It's not a meeting if people don't mingle a bit prior to it starting. Which is fine with Nick. The more they know each other, the better this will go.

((Feel free to chat among yourselves in this thread.))

Nick goes up to the front and, clearing his throat, tries to make himself heard. "Ah, if I could have your attention, please? Thanks.

I want to thank each and every one of you for making it here today. I'm sorry for the slightly, uh, unpolished setting of our first meeting, but there's a lot of ways in which this place is ideal, for reasons I'll explain later. Still, I'm glad you could make it, and I hope for a lot of good things out of this."

He walks a bit. "As I'm sure a lot of you are aware, the natives, as they say, are restless. More specifically, many of them are beginning to perceive us at a nuisance at best, and a trouble magnet at worst. It's pretty obvious we've been so wrapped up in our own problems that we've been neglecting our relations with the town we're ostensibly supposed to be defending. Between the Anoli and this... Nyarlathotep we're apparently now up against, we need to deal with this ASAP.

To that end, I propose we form a group. We need to research the situation with the natives, figure out the best way to help them within the best of our abilities, and more than anything else prove we're not just a bunch of slackers, leeches, or menaces. That way, we'll be in the best possible position we can be to deal with the problems ahead of us."

He pauses for a moment, thinking. "There is... one other thing I want to accomplish with this. I'm going to be up front with you guys about it. If you agree with me, that's fine. If not, I will not hold it against you to walk away from this and develop your own group. This situation isn't something that requires competition."

A deep breath. "I am hoping... that by opening our lines of communication with the natives, we can start getting some information on this world that the government apparently decides is too dangerous to share with us. A backdoor, if you will." He turns his head. "I am on the side of people, both living and dead. I do not appreciate having the truth kept from me." He turns back to them. "This is only a secondary objective. The most important thing is our relations. But if we can somehow uncover more of the truth this way, so much the better."

He sighs. "I will understand if anybody wants to leave, after hearing that."

People were still on board. Good. "Okay, so I don't have a white board on me right now, but there are definitely some issues we need to address immediately based on my own interactions with some of the more discontent citizens," he says, flipping through some notes of his.

"First: There's a perception of uneven resource distribution. Specifically, people think the government is giving us a lot of things they're not giving anybody else. Whether this is strictly true or not is beyond the point. What MATTERS is that's what people think, and we'll need to figure out some way to allay their fears." He pushes his glasses up. "And it can't just be 'appeal to their rationality,' because there's nothing rational about it. We used to have similar panics about 'refugees' back home. Even if you show them you're getting the same amount as others, people don't buy it.

"Next: There's the perception that our appearance has in some way stirred up the Anoli. Now obviously, we need to do some research on this. We don't know HOW active the Anoli were prior to our arrival, but people seem to think it's gotten worse. We need to confirm this." He frowns. "The problem is, I don't know how much we can trust official media channels. HOWEVER, there are sometimes alternative avenues we can pursue. Underground networks. Alternative media. We need to hit every resource we can. If it's somehow true, then we need to find a way to assure people that our presence can help fend them off just as much as attract them. If it's not..." He trails off, leaving folks to consider that for themselves.

Nick looks at everybody. "If anybody else has gotten anything else out of anybody that might be of relevance, I welcome you to bring it up. Otherwise, I say we start brainstorming. Figure out what we can do to help the people, and by help them consequently relieve the pressure on us. Any ideas?"