Blood in the Water OOC Thread, Cyberpirates: Chatter here! Options

[Karoline]

I admit I thought it was going to be a bit more hush hush and not quite have such a 'the prez has got your back' feel to it.

As for the yacht vs a dingy ship... well they did take out all the amenities, so it is the size and shape of a yacht, but everything in it likely looks like it belongs in a trailer home.

Still, if you're not having fun, you're not having fun. Alan just eats the good food and runs, we got it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Penta]

Well, here's the dichotomy I came up against. I'm going to violate the rule of (as CD lovingly puts it) "A GM should never let the players see you sweat" and break open my thinking:

1. I am a politics and national security geek. I used to watch CSPAN for fun before I got burned out on it. I'm also a gamer geek. I always wanted to explore the concept of government-sponsored ops without all the interference of government. I always knew it'd be in the Atlantic as soon as people voted for cyberpirates, which narrows down who the sponsor for the op could be. The one entity the player and the GM most readily understand is the UCAS government. Aztlan has a horrible rep, the Carib League isn't much of a government, and we know too damn little about the CAS. I didn't see entirely why a corp would loan you guys the ship and stuff. A government still runs off the Dirksen quip of "a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money". While it'd be a rounding error in the budgets of both the UCAS and any AAA mega, I always envision the governments as being a little freer with their cash.

Finding the "marque and reprisal" clause in the Constitution was just icing on the case. I desperately wanted to use that, purely for the cool factor.

2. After that, I thought about who'd conduct the op. The natural answer: The Navy. How would the Navy do such an op? Well, I looked over how previous similar covert ops (in the extent that there is similarity) were done IRL, since I really doubt that there'd be much under heaven and earth that was different between shadowrunners and various resistance movements. There was always a fair bit of government-provided training.

I listened to you guys and limited it, but I wasn't sure the UCAS Navy would just send you out with a ship. (The loan is pretty essential to the campaign - there's simply no way I could make up how you guys got a ship, given how expensive they are in the books.) The yacht got picked by me pretty much because it was, I shit you not, the cheapest and most practical boat around for our needs...And the fact that the group 2 years ago picked the H&W Classique, while a coincidence, posed the chance of making things easier. It didn't, but it had the chance of it!

3. It was never intended for there to be quite the "POTUCAS got your back" feel. The government sponsorship provides an IC leash on anything supremely stupid you might do, as well as an IC excuse for, in order: a continuing feed of players (Roberts or another Navy fixer can just hire more and train them up on land!), hints when you don't roll well on your contacts (a handy drop of intel), and makes the whole "who to hit" equation (which you'll really be taking over after they give you the ship) a bit easier on each side, you and me alike.

I have distinct flavor to the way I play and GM SR, yes. I favor more "Ice-cold-Pro" to "Pink Mohawk", to use the IMHO too-simple delineators used here on DSF. I was a little kid in the 80s (I was born in 1983). I didn't especially like 80s music or the whole punk aesthetic. I did like Shadowrun's universe and background. When it doesn't get in the way of play, I use realism as my guide - sometimes it works in your favor, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it breaks neutrally. Yes, I know realism is a weird concept to use when there's magic and technomancers and cyberware and stuff about, let alone the megacorps, but I can suspend disbelief like anyone else. I just prefer to use realism, because I like the thought that if you play in my games, you're going to encounter my best attempt at characters real enough in personalities and motivations to walk out of the screen, maybe; you're going to encounter how real organizations would deal with things...Sometimes, those reactions make no apparent sense, yes, which is helpful.

I'm fairly continuously thinking on this game, and doing my best to keep things moving and fun. I know that the training sequence will feel slow as hell, if you aren't used to a slower pace of play. If people want to speed it up by getting me (over email) to help write a post covering a day of training, I can do that, gladly.

Once you guys are done with training (which is really an excuse at a bonding among the characters, OOCly), the ship becomes...Well, it's like it's leased by you guys from the Navy, that's a good way to think of the loan. No downpayment...In fact, they load it with shit and give you free training, too! If you don't pay, though, they send the repo men.(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

4. I suck at writing as dark and dystopian as a lot of people imagine SR. At the same time, I suck at writing Pink Mohawk. Actually, let me amend that.

I can write SR as dark and dystopian as you may please. I might actually be good at it. But I fear I'd make you guys vomit with how dark and dystopian my mind can get. It involves going down pathways I don't like my mind going, either. I'd be willing to, but it isn't necessarily something I will do starting off, and it'd practically require signed liability waivers for me to post, especially in a public forum like DSF.

