12831/Seeing A Woman About A Bird

Seeing A Woman About A Bird
Date of Scene:	19 September 2022
Location:	W.A.N.D: Triskelion
Synopsis:	Jane and Michael have a technical conversation.
Cast of Characters:	Jane Foster, Michael Erickson

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Jane Foster has posed:
Notes and news are difficult, sometimes, to parse and make much sense. SWORD deals with problems involving aliens every day, but that's not true for most everyone else. To think a decade of difference between not believing in Asgard to now dealing with anyone who comes to the Spaceport is a truth and a daily reality? The world doesn't move at a crawl but definitely higher speeds. Jane sits at a desk thumbing through limited notes on Deathbird, wordlessly setting aside some comments onto paper. The tablet is angry with her today, having issues per usual. Vocal recordings are simply embarrassing and hardly secure, so she writes in a dead form of proto-Dravidian last understood about 2,000 BCE. Pens don't usually work well for these impressions, but she's having little trouble. Plain language will suit as she circles around concepts that the ancients never really had terms for, but that means the chances anyone alive and non-magical understand her notes are nearly nil. Her pen drums lightly on the page, gaze flickering to the side as a report pings innocently enough. All looks relatively sedate in SHIELD's encryption measures, but it definitely doesn't embody anything mild or modest. It wouldn't, aimed at her and higher. //Raptor Fraternity is apparently in in league with the Prodigal.//

<Confirm; any contacts among ET comm to assess DB status? LS, Ca?>

Michael Erickson has posed:
    The WAND office is...suspiciously open, considering the secure location - certainly not to Michael's taste, but the Shi'ar operative assumes as he steps onto the floor in a gray Italian suit that the security here is more sorcerous than material. Walking through, he waits as he gets met at reception, then directed toward where Jane sits writing in ancient languages with command to make historians burst into flame with envy. Waits at the mouth of her cubicle. Coughs, politely.

Jane Foster has posed:
WAND has its own ways of dealing with snoops. HYDRA taught them a few things, but the ability to divine probably helps. Nothing like a Sorcerer Supreme showing up to seal data leaks.

The spies would have to admit to that, though.

The woman with her brown hair pulled into a low, messy bun at her nape spares a look to the side once Michael is a whole lot closer than not, though she can probably declare his presence before he quite got through the door. Easy when everyone's thoughts natter in the background, and no amount of cement or lead will change that. Time to bother mutants for help with that is a ways off, not the least due to her other duties or state secrets locked in her head. "You're welcome to sit," she offers with a smile. "The coffee's cold and I do recommend the Sodastream bubbler if you want pop." Her gaze rises, pen still twisting peculiar jots and squiggles. "So, possible intergalactic strife and upsetting the balance with, hmm. Kree, remnant Kryptonians, Badoons, those yellow ones that used Warworld for a bit, and anything else in less than two million light years. It's not restricted to the Magellanic Clouds, either. About right for the scale?"

Michael Erickson has posed:
    "I like to speak in historical terms for reference," Michael says as he steps in and sits - incredibly strong, his will, but he's not inviolate. "We're talking potential fall of the Roman Empire here. Or at the very least something along the lines of the Year of the Five Emperors." He shrugs. "The problem is that, as far as I can tell, the Praetorian Guard has thrown in with the Prodigal - or at least, that's what I'm getting from what I know of the Raptor Fraternity. There's nothing /solid/ on this point yet." A flicker of a smile, though there's nothing warm in it. Nothing humorous. "Perhaps I might speak with the prisoner and get more out of her."

    Nobody let him near the thumbscrews.

