⇨ POLARIS 3.0

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 115
Where: Polaris
What: On the morning of day 115, a couple hours before the technicians would come to pick up the test subjects, the escape plan will officially come into effect. If your character has been left out of the loop up till this point, feel free that someone hastily explains the plan during the initial phase! The meat of everything else will be played out via megathreads and any private toplevels people want to make.
Warnings: Probably violence.

PEER REVIEW↴ The plan starts with getting everyone out of their cells. Childermass is going to be using his Gilded Mark to enhance his shadow movement abilities, unabling him to teleport himself and other people out of containment. If your character has other ways of escaping they are free to pursue that, but on a base level, it can be assumed that everyone gets out thanks to Childermass. (Thanks Childermass!) Once everyone has been removed from their cells by some means or another, they will be forced to split into teams as swiftly as possible, as the moment people start breaking out, negative attention from the staff will start building. The area is poorly guarded at first, but as people become aware of the breakout, more will arrive. Gild, speaking on behalf of her inside plant, will say that those that 1) want to get their stuff back, 2) want to find Ignatius, should get the assistance of their allied Deltas to access sector A5. From there, they will have to access Polaris's storage in A3, a neighbouring sector, and find access to C2, the station where Ignatius is being held. They should expect to be met with armed resistance, but with any luck allies will be there to assist them. In general, characters will be most effective if they back one of these major objectives: ► TEAM LOOT: This team is trying to get back the items and pets that were confiscated when the group was brought into Polaris. Their objective, according to their allies on the inside, is to get to A5, and then make their way to A3. The important thing is being able to locate their stuff among a sea of other items, and to make it through security in order to reclaim it. Gild's plant has said that they will assist with this. After getting these items, Team Loot may wish to merge with Team Rescue. ► TEAM RESCUE: This team's primary focus is to get to A5 and then make their way to C2. If desired, they may wait for or join with Team Loot, or they may strike out ahead in order to take advantage of the element of surprise. The key factors are obtaining a way to access C2, as well as being prepared for armed conflict with the technicians guarding it, as well as possibly the Mother of Invention herself. Though, the ideal is that Gild will be distracting here at that time. ► TEAM DISTRACTION: This team can do their thing wherever they please, as their main intent is to sew general discord and distract the staff from the teams doing more important things. They should be prepared for armed resistance, but what tactics they pursue beyond that point are highly variable. ► TEAM FORTRESS: This team is attempting to set up a protective base of operations in the original sector in order to survive the conflict and protect their noncombatant comrades. How they accomplish this is also highly variable. Other objectives may exist, of course, and can be made with their own separate top levels. Chunks of these megathreads will have to be played out in summary form, so when characters are simply trying to get from place to place and specifics aren't necessary, feel free to stick to that format. Assume that everyone is already out of their cells for the purpose of the megathreads. Here is a shitty map of how the sectors connect, from a side view of the central Polaris hub.

Comments

[kingsroads]

Strange knew that Childermass damaged his soul. And he knew that whatever it was coincidentally happened the night of Ignatius exploding the ship. But he hadn't connected the dots that the root of all this was Ignatius taking Childermass's power to begin with. That bastard. That mad, wonderful bastard.

"So what you're telling me is that if I want results, I shouldn't listen to your plans and I should do whatever the hell I want." There's a light, teasing smile on Strange's face as he says this. He knows that's not the right thing to take from this, but if Lambert's going to laugh at him, he's going to give him shit in return.

"I can understand why he did it," Strange admits. "We can barely do anything on our own to begin with—at least giving Ignatius his power was doing something and getting some sort of result."

idk why i said desk when they're at the pool... i guess he's sitting on a bench or someshit

[whattaprick]

Lambert shakes his head.

"I don't think he knew what would happen." It's nothing they've actually discussed, how much he remembers or knows now. The reasons for that make the amusement fade from Lambert's face quickly.

"Guess the point is, Ignatius wasn't ever really alone." He picks up his other sword to begin the process of cleaning it up all over again, though it doesn't really need it. "When his own power wasn't enough to break himself out, he gave it to the people he promised to protect instead. Paid off for him, though I'm sure he'd be happier if Creation hadn't gotten involved."

