[LP CYOA] Epic

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

B - Using it too often could be harmful to us. We still don't know enough about it.

C - If we reveal ourselves, they might want to take us away for study, at worst...or monitor us more closely, at best. If we tell them about the creatures, they'll probably figure out that we have powers or why else would the creatures find interest in us? So we'd seem even more untrustworthy to them. So A & B are both out. With C they may be suspicious, but they won't know for sure.

Well, better to make allies than enemies. B

A - She's good. Let's see if we can get her to join the club. Keep your enemies closer and all that.

 

[Stygian Lurker]

BAC

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

BAC

Guys, 2A is a poor option. Put yourselves in the position of the ISC:
1. If some conspiracy nut at a highschool knows about the creatures, chances are you know a helluva lot more about them - including their aim to find ppl like our bro here.
2. Our bro Senya says: Hey, these strange creatures are attacking me! Don't know why... *whistles*

You immediately recognize what he is and that if he was able to defeat one, he must have powers and is hiding them. You now know you can't trust him and that he has powers.

If we're going to lie, we need to go all out. Same applies if we're going to tell the truth.

 

[ScubaV]

B - Konsensus here, but it fits with our character so far.
A - Our relationship with the ISC isn't exactly an equal one. They hold a lot of power over us while we hold very little over them. I fail to see the benefit in gift-wrapping them more leverage. Remember, pragmatism (hold onto some trump) over idealism (trust ISC). On the other hand, I don't think they'll believe C and with A we might be able to negotiate for better security systems and a place to analyze the specimens we took.
B - The hardest choice for me, but I don't think we want to be discussing sensitive matters in public, even if it is marginally safer. Let's see what the uncle has to say, and maybe we can recruit Erika for our club at the same time.

 

[Smashing Axe]

Guys, 2A is a poor option. Put yourselves in the position of the ISC:
1. If some conspiracy nut at a highschool knows about the creatures, chances are you know a helluva lot more about them - including their aim to find ppl like our bro here.
2. Our bro Senya says: Hey, these strange creatures are attacking me! Don't know why... *whistles*

You immediately recognize what he is and that if he was able to defeat one, he must have powers and is hiding them. You now know you can't trust him and that he has powers.

If we're going to lie, we need to go all out. Same applies if we're going to tell the truth.

Except, you know, we could just tell the truth and leave out our powers entirely without it being too suspicious. Say we saw one whilst gallivanting about the area at night, and you think it followed you home. The next night they launched an attack. It's easy enough to bypass, we don't need to elaborate on any suspected motivations.

Besides, if they do work out that the monsters are after us for a better reason than being a genius ISC employee hacker true AI creator 16 year old, we can claim ignorance to our origin.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

True, we could claim ignorance, but ignorance to our powers doesn't negate their existence. If someone was ignorant to the fact they could threaten/kill people with alien superpowers, wouldn't you still want to watch them VERY closely? (Or yank them out of school to study them?)

 

[Tigranes]

I'm sure they know exactly what we are and they know what happened, given that they're probably monitoring everything we do at home. Has to be BBB for now, though 3A is also an interesting possibility. Not to deter Erika, who seems crazy enough to attack us in the middle of school anyway, but re. Kyrie and other possible characters...

 

[TOME]

All the electronic gear shut down before we were attacked so they probably won't know anything yet.

What are they going to do if we lie to them and they already know about us? Nothing. They need us to analyze the mech plans they gave us. They are not going to change their mind just because we lied. But what if they don't know about us? Then they might think there is more profit to be made by analyzing us.

 

[Baltika9]

Well guys, since we're most likely going to end up as a scientist for the next ten years, allow me to introduce you to the story of Rostislav Alekseev, the guy who invented and designed Soviet ekranoplans (water-travelling aircraft, immense speeds for that time and extremely useful for amphibious assaults): started out young, got noticed and recruited by the Party to do his magic. And all his genius and passions did not help him when Brezhnev replaced Khrushcev and he fell out of favor. His projects were deemed unnecessary and wasteful, he was demoted in his own division and eventually kicked from office. Died soon after.

