Arion 1-15: Negotiations

"Provided it is handled by the right spokespersons, a simple but persuasive public narrative regarding the what, how and why of the negotiations or their outcome is vital. Yet, so is private outreach to influential but excluded actors who, for prudential reasons, may need to be made aware of the talks early on." - Mark Freeman and Vanda Felbab-Brown, Negotiating with Violent Criminal Groups

Nothing like gaming for broadening your horizons, amiright?

Hollis Highport, 1106 Week 01

Hollis: A370642-C NS De Ni CsIm GG

Finding the dockers' union offices is not hard; it's public knowledge. Officer Muhammed can't officially be involved, so is maintaining plausible deniability by taking coffee and doughnuts at a nearby cafe; Karagoz prefers to be "the guy in the van", so is puppeting Arion through an earpiece, as much as that is possible to do for a loose cannon like him; and Major Sheng is making sure no rude strangers distract Karagoz. That leaves Arion, Cori and Mr Osheen entering the lion's den.

At interstellar technology levels, being a docker is more about wrangling robots and computers than it is about moving heavy things from place to place by sheer muscle power; but judging by those waiting for them, the latter method still has its place.

Across the godown from them are four dockers, including a large bullet-headed one the others refer to as "Boss" and a tall woman, who Arion notices seems more interested in Cori than the negotiations.

"I believe in you," Cori whispers as they approach that delegation, laying her hand on his arm. He feels suddenly more optimistic, although the boss is frowning at them.

"Last time you met my people," the boss says, as they come to a halt before him, "You killed one, drank his blood, and put three of them in jail."

"That time, eight of them attacked three Imperial officers and a Port Authority cop, without provocation, and put three of them in hospital. The time before that, you tried to sabotage my ship, and broke my friend's arm. This is all bad for business. It doesn't need to be this way," Arion says.

"You shut down my surface operation," the boss counters. "That makes me look bad."

"We could've talked about that, reached an agreement. You didn't need to shoot us."

"My docks," the boss says, stone-faced. "My rules. You asked for the meeting. What do you want?"

"We're in the small package trade," Arion says, meaning smuggling. "This station is one side of a border. Anywhere there's a border, there's an opportunity to make some money trading under the radar. We'd prefer to do that with your blessing."

"There's no smuggling across the Zhodani border," the boss says flatly. "Any time they're unhappy with the customs regime, they get a visit from the secret police, who make them happy with it again. By editing their minds."

"You say that as if there were some Zho on the station already. Is that right?"

"None of your business. But, in case you do manage to smuggle something across the border, let's talk about my cut."

The rest of the meeting revolves around negotiating the boss' percentage for smuggling deals which neither side really thinks will ever happen, but wants to be prepared for if they do.

As they leave and head for the cafe, Arion speaks to Cori and Mr Osheen, using the commlink to patch in the others.

"Three things," he says briskly, wanting to share the information before anything else happens. "First, that was too easy. Second, I don't trust our contact; there's something off about him. Third, did you see the tall woman at the back? She was very interested in Cori. Stay frosty."

As they approach the cafe where Muhammed is holed up, they see the tall woman obviously knows a short cut. She's already there, inviting herself to join Muhammed, who doesn't seem at all bothered.

Arion mutters an expletive, wondering whether anyone has sold anyone out, and if so, who and whom; but the tall woman is already beckoning him over, so he makes the best of it and joins them. One piece of knowledge from his old atmospheric combat training seems transferrable; never turn away from the enemy, it just gives them a better shot at your rear end.

GM Notes

I was going to roll a Mythic Event Meaning to see what Karagoz is up to, but a viable idea came to me, so I'm using that. One thing I'm trying to do in this run of the Arioniad is accustom myself more to 'fiction first' gaming and see what I can do with it; this isn't much of a move in that direction, but baby steps.

Considering the situation, I think Arion fronts the negotiation, with Support from Karagoz and Cori, and an attempted boost Trait from Cori on the pair of them before he goes in. We'll let the ganger boss oppose their rolls, and give him support from a couple of advisors as well. Mr Osheen has little to contribute unless things turn violent, say because of a Critical Failure on a Persuasion roll.

• Entering negotiation: Cori rolls Psionics to boost Arion's Persuasion... 4, success; his skill and hers are both boosted to a d8.
• Round 1: Discussing the fight in episode 12. Arion gets 6, including a +1 from each supporter; the boss gets a total of 10, including +1 from Support. Arion fails and so gets no Influence Tokens this round.
• Round 2: Discussing what each side wants. Arion gets 10 thanks to Aces; the boss gets 4. In an opposed roll, Raises are figured using the defender's score as the target number; Arion succeeds and beats the boss by 6, so has a success and a raise, thus two Tokens.
• Round 3: Striking a deal. Arion 7, boss 8; no more tokens. Total, two Tokens; minimal support.

Sadly that is worth no VP; Social Conflicts are harder than I expected. The score is still Arion 8, BBEG 2. However, Mythic tells me that there are Zhodani on the station after all, though they're not controlling the dock gangs; that one of them was close enough to detect Cori and read her mind; and the SWADE dice rolls for that tell me the Zho did detect her as psionic, and did read her mind without her noticing. Just because the gangers are pretending to be Ine Givar doesn't mean the Zhodani aren't around, after all.

A roll on the Allied Personality table in SWADE tells me the Zho's defining personality trait is that she is cruel. Meanwhile, other Mythic rolls tell me the boss intends to double-cross Our Heroes and go after them again. Arion gets a Notice roll to spot something off in the boss' demeanour and succeeds.

I'll have to think about where all this sends the story next. As time goes on, we're drifting further and further from Interstellar Rebels and more back towards Mythic, which I didn't expect, but having fun with the game is more important to me than sticking to any particular rules.