[kingsroads]

"Creation is an idiot," Strange scoffs. Because it is. It made the wrong people Guardians and now it horribly mutilated Ignatius. As far as Strange is concerned, that primordial force has straight up passed the point of no return.

"If I had more time or more power, I could have dispelled that Winter magic myself. I could see what it was doing. I just needed more power to actually stop it."

Strange flexes his hand as he looks down at it. Maybe that's his problem. If he grows his magic and gets more power, maybe he could stop things like this from happening.

[whattaprick]

“I don’t think even spending a full decade with your tongue down his throat would have been enough to dispell that,” Lambert says sincerely. Hopefully that saves Ignatius from a fate of Strange even trying.

“He would have been fine if he hadn’t gone out to see Rita, but he wouldn’t run.” Lambert sounds like he half-admires Ignatius for that, or is half-exasperated by it. “But he figured he could use Rita being his faeblood now to take her back from the Mother. He was right, but you saw how that turned out.”

[kingsroads]

"You never know," Strange points out. As he continues talking, he blushes a little. It's kind of hilarious how the more they talk about Ignatius, the more Strange slips into an 'awkward high schooler with a crush' sort of attitude. "I've only spent five or so seconds with my tongue down his throat. We'd need to at least try dispelling for a little bit longer than that before making any solid judgements."

Where Lambert sounds like he half-admires, Strange just completely admires Ignatius for his actions. As such, he's laying the blame on someone else. "Rita shouldn't have even been there in the first place," Strange sighs, trying to push past the little bit of blush that's crept up on his face as he talks about kissing. "As soon as we saw that Okumura was compromised, we should have tied up the rest of the Deltas and neutralized their magic then and there."

But hindsight is 20/20 and they can talk about what they should have done until the cows come home.

[whattaprick]

“Well, now Winter’s magic isn’t ever going to hurt him like that again, so you probably lost your chance.” Of course he’s already tried to kiss it away.

But Lambert’s noticed something else.

“You ever even notice how you only say we’ when it’s about something that’s already gone wrong, and it’s ‘I’ whenever you think you could have done better?” Lambert asks skeptically. “Why didn’t you try dunking Rita into a reflection or something? Not like you had any problem doing that to me”

[kingsroads]

"I wanted to melt her chip," Strange admits. "But as soon as I knocked her over, the Mother of Invention tapped into her magic and tried to drown me. At that moment, Rita had more power than me. If you or someone else had actually helped me fight her, we could have taken her down before she reached Ignatius."

But nobody did. Because Herbert's useless, Rin was focused on his brother, and Lambert...well, Strange still doesn't know why Lambert was there in the first place. Thank God Yuya was at least trying.

"So yes, that's 'we', because in that situation, I did the best I could. It's other people who decided to stick around and not do anything." He very pointedly gives Lambert a look as he says that. "What the hell even was your plan? Why were you there?"

[whattaprick]

“I just got back from getting Steven’s gem. I wasn’t there when it started, I wasn’t sure what was going on or who to ask,” Lambert explains. “So I just grabbed Childermass and told him to get me to Ignatius so we could get him somewhere else. Couldn’t exactly move on his own, so whatever was going on, moving him away from him was a good idea.

And then he pauses.

“You know the chip’s in her head, right? You were really going to melt Rita’s brain?”

[kingsroads]

"We—I didn't have many options," Strange points out. "If we failed in the attack or the Mother of Invention remained alive, those chips would have to be destroyed anyway. Besides, the chip itself isn't directly in her head. There's that casing where the chips can be swapped out."

Chip holder? Chip drive? Strange doesn't know the term, but he knows that's a thing thanks to Rita's handy infodump about the ports in the Deltas' heads.

"That should provide some protection. It would have hurt, but I wouldn't have killed her." Says one person who knows nothing about technology to another person who knows nothing about technology.

[whattaprick]

That sounds incredibly fake to Lambert, whose troubled expression says as much.

“What if you did worse than kill her?”

[kingsroads]

"She's got an egg. Kill her, get one of you to open the pocket dimension, let her soul rest until she revives and hope that the damage doesn't transfer over." This is all Strange trying to justify his actions and trying to justify a decision made in the heat of battle (which didn't even happen, get off his case Lambert!). He's returned to not looking at Lambert as he continues talking, with a forced neutral expression on his face and a forced matter of fact tone in his voice.

