text >> anonymous.

[ashaya]

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( ooc: octal conversion for characters who might be able to decode it. spock was cleared to use ciphers and their ilk without immediate translation, so let's get after it(????). anyway: hover to see what he's saying! )

Comments

text;

[entreats]

[ Ange does easily notice it's a cipher. Maybe she'd bother deciphering it if she thought it was coming from some influential source here, but even if she can't see who sent it, judging by some of the replies.. It's likely just one of the people in town, even if she can't be fully sure. And that seems like an awful lot of effort just for her to communicate with some random person in this place.

So, just in plain regular text, no ciphers: ]

Are you worried someone is trying to read your messages or something that you're bothering to write in code?

[ashaya]

Not as such.

Were I truly concerned with the matter of possible decryption, I would not have elected to use an unsecured connection.

[ he believes that she can puzzle it out! he's just going to be difficult in the interim. ]

[entreats]

Then why use it at all?

I know for sure that some people here would code their messages on purpose just to annoy people in this place when they take time to decode them and find out that the message was a dumb joke or something meaningless in the first place. [ She has apparently been burned by one too many people here, huh.. ]

I want to know if something is worth my time before spending it.

[ashaya]

I suppose a Human might attribute it to a sense of curiosity.

[ no, he's actually quite curious. but that's an emotion and he won't say that he is. ]

Have you not wondered the limitations of each handheld device? Or found yourself remarking on the technologies and methodologies that permit fluent communication?

[ and definitely with no shade whatsoever (jk): ]

Then again, it would appear most have not.

[entreats]

[ With zero hesitation, and ahead of the rest of the message being sent: ]

People here don't think about anything other than parties.

[ Apparently someone is completely fine with joining in on the shade that's being thrown here.. Look, even if she's still unsure whether or not his initial message is worth decoding, Ange is always willing to talk about this particular subject, if not just to get the frustration out. ]

I've never seen a bunch of less curious people. Trying to engage in intellectual discussion is usually a pain.

[ashaya]

I had begun to suspect.

[ he was brought into a party, unfortunately. but: hell yeah. that's fine by spock. he loves throwing shade. ]

Considering the current population, I can't say it surprises. Humans are widely recognized for their emotionalism and their tendency to eschew logic in favor of violence.

[entreats]

Yeah, that sounds about right. [ Even though it's wildly ironic for her to agree with that, given that Ange actually is a human. At least Spock has an excuse.

Though it seems that agreeing with her on this much is enough to earn him some respect with the girl, since the next message that arrives from her is: ]

Hold on. I'll decode your message. Just give me a little bit here. I'm not some sort of super genius, but I think I can crack it.

[ashaya]

By all means. I have no intentions of retracting my transmission.

[ does he actually have that much of an excuse? not really.

then again, being half-vulcan and all, he can at least claim that half his genetic makeup didn't use an old nuclear missile to discover warp capability and load themselves up with radiation in the process.

but, have fun! it isn't exciting and he doesn't claim it is, but he isn't going to argue with intellectual tenacity. ]

[entreats]

[ True to Ange's word, she does need a while for it. It's not a crazy long time, but there's definitely at least half an hour of nothing before a message finally comes through from her side again. ]

So it really was just about the limits of these devices.

[ Kind of underwhelming. But it also means he was actually more straightforward about what he had written than she assumed. ]

You were trying to see if it would make coded messages like that instantly decoded to whoever would read them?

[ashaya]

As I believe you have so deduced, that is what my transmission suggested.

[ spock is a very straightforward kind of guy. until he isn't. hard to tell with vulcans. ]

Given the outcome of my experiment and its verifiable replicability, it appears to have become somewhat of a point of intrigue among our cohort.

[ which is a sideways way of saying that any further such hypotheses should be carried on outside the network, but you know. ]

[entreats]

You think hiding things through code could be considered a crime?

[ Apparently Ange is smart enough to pick up on the implication in his words - and while she addresses said implication directly, she's at least refraining from delving deeper into what this could mean and its uses. She's not an idiot.

She just can't resist dryly remarking this..

.. even if the dryness of it might be somewhat lost in translation, given that it's just text. ]

[ashaya]

It is always my intention to follow applicable laws and regulations.

[ he so appreciates the ones who don't need to have it spelled out. but, mutual dryness aside (he's fluent!), it's about as grey as you think it is. he can cite a million different interpretations of a million different laws he's had to learn by the letter to negotiate terms, but his own don't limit communications in the absence of harm. and if he so happens to find a loophole, well, better close it? ]

[entreats]

[ Huh.

Ange reads that sentence for a moment. Maybe she doesn't grasp the full nuance in it, but she can at least kind of get it. Enough that, after a slight pause, the next message that follows is: ]

We should speak in person sometime. [ If Spock wants to have it off the network. ] I think I have information you might find interesting.

[ And since he seems to be relatively smart and relatively reasonable, Ange doesn't mind handing it over. It's good to have more people working on the mystery of this place and having all the necessary cards for it, after all. ]