The Kane Interview
This is an interview with Vera Kane, deceased SHIPMIND deputy, conducted by Isobel “Poppy” Parker, a retired Vox Omnia Rex leader. Both of these were characters in the Baseline Drift roleplaying wargame that occurred from May 29th to June 14th, 2026.
Kane, Vera: “Good when you are ma’am.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Do you want the intro music?”
Kane, Vera: “If you like, doesn’t make much difference to me.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Old times sake, why not.”
There is no flashy intro dialogue as the music fades in. Just two people, sitting together.
Poppy smiles, and looks at Vera.
“So. You were a Vox operative from the start, correct?”
Vera’s face stays impassive
Kane, Vera: “I was to an extent, it is not wrong, but it is an incomplete picture.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Yeah, definitely. Day one though, you did head in with a rather odd resume.”
“Got the Deals Three from us Voxes.”
Kane, Vera: “It was a kind of flattering.”
“Not that I considered all of them.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “No you seemed… pretty locked on one.”
Kane, Vera: “I did consider Vox Vita’s offer, I do not think I would have disliked talent protection entirely.”
“But Vox Veritas’ offer was more what I am.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Yeah - Vita and I both said you could be in Vox if you wanted. But Veritas wanted an insider on SHIPMIND.”
“What about it pulled you?”
Kane, Vera: “I didn’t want my face on a screen for one, that did not quite worked out.”
“Part of it was I also believed in what SHIPMIND was doing. Keeping the Navis running is important, the ship is my home. If they were doing it right I could make sure there was less conflict, if not..”
“Well we saw what happened if not, didn’t use Vox for it though.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Yeah, people really like breaching into our broadcast channels. It’s kinda rude.”
Kane, Vera: “Well, your channels are useful. I did consider lobbying SHIPMIND leadership to do something similar at one point.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “They’re the buggers who do it the most!”
“No need to lobby, they’d do it in a heartbeat.”
A chuckle from Isobel.
Kane, Vera: “That started after I left.”
“And there were some leadership changes that led to that I think.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “There was a breach day one - Connolly’s threat to blow the entire station up.”
“HMI admitted to them doing that.”
Kane, Vera: “Oh was that them? I must not have put that together, it was a busy few days.”
“Though I did try to calm them about that, I had solid information nothing would come of the jailing.”
“Part of my promotion I think.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Yeah, those first two were seemingly just showing off that they could.”
“You moved damn fast.”
Kane, Vera: “I am good at what I do.”
A satisfied nod.
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “You spoke with me a hell of a lot more than Veritas though, right?”
Kane, Vera: “I did, he was not always available and most information by its nature is time sensitive.”
“We also built what I consider to be a decent working relationship.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “I think so. He tried to pay you quite frequently, correct?”
Kane, Vera: “Every time we exchanged information he offered. I took the money occasionally, a good bit of it when to the formation of SAMARITAN.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Nice, honest place to send it.”
Kane, Vera: “Thank you. I don’t know that people know this but it was my project.”
“SAMARITAN, that is.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “I don’t think many do!”
Kane, Vera: “I didn’t see much point in telling people, more reasons not to I think. That has changed somewhat now.”
Vera softly chuckles
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “It’s not somewhere I was clicked into - spent most of my time lying through my teeth at the Lockwoods.”
“Backchannels are easy to be consumed by.”
Kane, Vera: “You seem to have done rather well with that.”
“But I understand that, I was not the most public figure myself. Too many M.A.R.S. chats happening all at once.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “It really was a run of days where both of us were rapidly multitasking, yeah.”
“On our communication: I wasn’t as hot on the money front - not out of greed, but I just don’t think we worked that way. Is that a fair assessment?”
Kane, Vera: “No you never offered to pay me, I asked for information when I needed it and you would mostly give it. You had a lot of trust in me, more than most would for a double agent.”
“And on occasion a favor, thank you for getting me that by the way.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Yeah, the bottle. Ha.”
