Making plans and taking names.

[vorenado]

This is Gale of the Embryon Tribe. I would like to pose a proposition to the people of Liminal Space.

If one does not already exist, I suggest we should keep a log of the places we go and the people we have been, as well as any interactions we have with others while infiltrating and investigating.

It does not have to be highly detailed, but enough to keep from getting in each other's way in subsequent jaunts. A situation had arisen where I had been unable to extrapolate a proper plan of action due to this lack of knowledge, and the result caused undue distress to an infiltrator.

I wish to prevent this problem from happening in the future.

Comments

[leftbehindagain]

I've been working on information pooling, with help from some of the others. As often lately as where we've been has turned out to be where at least some of us are going, it's getting necessary, but it's a work in progress. [Very slow progress, when half the group thinks they're someone else at any given moment.]

Trying to keep track of everyone's overlays and who said what to whom... is a much taller order. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try, but you'd really have your work cut out for you.

[vorenado]

It does not have to be so detailed as to keep a record of everyone's conversations. I was thinking more along the lines of who you were, and who you had interacted with as best memory allows, and any pertinent information one may deem necessary to share. Such as why one overlay would believe another to have been dead for years.

The more information we can gather, the more smoothly these Jaunts will become, especially if we are sent back to an already visited location.

[leftbehindagain]

Oh, that. To be fair, I don't think anyone would have had a way of guessing that place was connected to Questing Country, or how long it'd been, without getting into a conversation about it, and you're not going to know what one overlay says to another from the Traveler behind it until either the jaunt's over or they get killed and revived.

Questing Country was a dream space. Humans, Gorgons and Hecatites all have access to it, and the latter two species can live for two or three centuries on average, where humans are lucky to get one. I'm pretty sure Elphaba-san had the same overlay she did then, and she was a lot older this time around, so probably any humans anyone would remember from Questing Country are long dead. An overlay of the same person would still have an uncanny resemblance to the first, I'd think.

[vorenado]

If the same species exists in both locations it should have, at least, given some pause. I agree that time passing would be difficult, if not impossible to judge. This had been my second jaunt, yet knew nothing about these species despite there being those here who'd met them before. This is where a reference would be of use, especially for newer investigators. I would have thought to tread with more caution than I had.

[leftbehindagain]

I only just got the info-pooling thing going before the last jaunt. There hasn't been time to gather much, and if I'd been investigating I would've been happy to mention the chance. [Basically, there wouldn't have been much available either way.]

I also don't know how often people revisit the same overlay. There's clearly enough of a chance that your idea has merit, but it's still going to be a tall order.

[vorenado]

The only difficulty I can foresee is how to safely share the information. Not everyone is equipped with digital technology, and should a situation again arise where overlays and natives from the jaunt are brought to liminal space, having an excess of hard copies they could stumble upon would prove... hazardous.

[leftbehindagain]

Actually, that's the easier part. Nothing's permanent if it's not in someone's created room, and created rooms only pop up when someone's investigating and available to set it up. They could make one without a hard copy in it. Interface is a possibility, but not everyone has it. [Then again, it's one of the easiest skills to pass around, from what Naoki knows.]

The trick is getting people to talk about their overlays in the first place, especially if they found one traumatic or embarrassing for some reason.

[vorenado]

Interface may not be ideal, considering the information will require frequent updates. Organizing something like that without a mantra terminal would be difficult.

Again, we only need basic information. Names, interactions and interpersonal relationships. Private or uncomfortable information need not be divulged.

[leftbehindagain]

Same reason relying on the network to hold the information won't work, though that has the added complication of even those of us who can search it not wanting to dig that far back.

[He really needs to float the idea of a second Tarot 101 session by Kanji.]

A what terminal?

Unfortunately, there are probably people who won't even want to talk about that. It depends on how private of people you're talking to. Sill not saying it's not worth a try, but you've got your work cut out for you.

[vorenado]

A Karma Terminal. It is how the people of my world attained knowledge and skills. It works similarly to Interface. One would connect to the mainframe and download the needed information. It can also store information we have recorded. It would be an ideal way to collect and share this information on an individual basis.

[leftbehindagain]

Huh. If we all had that kind of connection ability, and if we could keep one around on a permanent basis, it would be handy. [But there are obvious problems with that, and one of them is the same problem they have with keeping other hard copies around.]

[vorenado]

Perhaps with some effort we can discover away to make connectivity to a Karma Terminal a viable option to everyone. I personally do not know a great deal about such things. In the Junkyard we could only activate the terminals with a tag ring, then we would plug directly into it.

[leftbehindagain]

Possibly, but we'd still run into the problem of where to put it. Created rooms are only available when the person who makes them isn't infiltrating, and anything out in Liminal Space is liable to disappear when it changes.

Either way, I'd have to leave the inner workings of it to someone else.

[vorenado]

Do you know if it is possible for a room or object to be maintained by more than one person. The more involved than there would be more of a chance that someone would remain themselves when a jaunt begins.

[leftbehindagain]

You'd have to ask someone who knows more about created spaces than I do. But that also opens you up to the possibility that one of the people behind the room is infiltrating and the other's on another thing entirely. There's no perfect solution to sharing information.

[vorenado]

Perhaps not. Though only having the information available between jaunts is also a viable option, considering natives and infiltrators alike had found their way into liminal space this past jaunt.

[leftbehindagain]

That's two in a row, now. Granted, the Illuminants forced their way in and I think this was just... a natural extension of the tachyons, or something.

[vorenado]

Perhaps, but I would rather err on the side of caution and assume it was a deliberate occurrence, given there is already precedent for it.