Practical Crisis Problem Solving - Danger Shop, Tuesday, Period 3 (11am-12pm)

[worsethanaunts.livejournal.com]

Upon walking through the doors of the Danger Shop, it was completely understandable if the fine students of Practical Crisis Problem Solving (which the Doctor preferred to call "Staying Out of Trouble Badly") were very confused. They were in the park. Yes, the park, the one in Fandom just outside and down the road. Fandom all around them looked normal, at least as far as the beach. Then the water and everything beyond it was all hazy. The sky was an odd shade of red too.

"Hello!" the Doctor said, looking very smart in his tweed jacket and bow tie. There were other clothes too (including pants), but those were the two articles worth mentioning. "I'm the Doctor. You are all in Staying Out of Trouble Badly." See, with the calling the class the wrong name. "Which might be on your little schedule spreadsheets as something to do with problem solving. If you're not supposed to be here," he added with a smile, "stay anyway. Have some fun. Today we're going to get the creative juices flowing." He frowned. "No, I don't like the sound of that. It sounds too...moist. Doesn't matter." He switched back on track. "You might be wondering why the sky is red. Or orange. Burnt sienna? Would we call it that? Maybe Sinopia instead. The colour, not the planet. I had a point somewhere.

The sky. Yes. The sky is red because the entire island," he turned around in a circle and pointed in every direction for emphasis, "is surrounded by a shield. You can't penetrate it and you can't transport out of it, sorry if that's your thing. The reason for this a species called the Atraxi have tracked a criminal here to the very pretty Fandom Island. Prisoner Zero is its name. If Prisoner Zero doesn't give itself up in an hour, the Atraxi are going to incinerate everything and everyone inside the shield. They don't do things by halves.

I don't expect you to find Prisoner Zero today, but before the hour is up, each of you is to come up with a plan. Brainstorm. That's what we're here for today. Brainstorm a plan. Talk to me. Talk to each other. Let's get some ideas on how to find Prisoner Zero, stop the Atraxi from burning us all to a crisp and save Fandom. Your name might be useful too, if you don't mind telling me it. Oh, and if you do have higher brain function and can understand what I'm saying, please raise your hand so I can identify anyone who doesn't and can't."


[Roster, Class Details & Syllabus]

Comments

Brainstorm

[worsethanaunts.livejournal.com]

Talk to the Doctor! Talk to each other! Figure out how to find Prisoner Zero in a town of this size in less than an hour and stop everyone from dying. Did I mention the horrible deaths?

Re: Brainstorm

[abitlegless.livejournal.com]

Hiccup was shaking his head. "Hang on. How do we even know this Prisoner Zero did anything wrong?" he asked, glancing at Toothless. "Not that I'm saying I've got a sudden burning desire to go up in flames, but someone who's happy to wipe us all out to get their hands on one person isn't exactly high up on the credibilty meter if you know what I mean."

Re: Brainstorm

[worsethanaunts.livejournal.com]

"A police force from another part of the galaxy have come all this way to retrieve a prisoner - an escaped prisoner, mind you - who is so dangerous it has the designation Zero, all and nothing at the same time. Inside, but outside of the numbering system." The Doctor tried to stare Hiccup down with a deathly serious expression. He didn't give him a chance to react though, because he pulled back, suddenly all casual again. "Though it's a fair point. Intergalactic police forces aren't always the most rational. Do you like complicating things?" the Doctor accused. "It's not enough that you're about to be deep fried and have to find what the Atraxi want, you want to call into question whether you should even be handing the prisoner over at all?" There was a right answer and a wrong answer to this, and the Doctor's reaction was not indicative of the right one.

Re: Brainstorm

[ashockingbitch]

"I generally would consider not dying stupidly on a deadline to be more important than whether or not the twit who put my life in danger in the first place really deserves to be hauled back to prison," Jenny said bluntly, "but then I'm rather annoyed by the prospect of dying because someone else just so happens to be in the vicinity. We don't even know what this Prisoner Zero's supposed to have done, after all. Perhaps the Atraxi consider walking on the grass a capital offense."