“I think you knew that if you’d ask me I’d genuinely give you the best answer I could.”
Kane, Vera: “It seemed that way for the most part. Was there ever a time you considered not giving me the information I wanted?”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “No. I knew you’d be doing something that, method-wise I may not approve of, but intent-wise I would.”
“I just had other contacts I couldn’t blow up the spots of.”
Kane, Vera: “If it makes a difference I did not always approve of my methods either. Walking the lines I did is difficult, you make a lot of compromises.”
“I hope that in the end they were worth it.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “I think you knew you were going to die doing what you did. I think you knew I was ready to die doing what I did too.”
Kane, Vera: “I think almost everyone I dealt with knew I was going to die, I knew you were ready to.”
“I was surprised when it was commented on, that was strange.”
“Kind the way it was done though.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “There was an impending… sense, in my head, that either one of the factions was going to have me killed, or the Lockwoods would. Vox leadership knew I was feeling this, but never really… knew why I felt like that. Truthfully, up until the heist, I was mostly a lone operative myself. The others were exceedingly patient with my bullshit.”
Kane, Vera: “Hard to trust others when you have goals like that, especially your equals. I do think I figured you as against the Lockwoods, you would not have traded some of what you did with me if you were. Would have been a bad move, you don’t make many of those.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Everyone’s slightly compromised in some way, but yeah, I like to think I moved pretty well.”
“It was a lot of work, playing up being a bit of a lapdog bitch. None of that was ever there in our talks though. We shot straight with each other.”
Kane, Vera: “If you played lapdog with me you would have lost an agent. You knew that I think, had a file on me and it would be easy to learn that from it. I should have played a bit straighter with you though, might have played the Hand differently if I had talked to you about it.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “I agree. If you’d share - what was your play with the Hand?”
Kane, Vera: “It was complex. I was moving against Mehkos on bad information and thought I could get Hand help and they didn’t trust me. I think because it was confirmed bad by them. I also needed pressure on SHIPMIND leadership to remove ideally Codex. Part of it was also my distaste for the Project. I thought straight shooting with the Hand could rebuild trust, put pressure on leadership, and get SHIPMIND to shift focus from the Project. But I did no properly know how much the Hand wanted Nathaniel dead, should have done more research.”
“There were additional personal elements but that was not a priority.”
“Then I locked them in an elevator, not a great job at building trust.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “You were working off of the false goals, weren’t you?”
“Complete The Project on behalf of Nathaniel Lockwood.”
Kane, Vera: “Partially, I also had bad information on what exactly Sygn implants could do. I understood at the time that they could be used to lock down people impanted’s bodies, which was a major security concern for the ship.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Yeah, I never bought that.”
“I did know about the afterlife thing though. From quite early.”
Kane, Vera: “I had an idea about that later, a bit before everything got busier all at once. Not enough time to follow up on it in the way I wanted. I briefly tried to talk to Agonist Metradora about it, but she was not interested.”
“Kind woman though.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “She’s lovely. Good soul, and also my core contact at Mekhos.”
“We trusted each other implicitly - Or at least, I like to think we did.”
“‘Girl secrets?’ we’d say to each other.”
Kane, Vera: “Offered to connect me with a therapist without offending me, then stitched me up after I renounced. You could have had a worse contact.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Yeah, she looped me in on a lot. I asked her straight about the afterlife potential, and she told me it was a theoretical yes.”
Kane, Vera: “Might not have hurt to let me know about that.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “I refer to my earlier comments about not burning my other contacts.”
Kane, Vera: “Fair enough, no hard feelings. You’ve done more than enough for me.”
Isobel smiles.
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “When a doctor like Metradora gives you a theoretical, you know they’re going to test it at some point.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “The DEATHPOD attack certainly wasn’t a plan for such, but it did prove her theory.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “To my knowledge, the Lockwoods knew of this potential and wanted it for themselves - she told me they wouldn’t do that, and I trusted her.”
Kane, Vera: “You are very lucky you have keep choosing the right people to trust.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Girl secrets goes far.”