Jane Foster has posed:
"Historical terms suit, though our understanding of them naturally falls within the limited scope of a bystander tucked away on a rather uneventful perimeter of the galaxy." Jane taps her fingers and a galaxy blossoms... after the fourth attempt. Nope, the screen doesn't like her. Holographic imaging of the Milky Way makes for a pretty swirl of dust and obscuring grit, the glowing barred spiral focusing on the blue pinpoint dot of home. "We who barely understand our place in a wider neighbourhood have perceived these events with little to no certainty of what transpired or how they affected anyone else. A star going nova, a perturbation, perhaps. But not to the scope you are familiar with." Be kind, rewind. humans are slow, okay? "People often forget the fall of the Roman Empire happened primarily in the west, and the successive Visigothic dynasties in the Iberian peninsula followed by the Moors didn't actually look that bad. To say nothing of the East where they toddled along for another millennium. Alas, the Justinian Plague did no one any favours. How different history would've looked if he achieved reconquest, or if Julian the Apostate achieved his ends. But your point stands. We might see dislocation in a large scale, or entire swaths untouched, and predicting which and where is beyond easy scope. I don't have an insider's view and you don't have the bird's eye and the worm's eye simultaneously to perceive events outside their timeline. So there we are."

She tips her head. "Access to the prisoner will be with Agent Danvers, at bare minimum. Brand runs this show, with Danvers our next best presence there. I can run oversight as you need it; we have different monitoring capabilities, and I'd be interested to see Barton's read or Drew's if they can be neutral observes. Not required but helpful. Psych profiles on her aren't in yet given the... differences, to put it lightly." Her mouth turns up. "Obviously time is a sensitive matter. Give me an idea of next steps with the Praetorian guard and the Fraternity. What are they likely to /do/ with her?" And how fast can they get flamethrowers?

Michael Erickson has posed:
    "It's clear there's factionalism," says Michael, who doesn't blink at all at the detailing Jane goes through - he's here to learn as much as he is to talk, after all. Facts are filed away; Jane's more than a fountain of facts, after all. "The previous Majestor is going to have supporters, and the Majestrix's rule is very new still. Internicine warfare is always to be expected, though on a very limited level. Assassins' daggers and poison, that sort of thing. Neat and courtly. And of course, Drew and Barton are their own people. Agent Drew knows more about the culture thanks to her associations with me, but there's nothing...personal...that would filter her at this point." Whatever /that/ means. Michael speaks as if reading off a clinical report.

    "In any case. I make reference in the historical as to the Praetorians, please excuse me. The Imperial Guard, which is a very real faction of course and one that you have tangled with, should be very much in the service of the Majestrix. But the Raptor Fraternity, they are something very different." A beat. "They are machines. Intelligent. Ancient. Metamorphic war machines, capable of traversing space at velocities approaching that of the fastest starships, and capable of destroying whole units of infantry or worse at their full power. Half the demonic religious images societies that were regressive when conquered are cast in their image - but more than anything else, the Fraternity operates /in the best interests of the Empire/. Which means they believe Deathbird is the best interest. Which is a very, /very/ bad thing."

Jane Foster has posed:
Good luck with avoiding that, for Jane sees colours and hears thoughts she never quite wanted to. She tilts away mentally to give the man some degree of sympathy and privacy, but certain things can leak out if Michael isn't careful. Or simply unawares. No reason to prickle the man, anyway. She puts the pen down and folds her hands over the paper, dispelling whatever weariness from a topic earlier read over for present alertness. "Then it sounds as if a possible avenue is convincing them that the upstart is not in the best interests of the Empire. If the current Majestrix can accomplish that, with discreet aid or not, then it would neatly avert the possibility of war. Of course, what causes that kind of leverage is an open question and also like saying the ideal outcome for a natural disaster is preparedness. A bit difficult when the ground heaves or magma is already in the chamber. All right, then." Her fingers twitch. "We're outmatched in craft, we're not scientifically or militarily ready to deal with these short of Superman or Captain Marvel. Is there a viable method to defuse them? Is there an expectation to /do/ this?

Michael Erickson has posed:
    "I can fight them," he says. "Psychological warfare, at the very least, is something that I have been cultivating." A pause. "You see, Doctor Foster, I /am/ a Raptor. Not that would claim, but I slew one of them in combat, just as they killed me. Here, on Earth, during the attack on the Xavier mansion. We merged...and I took control. I am still learning how to use it, of course, but you've seen me. What I can deal with. What I can do."