Re: Brainstorm

[ashockingbitch]

"Well, if we're going to find Prisoner Zero, we're going to need more information," Jenny said. "Can we ask them for identifying physical characteristics, perhaps? Because if we haven't a bloody clue we could wind up shipping them the wrong person entirely." She paused in thought for a moment, then said, "Is it a person?"

Re: Brainstorm

[worsethanaunts.livejournal.com]

"I don't know, is it? Can you? Anything's worth a try. The only alternative is death and that's not much of a choice. What do you want to do? Get in touch with the Atraxi? Try to talk you way out of it or just ask them some questions?"

Re: Brainstorm

[wrongkindofsith]

This was a situation Cara was far more used to being on the other side of. "Do these Atraxi even have the authority to be making this threat? Or have they just slipped their leashes and gotten overeager?"

Not that knowing this would necessarily be of any use, but most people found it easier to make their peace with the Creator if they thought someone would avenge their deaths.

Re: Brainstorm

[worsethanaunts.livejournal.com]

"This is a Level 5 world and as far as we know, no one here has broken any Atraxi law, unless you've been busy in the last five minutes. So it's safe to assume that they're here solely for Prisoner Zero and see the rest of us as collateral damage. Which isn't to say that they have the authority to roast us like a Sunday dinner, but that won't necessarily stop them."

Re: Brainstorm

[onlykindofdead.livejournal.com]

Everyone else was talking about ways to find the prisoner but Madison wondered if there might be a better approach. "What about trying to disable the shield?" she wondered. "I mean, yeah, we should definitely be looking for Prisoner Zero but instead of focusing all of our resources on that, maybe we should have some science-y types see if they can remove the threat?"

Re: Brainstorm

[worsethanaunts.livejournal.com]

"The shield's generated from the outside and you're trapped on the inside. How would you go about that?" It was a new concept. The Doctor loved new concepts.

Re: Brainstorm

[daventryprince.livejournal.com]

"Well," said Alexander after he'd taken a good, long few minutes to mull the situation over. More often than not, you didn't have time to think about a problem like that, so he was going to take advantage of having the time, "what do we know about Prisoner Zero? Do we know much about his appearance, his attributes? Or perhaps his disposition, or any of the things he may particularly like or dislike? If we don't have any of this information, where can we get it? Surely, the Atraxi must know something, if they're the ones looking for him. Would they share their information on him to aid us in locating this nefarious prisoner?"

Re: Brainstorm

[worsethanaunts.livejournal.com]

"All perfectly valid questions that I'm not going to answer. But I like the way you're thinking. You need information! How would you go about trying to coax the Atraxi into talking? Let's leave the technical communications side of things to the experts and say you can talk to the and that there's not a language barrier."

Re: Brainstorm

[squire-hand.livejournal.com]

"Who are we looking for?" he asked, then revised, quickly. "Or what?"

[Work calls!]

Re: Brainstorm

[worsethanaunts.livejournal.com]

"What is a very good question. Who are you? I want to congratulate you for asking a good first question, but I feel like I should use your name while I do it."

Re: Brainstorm

[give-areason.livejournal.com]

"There are people on this island with the ability to read minds," Rosalind offered, because she paid attention to things like that. (Even if the idea of it made her skin crawl.) "If there is only an hour, have them search the island with their minds and send out a team to detain Prisoner Zero. Unless he has the ability to shield from mental intrusions?"

Re: Brainstorm

[worsethanaunts.livejournal.com]

"Using the psychic when the physical is too slow," the Doctor said, nodding in approval. "We have no evidence that he has the ability to shield from mental intrusions, so it's as good a place as any to start. That has the mind-readers busy, but we have too many resources to wait on one group when the stakes are so high. What will you do while they're doing that?"