Kane, Vera: Vera sighs
“You take great joy in calling them that don’t you?”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “That’s what we called them!”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Large quantity of women with powerful knowledge on this ship.”
Kane, Vera: “I had noticed that, somehow I managed to get some of them to like me.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “I do wonder how much I was left out of because nobody in the Hand wanted to fuck me.”
Kane, Vera: “If it makes a difference I do not think anyone in the Hand wanted to fuck me either by the end of it.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Missing out, to my understanding.”
Isobel cackles.
Vera has a brief slight smile
Kane, Vera: “I’m not quite sure what you’re implying there ma’am.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “One for the speculative audience.”
Vera sighs again
Kane, Vera: “I do suppose I should thank you for the memorial in addition to Herald and Ms. Hope. It was a very nice ceremony and I am glad that both myself and the former TransAdmin were held so highly by the people of the Navis.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “It was important. For the people, and for the respect due to yourselves.”
“I scrambled that evening to make sure there was a proper ceremony. I don’t think I could live with myself if there wasn’t.”
“Not after everything that was done, the efforts went to in your lives.”
Kane, Vera: “I tend to consider mourning a matter for the living, but it was very kind of you to do so. I am not the most practiced Jew, but you did well honoring our traditions.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “I’m not the most practiced Christian - rebellious late teens and early twenties did that - but in returning to my faith I felt it… dishonourable to disrespect your faith, or the faith Mazzarine and I shared.”
Kane, Vera: “As I said, kind of you.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “In a way, it was partly my fault it happened, through an odd extension of events. I’m glad you liked it.”
“If that hadn’t happened, where were you going next? I remember you asking me for other factions to join, and you ended up with the Floor - where were the next steps?”
Kane, Vera: “I was trying to integrate myself with the Floor as much as I could, it was not as much of a fit as I would have liked.”
“Nothing against the Floor of course, they were very kind to me.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “What is it like in the Floor?”
Kane, Vera: “The Floor is a lot like SHIPMIND but just a bit off. They elect their deputies, make sure to get their work done, their leadership was less involved then SHIPMINDs was a times. It was nice but too close to SHIPMIND, made me miss the people too much.”
“The plan was to step back from operations as much as I could, focus on the SAMARITAN, the Bart, I had considered seeing about jumping to Vox.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “We both know you probably wouldn’t have liked Vox culture, but we would’ve taken you.”
Kane, Vera: “I think there are part of Vox I could have enjoyed. Journalism has an appeal of a sort to me, people would trust my news I think.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “I think you and Vicki would have gotten on like a house on a very muted fire.”
Kane, Vera: “Is that one of the Dogs? They seemed nice if loud. Maybe, I would have expected myself to be somewhat solitary there. Spend my time talking to people on coms rather than being there physically.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Yeah, the Towers would have driven you insane. I loved it all; the noise, the bustle, the constant chase of people trying to get an answer from me about something - which, of course, they got.”
“People have told me it’s like an old film called Brazil in there.”
Kane, Vera: “I could have adjusted given time I think, but it would have been a significant and difficult one.”
“Found a small office out of the way, get enough screens, some plants and recreate my old M.A.R.S. hookup. I’m sure the people there wouldn’t mind there being a bartender in the office either, though I might at times.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “I think the beauty of Vox culture was the differences. We argued, and bickered, and truthfully a lot of our entertainers were a fucking nightmare.”
“But that kept us straight.”
“And good Lord did we uplift one another when we did things.”
Kane, Vera: “Sounds like a good place, hope I managed to help it out a bit.”
“You have any plans before you had to make it to somewhere discrete?”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Have more sex, do a DJ set for XOXO and redistribute as much wealth as I could.”
Kane, Vera: “We make very different plans.”
Isobel laughs, nodding.
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “It’s a real shame I had to bow out, but I’m glad that in my last moments of leadership, Vox broadly had faith in me. I gave them the full truth - the whole land hog, if you will - and they broadly stood by me.”
