Welcome to Gaia! ::

Tanasha set a half-finished cup of soup on her desk, somewhat thankful that there were quarters reserved for visiting officers staff in every facility. She had looked over Nida's report on what she had been up to this whole time.

It was frustrating. While brain scans showed Nida was the Nida she remembered, that left open a wide range of possibilities ranging from brainwashing to the far less likely possibility of defection. That she came out in support of her captors was proof enough that something sketchy was going on.

In a way, it was a good thing Nida decided to leave; while Tanasha wasn't eager to see an old friend go, it gave her an out from worrying about trust issues and let Nida continue with her life unaware of the indeterminate dillema.

That left the other Nida to deal with. In all scenarios, the best course of action would be to act like nothing is suspect - there isn't enough information to determine what machiavellian schemes may be brewing, and tipping the hand would invariably cause problems.

On the up shot, the ASDF did have the upper hand in negotiations either way, and so in the worst case would be walking away with no deal at all, with all other cases resulting in hordes of salvage. The cost of running everything through the fabbers on a taint cycle was minimal, especially considering that more fabbers would have to be built anyway to compensate for the increased production load.
Nida had asked for easy negotiations, but 'easy' is a relative term. Certainly Tanasha wasn't intending to price gouge like a drug company, but she WAS intending to imitate the East India Company, selling their own scrap back to them after machining it into something they need. Normally she would be inclined to be nicer, except for a few factors:
First, despite what she said, she didn't want one Nida to suddenly become so much more powerful than the rest and collapse it into a dictatorship. She needed to get in touch with some other Nidas to spread the wealth around, and to buy time for that she needed to dampen the power growth.
Second, if they bought, then the price was worth it to them. Grumble though they may, judging from the footage of their rail platform they probably couldn't even get much in the way of naval equipment, and what they did have was jury-rigged salvage.
Third, the ASDF needs resources to maintain it's status, let alone field a proper force. Between the various measures that had been passing lately, the flow of tax money to the ASDF is facing serious risk of a cut, and that would be a very bad thing. 'Flotsam' would certainly help, but securing a dedicated high-volume source of cheap scrap would do quite a bit to smooth out the rough patches.
Fourth, obviously, was that she was cutting a deal with somebody who dropped her mangled and maimed second in command at her feet as a peace offering. Anger and vengence happen, petty though it may be.

After a few minutes of thought, she smacked the button for the line to the comm center Hello, Wark.

Hey, T-Boss, what can I do for ya?

Wark was the most atypical member of her old unit; Casual, and a joker. Despite all the time they spent in clanner space, she never took to the speech patterns or mannerisms. They just told everybody she was mute and left it at that. She was certainly useful when they were in the inner sphere, however, as things tended to work-out better with her as the unit's face girl. She was also the least skilled of the entire group pretty much across the board, with the exception of being deviously clever.

I need you to send word to that other Nida that I am ready to begin negotiations.

Wark drew-up a mock salute Aye-aye, ma'am! Consider the psychobitch notified.

Tanasha eyed her at that That seems an odd statement, coming from you.

Wark shrugged She's been stompin around everywhere her little card can pry the doors open, glaring at people with that ugly mug of hers like she's going to eat their face or something. It's kinda bad for morale.

Tanasha shook her head; oh, what fun this was going to be... I see. Thank you. Tanasha out.

Lates! and the connection ended.

The Blue Roses launched as soon as was possible... Cameron was not a guy who liked to leave things he was entrusted to protect unguarded. The other Roses were not as eaget to leave, several of them making sure to give hugs (some of them tearful, some of them elated) to their old CO, Eileen, who could only blush and stammer thanks in response, and admonish the ones who did cry to stop that.

In the end, Eileen was crying too, her red eyes a match for her crimson blush..and it was the Blue Roses' turn to do the comforting and admonishing. "d-demo...I missed you guys so much!" she managed to say, quietly. Rora, the Karbarran fuzzy giant, offered her chest for the little lieutenant to cry on. "Missed you too." the giantess rumbled. The reunion affected Cameron too, who stayed at the periphery of the gathering, holding in his emotions and putting a wall up to distance himself from the whole affair.

"Alright guys, those OBLs won't guard themselves." It was gruff, and a bit more brutal in tone than he'd wanted, but it was the best he could do. They had a job to do, and Eileen, though a friend, was getting in the way of making sure that was done. "Move out."

So the large squadron of blue and gold variable fighters, with the variable armored shuttle in the center, flew out into the stars, and towards the satellite they called home.

Eileen watched out of a viewport, then turned to Sparrow when they could no longer be seen, and sighed. "....i hate goodbyes..." She lingered in this spot where she'd hugged all her Blue Roses friends...but it was clear she knew it was time to go... she kept making small motions as if to start walking in the direction of the Aquarion Vectors' hangar, but stopped each time.