I do suck at writing the punk aesthetic, though. Leather was never my thing. Mohawks to me always looked silly. And I never saw why you'd make your hair some garish shade not present in nature, unless you're an emo teenager.

5. Yes, Walker projects a huge "I got your back" thing. And the OOC truth is, he does. He's your advocate in the halls of Congress and the Pentagon, assuming you pass training and manage to impress him.

Whether the UCAS government as an entity does? Well, that's a different question! That can be variable, organizations (especially governments) can think a lot differently than even the consensus of those who make up the organization.

[Karoline]

Hehe, knew that was why we got saddled with the yacht, because it is the only large ship that isn't several million.

I'm fairly happy with things as they are. Like I said, the main thing was I had been expecting a much more loaner type feel to our group (And I think all the characters basically expressed that with some form of 'this wasn't what I was expecting' (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) ) I just kinda get this feeling that we have a government grade safety net to fall back on, which seems kind of weird because we're only a 500k investment, so it seems off that we would be of any concern to congress or the pentagon.

I had envisioned it more along the lines of: Congress passes bill to allow marquees again, president signs off on it, new branch is created in the navy to deal with it and given limited funding to work with. The branch's connection to the rest of the navy would be Kevin (Or maybe Walker) who would give a very general 'found the following intel and raided 18 ships this month' report about the operation as a whole to a suprior, who maybe makes quarterly reports to someone high up in the military. And maybe congress gets an annual report of "The marquee program has produced much valuable intel, and been responsable for an estimated 80 gillion nuyen worth of damages to the following nations... can we get more funding to increase activity?"

The way things are set up it seems like (Though may not actually be the case that) congress will be getting weekly updates on our progress, and actually care about this 500k investment when they are busy throwing around billions.

Edit: That said, I'm it still seems like it'll be a fun game, just that one thing is a bit of an odd feel.

[Penta]

Well, yeah. I hadn't thought through some things.

But the 500k investment is what you guys -see-.

Presume, using the usual laws of government activity, that there's ICly maybe millions more being invested that you -don't- see. Not that this is a big project, but it's bigger than what you see. It also includes resources not counted but devoted to you guys, like the resources spent maintaining whatever cover you, in consult with Capt. Walker and Lt. Roberts, set up.

You're also not the *only* privateers, I figure. Just the first to be set up - keep in mind that your LoM (MusicMan, George would be able to inspect the Letter of Marque on his commlink in his quarters after breakfast, along with the associated Congressional resolution) limits you to a specific operating area, pretty much by definition - in this case, basically a shape with the South American coast as it's southern bound, Northern bound being the Arctic Sea, eastern bound being yet-to-be-determined by GM, and western bound being the coast of Texas. (I'd try to draw it, but can't find a way to.) There would likely, if you guys prove successful initially, be other privateer crews covering other bits of ocean. (This also gives me an easy way to transfer you to another bit of ocean if you get bored with the Carib/Americas region - just shift the letter of Marque's bounds.)

The way I figure Congressional oversight: No, they (Congress) don't quite care about your crew, but they do care about the general program. It's independent of money - essentially, it's the UCAS government arming people and sending them out to do Possibly Not-Good Things. The Intelligence Committees have IRL historically taken their job of oversight very seriously in that regard, especially since 9/11, when we got hit with severe blowback from arming people in Afghanistan; I don't see any reason, Congress being Congress, why that would change, even in the dystopian and dark future SR imagines. I figure Walker reports regularly (weekly, maybe biweekly) up the Navy Chain of Command, semi-regularly briefs the President (maybe every two months, presuming a hands-on President (and Colloton seems hands-on)), and maybe once a quarter heads up to Capitol Hill. That'll all occur off-camera, though.

You most emphatically do not have a government-grade safety net to fall back on.

Once the Navy gives you the loan, they'll provide resources only in proportion to your usefulness, and only to the extent that they can cover up the tracks and keep OPFOR guessing as to who sponsors you. You will need to have no idea what you're doing for me to provide intel.

The only exception to that is providing people - to facilitate OOC ease of getting players into the game, they can be picked up at almost wherever you stop, provided introductions by Roberts.

[Marwynn]

Sad to see you go, milky.

[budoka05]

Milk Ducks, pleasure to be playing with ya! Have fun in another game!