Kane, Vera: “Then again I did have some dates planned myself.”
“You were a good leader from my seat. I think I would have liked you better as a contact than a boss at Vox, but you do both well.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “You’d probably have found your way into a deputy or even leadership position at Vox, given time.”
Kane, Vera: “Not sure I would have taken it, but good to know I would have been valued there.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “At the point you run an operation as well as you did, you’d deserve access to some level of trust and control in our techniques.”
“You and I really have proven the age-old mantra - you don’t often need an intel op, you can just talk to people.”
Kane, Vera: “That’s true you can just talk to people, it will get you far. But positions like that are hard on you, my last deputy position had some effects on my personal life that were inconvenient at the least.”
“As I mentioned earlier a step back from ops was a real consideration for me. It was something I was struggling with, but I do think I could have gone either way with it.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “I think it would’ve been good for you - a shame you painted such a massive target on yourself, and a shame I didn’t act fast enough to protect you.”
Kane, Vera: “The target had to be painted on someone eventually, better me than someone else. You did your best for me too, I had ways out. The Hand offered to hold me in their dungeon for protection, I didn’t take it.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “I don’t think it would have worked - too short a window.”
“Vox HQ would have been safe as shit though.”
“We kept two maximally-trained squads there on top of a level 3 block security.”
Kane, Vera: “We made our choices, not much point in going over what could have been on air to this extent. People will learn from what we did, make better mistakes than ours.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “They damn better. I… admit uncertainties in my confidence, following the almost total collapse of Vox leadership.”
“I hope they learned the lessons I had time to teach.”
Kane, Vera: “All we can really do now, hope.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Right, time for me to do the same thing I held off to the end with Mazzarine for - lets get into you a bit.”
Kane, Vera: “Must we?”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “You let me play the intro.”
*Vera sighs heavily
Kane, Vera: “Very well.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Fight Night - you rate it at all?”
“Would you’ve thrown yourself in the ring?”
Kane, Vera: “There was a brief consideration, but…”
“I do not much like the things that violence does to me, especially when it is not needed.”
“Part of why I turned down the job you offered me.”
“I did watch the first fight though.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Raisonnable, as Jean-Paul would say.”
“I’m not shocked you watched the first fight though, knowing the request you made of me.”
Kane, Vera: “It was an operational necessity, and there was a personal element. There are some things you need to see to be sure.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Certainly.”
“It would have been interesting to see you on one of Vita’s shows.”
Kane, Vera: “It would have been a very effective torture.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Not a fan of educational kids shows?”
Kane, Vera: “I like children and education is important, but I do not tend to mix well with the kind of energy or environment that would have required of me.”
“Not to mention my distaste of people outside of controlled environments, and those did not seem particularly controlled.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Did you want kids?”
Vera’s face stays impassive
Kane, Vera: “I am told I have some, twins, a boy and girl.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “That’s… a revelation. No connection?”
Kane, Vera: “I was younger when they were born and in a worse state then.”
“The mother determined I shouldn’t be in their life and I did not disagree. I still don’t, wouldn’t want them caught up in this.”
“I keep tabs of course.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “As an operator would.”
Kane, Vera: “As a mother would, at least I like to think at times.”
Isobel nods slowly.
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “You looking forward to TRAPPIST?”
Kane, Vera: “In some sense, the Navis Caeli is my home always has been. I would have liked to see a forest, but I cannot imagine myself having moved there.”
“I was born on this ship, raised on it, died on it, that is right for me.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “I find myself somewhere similar - I don’t think I’ll be much use planetside, honestly. I live in the bustle, in the urban busywork that the Caeli provides. And I don’t think people really want to see my face too much, not after the news before my departure.”
Kane, Vera: “I understand that. To be honest the idea of a place so open, vast, it scares me more than it should.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Yeah - we know the ship, it has limits. Comprehensible ones, really. The concept of a place that potentially takes weeks to travel?”
“Makes me shudder a bit at night.”
