100% concurrence from me, on this.

Now, a sniper who knew anyone in that hallway would be an enemy, but DIDN'T have a way to know "... and there's someone there right now" ...? Subject to Surprise.

... that's why my dwarf sniper build has a Renraku Stormcloud for top-down, and three (mobile & gecko-tipped) LoneStar iBalls, all tied in a tacnet (with Tactical Sattellite Mapping, too!) and optimised for "spot stuff": to watch his back, to prevent surprise while in a hide, etc. Won't eliminate all surprise (if he didn't know there was a doorway behind that book-case, he can't be watching it, now can he?), but will definitely cut down on a lot of it.


Sensor RFID tagshave a Capacity of 1. Motion Detectors require a Capacity of 1. That's about as cheap as you can get. (Many of my characters buy job-lots of those things, and use them liberally to watch approaches to where they are, etc.)

"Awareness" is two things at once: (a) expecting attack, (b) information that said attack is imminent.

Paranoiacs EXPECT attack all the time, from all quarters. That doesn't mean they have the requisite information that said attack is going down right now. They have half of the equation, not all of it.

The sniper example is this: "if I sense someone approach that door, then they are enemies about to attack me". They have the expectation, and are waiting on the information.

It's just, contrary to what the person coming up to that door wants ... the Sniper gets their information through a closed door, before the attack actually happens (but while it is "imminent"). The hunter has just become the hunted, and the ball is in the sniper's court. (And hopefully he thought to leave a command-detonated grenade taped to the ceiling. Heh.)

He could if he had an Ultrawideband Radar.

Unless it was shielded, of course. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Then I'd investigate the shielded bookcase. It's like tracking a hawk at night by watching for the dark spot amongst the stars - you know something is there because of the lack of information on it as opposed to the inclusion of information.

The whole point of shielding is that you do not know that it is shielded. Otherwise Smuggling Compartments would be useless...

Yes and no. If you shield an entire book-case so that the UWBR can't see through it? Then the book-case stand out from it's surroundings, by being an opaque object that the UWBR cannot see through.

A shielded compartment in something like a briefcase, OTOH, tries to shape itself so that the opaque area is not in itself noticeable. Also, they don't generally have to shield themselves against UWBR sensors.

Conitive Dissonance... If you are shileding a passage behind the bookcase, you SHIELD THE WHOLE WALL as well, otherwise the passage is still noticeable. Obvious conclusion, Structural wall made of Reinforced/Hardened Concrete (or whatever), ergo, no UWBR penetration in the first place.

If I am scanning a Briefcase that is impenetrable, well, that SHOULD tell me that it is a smuggling compartment (You WILL have dead Space, but the Shielding, in theory, prevents its detection). It does not, ergo, shielding works and the dead space is ignored. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Right. Your post above lead me to believe you were only talking about shielding the bookcase though.

Still, depending on circumstances, that may be questionable in and of itself. A structural wall on the interior of a library, when all the other walls are of a different material? It may be odd, but possibly not enough to warrant investigation. But it would be noticeable, along the lines of "Oh, now I get why it was opaque," as you're getting shot by the guys coming out of the secret passage.

Likewise. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)