[MusicMan]

I need to be honest with you guys; I'm just not having any fun with this game, and I'd like to drop out. I apologize, and I want everyone to know that it's not because of anything they've done or anything like that. I expressed, from a very early stage in this game's development, some real concern that a cyberpirates game wouldn't be up my alley. I voted for a standard Shadowrun-type game, but agreed to give this a shot because of everyone else's enthusiasm. I tried to get into this story, but my character feels out of place, and every step of the way I feel less and less inclined to get on and post. Basically, this game just isn't what I'm looking for.

I understood that we would be operating from under the umbrella-shadow of a major political player (someone capable of issuing letters of marque), but I had convinced myself that we'd be working for some sleazy, mid-level Aztlan or Carib League politician, who used his influence (and a healthy dose of good ol' fashioned blackmail) to push a discreet letter of marque through an already-fairly-corrupted system; not the UCAS proper. I also imagined us on an obsolete, old, rusted out and decommissioned cruiser that was picked up at wholesale; but I pressed on even when I found out it was going to be a tricked out luxury yacht. I'm not saying it's a bad story at all; it just isn't what I'm looking for.

I want to thank everyone, again, for the experience. Hopefully, we'll be able to work together again soon.

Also, I know I had a chance to back out before we went downstairs for breakfast. I didn't take it because I wasn't certain what I wanted to do. Now that I am, I figure the best option to get rid of him is to say that he failed to pass the training; not that he's an idiot or anything, but he's failed psyche exams before, you know what I mean? In all honesty, Alan Brass is not the kind of person you want on an op like this. So maybe it's for the best.

-milk.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[CollateralDynamo]

So many posts Penta! Catch up tonight, respond tomorrow....on my honor as a cop!

(Also, I'm positive Zalermo is exactly as charming as he thinks.

Final note, has anyone mentioned that they think its awesome that you bold character names in your post? Cause I love the drek out of it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[CollateralDynamo]

Okay, here is what I am thinking Zalermo's Schedule will be (thanks to Budoka for already figuring out total number of hours:

[ Spoiler ]

Required Courses:
XO Training: 5 Hours
Intel Officer: 32
Basic: 3
Damage Control: 2
Marksmanship: 3
Firearm Care: 1
Intro: 1
First Aid: 1
M for M: 2
Watchstanding: 1
Flag Recog: .5

Electives:
In Ship Combat: 2
Sabotage: 2 hours (x2)
Explosive Sabotage: 3
Leadership: 2
Self Defense (Melee/unarmed): 2
Marine CO training: 3

So I'm doubling up on the sabotage elective and also want to get training in being the Marine CO. It seems a risky job, redundant training there seems wise.

This also leave 4.5 hours left "free" for my four day journey. Zalermo intends to spend this time supervising and overseeing the new crew doing training. He wants to take this opportunity of flux to inundate himself as a superior officer to the rest of the men.

[Karoline]

So, that post was mostly written by Penta. I added in my parts to it, and the other people in Intel training can add in their own reactions. You already have all the other OOC info via e-mail, so I won't post all that.

Enjoy (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Penta]

Thanks to Karoline, I can now study and GM at the same time!:D

Oh, by the way, you get your stuff back at the end of class.

[Ears]

So, here's my schedule for Simon. Basically it's navigation officer, the must haves, marine co, engineering officer and most of the electives.
With annotations where I spent more than the required time on. Breaks? The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat. At least that was what they kept telling us in basic training. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[ Spoiler ]

CODE

available: 4 * 18 = 72

--must--
navigation o. 8 (x2)
basic 3
damage control 2
marksmanship 3
firearm care .5
intro to the carib 2 (x2)
first aid 1
swim test .25
magic for mundanes 2
intro to watchstanding 1
psycho 2
flag recog .5

-> 25.25

available: 72 - 25.25 = 46.75

--want--
engineering o. 6
marine co 3
SCUBA 4
intro to UCAS gov. 2
meet the locals 2.75 (+.75)
flaura 'n' fauna 2
spanish 6 (x2)
portugese 6 (x2)
in-ship combat 2
sabotage 2
ex. sabotage 3
leadrship 101 2
piloting 101 2
self defense (close) 2
self defense (dodging) 2

-> 46.75

[Marwynn]

Iago's Training Load

[ Spoiler ]

72 Hours

Thaumaturgical Officer Training - 2
Marine CO Training - 3

Common Curriculum
Damage Control - 2 x 2
Marksmanship (Pistols) - 3 x 2
Firearm Care - 1
Intro to the Carib - 1
First Aid - 1 x 3
Swimming Course - 0.5
Intro to Watchstanding - 1
Psychological Wellbeing - 2
Flag Recognition - 0.5

