ruri--have you ever gotten *too much* from a machine? Like it's assuming you have more processing power or bandwidth than you do?"
She glances at Reynold as a light-bulb goes off for him. "I'm more than willing to entertain a few leaps," she says with a small grin.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
Ruri supposes that Reynold isn't the sort of person who understands emotions very well, either, but he's willing to accept Mayvy's insight anyway. She thinks that's a good quality. She doesn't really understand what Mayvy is mumbling about, in the wake of that... but she's not going to disparage her problem-solving style, since Mayvy evidently understands something they don't. (Ruri groups herself with Reynold, here, rather than Mayvy, which is its own statement.)
The ship was berthed underneath the school...
Anyway, Mayvy has a question for her. It's something that surprises Ruri, judging by the way her head pulls up, that long, slow blink. It's something which takes her a few moments of thought to answer.
"It's not really a problem for me these days," she says, slowly. "But..." Her brow twitches down, in a light scowl; her lips, tensed, press together.
It's deep water.
She looks to a point precisely half a meter past Mayvy's head. "If you don't understand your own processing power, it's easy to overcommit. Without being conscious of all the resources at your disposal, stack overflows can result in cascade failure. Of course, that's something you can recover from without incident..." because you're wonderful, ruri; you're marvellous, ruri; you're amazing, ruri!
Silence, for 13.5 seconds.
"Well," Ruri interrupts her lack of explanation, "through active utilisation of the IFS's auxiliary brain, data overload isn't an issue for me. But without some method to mitigate the differences in data structure between the human brain and electronic systems, I can imagine it would be easy to be overwhelmed." She turns to Reynold, here, to explain: "The methods by which human brains store and retrieve data is still markedly different from most technological systems. While there are some similarities, there's a reason humans require cybernetic implants to interface with electronics." In a way, even the IFS fills that role, for Ruri.
It's all very plausible deniability.
(She doesn't explain this to Mayvy, because Mayvy, a fellow sysop, already knows the difference between data structures and brains. Right?)
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.
"A tuning issue -- that's an interesting hypothesis, and one I'd actually find reassuring." If there's nothing nefarious -- simply the AOS working outside of Mitsuba's actual observed tolerances -- then so much the better. It's easy to overthink these things and imagine something sinister... and, truthfully, the information Reynold's privy to that the rest of them aren't tilts his thoughts that way. But he's willing to entertain the alternative, too.
Ruri working through Mayvy's suggestion -- implying that suggestion is certainly *possible*, at least, and for someone not augmented to deal with it even quite likely...
Reynold nods to her. "I think that's a worthwhile avenue to explore, though I'll leave it to the two of you as the experts. As for my own thoughts..." He pauses. Reynold Hardin is slow on his feet; it's a worthwhile consideration.
He eats the other half of his cookie, but does so in a fast, precise way -- not buying himself much time to think further, anyway. "One thing that would be worth considering -- if we're dealing with an anomalous pattern not yet assessed, similar to but distinct from Ruri's -- is to assess *physical* commonalities between the whole crew. I know you've already performed psychic assessments; I'm suggesting more medical auxiliary work. That's... not my background, so I'll leave the fine points to you. The thing I'd suggest, though, is:"
"Try looking for correlations *after* adding in the Sainklauses and *without* adding me." If Fikes -- their backer and G-Hound overseer -- trusts only Reynold fully, and if the Sainklauses have some nebulous history *and* ended up in the Huckebeins 30 themselves... perhaps this whole *sequence* was engineered.
After a little thought, he appends, "... Try adding and subtracting Ms. Zoldak from the list as well."
He realizes at this point he's utterly out of his depth on the medical and technical sides and has no idea what this is actually a request for, and looks a little sheepish about it. "And, ah -- regarding what you discussed with the Captain... if there *is* something insidious going on, I'd recommend you perform any psychiatric interventions off the ship as well."
<Pose Tracker> Mayvy Hawkins has posed.
Mayvy, knows more about data structures than neural structures, but she knows a *lot* about both!
She files away the peculiarities of Ruri's response under 'things to follow up on when we're not discussing matters regarding a very powerful spaceship' for now, and nods. "Right... so it's plausible, at least, that there's a malconfigured MMI at play here."
She leans on the table, playing with a loose bit of hair hanging from her forehead. "Y'know, I joked a while back about the AOS being an alien mainframe plugged in with no alterations, and I hate that I'm probably almost right."
She looks at Reynold. "Is there *any* way we or Admiral Fikes can put pressure on Nergal to get better data on the AOS or the Dreisstrager's systems as a whole? I've been working blind for months, and I can tell you that if you told me this thing had a Macross Battle mode I'd believe you. No questions asked except how to turn it on."
With a sigh, she sits up and starts to take notes on what Reynold's suggesting. "Right... the Huckies are probably tied into this whole thing, and I've been meaning to get work-ups done on those two anyway. They keep avoiding it--can't imagine why, I've got a great bedside manner."
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
Mayvy muses on mind-machine interfaces, and Ruri nods, in conformation. It's certainly one explanation. Not that Ruri much remembers where she learned how that worked, but -- she has the knowledge. She has the knowledge, and that's the important part.
(Splash!)
When Reynold talks about physical correlations, Ruri's hand comes to rest on her wrist, fingers at the edge of her nanomachines all expressed in a tattoo. It is worth considering, she supposes. Hardware is as important as software and firmware in informing form and function; moreso, even. But...
... but...
It's not relevant to this discussion, so she puts it out of her mind, and reaches for another cookie.
