Oscar waited a breath before asking the explicit question. “Visarch, is the Task Force under orders to destroy the Talos in the event of a situation where we cannot extract her in combat or are in the situation of a hostile boarding action? I want to be crystal clear on that point if the situation comes up because I will be the one leading a counter boarding party and don’t want to risk lives if the ship will be scuttled anyways,” he said and gave a nod of support to Diana.

Chander had closed his eyes for a moment and in that moment much of the air in the room stirred his direction. "If I am familiarized enough with the scuttle system I can trigger it or hold it off with something as simple as a shielded private viewstream. Master Hargrave, I would rely on you and your team's expert opinion to determine if the clause of 'insufficient opportunity for recovery' is breached. Or orders from the Squadron Leader who should have sufficient access to me given my position as her ship's XO. Would that be enough to allow the leadership here to rest easier about counter boarding and lack of premature release of said scuttle option?"

"In the event that the Talos cannot be rescued and they are unable to trigger their own self-destruct mechanism, the ship must be prevented from falling into enemy hands at all costs." She glances to Anika and Sara. "If there is no other option, you are authorized to scuttle the Talos by any available means to prevent her capture."

- "Understood. I have a suitable role in mind for the Talos that should be suited to her configuration as as well as satisfy the requirement to keep her clear of combat."

She then turned to Oscar and Chander.

- "As for the scuttle system, since it is directly related to counterboarding actions, i agree with Master Hargrave's assessment that he is the better choice for making a judgment of that particular nature. Should Masters Quarnstrom and Gryphon be unreachable in whatever event threatens the Talos, the decision whether or not to scuttle will fall under his jurisdiction. XO Havail, you are to assist him in this scenario as his second, as per regulations requiring another officer to confirm the command to scuttle."

“Understood, Commander. I hope I don’t have to ever make such a call.”

Zazan raises an eyebrow, "Not to put too fine a point on it but....we do not yet know if capture by the Rudrangi iz preferred to a swift death.

Unless we have determined ze fates of ze personnel manning ze listening post on Ultima black. If I recall, we did not find any bodies..."

Diana turned to Zazan.

- "If you'd recall, the Rudragni rely heavily on cloning technology. It would not be unthinkable for prisoners and captives to be converted to biomass used in the creation of more loyal crew members. Morbid for Hegemony standards, certainly, but in a society that does not place any value on the individual, where every person may have hundreds of copies running around, such a process would be deemed far more efficient than the sequestration and slow indoctrination of enemy captives and with negligible risk of treason besides."

She turned to Valna.

- "I suppose further study of the ships taken during that mission might still tell us more in due time, but for now i would like to treat it as a cautious assumption to make."

Oscar looked at Chander, “We will have to strategize on how to take any POWs if we can. The more we understand about their caste system, the better the Hegemony will be. The initial reports that I have seen make me believe that officers and higher functionaries will be priority targets for capture due to the nature of the cloning and neural structures.”

In reply to Diana Hersson (msg # 114):

"Indoctrination? Torture iz what I had in mind Commander."

Diana shook her head.

- "Torture is notoriously ineffective for information gathering purposes. Aside from moral and legal implications, it is well documented fact that the tortured will be far more likely to tell the interrogator what they think they want to hear rather than the actual truth."

Although it seems like she is not bothered by the discussion of scuttling her ship at all Sara doesn't reply again until the topic shifts to a new subject less well covered.

”Depending on the exact nature of their cloning technology it is entirely possible that they can make full copies of prisoners as well as their own kind, or even partial copies with their memories intact.  In either case they could engage in far more creative and effective versions of interrogation where the target of the questioning does not have the ability to know what previous questions or answers were such that being misleading even unintentionally becomes much more difficult.”

Zazan digests the idea of being tortured across multiple clones of himself, shifts uncomfortably and pushes that idea away, to be more fully digested later. "Quite ze thought...

Speaking of capture and interrogation, are any of our....more gifted crew able to psychically interrogate any captives? Or are we in need of a snitch? Zazan asks, using slang common amongst soldiers for one with telepathic powers.

While he imagined that the enemy in question would more likely grow someone with the same face to be a spy rather than try to make a double agent, it would be rude to ignore one who addressed him directly, "Master Hargrave, are you warning me that I might be a priority for capture or informing me that their leadership is a priority for us to capture? If the former, I assure you I have fail-safes in place both from Prometheus II and my Shivari training there will be little to no DNA left of me should I be captured without instructions to let it happen for mission purposes." The finality of it ALMOST overrides the casualness with which he said it. A friend sharing a drink and talking about academy grades.