Moral of the story? We're currently in a corporate workspace, even worse, we're at the bottom of corporate politics. Brilliance without actual connections and "friends" will only take us so far and the ISC are the people on whose dime we're living, eating and sleeping. I.e, they have complete and absolute control over what happens to us, especially considering that we committed crimes against them. True, they won't know exactly what happened right away, but soon enough they will be able to piece it together: the monsters and their deaths will raise questions and sooner or later they will find out the truth. Edit: also, considering that meeting the princess' challenge just became even more difficult that it was before, we mus capitalize here. (Although, treave, since this is pretty much my first time with "weeaboo," can you at least hint if I'm overreaching here?)

Right now we have no way to physically resist them should they decide to capture and study us (ahem, ) and we don't have all that many places we can run off to. So, we share what we know, everything, and have our corporate overlords either pimp the fuck out of our special abilities or make our house a fortress.

 

[ScubaV]

All the electronic gear shut down before we were attacked so they probably won't know anything yet.

What are they going to do if we lie to them and they already know about us? Nothing. They need us to analyze the mech plans they gave us. They are not going to change their mind just because we lied. But what if they don't know about us? Then they might think there is more profit to be made by analyzing us.

TOME has a good point. Everything was on emergency power. We saw the creature through the cameras, but the security systems were inactive. A test by ISC? Maybe. Or it could mean that the stored data was not able to transmit either. Our computer did shut off after all. With some quick action we may be able to wipe the video before they find out.

I think 2B is the worst possible choice of the three. Why lay all our cards on the table for no reason? It doesn't even fit with the pragmatic nature of our questionnaire. I could be convinced to go 2C even if you guys think we have a reasonable chance of totally bullshitting an explanation.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Look, even if you guys don't want to listen to me on 2, at least give Erika a chance at the club with 3A. She'd definitely win us a match and she might have a harder time killing us if we warm her up to us a little.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Flopping to BBA. Not going to half do this.

edit:

B. I reveal both the creatures and my powers to the ISC. I am contracted to them and so far they have pretty much lived up to their end of the bargain. I will need allies, and the ISC can be reliable ones.

 

[Bloodshifter]

1 thing Lambshop CAN can is not a promise or a guranteed it simply means a possibility of occuring.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Very true. I just think it's more likely to occur if we don't tell them an obvious lie.
edit: how else did we kill it if not with our powers? Don't you think they'll notice that it had the life sucked out of it by tentacles? (If we give them the body. If not, would they not be suspicious when we don't turn it over to them?)

Hmm. Fair enough, treave.
Maybe it's not so obvious then. I'll have to think about this some, but they may still have a hard time believing that the "10 seconds boy" defended himself against them...

 

[treave]

There's only pieces left, the rest rotted into slime and that's not because of your powers.

edit: Oh, I suppose if you guys are concerned about secrecy it's a good thing you didn't pick A and start punching holes in the house. That'd have been a bit harder to explain.

 

[treave]

Regarding choice 2:

A will have Senya say he defeated one by crushing that worm in its head. It's not an impossible task. He won't mention the second creature. If they have links to Erika they might already know he is different, if not he's not going to make things easier for them.

C will have him claim some masked robbers broke into his house.

 

[Baltika9]

If they have links to Erika they might already know he is different, if not he's not going to make things easier for them.

Considering that the Empire has four-thousand year old Spooks, that's not entirely impossible.
In before the bookstore turns into this

C will have him claim some masked robbers broke into his house.

And considering that they most likely have the whole campus wired, that's not going to work out too well.

 

[treave]

It's an academic town, not a campus. There's a slight difference, and don't forget the creatures appear to jam electronics and electricity to some extent, which means that they won't be able to confirm his story instantly. Just because there are creatures roaming around doesn't mean there can't be robbers.

 

[Baltika9]

It's an academic town, not a campus. There's a slight difference, and don't forget the creatures appear to jam electronics, which means that they won't be able to confirm his story instantly.

Then our story sounds even more absurd: ordinary Bill Bandit and his crew went through all that trouble and had enough expertise to jam all the electronics in their way, only to rob our house. At best, they will see through our bullshit, at worst they'll assume it's a foreign intelligence agency (since they would be the only ones with a vested interest in robbing specifically our house and the guys with the skill set required to do what they did), which will bring about all sorts of other trouble. Not to mention "ten seconds boy" taking on anyone stronger than a kindergardener is suspicious.

 

[treave]

First, you assume they know about the creatures and their capabilities.