[OOC]0g toilets tend to work via the magic of suction, which has caused many a humorous injury, and far more anecdotes of varying levels of accuracy - both humorous and grim.

The ASDF is working on toilets that use EM fields to ionize and attract objects, allowing for a more obvious system. These will, of course, be deployed only in the brigs, as ionizing effects tend to cause cancer and it never hurts to intimidated POWs with your advanced toilet technology.[/OOC]

The Cedarbank outpost's council chamber currently held a modest but effective layout, designed to have something that anybody could eat. The basic food groups were covered, but it lacked the grandioseness of a diplomatic spread.

Additionally, it was all tainted with a GA-engineered herpes variant designed to withstand high temperatures and produce extra-visable sores up until the point where it's killswitch engaged a few months later. Thanks to Gaia's unique and interesting past, they never actually had to sign any treaties regarding either biological warfare or the use of disease to damage morale.

An MP stood at the doorway, keeping out anybody who wasn't supposed to be there - which was pretty much everybody.

Tanasha sat on one side of the table next to an empty seat which was marked as occupied by a half-empty glass of something fizzy. Across the way were two place settings.

Tanasha started with a salad first, taking a bite before answering the question.
The purpose of these talks is to say anything that needs to be said. Trade negotiations are high on the list, but there are other concerns as well.

She took another bite, taking the time to chew it before continuing.

For example, I need to know about the Ixachtl. Who they are, where are they from, how is their force structured, size, all the vital millitary and political statistics that let us know who we are dealing with. She made a hand gesture that was kind of a wavy motion Not now, of course. That is the kind of thing answered with a stack of paper rather than conversation. ... But first, something a little more relevent to the topic.

She took another bite, and turned to face Hannah.

Is Nida self-loathing the exception or the rule?

Tanasha nodded as Hannah spoke, and waited for her to finish. She caught the "HROCH" on the tag and figured that Hannah wasn't using 'mother' as a nickname. Curious though she was as to the specifics

I see... Ones get along with everybody, but any other combination is trouble. It sounds like your organization is only kept from auto-genocide by the threat of impending death or enslavement, and the balance of power providing mutually assured destruction. This poses a problem.

She munched on a crouton nonchallantly, though the gears were turning. She half expected that Nidas didn't get along, which was why she asked. People are notorious for being irritated by their own quirks in others, so having an organization comprised of countless one persons that wasn't a hivemind would be likely to drive a person to murdicide.

Meanwhile, Dese, who had previously been guarding the door, was grinding some pepper into her potato soup.

If we open up trade with you, you will be in a position to gain enough power to pose a threat to the rest. While I may not care about your internal politics, I will not leave myself open to having a genocide on my hands. I suppose, then, that the best option would be to wait until negotiations are done here, and then have you put us in touch with some type ones so that we can negotiate a less favorable trade contract with them. ... But, I am sure you have questions that need answers. Ask away.

She made a mental note to ask about Hannah's history later; by all appearances it seemed to be relevent to her intrests.

Tanasha took a swig of some drink or other. The label on the communal bottle looked like it had been mangled in shipment, but it seemed to be readily identifiable by somebody who knew the manufacturer's markings.

That may be so, but a PPC leaves more of a scorch mark than a crater, and I would rather not make it an alluring option, quiaff?

She set the ceramic cup down and gave AlterNida a level gaze, even after she remembered that sunglasses are very good at hiding eyes.

We do scour junkyards, but the number of people who recycle are not enough to meet our needs. Even if they were, we need to pay for salvage with cash, and what we get usually contains quite a lot of useless scrap - tin makes for poor ferroceramic. New stock gets us what we need, but eats into our budget.
However, you have a tiered value system, making it self evident that you lack the means to produce the equipment you value. Since we can produce units with greater ease than you could procure them and you place less relative value on raw materials than we do, we can establish a resource gaining cycle - you trade salvage to me, I trade equipment to you, you trade the equipment for salvage, and the cycle repeats with everybody for the better.

That is, if things are as I suspect and you could pull scrap from around the Nidas to provide a high-volume source of supplies once you got going.

She returned to her salad, prodding it a bit to coax the oil and vinegar to reconcile.

Capable of keeping the Ixachtl away? Perhaps, perhaps not. However, as they obviously are out to get you I would assume that you have met with at least some success in fighting them with twig-decorated cudgels and patchwork cougards. They are less likely to have as large or as ready a force to field as long as you are around - or conversely, if you die they can turn their full attention elsewhere. Better equipment would certainly help keep you among the not dead, and since the marginal cost of helping you is turning a profit from it I think it is the best course of action.

Her salad coaxed back into salady-ness, she speared a few leaves and munched away on it.

[OOC]...And what, dare I ask, is your guess? 3nodding [/OOC]