A/N: And SG-1 gets a little forewarning….
Asuna jerked her head, one grim nod. –With Fuurinkazan’s help, the Knights of the Blood Oath can keep it too busy to summon reinforcements. Schmidt, Agil – if the Divine Dragon Alliance and your allied merchants can clear the mobs from this corridor, we’ll have a known line of retreat in case the damn thing has some way to fling a blind. Does everyone know who’s assigned to yank casualties out of the line of fire and potion them?- She waited for nods. –Good. We’ll start in an hour–
There was a shadow leaning over the map.
Asuna strangled an eep, hand on the rapier by her side. –Why do you keep doing that?-
Black eyes blinked innocently at her from under messy hair. Or, almost innocently. Janet had seen Sam’s “Mwha-ha-hah!” when the major had successfully pulled one over on some poor, unsuspecting Pentagon liaison one too many times to be taken in by a look like that.
Even if it was a really, really good one.
The faint grin was gone the next instant, wiped clear by sober reflection. –Something’s not right here.–
–It’s a roving boss,- Asuna shot back. –There’s never anything right about them. And if it was a gimmick, Argo would have found a rumor by now.-
–I know.–
–She’s the best information broker out there… she sure as heck charges enough for it–
–I know. It’s just… there’s something not right.- Kirito frowned at the map. –Give me three hours to scout it.–
Asuna took a breath to protest. Frowned, instead, and traded glances with the other leaders.
Agil raised a brow, but nodded. Klein’s nod was even quicker, with a grin for the black-coated swordsman. Schmidt and some others scowled, but no one seemed inclined to disagree.
Asuna sighed, and nodded. –Three hours.–
“Solo, heck,” Jack grumbled, as the image faded. “He’s their scout. Sneaky little….”
“No,” Daniel corrected, waving for Jack to pause it. “He scouts for them. I know it’s hard to tell from the subtitles, but it sounds like they kept some of the Japanese politeness levels in their creole. Asuna’s speaking as the Knights’ leader, but she’s addressing the other leaders as equals.” He frowned, thinking. “Kazuto did that, too. I think a more accurate translation would be, please give me three hours. A request. Not an order.”
Crossover Queen's Creative Chaos 
How long will it be before someone puts together Kirito’s scouting skills in the game with what he could do outside of the game? Will it be accompanied by the worst possible timing on a Kibaou rant?
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*EG*
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I do wonder if Kibaou is tied up, he did try to get a guild leader killed.
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>I do wonder if Kibaou is tied up, he did try to get a guild leader killed.>
Might not be tied up but by all indications he’s not at 100%. *EG*
>Her grin had all the Rat’s wicked humor. “Ki-bou put the fear of him into Titan’s Hand, and you should have seen where Yulier got Kibaou. He’s going to feel that one for a week. Ooo, Sharpie!”>
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Yeah. He’s not in the best shape to make trouble right now…
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I wonder if they were smart enough to gag him if they did tie him up.
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What’s the point of tying him up if he can still shoot his mouth off? Even if he wasn’t gagged initially, I can almost guarantee that if there were mobile people in that room, he was gagged after they were there for five minutes. Anything to shut the little cretin up!
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*Snrk* Yeah.
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*G*
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Oooooh. Can we separate him off with the rest of the troublemakers, somewhere no one else has to listen to his rants, and then ungag him? It’s only cruel and unusual if you explain why, right?
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*Halo*
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I suspect that if they were willing to separate him off with the other troublemakers without him actively doing something everyone agreed was illegal someone would have been tempted to toss him in with the captured Laughing Coffin members ages ago when they were still in-game. Of course that would probably qualify as cruel and unusual punishment to him if he was tossed in the same cell, and to Laughing Coffin if he was tossed in the cell across from them and they had to *listen* to him.
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Oof!
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Yes, Jack, solo means solo, especially in this case. Daniel is right that he will work with Guilds like the Blood Knights and Fuurinkazan but he does not work for them. He is not a member. Which why he asks to give him time to scout.