Electives
SCUBA Diving - 4
Meet the Locals - 2 x 2
Flora and Fauna - 2 x 2
Spanish - 3
Portugese - 3 x 2
In-ship Combat Tactics - 2 x 2
Sabotage - 2 x 2
Explosive Sabotage - 3
Leadership 101 - 2 x 2
Piloting - 2 x 2
Self Defense (Melee) - 2 x 2
Self Defense (Ranged) - 2 x 2

Total: 72 Hours

He's trying to work on his weaknesses while brushing up on certain things. He has a bit of a thing for boarding, as its a bit different to what he's used to.

[Knight Saber]

Rusty's training: A Sleep Regulator allows for a scary amount of cramming. 48 hours up, then 3 hours of sleep and she's good for another 48.

Brushing up on demolitions... that's one thing it's hard to practice with in everyday civilian life.

[ Spoiler ]

96 hours -

Essential needs 2 hours x4 days 8
Sleep (3 hours, one day) 3
Officer Training 10 hours
Damage Control 2 hours
Marksmanship 2 hours
Firearm care .5 hour
Magic for Mundanes 2 hours
Watchstanding 1
Psych. Well-being 2
First Aid 1
Flag recognition .5 hour
32 hours

Electives:
Meet the Locals: 2 hours
Flora and Fauna: 2 hours
Portuguese:. 3 hours
In-Ship combat tactics: 2 hours
Sabotage: 2 hours.
Explosive Sabotage: 3 hours
Leadership 101: 2 hours
Piloting 101: 2 hours
Self Defense: hand to hand 2 hours.
20 hours

That's 54 hours, leaving 42 for Rusty to latch onto Captain Walker and do the "captain" course over and over and over. Marines don't like the Navy way of doing things, stereotypically, but she has people under her depending on her skills in fields besides shooting people, which she takes very seriously.

[Penta]

Okay, so. I'm getting everybody's feedback re the game...Consider this my acknowledgment of receipt and reading on the PMs...

I'm at a quandary. I come from MUSHes and MOOs providing the bulk of my RP experience...Literally, well over a decade's worth of experience there, plus time playing by PBEM. There, in settings like Shadowrun, a lot was/is done with RP *between* runs, because runs were hard to organize and harder to finish, simply due to the insanity of getting people together.

Ordinarily, were it just me and like-minded souls, here's how things would run:

You'd train - I definitely plan on skimming over that, hence the reason why I want to wait til everybody has their "training sheets" (not my idea, they were Budoka's and everybody ran with em! They are a good idea though!) done. Depending on the wishes of Zalermo, Jane, and John's players, we can skip the party scene altogether - for everybody else it's just random socializing. For -me-, random socializing is half the fun. It really is, online anyway. (In real life I'm terrified of being social. Don't ask me why.)

For the rest of training, there's actually nothing planned outside of training, except for a brief meeting before docking where you guys figure out your cover. It may take 4 days ICly, it may take up to 7 due to weather, but we'd skim past that. (I determine whether a day was successful by randomly rolling 2d6 versus a threshold of 1 hit - if 1 die hits, the day is clear; if both hit, the next 36 hours is clear; if neither hit, some weather-related reason extended the voyage by a day.)

And then comes when you reach Cape May.

I was originally figuring on a few days of Shore Leave, paid for by the Navy - a chance for pure RP amongst yourselves, a chance to spend what karma you've gained if you wish, as the ship gets taken care of in terms of refueling/reprovisioning and so forth.

However, I can sense the unease amongst y'all.

Once you leave Cape May, the run officially begins. You plot your own courses. You decide how to do *everything*, ICly. You have a target initially, but after that target is taken, you're limited only by your own imaginations and the letter of marque. Karma gets spent only during Shore Leaves, which provide you all a few days of free posting with no GM intervention unless you wish it, and a chance to develop your characters off-ship. (And gives me a chance to plan the next steps.)

This campaign is not meant to have the high pace of a normal shaodwrun campaign - I can't work that fast, no matter how hard I try.

It's going to have a fair bit of time where your GM shifts into the background - namely, shore leaves.

It's going to as much be about the characters as the actual operations.