"I can't see how you would have any problems with that. That's what you wanted me to do to you in the Hunt."

[whattaprick]

“Maybe,” Lambert sighs, running cloth along metal. “I’ve thought about if that’s an easier way to fix iron damage than waiting to heal it out. But I don’t know if that resurrection magic would fix a mind. It still brings people back with scars.”

Does brain damage count as scarring? He doesn’t know. Maybe it’s moot. Or maybe it’ll be more immediately relevant again than they can even imagine, so maybe they should know.

“You’re right. I shouldn’t have a problem with it, but I do. Maybe because it is how I’d think, which is usually a bad idea.”

[kingsroads]

Strange can't help but laugh at that. It's a short, bitter laugh as he looks over at Lambert with an expression that's pure 'you've got to be kidding me.' A bad idea? Is this Lambert's dumb lack of self-esteem creeping up again? He's not going to put up with Lambert martyring himself when the answer's pretty obvious in Strange's mind.

"No, it's how I'd think. I'm the one who's plan in the Athenaeum revolved entirely around dying. It's better to die than to kill the ones you care about."

That glamour is still annoying the hell out of him so instantly after he says that, Strange starts muttering his spellbreaking incantation again.

[whattaprick]

Look, Strange, you don’t have a monopoly on dumb self-sacrifice and irrational worry about hurting the people you care about in this Carnival, okay?

More importantly though, Strange still won’t knock off the dispelling bullshit, so he’ll find the end of an invisible bony tail slapping him smartly on whichever body part is nearest.

“I told you to stop that.”

[kingsroads]

The bony tail hits him on his side. Strange winces, but gives Lambert a look like he's a goddamn idiot in return.

"You're hiding something. You can either tell me what it is, show me what it is, or I can break the magic and make you show me yourself."

[whattaprick]

“I’m not hiding anything you haven’t already seen,” Lambert answers. Surely Strange hasn’t forgotten their brawling (if you could call it that)? Then again, eying Lambert up and trying to kill him aren’t necessarily the same things. Given what a stubborn ass Strange can be, Lambert casts about desperately for a way to make him understand.

“I’ve had enough of people poking and looking at me without giving me a choice. Haven’t you?”

[kingsroads]

Considering that Strange spent most of their fight alternating between trying to kill Lambert while also at the same time trying to stop himself from killing Lambert, he's only got a vague recollection of how he changed. Is it his horns? Is he being self-conscious about those? That's stupid.

"You can't hide behind your illusions forever. And I'm giving you a choice. What will it be?"

Granted, Lambert wasn't expecting the choice to be 'am I going to wrangle out what you're so self-conscious about in the easy way or the hard way' but it's still technically a choice.

[whattaprick]

“What choice?” Lambert asks, raising his voice. “You’re not even listening! I want you to leave it alone! Or is this just another thing only the great magician Jonathan Strange, yet again, knows what’s best for?”

There’s something familiar about how this argument feels, less like a fight with a friend, more like talking with someone he doesn’t know, with an agenda and motives so totally divorced from his own. Something that stirs at the back of his mind as a half-formed thought, and makes its way past his lips before he can even think about taking it back.

“You’re acting like we’re back in Portland. Do you care, or do you just care about being right?”

[kingsroads]

"I care about you!" Strange snarls, as he gets to his feet. He has a sneaky suspicion this conversation might be ending soon. And even if not? That Portland comment stings and hurts in a way that Strange doesn't want to acknowledge.

"You've never been self-conscious about anything before and yet here you are, hiding behind some illusion! How the hell can I help you if I don't even know what your problem is to begin with?"

[whattaprick]

Frustrated, Lambert rakes his hand through his hair, trying to keep his temper. Strange doesn’t make that easy. It’s too tempting to want to hit back as hard as fast as he can at all the spots he knows will hurt, dig that wound open deeper if it’ll stop Strange picking at his.

“You just said,” he says, “That you think it’s better to die than kill the people you care about. If you’re willing to die for someone, is it that much harder to listen to them?” It doesn’t work that easily, he knows that. Lambert is also firmly in the ‘I’d rather die than talk about feelings’ camp, thanks. But it feels a bit like they’re having two conversations: the one they’re having right now and the one they aren’t, the one that’s at the heart of why the fuck Strange thinks ripping an illusion off Lambert is an acceptable gesture of care.