To be fair, this is probably his lack of experience in gamer culture. And him being used to there being a very clear chain of command in situations like this. Not that there isn’t a clear chain of command, it isn’t a singular chain.
Through Jack is right that Kirito is very sneaky.
In some ways it’s handy that he is solo because it means he can do things the Guild members can’t for one reason or another. In other ways, it’s risky because if he gets in over his head, he very seldom has back-up. Through given the MO of certain PKers and people being idiotic, Kirito was probably better off solo. Better solo than stabbed in the back or left to die by people who hate he was in the beta and doing well in this mess despite the odds against him. Jealousy and pettiness and the need to blame someone for the suck can be just as lethal as monsters.
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*Nod*
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I do wonder, why *wouldn’t* you want Kirito to scout? Worst case scenarios? Either he finds nothing and you have three extra hours of prep time, or he pulls the boss and gets killed, which for the anti-Beater crowd would be a plus… unless they’re worried about losing manpower…
People confuse me sometimes.
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Well, when you’ve got everyone nerved up for an attack, it can be hard to stand down for a while.
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Also, depending on the “roving boss” mechanic, they might have to track down the boss _again_ if something goes wrong. That would suck.
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Ouch.
Yes, that is a very valid point.
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I’m guessing that many in the anti-Beater crowd refuse to have anything to do with a known Beater.
Since they assume that Kirito is a cheating cheater who cheats, they don’t trust him. And you don’t rely on the information given to you by a scout you don’t trust. Some of them will assume that he’ll give them bad information or false information. some of them probably think he just step them up to take the heavy losses from the boss fight while he swoops in and deals the final blow, getting most of the loot.
And to be fair, if he was a cheating cheater who cheats and out to do them wrong simply because he could, they would be very wise not trust him with scouting or their backs or anything else like.
We know he’s not like that. And some people in universe were smart enough to form their own opinions based on their own observations and interactions with Kirito and therefore know he’s not like that. Or at least that he gives you scouting information that it is good.
But there is a not insignificant portion of people who will believe rumors and other things like that. And you have to keep in mind that everyone is scared and angry – not the best recipe for rational thinking – and while they know Kayaba is to blame, they can’t find him. Plus anything is big? It’s not illogical to assume that he wasn’t acting alone. The beta testers are good scapegoats for Kayaba both for that logic and because the angry, frightened people can actually find some of them.
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*Nod* Though most of the “beater” mess did die down eventually; Kirito’s the one who flinches most. From a psych perspective, I can’t blame him. He stared down a near-lynch mob at 14 and made himself a deliberate target. That kind of thing leaves deep marks.
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“A request, not an order.”
…reminder to self: they’re not speaking Japanese. Which means Danny would not have been able to save Hammond’s budget on antacids even if he’d looked at the “translation” on Japan’s response to SGC’s “move the coma patients” request. Arg.
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Ah, I’ve since put an edit on this bit to clarify a few things on how Danny analyzed it. Whew, that’ll be a better fix….
And yes. If it’d been straight Japanese Daniel would have been stumped.
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Another thing that kinda stands out to me here is that everyone gives Kirito the time to scout because he has a “bad feel” about it. No proof, nothing from any other player, (almost literally, considering Argo) just one player feels there is something… off. This gives the impression that they have experience with Kirito’s “bad feeling”s panning out into complications that would have been much, [i]much,[/i] worse if it had been a surprise, along with the his capability as a scout and the quality of his data.
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*Nod* Kirito’s been right about these things before. They are not going to ignore it!
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Yeah, ties into Danny’s comments in an earlier part. Kirito might not be a Guild Leader, but he does have quite a bit of respect. Enough that his ‘bad feeling’ is good enough for the raid planners to delay till Kirito finishes a recon mission.
Almost like Danny having a bad feeling about certain societies they meet, and wanting Jack to give him time to figure out what is wrong.
