Ronin's Random Plot Hook #2!, Lingual Adepts Options

[Ronin Soul]

Heya! This is going to be a semi-regular thing (until people get so annoyed by it I get forcibly stopped ^_^) - basically like the magical dumplings post (which was the first plot hook), if you want to use it, great! If you don't, well I hope it was at least interesting, entertaining or funny. And above all, tell me what you think!
And I apologise in advance if I got any of the references, acronyms or names wrong. I didn't have a huge amount of reference material when I wrote this ^_^

>>>Welcome to the Sixth World Research SIG. Post any useful intel you have but remember, we’re watching, so play nice!<<<
- The Management

*Start Log*

>>>So, what’s this news coming out of Manadyne about a “lingual adept”?<<<
- Curious George

>>>Sounds like the Social Adept.<<<
- Skeptic

>>>The what?<<<
- Curious George

>>>Social Adept. Basically like a physad but whose powers revolve around dominating social situations, reading people supernaturally well, persuading a Humanis member to marry an ork, that kind of thing. During the corp war there was a lot of talk about them maybe existing, particularly in upper corporate management (Damien Knight was slanted as one at one point. He isn't. He's just a jerk.). More recently, people think Nadja Daviar is maybe one. Despite the widespread belief that they do exist, they're basically an urban legend of the streets. No-one's ever proven they've existed at any rate.<<<
- Nightingale

>>>Everyone thought AIs and Otaku were urban legends and they've been proven to exist.<<<
- True Belief

>>>Granted. But Nightingale is mostly right. Everyone who has been slanted as a Social Adept, from Damien Knight to Brackhaven to fraggin' Peregrine of the Renraku Arcology resistance has been shown to either be mundane (in most cases) or possess conventional magical abilites. None of them have been shown to have magical abilities at all, and even in those that did have magical abilities (such as Jiro Watanabe of the IOND) their abilities were easy to categorise as something apart from "Social Adept".<<<
- Silicon Mage

>>>As fascinating as that discussion is, it doesn't answer George's question. George (and anyone else who believes that no information is useless), Manadyne are referring to a woman named Yoriko Isoe. At around the age of 12 she suddenly started displaying incredible ability with languages, an area she had struggled in before. She learned to speak English in about two months, at the same time she was learning Cantonese, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish and Filipino. At the age of 14 she already speaks over 50 languages fluently, as well as being able to read and write them just as well. What's even weirder is that she often picks up languages she has never had any experience with, such as when she started translating Sperethiel during a meeting between her father (a manager at Mitsuhama) and representatives from Telestrian.<<<
- Bard

>>>Soon after she started displaying her amazing ability to learn languages (as Bard pointed out, learning about 6 in like a month) MCT ran a number of tests on her to see if she had any magical abilities. Sure enough she did. However the scientists and mages working with her were, even after 6 months, unable to identify any magical abilities - she didn't have a totem, or had astrally projected, or started displaying reflexes most folks need wires to match. She was just Awakened without having anything to show for it, except of course for her amazing ability with languages. I guess everyone started putting the two together.<<<
- Talon

>>>Hmmm, I'm not sure they're putting two and two together and getting five. Her mother is a conjurer. Isn't it just as likely that a spirit she summoned went rogue, and to avoid being destroyed hid in the last place anyone would look - her daughter? If the spirit had strong enough Aura masking then there would be no sign of it beyond an unidentified "magic ability" in the host. It seems more just as likely as some "lingual adept" - a magic ability no-one has ever heard of before in the 50+ years of the awakening<<<
- The Graveringer Poet

>>>Perhaps, though a capacity for languages is an unusual bribe for a spirit to give. Here's what I got from a quick delve into Mitsuhama's records.
Yoriko Isoe is the daughter of Kabuo and Sukiyo Isoe. Her father is a manager at Mitsuhama, but he is also used in negotiations with kawaruhito on account of the fact he isn't an entirely racist slag. His mother is, as Graveringer pointed out a conjurer, currently serving in Mitsuhama's security ops. There was an indication that she was serving in Unit 13 at around the time Yoriko started "speaking in tongues" but that was hidden under a lot more IC than I was going to break through.
Yoriko is, according to her records, a problem child. "Discipline problems" gets mentioned a lot. She definitely isn't the typical Japanese maiden - in fact she comes across as a bit of a tomboy.
Shortly before she started displaying her lingual abilities, in fact the day after Ghostwalker appeared through the Dunkelzahn Rift, Yoriko decided to be a rebellious little teenager and play hide and seek with her parents. She must have had a sudden loss of common sense because the end result was that a truck hit her. DocWagon rushed to the scene and managed to resucitate her. She started to display her lingual abilities whilst she was recovering in a company hospital.<<<
- Stormspirit