Second, well, Senya's saying it's masked robbers. It could be spies, but would spies tell Senya they are spies, or would they disguise themselves as robbers to ransack his house? How would he know? He's just a weaker than usual student, frightened out of his mind by the incursion. Given that he's recently received stolen top secret blueprints, he can leave it up to the ISC to fill in the blanks by themselves.

Third, consider the arrangement they have. If the ISC are as powerful and brutal as you think, they could just squirrel Senya off somewhere forever and force him to work for them, instead of giving him a comfortable contract. That they haven't done so means that they either can't, or are not willing to.

They might get suspicious, but without further evidence why would they act rashly? What benefit would they gain by turning against Senya right now if they suspect him of lying to them?

If they already know about monsters, well, they probably know about superpowers too. They can wait and see what happens and just tighten their monitoring.

If they don't know, they'll be too confused about what's going on anyway and chasing red herrings.

edit: On the flip side, why would Senya confess?

First, as a sign of good faith. If he trusts them, they will trust him in return. Not as an organization, but the individual employees that he has contact with. The ISC may be a massive, inscrutable corporation, but it is still staffed by people. People can be swayed or charmed or persuaded. Gaining the trust of the ISC people that he works with will make it easier to get them on his side should he have to break with the ISC one day.

Second, well, obviously they have enormous resources. This will help him get a grasp on his powers much faster than if he were to work on it by himself.

 

[Baltika9]

First, you assume they know about the creatures and their capabilities.

Not this time, actually. What I meant was that security cameras going offline to conveniently mask the robbers is in and of itself suspicious. And how are we going to explain the missing corpses, or did the robbers "run away?" If so, why?
And I'm not saying they'll turn on us, I'm saying that they will find the story at least a teeny bit suspicious and tighten their monitoring, following which we will be discovered and outed for a liar, which will damage relations.

Then again, we did pick the Path of Sekhenun (allegory, not stating anything about our heritage yet, although I do have suspicions in many directions), so we may be able to bullshit our way out of this.
Decisions, decisions.

 

[treave]

Yes, discovering Senya's lie is only a matter of time, but it might mean little in the long run if he shows that he is indispensable to them... or if he gets in good with the heir of the corporation.

What missing corpses? All you have is some rotting meat. It's not like Senya's going to say he killed the robbers. They broke in, he hid, and then they went off. That's all he's going to say. He's not going to offer an explanation for the jamming effect, or the inconsistencies. Let them figure it out themselves.

 

[Baltika9]

Ah, so you carefully guided me to the crux of the matter: do they or do they not believe Senya to be an indispensable resource at this moment? On the one hand, we pissed off pwincess and got knocked down to the lowest possible class. On the other, we are the guy they recruited to work with their mechs and if a sixteen year old petty thief/hacker is the best they found then there are not many specialists around. Besides, I'm sure they, or at least their spooks/the guvment, have at least some knowledge of these monsters (like someone else said, if a club president knows it, so do the authorities; unless we're following weeaboo logic on this one, which is not something I can account for) and of the origins of these powers.
So, yeah, It's either complete honesty or half-truth. And the rotting meat raises even more questions, considering we moved in yesterday.

 

[treave]

You could just dispose of it in the garbage. Without the ISC's support it'd be hard to get the equipment to analyze it anyway.

Also, it's entirely possible for the faction of the ISC you are in contact with to be in the dark about the 'supernatural' world. You don't actually think such a big corporation is some top-down monolithic organization where everyone knows what everyone else knows, do you? Though of course it won't stop them from finding out sooner or later, even if they don't know what's going on right now.

edit: There are plenty of specialists around, but he's better at perceiving patterns and drawing a conclusion. Certainly he's not irreplaceable, but just like with chess, you don't throw away your Queen for no good reason even if you can have a rook and a bishop do the job.

 

[Baltika9]

edit: There are plenty of specialists around, but he's better at perceiving patterns and drawing a conclusion. Certainly he's not irreplaceable, but just like with chess, you don't throw away your Queen for no good reason even if you can have a rook and a bishop do the job.

Stands to reason, then, that announcing our improved analytic skills will only increase our value to them. It's like buying a bag of potatoes: you have the same price but increased amount of what you're after.

Of course, I'm betting that telling this will shrink our gilded cage down even further. And evading them will perhaps grant us more interesting opportunities down the road. Although becoming a Watcher down the road doesn't sound too bad.