“You never asked me if I needed help. How I wanted help. You just decided there was a problem because I’m doing something differently and you needed to fix it, right now.” Like sure, there definitely is a problem, this just isn’t how Lambert wants to deal with it.

“Is that how you want people to help you? Just ... decide there’s a problem and do what they want even when you say no?” Hopefully not, because that’s kind of absurd and if that’s how Lambert is supposed to treat Strange he has no goddamn clue. “You can’t tell me you don’t have things you want to work through on your own. Not after all we’ve seen.”

[kingsroads]

Strange stands still, clenching his fists as his claws dig into his hands. It doesn't work that easily, especially considering that both parties involved are allergic to sitting down and talking things out. Why do that when you can get drunk or focus on a different problem that needs to be fixed instead?

"If I ask you what your problem is, will you even tell me?"

Because Strange is worried that the answer's going to be 'no.' Though with Lambert's last statement, he quickly adds in, "And what do you mean by 'not after all we've seen'?"

[whattaprick]

This is, Lambert thinks probably, his karmic punishment m for badgering Childermass about all his secrets all the time: being pestered by an even more persistent asshole.

“The problem, which I do not need you in any way, shape, or form to attempt to fix, is that I have just had my skeleton stripped out for a pile of metal and circuits and I don’t care to be reminded of it any time I look at myself! I absolutely don’t want to deal with anyone else reacting to it until we are off this fucking station, not floating over Winter territory or Wyld Lands where any fae could come along, and I have a fucking cigarette!”

With that brief explosion over, the Gamma’s voice cracking with strain, Lambert takes a breath and glares. Is Strange just being an obtuse moron?

“And I mean everything. The miracles, everywhere the Carnival’s been, everything that’s happened to us — are you really the same person you’ve always been? Aren’t there things that have made you want to change? And I don’t just mean getting stronger, or better. Just...” he trails off, and his shoulders slump, tired.

“I feel like I used to know you, but I don’t know what’s going on in your head anymore. Or if you want me to.” The price of a friendship at least mostly built on mutual bullshit, he supposes.

[kingsroads]

"I don't want you to know because I should be able to take care of my problems myself!" Strange starts. "I should..." and he trails off. Because if there's one thing that's obvious from this conversation, it's that he really can't take care of his problems himself, not if Lambert's calling him out on this.

"I should be able to do things like protect Ignatius or stop the Rose Queen's curse from taking Childermass. But I can't. And I hate it." He doesn't want to meet Lambert's eyes as he talks, not if he insists on keeping up this glamour.

"And we both know I'm not the same person I've always been. The Jonathan Strange who first arrived at the carnival thought he was a soldier, but there's no way in hell you would have asked him to kill you if needed." There's a little bit of disgust in Strange's voice as he talks. He's a bit worried he's changed for the worse...but if he's good what he's doing, if he can help kill Technicians or a True Fae without hesitation, then it can't be that bad, right? Even if it's something that scares and worries him the more he thinks about it.

[whattaprick]

That works out just fine for Lambert, who’ll at least listen to Strange talking and trying to lay out all his shit here.

“Strange, the only person who expects that of yourself is yourself. You do realize that, don’t you?” This has the same shades of a conversation he’s had with Childermass not so long ago — half of him, anyway — about fear and the terrifying loneliness of believing you’re the only one who’s experiencing it.

“You think you’re the only one who wants those things?” he tries, instead. “You’re not, and you’re not the only one with all the answers. Life ... life isn’t a prophecy. You don’t always have to do something alone.” Unless you’re Jonathan Strange and your life basically is, but anyway.

[kingsroads]

There's something inherently funny about Lambert saying that you don't always have to do something alone: Strange bites down on his lip to stop himself from laughing before he starts to explain.

"For the longest time, I did always have to do something alone. When Norrell and I worked together, we worked together wonderfully. Likewise, I could always depend on Arabella. But then I was away at war or I thought Arabella died or I became cursed and I had deal with whatever problems were thrown at me by myself."

Which is how you get great solutions like 'literally going bugfuck crazy'. Strange isn't treating this as a justification, more of an explanation.