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

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."

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He smiled, grimly. "Wage a war for almost a decade to drive the invaders back. Who is this prisoner? How do they know the prisoner is here? Who are they to threaten my people?" he asked, perhaps not aware that the island had become 'my people'.

"All questions you wouldn't have the answers to. It's good that you are asking, but you have less than an hour to act on very little information or die a fiery death. Assume for the moment that Prisoner Zero is here, in hiding, and you have to find him and alert the Atraxi to his presence, or find a prompt way of having the Atraxi back down."

If James knew magic, he'd summon a magician from Midkemia, or even one of the Great Ones from Kelewan; rumors abounded they had a large school of magic--

"If everyone else can search the island, I have a way to buy time, or get them to stand off. They are alien, yes? On a ship? Not just one alien? Then they must have some sort of civilization, some form of hierarchy. Or there are Space Guards that patrol like in cities. No one just up and threatens a planet without something to back them up, a command behind them." He grinned, much less a smile than baring teeth. "I'll show them who has the bigger stick."

"Now, now, we needn't jump to violence." The Doctor liked that James was getting to the right ideas, but not so much the primitive way of approaching them after he had the ideas. "But yes, hierarchy. You're absolutely right. And who's to say this is the act of the entire species? They could be rogue, blinded by their need to capture their escaped prisoner. They're definitely not entitled to burn the island to the ground since you haven't done anything to break Atraxi law. The best stick is the one you don't have to actually use. You're on the same path as Didi here. A show of power, proof that you're not helpless and at their mercy, even though you are. But you can't get to them physically, so you need to talk to them."

"Who's the best talker of us here, then?" he asked, scanning the crowd. He would do it, but this might take a deft hand instead of a brute growl. "And there's nothing saying that this is the standard of Atraxi to lose prisoners and burn planets," he mused, shaking his head to clear that thought. "But. If we can shut down their shield," he said, nodding at Helen, "then we can show that we are not to be bullied."

"A plan with many heads!" the Doctor said approvingly. "Don't you know anyone by name who could talk their way out of this?"

"Me," he said immediately, still scanning the crowd. "I don't know anyone well enough to know what their aptitude for negotiation would be." Granted, he did know several outside the class setting, but it had never been in a "bargain or die" setting.

"That's a good start. What if you were knocked out on your way to talk to them?" The Doctor pondered going with subtlety and then decided against it. "I'm telling you to socialise. Meet people. Learn their names."

"And their abilities," he said, not quite guessing that's where this man was going. "It's not always me."

"You're surrounded by one of the most densely packed places in existence full of unusual talents. When you're in an emergency situation, if you know their name and who to call for, it saves a lot of time asking everyone what they're good at."

On this island, there was probably a club or a class just for that. "Right. But for now, the 'hey, who can negotiate' would work best right now. So...we've got a possible shield breech, and possible ways of finding the aliens, and this Prisoner Zero. We all just split off and hope everything works?" he asked, wondering how this will all work inside of an hour.

"Find the prisoner, talk to the Atraxi, posture properly, try to hand over Prisoner Zero to his jailers and hope everything works. Then there's only one thing left. Make sure they never come back. If you do everything right, they'll know not to and you'll never have to raise a hand."

"And what are the odds that we can do all this, as a group, inside an hour?" he asked, still running bits of the plan over in his mind.

"The odds are always against you, but odds can be defeated by action. I did this in twenty minutes. You have an entire island of talented, wonderful people working towards a common goal. You could probably pull something off."

He looked around the room again. "So this is something you've already done. Seems a bit unfair that a class of students cannot duplicate in an hour what it took you a fifth to do."

And James didn't even know about the screwdriver bit yet. Bit of flash, that.

He sighed, then shook his head. "We have research, we have locators, we have a breech plan, and an idea for bargaining. Time to put it all in motion."

"I have practice," the Doctor conceded. And Time Lord intellect and superior technology. Cheating, a bit. "Then all you can do after that is hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Good job, James."

"Right," he said.

This did not feel like a victory to him.

"And cheer up! It's not the real end of the world."

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

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