fandomhigh | Unconventional Tactics, Tuesday, Period 2

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unconventional tactics

Unconventional Tactics, Tuesday, Period 2

"Yo, rookies!" Reno leaned back against his desk today, arms crossed over his chest as he surveyed the students heading into the classroom. No Danger Shop again, but knowing Reno, he was probably saving all of the good stuff for later in the semester.

Or else too lazy to muck about with programming this early in the morning. One of those.

"Today, we're gonna cover one of them things that all of the reserves groups have probably drilled into you good by now if you're a member, but we're gonna expand on it a bit, yo." He smirked faintly. "I know they got their little phone number exchange goin' on, and I'm gonna even agree, it's a damn good idea." Which had nothing to do with the fact that he was one of the founding members of the original group. Really.

"But, really, it's just scratchin' the surface. How many telepaths do we got on this island? And I'm willin' to bet that when all Hell's breakin' loose, they ain't afraid to put that ability to use to keep themselves alive. The island's also got the radio station, which has been used on more'n one occasion to get the word out to folks in town that whatever's hit us, it's bigger than the harpies-and-piranhas crap that most of us are still tryin' to get used to. If you don't got a radio yet? Get one. If you don't got a cell phone yet? Get one. If you need help gettin' your paws on either? Talk to me, yo. Communication is a big damn deal in my old line of work. I'm good with that kinda thing."

Hell, if anybody were to keep a careful eye on the Turks out on the field, they'd probably notice that they reached for their phone systems about as often as they reached for their weapons.

"But communication around here don't just start and stop with whoever's on the island when the shit hits the fan," Reno continued. "I got a postcard from Paris marked nearly a hundred years ago because of the things that go down, here. Romeo sendin' me the postcard was the easy part. I'm thinkin' the post office just held onto the damn thing for a century, yo. But you try sendin' messages back in time. Or to alternate realities. Or to other broken worlds when you don't know what'll happen if you let that next rip swallow you up, too... You followin' me, here?"

Sometimes, Reno found himself wondering if students took his class so that they could nap while he lectured. And then he convinced himself that there were worse times for them to nap, so hey, if they needed the sleep, then good on him for being the one whose dulcet friggin' tones lulled them to it. Or something.

"In the past, the most reliable way we had to get messages to people off-island during a crisis just to send a messenger. And I don't like it. Too damn risky, even if we got some faint idea where or when they're gonna end up. This last big throw-down, they managed to get one phone call in to the people who were stuck in different realities, yo. I don't pretend to know how they managed to rig that up. I was too busy tradin' whatever crap was in my pockets for food and water to shove at people. But one call, in that case, was enough. Next time it might not be."

Reno's optimistic attitude, ladies and gentlemen.

"It's another discussion class today, ladies and chumps. I know we got enough bright little minds in this room to be able to toss together suggestions on how to get in touch with people when they go missing in the future, or, if you're lucky, to get in touch with the island if you're one of the unlucky schmucks that's gone missing. Get creative. Throw out whatever idea first comes to mind, magic, tech, what-the-shit-ever. And if there's somethin' you have to offer to help keep people in touch even when we're all on the island, bring it to the table, yo. Never know when your suggestion'll be the one that lets a person in mortal danger call for help."

[Open!]

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Are there any methods of communication that Reno hasn't listed off? Anything that has been or could potentially be used to get in touch with people on-island or off?

It doesn't matter if your suggestion involves futuristic technology that nobody else has heard of yet, or carrier pigeon. If you have something to bring to the table, please do. You never know when it might help somebody who has been backed into a corner, someday.

"We use birds a lot back home," Ino said, figuring she might as well contribute something today.

"Visiting another in a dream can be used as a way to communicate," Raven offered shyly. It was something she sort of knew how to do, but she'd never really tried.

"If you're invadin' someone else's dream though you've got to be careful of their privacy too," Ino said, frowning a bit at that. "Sleepin' is when people're at their most vulnerable and all their demons get free play inside their head--just waltzing in there, that might get them the message that somethin' bad is going on, but that sounds like a pretty horrid invasion of privacy at the same time 'cause people--don't like havin' their secret issues known, sometimes not even by their closest friends."

Ino twirled a bit of hair around one finger.

"And that's their right, yeah? To keep their own problems their own."

Raven flinched a tiny bit at the use of "demon," but she composed herself and nodded. "I would never do such a thing unless the need was very urgent," she said. "I would not wish to make someone uncomfortable in such a way."