[Karoline]

I think part of the problem with RP in a PBP game is the fact that it is hard to get in more than a sentence or two without needing to wait for a reply from someone. And with posts only happening daily for some, that could make a simple conversation take -weeks- to finish. It might be nice if we could find a time to all be on IRC or some chatroom or whatever else and just RP stuff like a party. Shore leave is a little better because you can do training montages and stuff, but it is still hard to have much character interaction without it taking a week. I'm sure two people hooking up and doing some RP in an IM would work as well, maybe post the log, or just show to the GM or just let it be a secret if no one else knows about it.

It might also be cool to have a.... alternate timeline sort of thing going on. We have one thread where we post like we normally would, and then we have another thread where we do a party. The timelines would be a bit off, and there might be the occasional screwyness of characters getting into a fight during the party but acting chummy during the mission because they didn't know the fight would occur yet. Still, if we're willing to do a bit of space/time bending this could allow us to get in nice long RP sessions and not bring the overall game to a screeching halt.

[Whizbang]

Melisandre's schedule

[ Spoiler ]

Communications: 4
Navigation: 4
Engineering: 6
Intelligence 32
Basic Military Skills: 3
Damage Control: 2
Marksmanship 3
Firearms Care 1
First Aid 1
Swim Test 0.25
Magic for Mundanes 2
Intro to Watchstanding 2
Flag Recognition 0.5
Portuguese x 2 6
In Ship Combat Tactics 2
Intro to UCAS Government 2
Meet the Locals 2
SCUBA diving 4
Drone Tactics 4
Sabotage 2
Explosive Sabotage 3
Piloting 2
Self Defense 2

89.75 hours

[Penta]

Karoline, as usual, you are my voice of sense. I stated when I started that though I'm a fair GM, this is my first time in a long time doing PBP.

Here's how I'm gonna run things: I try to hang out pretty regularly on the Dumpshock IRC server. If you guys want to gather for an IRC session (to do the party, etc) and someone can figure out how to log the damn thing, I'm willing to attend and play NPCs. Just give me a few days heads-up.

If you want to do one-on-one RP via Googlechat or AIM (AIM is vastly preferred, I can log easier with that), we can do that and post the logs.

I'm not the biggest fan of spacetime bending precisely because of the weird effects it causes, as Karoline mentioned, but if you guys want to do that, I'm game.

Here's where the GM lays out his Sekrit Objectives for this campaign:

1. Last time, the campaign died cuz your GM went into a fugue after his breakup. Thus, I never got to see if the campaign idea even works. I mean to.
2. See how conducive the PBP format is to deep character development and other such things.
3. Have fun with a funky campaign premise.

And my objectives for the players:

1. Have fun.
2. Hopefully, develop deep, developed characters that come alive. As a player, I have characters from Ansible MOO, both my own and other players' characters...Who visit me in my dreams. Not just about Ansible, but dreams about RL, too. A freakish experience that feels weird to admit, but a marker of how alive those characters have become. I hope, as a GM, to get even one character to come alive like that.
3. Experience a different side of Shadowrun.

---
Knight Saber, in a PM to me, brought up the problem that there's a heap of NPCs and PCs to remember. I'm going to give you a hint that most of the NPCs, except Roberts and Walker, will fade into the background. You might want to keep track of who covers what, for convenience's sake, but otherwise they're not as fully developed as Walker and Roberts. I created them for the purpose of being Subject-Matter Experts, part of a group of such that are assembled for the Privateer project (meaning, yes, there are others); sometimes it's their only job, sometimes it's auxiliary to other duties. You will often, after training, contact them through Roberts, then get replies from them directly.

Here's a thought: I have a notebook devoted to this campaign, plus an entire folder of files on my laptop that is just this campaign, plus scratch files. Let me worry about that, to an extent; though I am a fan of you yourself keeping notes about characters and stuff, maybe on whatever comp you play from, if possible, I won't require it, and will endeavor to take the most part of the burden from your shoulders.
---

To sum up that paragraph: Don't worry about the horde of NPCs. Keeping campaign notes as a player is in my experience a good habit to get into, but I won't require it and will try to keep most of the notetaking on my side of the virtual table. The trainers you meet will reappear only indirectly, for the most part (at least that's the plan for now), as subject-matter experts later, contacted via Roberts. Contacts of a contact for whom the friend of a friend rules don't necessarily apply.

[Penta]

More GM blather. Consider this your fate for my having way too much time on my hands today.

I just read Knight Saber's post...Where it mentions 'No team training'...Well, okay.

Let me lay out my thoughts on the post-Cape May experience.

Without saying too much, you will have a fair travel time to any intercept of your target. You can use this in a variety of ways.

