#its sorta like a defence mechanism i suppose

[isaacathom]

also i talked about my scifi story for like half an hour (to myself, natch) and figured out that a good way to handle the AB thing is not to have A decide to ruin the plan out of nowhere by trying to get back to the army base, setting off the system and putting B at risk because Oh Shit. its to have A be arrested for like. hacking and shit, planetside. And, of course, they take ID in that arrest (which would place the criminal mark next to B, whose only crime has been impersonation with permission and some minor licensing shenanigans that come from that), but they also take dna/biometric data, because, yknow, Fake Ids, etc. and yknow, they get the data from A, and it shows up as them being A, and everyones like :T HMMM. A is adamant that they are B, but their colleagues who were arrested with them kinda fuck that by referring to them as A (yknow, Shenanigans).

meanwhile B is at space bace. tries to call A like they’ve been doing semi-regularly, fails. assumes theyre busy. next day, tries again, fails, decides to call their younger bro, who goes ‘yea they got arrested by the govt’ ‘they WHAT? Put mum on the line!’ and all that ensues. they don’t tell B what A did (mum says ‘i dont think im allowed to tell you’) but B is panicking. because Oh, Fuck. the best case scenario is that they assume A is B and B gets a criminal recod, but that fucks over B, who is currently pretending to be A, so like, what are they supposed to do? How long are they going to have to pretend to be A, and will they want to swap back at all if it means suddenly having a record for crimes they didn’t commit? the more likely outcome is that they figure out the switch, and oh GOD, OH NO.

Before the army base can be properly informed about the ongoing Situation (info was delayed because A demanded a lawyer, as you do) B gets sent on another mission with the squad, which helps put their actions into an emotional context. Explains why, when seeing D charge up a terrifying direct hit to a stationary C (whose ship had already been hit and was essentially ‘floating’ while she tried to manually fix one of the broken systems), B goes ‘fuck that’ and does a manual lightspeed jump to intercept the shot, which breaks through their shields and sends them fucking careening off into the void of space because getting hit at near light speed fucks you up real good. like, okay, fucking incredible maneouver, would have worked significantly better if the summonable shields for standard class weren’t Not Super Great, and also if D hadn’t fucking charged shot the bastard. fucking nyoom off into the void, 90% of the reason B fucking blacks out during that is that they got hit on an angle and fucking corkscrewed into the void like babe no amount of gravity stabilisers on the inside are gonna prevent you from wanting to vom, and thats assuming the gravity stabilisers weren’t fucked with IN THE HIT.

i guess the broad strokes is that A gets arrested, and before B can be like, questioned about it re:identity, they get fucked up real good on the last mission because part of them goes ‘if im gonna go to prison after this i might as well go to prison having saved my friends life’ and boom bitch, an unconscious pilot in a corkscrewing spaceship rocketing away from the encounter because theres noone at the wheel to hit the brakes. wild. theyre fine, as soon as L sees whats happened and processes what the FUCK just happened they basically immediately go ‘OH SHIT’ and completely disengage from the fight with D to chase after B’s runaway ship. shenanigans, etc etc, eventually everyones safe and back at base and B’s out fucking cold in the med bay and then like the resolution of that whole thing happens i guess? the fact A is not in orbit sorta messes with the original idea which is that both A and B would fly together, but A’s kinda under arrest for hacking like govt secrets of something trying to uncover the truth behind the DECAF ambush (i love that thats the acronym for the squad it kills me so bad) which means that if the story is entirely set in space, A never actually physically makes an appearance, which is hilarious. does complicate matters because its like, okay, so we’ve gotten a confession from B that they are, in fact, not A, and that they have committed that Worst of Crimes, impersonation with permission. at that point the folks have a few options. Jail B for ~crimes~, or let B continue to fly. Their squad would probably argue in their defence, with C’s testimony on the matter being particularly important from a procedural and emotional standpoint, since C has flown with both A and B. And that previously, C had something of a falling out with B where she almost accused them of being a different person. its more complex than that, but its like. yknow. turn around. willing to recognise the good in it, provided she eventually gets answers from the actual A, which B promises to set up once A isn’t, yknow, in lock up. And they’d be looking at B’s record, noting that they are a qualified pilot and attended flight school before transferring out to becoming a mechanic, that their criminal record is clean bar this shenanigannery and the confusion re: A’s hacking, and that their actual flight record during their time pretending to be A is. pretty fucking solid. Like. B has done nothing wrong aside from impersonate someone, and beyond that has just. done their job. they’ve followed orders, they’ve saved people, they’ve taken down enemy combatants, etc etc. and they go ‘you know what? we dont have the luxury of time to slot a new person into that squad to replace you, and so on, so forth, do fuck it! you can stay! but the moment things ebb, you will be on the first ship back to the planet to be dealt with’ and B’s like That’s Honestly Better than I thought that would go, so that works.

the only bit about all this thats iffy is trying to make sure A is still... relevant? that their presence, their actual presence, it felt somehow, so that all the shenanigans don’t come from nowhere. and also to have the information A obtained from The Hackening be useful somehow. like, its about the DECAF thing, and proves something about the incident, like that the space fleet knew D’s ship was active the entire time and did nothing about it, or some shit. thats the issue, cause i feel like being able to know anything about that incident requires explaining what D’s motives are, since its presumably tied into The Truth, and i dont knooow

who fucking knows

[capriciouschocoberry]

honestly... I can spend the whole week thinking of my crush and when I finally meet him I act like he’s not there