Vera looks unsettled
Kane, Vera: “When I studied the Torah, the parts where we were lost in the desert for decades, those scared me. The Navis is very hard to get lost in it you know it well, even the guts.”
“Though I think my Rabbi would compare the last 186 years to that rather than TRAPPIST.”
*A nod from Isobel.
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “I wonder how we have changed, as a people, as a species, since our time on Earth. We carry these traditions with us - things some would call vestigial - and uphold them to what degree we can. The Lockwood religion of hypercapitalism has lived on this ship a damn long time, and for what?”
Kane, Vera: “I don’t know, I think there is some good in continuity. My people have a very long history of strife and keeping those stories and the lessons learned help us. The traditions help us endure, help guide us to be better. That is not true for all traditions of course, but I would not have done the things I did without my people’s traditions, our lessons.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Neither would I. Returning to scripture has definitely given me a center to rely on. James 5 spoke to me greatly during the Lockwood rebellion - I even quoted it to Ravenna. 5:3 especially rings true - Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days.”
“She never responded to that.”
Kane, Vera: “Is a good quote, the Christians have added a lot of very compelling works to their religion.”
“I do think there’s a strong argument to be made that we once owed Nathaniel Lockwood a great deal. He opened the ship to us. But in Judaism debts are cleared every 7 years, and he has kept us wandering for 186 years letting people who long for another world die. The killing of another human is one of the things that cannot be forgiven in Judaism, and by action or inaction he killed so many. What the Lockwoods have done is horrific, what they have made others do, just as bad.”
“But I think this is not the best place for us to speak on our religions, not good tv, is the phrase I think.”
Isobel gives a solemn nod, but a smile after.
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Yeah, bad TV. You would have fit into Vox after all.”
Kane, Vera: “I did my research when I considered it.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “What kind of reporting would you have wanted to do?”
Kane, Vera: “Something investigative I think, that or wartime reporting, there is some overlap to my understanding. The Hand probably would have made a point not to kill me after what I did for them, and I am good at digging.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Maybe they’d have looped me in on more if you’d been in Vox.”
Kane, Vera: “Maybe, they didn’t trust me much. If I had time I could have turned a source in there, but it wouldn’t be easy.”
“It seems it is hard for us to talk about things other than work, did you notice that?”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Yeah.”
“Effectively all we did before our respective departures, isn’t it?”
“All those Populi Opinion episodes I never got to do…”
Kane, Vera: “I spent a great deal of time and effort running what was a very good bar. I do not consider the work I did at the Bart work, though it did help with the work.”
“SAMARITAN wasn’t work either, but I had less time with that project.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Yeah, and I did fashion shows and photoshoots and finally got back on the drums after almost half a decade.”
“But it was always there, in the background, wasn’t it?”
Kane, Vera: “There always is something in the background for people like us.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “A M.A.R.S. channel you know is going to light up some hour or another.”
Kane, Vera: “Often more than one.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “A glance from one of your contacts.”
Kane, Vera: “A notification about a systems issue when the system has been shut down for weeks.”
“Part of why I was thinking about stepping away from ops.”
“Run the bar, help people, maybe try to date if I can get a handle on myself.”
“I bet the itch wouldn’t have left.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “It never does. I couldn’t ever fully unplug.”
“But it’s worth an effort.”
“That last night with Sincerity and Lisbeth was worth disconnecting for.”
Kane, Vera: “Well I hope you get a chance to make the effort longer term now.”
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Me too.”
“Right, well - for now, we’ll close this here. But, for my beloved listeners, what do you want to know about the life of VeraKane?”
Vera looks at the camera with violence in her eyes
Isobel “Poppy” Parker: “Or, what do you want to know about me? Get in the comments, and we’ll get a tell-all episode spun up soon. For now, thank you Vera for joining me, and I’ll catch you all on the next episode of The Populi Opinion!”
And so, the outro plays, as the microphones are faded out to the sound of Isobel laughing about Vera.
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