NO are you mad, I can hack that thing.

Why should she? The murderer would think it was all his idea. Ellen can hang back and pretend to be horrified if they fail. Or hell, just bolt.

Well, firstly, if you thought-browse someone, they know they've just been thought-browsed. And they're probably going to mention that to people around them. So really, if you want to thought-browse them without you async-ness getting out, you'll have to kill them quickly. Now, they're already going to be all like "Ellen invaded my mind!". If you fail, they're also going to be all "Ellen invaded my mind and Bob tried to kill me!". And since subliminal is a touch technique, right before Bob tries to kill your previous victim, you are going to have rested your hand on him for a while. And they will know about this, because of more-or-less constant surveillance. So, if you fail, they'll know that you managed to mind-read someone, and they're going to deduce that you also had something to do with Bob trying to kill said individual. And if you succeed, they'll still know "Ellen rested her hand on bob's shoulder, and then he decided to kill X".

I don't know, but I just don't think it's safe.

Deep Scan. The sleight is Deep Scan.

And the guys that Ellen used it on were people who liked their privacy, and she couldn't get what she wanted any other method.

I figure what would happen is: the guy goes "holy shit! what the hell did this bitch just do to me? HEY GUYS ON THE MESH THIS BITCH JU- *shot in the head by disgruntled employee*". What surveillance would see is Ellen casually brushing against the employee who then decides to murder his boss. Then Ellen going "oh dear, was that a gunshot?" and rushing back in the room to check things out.

Now, the employees that Ellen used Subliminal on suceeded, because fuck you my backstory. Even if they didn't, there's no surveillance around so she can finish the job herself and pin it on the guy.

It was intended to be a bit strange.

This is what you're supposed to be thinking.

Edit, Gem: Wow, Firewall are assholes.

Not anymore than the enemy. The Hypercorps and most 'civilized' stations require you to submit your ego for interrogation before letting you EVEN BOARD some habitats. Or did you not read that part?

Ooooh, riiight. This is a "DM is a sneaky bastard" kind of game. You should've warned us, I'd have been less polite in the previous pages.

Just so we're both on the same page, though, what I think is strange is the following:
That is what I'm supposed to be finding strange, yes?

Because I understand the bit about the psychological evaluations, I would've thought that hacking backup-storage facilities would be harder, but Firewall has a lot of resources, they can use them however they want. Though, as far as resource allocation goes, I don't think it's very efficient, but that's just me. I just thought it strange that she'd expect him to know some of the general information he asked for already.

Edit:
Yes, but there you generally don't get interrogated without knowing that your ego is gonna get interrogated. Like, you can stop ego-interrogation from happening by just not attempting to enter said habitat. Whereas you have no control whatsoever over getting interrogated by firewall. Though at leas they're going to tell us about it.

Well, the flaw with your line of thought is Subliminal seems to have a greater chance of being resisted if it violates their motive or personal strictures. So there's a chance she'd fail before the guy could get off the warning. It seems that there is very little room for error in getting the outcome you desire. Plus how did disgruntled employee have a weapon so quickly?

Hence why: disgruntled employee. Wants-to-kill-his-boss type. No resistances, see? There's bound to be one. As for how they get a weapon: Ellen conspicuously gives them one as she uses the sleight.

This is all stuff that Ellen's already done, and it went perfectly. This way, she has no idea that her sleights can even fail. Except for Subliminal, she's used that one often enough to know that people can resist it when she tries to make them do something completely against their character.

Awh, don't be cute. "Conspiracy and Horror" should have been enough to warn off all the people who wanted to play cutesy games. This is the post apocalyptic future with cthulthu as the enemy, you didn't expect it to be fair, did you?

What you found unusual was Johanna's opinion that Spectre asking "What do we do" right after being told what the organization does is evidence of not paying attention.

She did say she wouldn't repeat herself, after all.

A more OOC, and polite response might have been "You do whatever you have to do."

But I like being cute! It gives people a false sense of security which I can then exploit.

Though he didn't just ask "what do we do".
He asked:
- What degree of effort will they need to contribute to Firewall("What is required of us?"). Ideally, a response to this would have told him that he'd be expected to be completely loyal to Firewall, maintain absolute confidentiality regarding Firewall and be prepared to risk his morph and current ego on a regular basis. I know this, but there wasn't any reason Spectre would. From what he's seen of Firewall so far, they could just be an overzealous association of neighborhood watchmen.
- The type of tasks they'd receive from Firewall. (What range of missions will we be employed in?). Ideally, an answer to this question would've been something along the lines of "anything from industrial sabotage to expeditions into TITAN-infested areas". I don't even know what kind of stuff you're going to give us, I didn't read past page 354. Spectre also doesn't know what kind of missions he'd be getting from Firewall and with him being something of a professsional mercenary at the moment (albeit a sneakily murderous mercenary), he'd appreciate some degree of information before he actually accepts employment.
- What tools will they get to complete said missions? Once again, I know that Firewall is very powerful, with a lot of resources. Spectre? He has no idea. He knows nothing about Firewall, these questions are really designed to give him an understanding of the people he'd be working for. And, of course, this is again professionalism. Before he accepts a mission to protect humanity, he wants to know what backup he's going to have, who's going to help him out when things to wrong, who's going to reupload his backup if he dies on a mission, who'd be providing the morph.

And Johanna hadn't really given us any of this information yet, had she? She'd very broadly outlined our general mission, but how should Spectre have known any of this?
Unless I missed some post you made , he had none of this information. I know some of it, he just didn't. And it's completely in-character for him to ask.