>>>Break into Mitsuhama computer systems often SS?<<<
- Red Wraith

>>>Keeps the skills sharp my man. You can thank Kitsune for the rest of this intel - she decided to break her way a little deeper into the system and picked up a couple of useful pieces of intel.
The first was that when DocWagon arrived Yoriko was clinically dead - her heart had stopped. DocWagon medics were able to get it started again, but we gather that there were some unusual circumstances surrounding it. DocWagon's mage noted that there was a background count around the accident scene.
The second and more interesting piece of intel (in my not so humble opinion) was that Sukiyo Isoe summoned a spirit in the hospital, presumably to try to help Yoriko's healing process. From what we (that being Kitsune, with me offering unhelpful opinions) can gather, the spirit ended up being more powerful than Sukiyo expected and it went out of control. This is shortly before Sukiyo is supposed to have been transferred out of Unit 13 (though we weren't able to confirm that in any way)<<<
- Stormspirit

>>>It's also worth pointing out that shortly after displaying her ability to learn languages her discipline problems died down somewhat. She's started become a good little sarariman's daughter. Rumour has it that Jonathon Takano, one of the heads of the Seattle area is considering using Yoriko as an intepreter, never mind the fact she's only 14 years old. I guess he figures that her "natural" lingual abilities are better than anyone with a chipjack.<<<
- Kensai

>>>Mitsuhama evidently isn't the only corp interested in our little "lingual adept". She's already been the target of two attempted extractions, one of them definitely by Aztechnology. I'm not sure who was in charge of the second attempted extraction, but I know for sure that neither of the teams survived, despite the fact that there was no guards around her during the second attempt (she was shopping for her father's birthday I gather)<<<
- People Watcher
"I spy with my little eye..."

>>>My sources say the Draco Foundation was behind the second attempt.<<<
- The Stranger

>>>Interesting. I wonder what they see in her (assuming it is true, given that the Draco Foundation gives Aztechnology a run for the "mysterious-fraggers-r-us" award)?<<<
- Bard

>>>I don't know, but if Aztechnology, the Draco Foundation and Mitsuhama are all taking an interest in her, then it tells me one thing - expect a lot of job offers in the next few months revolving around Yoriko Isoe.<<<
- The Stranger

*End Log*

[Voran]

Interesting. A Lingual Adept (not to be confused with the Cunning Linguist) would be a great espionage asset. Would make an excellent codebreaker for language based codes. Be also interesting to see what kinda overlap the language ability would have in things like coding/math/etc.

I remember the Mutant Doug Ramsey (Cypher, I think) from early New Mutants had the mutant ability of comprehension and communication. He also, if I recall correctly, was quite the hacker/computer whiz. Whether that was related to his power, or just another separate ability, I don't quite recall.

You could either play it from a telepathic versus non-telepathic angle. Would be fairly easy to test, if the subject could only learn languages when there was an actual physical person in the same area who spoke the language, versus not.

Also, on that line, if it was telepathic based, it would allow the character to pick up lingos and code-speak. Hmmm. I wonder if the character could successfully communicate with people who haven't learned the language yet. Like kids who don't know how to talk yet but make seemingly nonsense noises :)

[toturi]

Well, an otaku could be a very specialised lingual adapt, the language being ones and zeroes.

[Thanos007]

Don't know if I'll use it but it's a good little story. Nicely done.

Thanos

[Apathy]

I second the 'well done' comments. Interesting hook with lots of possible outcomes.

Are all the references to the Big D rift, and ressucitation supposed to lead us to the possibility of possesion by a master shedim?

[Ronin Soul]

[The Question Man]

Security Compromised...

Log Addendum

>>> I think you chummers missed a really important point. A "Lingua Adept" of her apparent potential who be a magnificent asset for research and development. Learning and translating ancient Thaumaturgical texts, artifacts, and Matrix Cryptography. Mathematics and Physics are after all is just another langauge. The potential applications of her Powers/Abilities are limitless. It would also be interesting if she could learn the infant langauge. Human brains can be programmed verbally. Imagine the person talking to you and programming you at the same time(ala Neurolinguistic programming or NLP). Very interesting I must say...<<<

- TheQuestionMan

End of Line.



Thanks to Jason Farlander for joggin my elbow.

Cheers

QM

[Jason Farlander]

Ahh... neurolinguistic hacking... gotta love it.

[Synner]

Sometimes I hate my NDA.

[Dashifen]

[Ronin Soul]