Boat Trolls planning thread! (full of spoilers, non-players enter at your own risk)

i bet with the regular, untreated progression of the disease, where it's zero to facechomps in two days, the troll doesn't really have the time or prompting to rationalize their delusions or talk them out with anyone or struggle to fact-check themselves. in the evening you're relieved that the shitty fever you had went away overday and by lunchtime all your friends are evil monsters. the way the progression's been stretched out over four-six days for most of the infected has also set them up to hold out under much more advanced stages, too.

the sunslammer's approach was that everyone gets four hours of blood filtering twice a day to keep the spore load as low as possible before treatment can be applied, plus a lot of personal attention in the form of petting, grooming, pain management, keeping in close verbal contact with supportive friends and partners. and i think this is going to hotly debated as a replacement for the 'cull anyone you can't get anti-parasiticals into immediately' approach.

under which treatment, everyone hides their symptoms until they have a hope of getting anti-parasiticals, which are applied from officers on down, which feeds cyclically into everyone's paranoia, and since the spore's transferred so easily through sweat and spit, not just blood. the infection floods quietly through a population even when that population's being aggressively 'treated', and then pops up as desperate berserker action from random trolls at random times until everyone but a few fortunate barricaded/medicated trolls are left. a survival rate of 10 percent would be considered a flawless success and 'just get a few officers out to report on what happened, then cull them too' is more likely. and the failures, i'm sure, get blamed on 'sentimentality' and 'weakness'— i.e, officers not aggressively murdering their way out of the problem fast enough.

the sunslammer's survival rate of 'most of us' is going to be fucking astonishing. a lowblood that died of fever, a green that killed herself, maybe an ochre whose heart stopped from a tasering. a ten percent fatality rate rather than survival rate.

maybe they can foist all the kudos off on pancho, so that the sunslammer can still stay a disreputable little disgrace posting instead of some fascinating— or even more politically embarrassing— miracle everyone is suddenly interested in.

 

hey! that'd be a great idea! and we can timeskip, probably. the medics can hit on the idea of 'we are going to bolt you to the fucking blood filter machine full-time' on their own, and erskin can spend the next day or two under an ad-hoc quarantine block pulling himself back together and getting sympathetic fin-lotioning from his moirailsprits.

 

http://roachpatrol.tumblr.com/post/131104446132/in-the-space-navy-au-lainey-recently-had-to-save ok bwoop

 

Put a towel down on your lawn and have hot tea and microwave apples

 

Also switch to pancho's pov and she and erskin can go wrangle bel? We should skip to then anyway the interim time is just 'everything sucks continuously'.

Also pancho and lainey and erskin getting to know eachother could be fun!

 

I like the idea of erskin noodling around with his cane and his half healed fins all short-sightedly bonking into things but still really stoked to welcome pancho aboard and get to work.

 

Ok itd be fuckin funny if whenever you do feel like it whitey's all set up to put the moves on erskin but he's too distracted by being a good captain and making sure pancho has everything she needs. Like 'yes, yes, you're my dad and i love you probably, but im too busy to take care of my physical needs let alone any emotional ones'.

 

I been at studio so your lazing has been my productivity!

I actually really really like that idea abt whitey! Also if hes less used to deprivation and muscling through intense loads of stress and misery like erskin is, he might be the one at the mercy of the instinct set...

 

Also what if the lusus urge is distinct from pale desire in that it's more like 'his life is in my hands, i've got to keep him fed and sheltered and make sure he becomes healthy and strong and smart'. The pale urge is more to do with supporting one another as people, maybe? Evening eachother out mentally and socially. The lusus doesnt have social priorities, it has animal priorities. Food, shelter, territory, how to obtain and hold on to those things. Your lusus could cuddle you or even discipline you but it could never be your moirail.

 

Ok so Erskin is still not doing great at parsing a lot of sensory information. Because of handwavium I'm gonna say he can understand speech if he's concentrating and listening for it, but is even shittier at parsing several people talking at once than usual. Noisy environments, like ones with lots of moving or bright parts, are still going to discombobulate him. Ditto anywhere with a higher level of magnetism or electricity. Places like crowded kitchens are right out. Rapid flares and changes like a flashing light or a sudden bang is going to make him tip over.

He is probably in a practical, working version of the Captain's uniform— maybe just long pants and a jacket— but would have bare feet, since touch is one of the few senses that work as usual right now.

His fins are livid mess of half-healed blisters and branching electrical burns, but it's the sort of mess that does better airing out, and anyway would hurt like fuck for him to have bandaged flat. His pupils probably don't contract or dilate fast enough or at the same time, he moves like he's absolutely wasted drunk, and he's even more scatterbrained and distractible than usual.

Pancho can make of that what she will!

 

okay this sounds like it's going to be really fucking funny.

whitey: oh hey wow that kid is massively fucked up looking
whitey: i could... i could take care of him way better than he's doing
whitey: it wouldn't be hard he is SO vulnerable and SO alone and SO badly-kempt........
whitey: he is also walking away hey wait no

 

itsy: nice ship you got here!
itsy: it's mine now.
whitey: hey this is my ship ):<
itsy: ahahahahaha
itsy: no.
itsy: i think i need to explain that i outrank you and have a sharp beak, and you are apparently some kind of obnoxious pudding.
whitey: okay, time for a cage. cage time is now, for you.
pancho: what's going on here
whitey: uhhhhh i'm holding this feathery asshole ransom?
pancho: you got your ass kicked, didn't you.
whitey: NO.
itsy: hey this cage has a pillow in it!
itsy: it's mine now.