Without clubbing you over the head and *telling* you to do this, allow me to suggest that one of the suggested ways of using up that time, besides standing watches (remember, every minute you're at sea, -someone- has to at least man the helm watch, if not an engineering watch), might be such team training. There are a variety of ways to conduct said training, even amidst the confines of the ship. If you think up ways that need help before the Navy folks disembark, and bring it up ICly to Roberts or Walker, they may be able to help.
---

Oh, some housekeeping.

Talking to Whizbang, he brought up something. Seemingly everybody has Google chat that's a player (which isn't required but is certainly nice). Might I suggest you all swap contact info via PM? Google chat does have a multichat feature, and I'd be happy to set up multichats.

[Marwynn]

Sorry haven't had much time to post. I'm sick and busy so it's an odd struggle.

It'll be haphazard for me to IM with anyone, but I'm all for some sort of group bonding experience.

[Knight Saber]

More GM blather. Consider this your fate for my having way too much time on my hands today.

I just read Knight Saber's post...Where it mentions 'No team training'...Well, okay.

Let me lay out my thoughts on the post-Cape May experience.

Without saying too much, you will have a fair travel time to any intercept of your target. You can use this in a variety of ways.

Without clubbing you over the head and *telling* you to do this, allow me to suggest that one of the suggested ways of using up that time, besides standing watches (remember, every minute you're at sea, -someone- has to at least man the helm watch, if not an engineering watch), might be such team training. There are a variety of ways to conduct said training, even amidst the confines of the ship. If you think up ways that need help before the Navy folks disembark, and bring it up ICly to Roberts or Walker, they may be able to help.
---

Oh, some housekeeping.

Talking to Whizbang, he brought up something. Seemingly everybody has Google chat that's a player (which isn't required but is certainly nice). Might I suggest you all swap contact info via PM? Google chat does have a multichat feature, and I'd be happy to set up multichats.

If there is some time to intercept the target, it'd be possible for some AR-augmented training on our ship... Just changing the decoration and adding in random gunfire and alarm noises, for starters. It could carry over several shifts, so the people on duty would get a chance to go, and the group could get familiar with each other's styles and abilities. Perhaps do a scene set in the mess after one or two such sessions, a de-briefing that goes into a bull session and general socializing, with only vague references back to the training events?

[MusicMan]

Day 1

Marine CO training I
Damage Control I
Marksmanship I
Intro to the Carib
Firearm Care


Day 2

Swimming Test
Magic for Mundanes
Damage Control II
Psychological Wellbeing
Flag Recognition
SCUBA
Magic for Mundanes +

Day 3

Meet the Locals
Marine CO II
Marksmanship II
In-Ship Combat Tactics I
Piloting


Day 4

Marine CO III
Marksmanship III
In-Ship Combat Tactics II
Spanish
Self-Defense I
Self-Defense II

[Knight Saber]

Regarding the cover story, the "front cover" is that the ship runs Shadowrun Adventure Cruises, and the back cover is that those wannabe runners are all secretly being filmed for a trid reality show in development? The latter would give a good reason to keep things quiet, have things hidden and so forth... the media market is cutthroat and loves to copy successful ideas.

[Penta]

OOC non-voice-of-god thoughts before I scuttle off to school:

By the time someone's punched through your front cover, they're probably a cop, a corper, foreign mil, or someone similar.

Not Joe civilian. Joe civilian won't look close enough to even break your *first* cover unless -you- really break cover.
---

Idly, about activity:

I'm here most of every day. I do not expect other people to be.

That said, when people go 3+ days between IC posts without a note dropped my way, I Get Nervous.

It's advisable to at least *check* DSF for new posts daily. Try to post at least every 2-3 days. When we're in combat, I'll run it like this: When you're on deck to go, you have 24 hours to post. Miss that 24 hour period, and I skip past you to keep things moving.

[budoka05]

No worries Penta, I'm checking the posts everyday. I'll try to make sure I have time to at least post brief posts daily.

Regarding our second cover, I suggest smugglers or bounty hunters. If we take smugglers, we can justify the heavy weapons and camouflage to protect our cargo against pirates. The only weakness to this cover is that someone might question any sea smuggling when people would choose air transport for the more sensitive cargo.

If we take bounty hunters, it would make sense with the ex-military background and mil-grade armament. Right now I can't see a potential downside, so I'm inclined for this cover.

Besides, bounty hunters and reality TV, sounds familiar eh?