Tir Crisis Response Team, How to respond to a complete lack of planning Options

[Runeblood]

So here's the issue. The team got a job to clean up some loose ends from a Renraku data theft. An intercepting data thief sniffered the feed and Renraku found out about it. The private hacker arranged a physical data exchange. The Courier was sent from Hawaii to Seattle, and decided to meet with the buyer soon after that.

The team decided to intercept the courier out to sea (on a cruise ship, lots of people, can lay low). After finding out the couriers identity and what ship she was on, they went to step 2. They chartered a private deep sea fishing boat and intercepted the cruise ship a full day away from harbor (roughly 550 miles offshore). They didn't disable the comm signature for the fishing boat, and were hailed to keep their distance. They did (though the team "Leader" cut the conversation with the cruise ship off midstream). Three team members (all Cybered kiling machines) swam to the boat and repelled/climbed the side to the first deck available to be stood on. There were some guards there (easilly dispatched, but not before one was able to tell someone and sound the alarm). The spider will download new skillsofts for combat and the Ship's mage will go about being nasty. Enough background:

They are in Tir waters. UCAS military would send an osprey equivalant with some teams of SEALs and a Hostage negotiation team in case of pirate attack. What would the Tir send? I want to have consequences for not planning the run. At the same time, I don't want this to be frustrating and have them quit and want t play something else. (They have a laundry list of Shadowrun failures.)

Help please.

Team composition:
Elf infiltration specialist/sniper (not very bright)
Dwarf melee grunt (new player, hasn't played SR since 1st ed came out)
Troll infiltration specialist/archer
Elf mage (manipulation, mind control)
Orc rigger (drone specialist, only a shotgun rotodrone and spy drones with him this time)
NPC Human Technomancer (who is as backseat an npc as I can possibly make him.)

This post has been edited by Runeblood: May 24 2010, 07:12 PM

[Kliko]

550 miles off-shore they're very unlikely being in Tir's waters. What you might consider under what flag the cruise ship operates. Then pick your respective hammer to drop on them.

[Runeblood]

Ok, fair. What would be a realistic, but proportional hammer. Do you think I should drop the sledge or the ballpin?

[augmentin]

Ok, fair. What would be a realistic, but proportional hammer. Do you think I should drop the sledge or the ballpin?

If you want to punish the players, while still maintaining interest in the game I'd go with a response like this.

If you want to go with the sledge, there's always this.

[TommyTwoToes]

This is a sligtly different situation from current piracy issues. The players are not attempting to ransom off the ship or it's cargo (I hope). They may be able to get aboard, secure the <plot device> and leave hours before any response will arrive at the ship. Even spec ops folks parachuting onto the ship (does the ship have clear deckspace to allow this?) would take some time.

Figure that any response will need the following steps.
1 Call for help goes out (done)
2 Situation is reported up through a chain of command until it reaches the person who can authorize action (from 20 minutes to several hours depending on beauracracy)
3 Decision maker has minions collect more data (from a few minutes to hours again, depending on the level of beauracracy)
4 Order to take action issued to response team. (Minutes)
5 Team and gear prepped for transport. (minutes)
6 Team is in transport (hours depending on distance) Even going by jet will likely take hours (transports that allow parachuting are usually lumbering and slow)
7 response team arrives on site.

Will your players still be on the boat? If so, it might be time to reset the game and have them make some new toons.

[brennanhawkwood]

I was going to comment on the Tir waters thing. A quick look at Wikipedia indicates that based on today's general rules Tir waters would probably extend about 12 nautical miles from their coast and their economic zone would extend 200 nautical miles from the coast, which would put a ship at 550 miles offshore solidly in international waters. As Kliko says, that would make them technically under the jurisdiction of the nation under whose flag they fly. On the other hand, if you want the Tir involved, the ship could be flying Tir colors, or the ship's captain may have contacted them for help as the nearest 'friendly' nation.

Also, at 550 miles offshore, unless their is a military or para-military vessel coincidentally nearby or it turns into a long drawn out encounter, the ship is likely going to have to handle the attack with their own resources. Looking at the aircraft in SR4A and the real world speed of the Osprey (according to wikipedia) it would take at least two hours (probably longer) for any airborne response to get there from the Tir. Depending on your interpretation of how the Movement power works, that could help, if whoever is responding has such an option and chose to do so.