I’m surprised no one commented on how experienced and near military the planning was. Targets are assigned, enemy reinforcements cut off, some are assigned to open and secure a line of retreat should things go bad, combat medics are picked and briefed, etc?
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SG-1’s getting hit a bit fast to react. But Jack is definitely chewing on this.
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Yeah… I know Jack has baggage, but he’s a *professional.* His personal issues with “kids in harm’s way” aren’t going to be able to completely block his recognition that he *is* seeing professionals doing professional things professionally. No matter how much he wants to ignore the evidence in front of his eyes — SG-1 wouldn’t have survived Season 1 if Jack’s ability to face uncomfortable truths didn’t trump his desire to look the other way.
To put it another way, someone in Jack’s position is nearly *pathologically incapable* of recognizing acknowledging professional competency in others, whether those others are potential allies, enemies, or ‘innocent bystanders,’ whether they want to or not. It’s a *survival requirement.* Heck, it’s probably the only reason Sam put up with Rodney as well as she did. 🙂
T’ealc has much less baggage on this score than Jack (Ja’ffa reach majority/warrior status pretty young by 20th-century 1st-world terms, IIRC). Sam, while more skewed to the “techie” end of the scale, is still a professional military officer. And Daniel, while not *military,* has been around hyper-competent and less-competent officers and enlisted for so long, he’d recognize that professionalism too. Although I’ll be more interested in Daniel’s *sociological* take on how the players appear to have pieced together a reasonable civlization of sorts in a situation almost designed to drive people into fuedal-era behavior patterns…
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I suspect Jack’s issues with “kids in harm’s way” are going to end up squarely aimed at Kayaba.
Would Jack’s pre-Stargate military service have put him in places where he would end up being intimately familiar with child soldiers and the processes needed to create them? If so, would his trying to treat the SAO survivors like those child soldiers set off any additional landmines?
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Canon Jack, probably not. The communists and anti-communists had different ways they liked to organize and use their proxy forces. Excluding stuff like the Boy Scouts and pettifogging about 17 year olds, actual child soldiers was more something that communists would’ve done. Kony’s magical friendship hour isn’t exactly what you would want to rely on to hunt down Moscow organized terrorists. Plus, the Air Force probably wasn’t that interested in sending him into some third world hellhole, except maybe to seize an airport or something.
This Jack? Assuming the WoT, maybe not child soldiers. At least, that isn’t something I’ve heard about. (Barring the usual suicide bomber applications.) Hearsay is that some of our allies do things to children that aren’t wonderful.
The US military’s style of soldiering leans heavily on skill and judgement. Realistically, not in Anime Land, being really young heavily correlates with having worse judgement. Because you haven’t seen as much of life, and have a weaker idea of consequences and what can happen. Plus a fully grown man has a significant physical advantage over children. Child soldiers make more sense in situations where adult soldiers are not that much more effective (third world hellholes) or you cannot recruit adults because your cause is screwed or nonsense. (HJ and BMD were said to have tried to fight long after everyone else knew they had lost, until the occupation forces handed them back to their parents.) Continuing to ignore morality, it is somewhat likely that child soldiers simply would not have been worth Jack’s time. Not that the military never thoroughly wastes someone’s time.
One could posit such a Jack, who in dealing with child soldiers would’ve seen many of them end up dead, and had Charlie as the straw that broke the camel’s back. But that would very likely have world building implications, and I don’t see those established here.
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Youngsters and lack of judgment has been on Jack’s mind, yes. Though this bit might help in that – he can see they’ve got the judgment to consider “if something looks hinky, stop and investigate!”
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Oh, definitely. Jack would like Kayaba’s head right about now.
Given what we know about Jack’s service in canon, it did include some time in the Middle East, so he does have some knowledge of that sort of mess. I don’t think he’d treat SAO survivors the same, though, given this wasn’t exactly a war against people they were mixed up in. Mostly.
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They’re definitely recognizing “competent”. Now they’re trying to figure out what to do about it. 🙂
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