Re: Brainstorm

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

"So, we've basically been forced into doing a manhunt for evil aliens," Peter said, tacking on that bit of judgmentalness all on his own. "Which means they don't even know what they're looking for. Implying that either prisoner zero looks just like any other person or, you know, has chameleon powers and is secretly looking like a rock somewhere."

Peter paused. "Or the evil alien fuzz are just really lazy and like vaporizing things." He wasn't being so helpful with his thoughts yet.

"So my idea involves getting all the telepaths in town, promise them dinner at a restaurant or something for their help, and get them to walk around looking for particularly prisoner-like thoughts so we can locate him or her."

Re: Brainstorm

[worsethanaunts.livejournal.com]

The Doctor listened with care, finding himself liking Peter every time he opened his mouth because he made all the right logical moves. Once Peter was done, the Doctor asked a very important question.

"Did you bring a screwdriver?"

Re: Brainstorm

[living_endless]

"We need to talk to the Atraxi," Didi began flatly. She'd seen through situations like this, and facing one powerless was no fun at all. "Negotiate with them, figure out what Prisoner Zero looks like -- because Jenny's right, he or she might not even be humanoid -- and see if they're willing to lift the shield enough to let us do something like evacuate all the island citizens who definitely are not Prisoner Zero."

Hands in her pockets, she added, "And I'm Didi. Hi."

Re: Brainstorm

[worsethanaunts.livejournal.com]

"Hello Didi!" the Doctor replied with far too much cheer for the situation. "Talking is good. I like talking, if you haven't noticed, and talking to the Atraxi seems like just the thing. Technical issues aside, because we've been over that, how would you approach a being that has you in what amounts to an island-wide stranglehold?"

Re: Brainstorm

[abetterthief.livejournal.com]

"Unless they expect us to go around asking everyone if they're Prisoner Zero and have him answer honestly, they need to give us more information," Parker said. Most of her attention however was focused on the shield; breaking out of somewhere was almost as fun a problem to solve as breaking into somewhere was. And often more difficult. "Is there a lock on the shield we can get to? Or a way of disrupting its power supply?"

Re: Brainstorm

[gorka-wolf.livejournal.com]

"How is the shield powered, and what anchor points is it using to conform to the island?" Makita was already running through the explosives protocols she had on hand in her head, as well as conventionals that she could build with materials on-island.

Proto was better at demolitions than she was, but Maki was no slouch. She'd had the best teachers, after all.

Re: Brainstorm

[elephantgadget.livejournal.com]

Helen had listened intently as everyone shared their ideas. "I'm Helen," she said finally. "And it seems most everything has been well covered before the mun even woke up ;) . However, I might have a chance of getting through the shield."

Re: Brainstorm

[glacial_queen]

Karla idly wrote down some notes while listening to her classmates speak. Eventually, she had an idea and raised her hand. "If we can talk to the Atraxi, are there other people we can communicate with?" she asked. "I mean, I really do love the option of telling these so-called law enforcers that what they're threatening is probably illegal--though I'd tell them that it definitely was and sound confident doing so--but while we've got some people running around trying to disable the shield and others trying to find Prisoner Zero, I'd want still other people calling in whatever cavalry we have access to. They've only shielded the island, right?"

She started ticking off people on her fingers. "The Jedi, my uncle, Dinah's sisters, Ender's people...it's easy to bully us when they think no one will notice what they do until they're long gone, but if we can bring attention to them--specifically, off-world attention backed by force they can understand--they might back down and be willing to play by the rules."

Re: Brainstorm

[oops-mbad.livejournal.com]

"Well, how many people do we have?" Diana asked, thinking out loud. "If it's enough, we can split up. Some people get to argue with the Atraxi about burning us all to a crisp - preferably ones who are actually capable of being diplomatic. Others who have been around for a while should run around and see if there's anyone new. Except we have a bunch of new kids so that's a problem. And a few technical people can figure out what's the deal with the shield and how we can get rid of it."