If you want to use a UCAS style response, just have the carrier group out of Seattle (or a part of it) happen to be cruising 'nearby'. I could easily see a cruise ship that thinks it might be getting boarded by pirates to put out a general distress call that a military flotilla would respond to. That could provide quite a set of 'deadlines' for the PCs. For example, if they don't get what they want and get off fast, they'll eventually be facing military response teams, and if they take even longer escaping could become a problem if they have to start dodging more aircraft or ships as the military ships enters the area to 'rescue' the cruise ship.

On the other hand, if I was running this, I'd probably rule that the challenges of finding a single courier on an alerted cruise ship (especially if it is a big one...those things can be fragging huge) combined with actions of professional security force that would be expected to be able to handle protecting the passengers in the event of exactly this sort of thing happening (given how far a ship can be from help) would provide plenty of tools to me as the GM to make getting that courier a never certain to succeed hell run.

[augmentin]

This is a sligtly different situation from current piracy issues.

I know. I just love the idea of a contracted security force hiding on the roof and then jumping into the water when help comes.

Also, given the amount of profit a 2070s cruise ship presumably generates, I think that option 2 of a trailing contracted para-military vessel is "realistic."

[Warlordtheft]

Also consider the Corp that owns the ship. Exterritorality and all. Vessels can be flagged as SK, Ares, Wuxing, or any other. Meaning the response may be corporate, not a nation state.

Another item to think about is an ares cruise ship with a Firewatch team on board for protection. They get a vacation light, sure they have duties but how often are cruise ships attacked by pirates 500 klicks from seattle. Not often, but does make it a good post major op, down-time mission.

[kzt]

Attacking a ship makes them pirates. Pirates are technically considered "Hostis humani generis" (enemy of mankind) in Admiralty law. As such anyone may respond to aid them and kill the pirates or arrest and try the pirates. In particular, the vessel that brought them is a pirate ship and can be sunk without warning.

This is likely not a survivable situation. They have made worldwide news. 90 seconds after the ship reports they are being attacked by pirates the UCAS Navy, the IJN, Ares and probably several other organizations will have high resolution satellites looking at the situation. Minutes later every military vessel in the area will steam towards it, long-range aircraft will launch towards it, and it will get progressively worse. Getting away is going to be really hard.

The fastest response might be from mages. As they have elected to play with the big boys they get to play with big boy rules. A couple of honking big spirits (like force 12+) would be on board in well under an hour, covered by astral military or Ares mages. The concealment power of big spirits really makes dealing with them a pain.

Unless someone uses a space-based platform to sink the pirate ship with a gigwatt laser or a small KE weapon, the next thing on the scene would be supersonic strike aircraft out of Seattle, LA, or an IJN carrier. Then tankers/recon, then a few hours later you'll get full up naval vessels. Including a full tier 1 assault team.

[Kliko]

Or perhaps more fun, have a team already onboard after some post-op rest and relieve. Good skillset, make-shift gear, that kind of setup. Good tactics will nail a runner team anytime. It also depends on the scenario you want to run with. The ship's first priority would be to get everybody in a secure location. In that regard they won't mind that they can't trace one lost passenger.

Your team swims awfully fast though, given they were able to catch up with the cruiseship in the first place.

[brennanhawkwood]

Also consider the Corp that owns the ship. Exterritorality and all. Vessels can be flagged as SK, Ares, Wuxing, or any other. Meaning the response may be corporate, not a nation state.

Another item to think about is an ares cruise ship with a Firewatch team on board for protection. They get a vacation light, sure they have duties but how often are cruise ships attacked by pirates 500 klicks from seattle. Not often, but does make it a good post major op, down-time mission.

The similar idea that had occured to me, but might not be as 'obvious' was a Mitsuhama owned and operated ship. IIRC one of MCT's big areas of business is media/entertainment so I could see them running their own cruise line. Given their zero zone reputation, I could see the security on board such ships being very polite and very no nonsence and a rude suprise to anyone that tried to make a move on one.

I'm not certain extraterritoriality would come into play though. Though potentially owned by a mega, I suspect in most cases cruise lines would be their own corporations that are too far down the chain of ownership to receive true extraterritoriality. Might not make a lot of difference though. When it comes to protecting a bunch of passengers in the face of a pirate threat, as long as they didn't endanger their own passengers more than the pirates they are likely to have a pretty free hand (as mentioned by kzt).