Nibble, nibble.
"It's quite good," Ruri asides, regarding the snack. That isn't relevant, either, but it's more comfortable to say.
But, the AOS as an alien mainframe... Ruri thinks of dark spaces, here, for a moment. A moment later, she decides she had better not involve any of her stranger friends in this. She isn't even sure Alexis Kerib properly grasps the concept of a human secret.
It's a thought expressed only in a slight shake of her head. "I think... it's possible the AOS is built on something Nergal-san doesn't want to discuss," Ruri advances, delicately, despite how blunt she's been elsewhere in the conversation. "Though, it wouldn't be the first time they found technology, rather than making it." Just like the Nadesico-class, she supposes.
"I'm not sure if it's relevant," she adds, "but the Huckebeins are very secretive. Well, I didn't pry, but I wonder if there's something to their pilots, too. Exceptional robots are usually driven by exceptional people." It's something which approaches and doesn't entirely get the point, but it's an entirely reasonable assessment to make at her age.
She has no advice on how to get someone to attend their medical appointments, because she's not a narc.
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.
"I'd say that's far-fetched but it honestly a reasonable conclusion. At the same time, though, it may be beside the point; regardless of its origins, what we're dealing with may simply be a miracle. Understanding what it is may not give us much of why." Reynold doesn't like that that's what he has to say, but... sometimes understanding is ultimately a fruitless endeavor.
"I don't think he's going to give us any more than he has," Reynold answers. "Getting information out of the man is difficult at best, at least on this topic. I think he may be more invested in the project than Nergal itself is." He rubs his own face, gently. "I think that... this may be as far as we can get without Ruri spending more time with the Huckebeins or Mayvy doing a full medical workup of the ship's entire launch crew," comes his eventual answer. Evidently *he* thinks something of Ruri's connection with the Huckebeins. "We shouldn't take excessively long with this meeting, anyway, or it'll become somewhat suspicious in and of itself. Thank you for meeting with me; please divide the cookies between yourselves as you want. I... actually *do* have a handful of forms to file with Nergal, as well."
He adds, to Mayvy: "... Please don't tell the Sainklauses you've moved their medical timetables up on my account. Edge is..." He gives a vague gesture. "... easily upset with me. I don't really understand why."
He starts gathering his papers; he gives a respectful nod to Ruri. "You're --" he stumbles a bit. "... it's good that the Nadesico has someone like you helping it, even if I'm not comfortable with children on a warship." Adding greater specificity or texture to that is... outside his scope.
<Pose Tracker> Mayvy Hawkins has posed.
"It's pretty likely," Mayvy agrees with Ruri. "It's just... the level of secrecy this is on... it's bizarre not to let *anyone* on board in on the way the system works, especially when it's so complex." She shakes her head a bit. "As for the Huckies, we don't know a lot about them, either... and I've got a hunch you're right about the Sainklauses, too."
She nods, a little tiredly, as Reynold confirms what she was afraid of. No more info. Oh well, more puzzles to solve... "Well, it may not give us a why, but it may give us a how. Knowing the AOS' origin can help in how I approach both the system itself and its AI--for example, it might have interface protocols that are *actually alien*, which could explain Ruri's inability to reach it."
Ahem. "Anyway. since I don't think any of us are comfortable with Ruri coming back on-board the Dreisstrager... finishing up the medical files will be the *quicker*, at the very least. And don't worry about those two--they're well overdue at this point."
Mayvy briefly debates whether to administer headpats to Ruri... and does so, in assent with Reynold's affirmation of her.
<Pose Tracker> Ruri Hoshino has posed.
"That might be true," Ruri cedes ground to Reynold, mildly. "But even if we can't understand what it is, we should still try to understand where it's coming from." It's the sort of understanding afforded a person, not a science experiment, and it might speak volumes to Ruri's optimism that she still wants to believe such a thing is even capable with something as horrible as the AOS.
Though... maybe it's not entirely optimism.
Ruri has seen an awful lot of things happen because of ambiguity, as far as communication is concerned. What happens, she wonders, if something takes advantage of that confusion? It's certainly intelligent enough, according to Mayvy. And... there's something about not understanding something's intentions which puts Ruri on edge. She's not entirely sure why.
Well, amongst other qualifications, she's a scientist; she likes things which are quantifiable. Qualitative data just gets... messy.
"It's probably better if I don't, but... if I can help, I'll ask them again," Ruri says, pauses a beat, adds: "The Huckebeins, I mean." Not their pilots. Ruri wouldn't be very helpful interviewing humans. She doesn't like the idea of going back to the Dreisstrager, but...
In any case, she can't leave Mayvy to handle this alone. Even though Mayvy is a talented operator, if someone is in trouble, the right thing to do is to help them. And as far as Ruri is concerned, even if she's speaking up for Mitsuba's possible unique connection...
... she still thinks the Dreisstrager's crew is in trouble.
Anyway, all this sympathy is shortly short-circuited by Mayvy reaching out to touch her, something which Ruri circumvents by ducking under her hand and slipping out of the chair. She takes a few steps away, and dips her head in a bow, to Reynold and Mayvy. "Thank you," she says, unruffled in multiple senses of the word. "In any case, you're correct... we'd better not talk much longer. I suppose Minato-san's gotten into some trouble or another, so I'd better find her."
She pauses, and adds, reminded by mentioning the Nadesico's nicest helmswoman: "It was nice to meet you, Mr. Hardin. And I'm glad you seem to be doing well, Mayvy-san. Let's speak again."
With another little bow, she absconds out of the meeting room.