ok so last month's majority report featured a guy acting like he knew something about the breakdown of reality and the end of the world, which Jacob followed up on like so:

I'd like to have Jacob follow up on Paul Davelides a...

which was answered like so:

Paul would LOVE to entertain Jacob's questions -- he...

So, it's going to be very hard for Jacob to answer those questions in a way that excitable types couldn't spin to generate more scandal for Aegis Force.

The question, then, is whether what Paul claims to know is worth Jacob putting the team out there for that hit like that

original MR story is here for reference

thoughts? Ideas?

Lucina would say no to a public record

archie wouldn't be fond of aegis putting a lot of stock into his theories with no proof

its worth following up but not making a song and dance abt if that makes sense

a certain high price for an uncertain payoff

and also honestly what he said in the mr is just like

stating the obvious

we been knew that reality is falling apart, boy!!

he hinted that DARPA is involved or knows something though, and the OTO came out of DARPA, so there could be something big in there

also I think this is the first sign we've seen that NPCs outside of the OTO are aware of what's been happening with Jeopardy et. al

ohhh good point

ok iretain my stance on its worth checking out but not in a huge official public capacity

yeah like... the damage from those questions could be pretty harsh

(ftr there is no formal contingency for the government cracking down on Aegis, and depending on their reasons for doing so, Jacob could be fully cooperative with them)

finn thinks jacob's final decision will be the best one but he doesn't think going public is a good idea. if people want to hate, there's nothing that can be said to make them not hate, man. finn thinks it'll just make drama

he has Enough Drama, thanks

Al feels like there's no winning here- if they go public it could be bad, if they find out some good info and stay private about it then they could be accused of withholding information. THAT SAID, he agrees that seeking the info privately is the best course of action

If this dude is just blowing smoke they'd save the trouble of the public thinking Jacob's making a mountain out of a molehill, but if they do find out something worthwhile they can also do a more polished public release later on

hmm

while I'm of a like mind in the sense that Darin wouldn't want to give ammo to detractors, I feel like I could reasonably come up with three 'non-answers' to those questions that could satisfy without really giving the public a lot of information

I think Darin's biggest fear at this point is coming off too closed off. Like, yeah, we don't wanna get bitten too badly, but if we don't start taking the olive branches extended to us, that makes us seem isolationist and that could end up looking worse

Yeah, that second question in particular seems like a perfect spin question

Rather than legit going into who has the most dangerous powers, we can talk about how most imPorts are not dangerous, and the value of public trust in them? Something of that sort

honestly, I think I could spin all three into positive takeaways

that works! how about we say Jacob ICly consulted the team on the best ways to spin the questions, and then we give it our best shot on the Majority Report and see what comes out

So we need to come up with diplomatic answers to:

QUESTIONS PAUL WOULD ASK JACOB:
1) What government resistance has Aegis faced?
2) Who are, in Jacob's opinion, the most dangerous imPorts?
3) Does Aegis have a contingency plan in case the government starts cracking down on his people? No need to give any details! Wouldn't want to compromise the plan.

Sounds good to me

if Jacob doesn't want to go on, he could always see if someone else from the team would want to go on too

But here's what I have for the questions:

1) The government has actually been very cooperative with our team. They've given us facilities and we have a fully vetted, government appointed staff to help us with daily operations. We both recognize our need to co-exist and both sides openly and amicably work with one another for the betterment of both civilian and imPort life.

2) The only real danger is the threat OTO has posed to lives of millions and that's a danger that Aegies has pledged to put a stop to. Trust in us to continue our work and get the job done.

3) A contingency plan would imply we wouldn't cooperate with any sanctions the government chooses to put into place. The only 'compromising' that is happening is the compromising both the government and imPorts have willingly made to co-exist, and that's not something we mind 'leaking' to the public.

By the way, do you still want some help from other Aegis? Allura does have some hands-on experience with reality breakdowns :')

yes please! depending on what she knows or what she can do, she might be sent to find out more in Jeopardy or maybe try to establish the extent/rate of Weirdness Expansion (we need a better name for this) around the place

Ant, I like all those answers but I think we should acknowledge imPort shittiness in the answer to 2), otherwise it risks coming off as dismissive and evasive. Maybe use it as a chance to drag Hux further, and emphasize the progress made against dangerous imPorts

I don't believe we have any other fugitive imPorts that could be named atm, but we could mention that Aegis hasn't forgotten the damage done to the Porter cities by criminals like Woden, just as a passing example to show awareness

yes good, I'm not as on top of imPort fugitives so I can work that in

Destabilization?

Also, hm. I mean, she has literally gone through reality tears, and spent possibly an unhealthy amount of time stuck in the subspace created by a wormhole. She might be able to literally feel it, even if it requires some feeling around for what the quintessence field is like in the area

Besides that, though, I think she could make some tools to do actual "weirdness" measurements of the area. That should fall into the Altean tech wheelhouse.

destabilization works! 'universal destabilization' or 'dimensional destabilization' maybe

how about something like This for question 2

Darin would be willing to work on these responses with Jacob or whoever he decides wants to go on this guy's show

good! lemme see if I can blend it with the first one...

Yeah, I went with destabilization because... I mean, we don't really know what kind of destabilization it is, but shit's getting weird

how's this look:

I can't deny there are imPorts who have caused probl...

I like the way that reads. It acknowledges that imPorts aren't flawless while shifting the onus of the threat to OTO. Then finishes with a pledge to safeguard the people

awesome, that's what I was going for

I'll wait until tomorrow before replying, just in case anyone has more input

You are welcome to OOCly submit Jacob's questions for Paul here, which he will answer in a Majority Report entry. lol I almost forgot about the actual getting information part. Any ideas on questions to ask beyond the obvious?

He claims DARPA has knowledge of the dimensional breakdowns, does he have any names worth investigating? If the end of the world is coming, does he have a projection of when? What are his sources? What can be done to stabilize this dimension?

This all looks awesome

submitted!

Following up on Jacob's public embarrassment/interview, I got this from the mods:

And here is the very special Majority Report! OFF-AI...

I might ask the mods for OOC clarification on how much of this info is actually reliable and how much Jacob has wasted his time/dignity here, because right now I'm just confused

'

Same

I think that’s a good idea

See if maybe we can get a name for this woman?

yeah, I'll follow up

another thought: 'about half a decade ago' would have been a couple years before OTO split from DARPA and began attacking imPorts (their first attack was in summer 2016 IIRC)

oh shit

Another thing I just realized- 'thirty, thirty-five years ago' when DARPA was meddling with space-time and opened a rift that sucked away all the Bigfeet- that would have been in the 80s, right? When the Porter was first created and the original generation of imPorts started showing up?

yeah if we're assuming it's 2019 in game canon, then yeah

I wonder if this means there's a world where, in exchange for an imPort, they suddenly got a massive pandemic of Bigfeet

every time an imPort is taken from their own universe, a Bigfoot is sent in their place to balance the dimensional scales

But! The timeline note is a possible sign Dave is on to something, plasma rambling aside

I've asked the mods for any available clarification on which info may be more reliable

okay but now I can't help but imagine the Bigfeet taking the roles in their respective canons that imPorts end up leaving vacant

Star Wars is now a DRAMATICALLY different story

Chewie feels more at home at least

Mass Effect with a bigfoot squad