citylogs | [open] plot clue club meeting

WHO: Junpei

coolerjunpei and You
WHAT: Secret Info Club Meeting and general Plot Clue mingling
WHERE: a conference room. with snacks!
WHEN: roughly DECEMBER!!! 12 this never once said nov
WARNINGS: tba

network preamble

[Having come into some fascinating information, Junpei—

obsessively studies it for a solid day

—and then un: junpei posts something very short and simple to the network for once:]

hey, it's junpei. i'm in the 5th floor conference room in the district 2 building by the bowling alley if anybody wants to know some *big names* and read some pages that aren't half blacked out. you know, for fun.

i've got some chips too. come check it out if you want.

log part

[The conference room is all decked out for some frantic information sharing, or rather:

Junpei has hastily set out some snacks, that is: some bags of chips and a few soda bottles, mostly what he could grab as quickly as possible from the nearest convenience store. He's also tossed some pens and notepads kind of randomly onto the table.

On the wheely whiteboard he's pushed up to the end of the room, the head of the conference table, he's written in big ol' letters:

INFO CLUB MEETING
TAKE A DOCUMENT SHARE A DOCUMENT
IDEAS???

DON'T SPREAD IT AROUND TOO MUCH YET, WE MIGHT GET PHANTOM ARRESTED OR WHATEVER

The most orderly thing here is the stack of ✨✨Documents✨✨ up by the whiteboard. These, he has put in the effort to not make a frantic mess of. Welcome to the club.]

OOC: this is a mingle for the ✨plot clue✨ junpei has received and it is open to anyone who might be interested in the information! if you have cr with junpei or have talked to him even once about The Mysteries, you're welcome to handwave that he sent your character a personal cryptic text about something important, come see. otherwise, seeing his network message and showing up is just fine too.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That's right. Those who supported the counter party were afflicted with compulsions and disorientation that directed them to the experiment proper. They clearly had something in place for a simple resistance like that. We would need a more complicated plan than simple refusal. Something more destructive to the testing area itself, or a better way to ensure people afflicted with compulsions are kept away from the test. If we better understand what data they're looking for in the experiment, we can modify our behavior to disrupt their findings as well.

[Alhaitham pauses, humming to himself in thought.] The experiments change so wildly, so this would be at least partially improvised.

Huh, I can get behind that. They can't get all of us, right, that kind of thing? If we make a big enough mess, at least a few of us should be able to get away with it.

Hang on— Kromer made a list of what's happened to us so far, come and look. We can... make a Venn diagram of what they do to us, for starters.

[Come with him to the beloved whiteboard... gaze upon this List...]

[Hell yeah whiteboards. Alhaitham walks over, and though he remembers most of this he still gives the summary a review.

And then he grabs a marker.] On its face, none of these seem to have anything to do with "climate change". I'm not familiar with that as a term but based on the last page I assume it's an environmental shift sudden and severe enough that it would be difficult for existing communities to survive. Like turning a rainforest into a desert.

Though the experiments haven't been related to the weather they have been forms of environmental change concentrated to specific areas. And based on Dr. Sumalee's expertise, these seem to be stress tests on resilience and cooperation. They're looking at how we cope in simulated crises, most likely so they can apply that data to their own climate crisis.

[So Alhaitham draws out a three circle Venn diagram: benign, resilience, cooperation.]

[Whiteboards, fuck... yes. Junpei nods, first - yeah, that's basically climate change, thank god he doesn't have to muddle through explaining all that again. He's not sure if the kind of climate change he's broadly familiar with is the same as their city here's "environmental changes," but maybe he's not thinking metaphorically enough...

He'll ruminate on it. Hmm.]

I guess wrecking this place with a hurricane or something every other month would be too much, even for this place. Stress tests... yeah, definitely.

[And now, ooh, categories!! To say he perks up at the categories is kind of an understatement - he is nearly thrilled to Sort Local Happenings.]

Hey, these are great. Let's see... The party way back in June was benign, I think. The bank I'd put under resilience, maybe resilience and cooperation, since we had to talk to each other about it?

[That nod of conformation at his understanding is all the affirmation he needs to continue, extremely attentive which is basically his version of perking up.

Alhaitham does jot the welcoming party into benign and adds the carnival and bowling alley under it. The shadowy figures, or illusions of, seem too small in influence] What about the bank do you consider a test of our resilience?

[He considered putting it under cooperation only, but he's open to other ideas.]

Hmm... Like, the stress part, I guess? I know I spent a while trying to resist the whole sharing part, unless that doesn't count. Stress tests should count, though, yeah?

[He shrugs; he doesn't want to throw everything into every category, so...]

Do you think it should just be cooperation?

Everything would fall into the category of a stress test. While it was likely valuable data to see how far some people would go to resist sharing personal details [him, he went far] I don't believe that was an intentional goal. Much like the tea and the haunted house, it seems to be a tool to force participation.

[The garden is a good contrasting experience.] However, I would consider the tea in the greenhouse a test of resilience and cooperation. The effects of the tea itself caused stressful physical afflictions, some of which made it impossible for the person affected to consume the cure for themselves. Thus they were reliant on the assistance of other people to resolve the problem they were being forced to cope with.

I pretended my bank prize was something else, [he says, so yeah, he knows that one. Going real far, although-] I just folded the bad shit into the decoy story so nobody would ask too many questions.

[He does a... folding hand motion, to accompany this. Somewhere between folding and kneading dough. Regardless: it worked, people cared way more about the decoy shell than the traumatic center.

But anyway.]

Think I'm obligated to admit I didn't go to the greenhouse... I believe it, though. So that's cooperation for the bank, and both for the tea? What do you think about the mall? I'm in for both again, for the mall.

[Will there ever be a benign one again...]

[Alhaitham adds the bank and tea to the Venn diagram. Why is Google slides a struggle in every conceivable way.]

I would agree. Being near someone who was caught resulted in experiencing the same vision of death. I believe that was the cooperative aspect, to foster a sympathy towards one other's pain while testing the degree that we could avoid the threat chasing us. [Adding... that...

So long as they continue to pick things out of order.] Separate from the tea party, the flowers that whispered secrets would be silenced by holding hands. That's clearly for cooperation. I haven't spent any time around the swimming pool, was there anything else to it?

You know, when we talk about them all like this, it really all sounds... ridiculous. Talking flowers that shut up when you hold hands, come on, are these directors little kids?

[Cringe!! He shakes his head lightly, like, god, it really does sound stupid when they've got distance from it all. When the science center eats him alive he'll go down yelling about how dumb and cringe it is.]

And, uh, I didn't go to the pool, either... Let's add another category for "needs more info."

[Alhaitham pauses, considers that the literal god of his nation looks like a eight year old girl and presents all the charm as one whole being alarmingly astute, and then simply shrugs.

Honestly, it might as well happen. Sumeru academics have come up with dumber ideas.] We'll leave it aside until someone who has been there speaks up. The ice cream parlor... weren't those just emotional effects that wore off after a while? I didn't eat any of it.

[open] plot clue club meeting

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