keith keith, the liger man (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
secondnature) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
futurology2017-09-16 11:28 am
secondnature) wrote in futurology2017-09-16 11:28 am
text | un: redlion
[This message shows up about an hour after their arrival in the Mothership. Keith has had it made clear to him that if he doesn't handle this appropriately, then some of the people who have volunteered will take care of it themselves. If there's any better reason to step up (to be the leader his team back home believes he can be), this is it. It's text because they can't risk being overheard.]
Hey. Some of you don't know what the taraxa are, or what that has to do with our mission. I thought I'd begin there, and then make it clear what we're doing here with that.
A year ago, we had a mission on Perdition's Rest. That's when our team first learned about Zymandis and their goals. They utilize taraxa agents. These agents are slugs that take over someone's mind against their will. The person loses themselves, but ALASTAIR has developed a means to get most of them back. The problem is that they're a part of a hive mind led by the Mother. They can communicate with each other so long as she's active.
That should make our goal here clear.
1. We need to identify the location of the Mother and take her out. This is a necessary casualty to save as many of the hosts' lives as we can.
2. We need to identify taraxa agents. Kal and Rhys both have means to scan for taraxa-affected brains. Work with them if you need someone confirmed. Once they're confirmed and the Mother is down, we put them to sleep until we can rift them back to Oska. We'll need to find a safe place to gather the bodies.
3. Once the Mother is identified, we take her out, and then we head for the rest of the taraxa agents.
We need to work quickly.
And I KNOW some of you will think we're better off killing the hosts than risking Oska, but that's stupid. They never asked for this! Plus, we put down a Zymandis force before. We'll do it again. So don't even try it. I already remember all that from last year. Trust me. I've heard it all before.
So, let's do this the right way this time.
[It wouldn't be Keith without the little bit of abrasiveness at the end.]
Hey. Some of you don't know what the taraxa are, or what that has to do with our mission. I thought I'd begin there, and then make it clear what we're doing here with that.
A year ago, we had a mission on Perdition's Rest. That's when our team first learned about Zymandis and their goals. They utilize taraxa agents. These agents are slugs that take over someone's mind against their will. The person loses themselves, but ALASTAIR has developed a means to get most of them back. The problem is that they're a part of a hive mind led by the Mother. They can communicate with each other so long as she's active.
That should make our goal here clear.
1. We need to identify the location of the Mother and take her out. This is a necessary casualty to save as many of the hosts' lives as we can.
2. We need to identify taraxa agents. Kal and Rhys both have means to scan for taraxa-affected brains. Work with them if you need someone confirmed. Once they're confirmed and the Mother is down, we put them to sleep until we can rift them back to Oska. We'll need to find a safe place to gather the bodies.
3. Once the Mother is identified, we take her out, and then we head for the rest of the taraxa agents.
We need to work quickly.
And I KNOW some of you will think we're better off killing the hosts than risking Oska, but that's stupid. They never asked for this! Plus, we put down a Zymandis force before. We'll do it again. So don't even try it. I already remember all that from last year. Trust me. I've heard it all before.
So, let's do this the right way this time.
[It wouldn't be Keith without the little bit of abrasiveness at the end.]
no subject
I didn't think to grab someone.
[Whoops.]
no subject
What do we know about the nature of the Mother's connection to the hive?
no subject
[After a beat, this arrives in the Doctor's inbox.]
Hey. By the way. You wouldn't happen to be the Doctor Doctor guy, would you?
[This is Loki's fault.]
no subject
Hive minds are vulnerable in a number of ways. I've never encountered this particular species before, but I've dealt with my share of psychically-linked gestalt consciousnesses before.
[ . . . . but he stops there, pauses . . . . ]
The Doctor. What did Loki tell you?
no subject
[It leads to him having some sympathy for Lloyd, who's a taraxa, but not, say, these taraxa, with their forcible control and stuff.]
Loki just told me that you'd be working on the Timeline.Exe side of things. Is that true?
no subject
I'll work on more than one side of things.
A psychic link can be disrupted, preventing the hive from communicating properly. Without harming them. It may be possible with the taxara, but I would need to be close to see.
no subject
[Ideally. Ah, if Keith only knew that this would be hopeless in about eleven hours ...]
But since you're working with us already, that should be fine.
I'm going to ask Lloyd if the Mother can be sedated to stop the connection. He's a taraxa, too, but he isn't bad. His body is synthetic. Created by the cats. They wanted him to be a cat, too. It's a whole thing. But he'll make it so we can skip some guesswork.