"In case of the latter, while I do know some Shivari that delight in death and bloodshed. They are not good choices for such a support mission as my current role. I'm a master of moderate level Telekinesis. I can hold more with my brain than my arms. If you can instruct me to identify them and get me within sight... Unless they are welded down I'll get them for you. If they are welded down... I'm sure I can still get most of them but it might take a minute," did his warmth just make him creepier?

Zazan gives an involuntary shiver hearing the young man speak.

Captain Mysh has seen things in his service and while his psyche has been hardened and tempered over the decades, he treated the more vicious behaviors he was capable as a separate beast sharing his mind. Something to keep an eye on and release with control.

The way Chander spoke echoed the words spoken by those who had given in to the beast within.

Oscar’s eyebrow cocked up as he heard the response from Chander. He made a face that was both disturbed and confused. “I was referring to the Rudragni’s hierarchy, not our own.”
This message was last edited by the player at 17:48, Thu 04 Nov 2021.

- "The psionics whose abilities you are referring to are Telepaths, Master Mysh. They are the only Discipline to my knowledge that can lift information out of the mind of even the unwilling, given time. It is part of the reason i had requested one earlier, though none are free to join us at this time."

"Perhaps it iz for ze best considering ze impact on crew morale if one was present. Knowing thoughts could be read, secrets uncovered, iz unnerving when encased by steel, glass and void.

Your abilities engender as much fear as respect amongst people who are typically....insulated from your kind." Zazan elaborates, glancing at Commander Hersson and Her XO.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:41, Thu 04 Nov 2021.

Chander knows confused and disturbed when he encountered them in others, though his indoctrination -or education whichever you prefer to call it- had brought him to think very little of his own well-being when it would impede the mission. He was forced to raise a hand as if to ward off their taking him the wrong way, "I know that it may seem callous to some to be willing to suffer greatly or even die without hesitation should the mission require it. Know that I do not take it lightly, but instead place more importance on what must be done for the greater good. I have low level mastery of Biopsionics and Precognition which might be able to help given the less than frequent predictably of forward actions like ours. I am a diligent agent. The things I can do, I can do faithfully so you don't need to worry about my suffering any burnout.

Do we have a reliable means to extrapolate who their leaders are? It seems like facial recognition would be a bad way to do it. Though... maybe all their captains wear the same face..."

“A good question. I suspect that we won’t find out for sure until we have more engagements with their ship crews. In fact, we could holotable this for months and speculate on what would be most effective, but if I’ve learned anything from the salvage game; you never can fix the problem till you actually see it. I suggest we conference and wargame as we travel. I would like to run some drills with the marines and com-bots when we have a chance in real space under the supervision of Master Havail. His expertise in  asymmetric fighting will be valuable in developing tactics versus an relatively unknown foe,” Oscar said. His tone and body language had shifted to being uncomfortable to the point of wanting to leave the ready room.

Zazan agrees, "Concurred, plenty of preparations need to be made before we shove off"

- "Actually, i would prefer it if we were to hold those tests on-site at Port Lacheur. I will need to test the war readiness of Jade Squadron upon my arrival anyway, so we may as well hold some war games and get both squadrons familiarized with one another in the process."

Diana turned to Chander.

- "Speaking of supervision, every ship in King Squadron is outfitted with a comm server to provide a heavily encrypted internal backup comms system in the event of counterboarding actions or technical difficulties to the existing comms system. Adding those to the monitoring network would allow for a far more detailed overview of ongoing wargames."

Chander smiled a friendly, honest kind of smile, "I think I can use that to provide some amount of force multiple anywhere I can have cameras pointed. I would have to recommend having me at a security monitoring position for such events. I should be able to provide some multiple to damage control efforts as well. After getting some training in such I might be the ideal assistant in many cases.

While I typically don't advertise the fact that I'm a psychic because I don't I want people to be too ill at ease," he said with a chuckle as though being Shivari didn't set people ill at ease enough on its own... But most people thought Shivari and Psychics were nearly the same bogeyman, "I have regrettably lost personnel because I was unwilling to use my abilities for fear that people would not be able to perform their jobs as well around me if they knew. During my time in the Vul Belt I cast aside that prideful aspersion after losing a third of my team and now make a point of notifying at least the relevant leadership of my general capabilities and do not hesitate to use them where they might help. I recommend letting people know this is a wonderfully auspicious campaign ahead of us."

"The relevant information for the sector, expected shipping routes and security codes will be uploaded to your ship computer cores, along with our estimation of enemy forces in the area."

"Are there any questions before you are dismissed?"

Zazan shakes his head, "No Ma'am"

Diana shook her head briefly as well.

- "None here either, ma'm."

There were still a few things she wanted to discuss, but those were on the Squadron and ship levels. At best it would be something concerning the information that the Visarch had already said would be uploaded to their ships, but without access to said information where they were now there was no purpose in stalling the end of the briefing unnecessarily.