"Weren't nothin' personal in pointing it out," Ino said, almost apologetically. She noted the teeny flinch but simply filed it away--who knew what could've set her off? "But it was something that I thought should be said. Powers like that aren't an easy line to tread if you want to respect your friends."

It was far easier to use them on your enemies because of that.

"Oh, I know," Raven said quickly, giving Ino a smile. "My gifts sometimes cause me to inadvertently see what people wish to conceal. It is never something I attempt to do on purpose, however. I would not do that to my friends."

"I don't think most of us would call someone who did deliberately a friend," Ino laughed a bit. "I mean, I can think of a few extreme situations where it might make sense to do so deliberately outside of an emergency getting ahold of someone but, yeah."

Ino lifted her shoulders in an easy shrug. "Were you born with that ability?" A beat. "If you don't mind me asking?"

"I do not mind at all," Raven said, shaking her head with a smile. "Yes, I was born with my empathic abilities, and I have been trained in them since I was old enough to understand. And Professor Skywalker has continued my training her in shielding myself better so I do not accidentally use my gifts unwisely."

Ino toyed with her hair. "How does dream walkin' count under empathy?" she asked curiously. "Isn't that more to do with emotions and stuff?"

"Emotions are many times much stronger when a person sleeps," Raven said~~, trying to explain the randomness of her canon~~. "I have never attempted to do so, but it was explained to me that in theory it would be possible for me to use those emotions to slip inside a person's sleeping mind."

Now she was considering trying some day, though only with permission. She didn't want to be rude.

"Oooooh," Ino said thoughtfully. "And would they notice you right 'way or would it be somethin' they'd not know unless you deliberately got their attention?"

"If I had no morals, I could perhaps manipulate their sleeping thoughts to make them see what I wished," Raven said, thinking back on what Azar had taught her. "And only allow them to see me if I wished it. But I have never done such a thing, and I will never do so."

Yeah, Ino wasn't going to say that she thought it'd be a perfectly valid technique to know. She was well aware that she'd rank--very very low on the moral scale that Raven seemed to hold.

"Not even if it was necessary?" she asked curiously, but not combatively. "I mean, say--someone had, hmmmm taken over a friend's mind and you had to sneak in there to get them back?"

"I do not like the thought of it," Raven said, biting at her lip. "Manipulating someone in such a way. But if it were necessary to save a friend, yes, I would do it." And feel bad about it at the same time.

Chloe couldn't believe she was going to say this out loud in a group. However, she knew that at least four people in this classroom wouldn't let anything happen to her if it bothered anyone.

"G-ghosts," she said, carefully not looking at anyone. "S-some p-people c-can use ghosts to send messages to people."

Hell, she knew that if she was in trouble, Liz would do her best to make someone see or hear her.

"It's not big on the details, but I sent my cousin Jaina kind of a..." Ben searched for a way to describe it, "bad feeling between star systems. I knew that she was going to be attacked, but she didn't know it yet. So it was kind of an intergalactic wake up call? Not quite as useful as a telepathic message, but it could go a lot further."

"Telepathy?" Tara said, with a glance to Ben since he'd said the same kind of thing. "It would be harder between dimensions, but ... I think some people here could do it. Y-you'd just have to find a way to amplify the message."

A grimace. "Not like that's easy."

"Mental links can be done magically." Soul links, empathic bonds, the names were several, but the context was very similar -unless you came from a world when it was something completely different, then Zatanna had no idea-. "That's specially useful if two or more people without innate telepatic abilities need to be communicated." They didn't even need to have magic powers, in most cases.

"And, well, I can contact people I know, you know, with magic." It worked the best if she knew who she was contacting on a more personal basis, but she could probably contact every person she had talked to in Fandom, unless they had some sort of magical protection, of course.

Kennedy didn't have anything to contribute to this conversation, it felt like, but for reasons she wasn't going to explain a contrite look crossed her face for just the slightest moment.

The truth was, there were things she could have come up with, but-- having grown up used to the idea of just asking for or getting anything she wanted if she thought she needed it-- her sense of resourcefulness had a lot of room left to develop, and it just wasn't there yet.

"If I could figure out how the pan-dimensional phones on the island work, I could probably rig something up to be portable."

Except for the fact that she had yet to work out just how the pan-dimensionality of the phones on the island worked. And not for lack of dismantling them to poke at their insides.

"If it's nighttime, a signal in the sky can be useful," Jason said, trying to vague things up a bit. "A floodlight with a symbol on top of it shot into the sky can be seen by a lot of people."

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