[Kliko]

-Double post-

[Runeblood]

I did some research and it looks like many companies and governments have suggested installing panic rooms onboard ships in danger of pirate attack. In 60 years, they probably have done something like this, making it nigh impossible to get the VIP and target data.

I feel kind of bad now.

at the right angle and high strengths these guys were at, I was willing to distribute some handwavium for the swim speed.

Thanks everyone so far for the help so far. It's an interesting discussion!

This post has been edited by Runeblood: May 24 2010, 09:50 PM

[Ezzeran]

How many people are we talking about on this ship?

Is this a major cruise liner? If we're talking 2072, then the cruise liners of the time have to be at least as big as, say, the Freedom of the Seas, which is one of the largest cruise ships available today. You're talking about around 5,000 people on board a ship like that. It seems like the situation has gotten to the point where the whole ship knows of their presence. Whatever they tried to do to get the VIP and data has obviously gone wrong, so horribly so that, safe room or not, it's unlikely the team will be able to locate the courier.

There's no question of this being a hostage situation or not. There's no way a 6 man team can hope to control a ship with that many people on board. A six man team would mean only one thing, and that's terrorism. The assumption of security forces in this case would be that the attackers objective is to outright sink the ship. If there's no actual communication between the runners and the ships crew as to their intent, they're as good as done.

I think your runners have one and only one option, and that's to try to get the hell off that ship. This run is blown. Unless you intervene in some unexpected way.

One thing you might do is have the team get in touch with the command crew somehow. Perhaps the captain is greedy, and agrees to help them for a cut of the pay?

Ezz

[Saint Sithney]

It just so happens that officer John McClain of the NYPD is on board for a little R&R.

[CeeJay]

Team composition:
Elf infiltration specialist/sniper (not very bright)
Dwarf melee grunt (new player, hasn't played SR since 1st ed came out)
Troll infiltration specialist/archer
Elf mage (manipulation, mind control)
Orc rigger (drone specialist, only a shotgun rotodrone and spy drones with him this time)
NPC Human Technomancer (who is as backseat an npc as I can possibly make him.)

Just from looking at your team's composition, this could actually have worked. Just not the way your team tried it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Get both the mage, the TM and maybe the troll on board unnoticed, locate the courier (TM hacks ship's cabin reservations), hang around until the ship reaches Seattle, mind control the courier to leave the ship with your team, rigger waits at harbour to drive you all away...
The key term here is of course "unnoticed". The moment the ship's staff sounded the alarm, the run had failed. Only chance they could still pull that off, is to somehow get lost between all the other passengers, stay low, deal with the increased security measures that will certainly be deployed and hope that the situation will calm down enough that they can still find the courier before the ship reaches Seattle harbor.

-CJ

[Creel]

I saw this movie, Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Busy, Erika Eleniak...

Sick the cook on them.

[TommyTwoToes]

Attacking a ship makes them pirates. Pirates are technically considered "Hostis humani generis" (enemy of mankind) in Admiralty law. As such anyone may respond to aid them and kill the pirates or arrest and try the pirates. In particular, the vessel that brought them is a pirate ship and can be sunk without warning.

True, it makes them pirates, however situations in our current time that involve piracy usually have long durations due to the pirates holding ships or cargoes for ransom (as well as the genrally slow spped of said ships) which allows for lengthy decision cycles. If the Op can be completed before the big boys can complete their first decision cycle, then the runners would only have to deal with on site security.

This is likely not a survivable situation. They have made worldwide news. 90 seconds after the ship reports they are being attacked by pirates the UCAS Navy, the IJN, Ares and probably several other organizations will have high resolution satellites looking at the situation. Minutes later every military vessel in the area will steam towards it, long-range aircraft will launch towards it, and it will get progressively worse. Getting away is going to be really hard.

Satelite retasking is a major decision. Each Sat carries a very finite ammount of fuel that the thrusters can use to reposition the bird. In an era of privatized security and extrateritoriality, there would be less pressure on each government organization to expend their limited reasources on this type of incident. 90 Seconds is longer than it will take the person on the receiving radio to look up who to call and then get in contact with their immediate superior, let along reach the person who can have a satalite re-tasked.

The fastest response might be from mages. As they have elected to play with the big boys they get to play with big boy rules. A couple of honking big spirits (like force 12+) would be on board in well under an hour, covered by astral military or Ares mages. The concealment power of big spirits really makes dealing with them a pain.

If the standard response to 3 people boarding a ship is multiple force 12+ spirits, then you are playing a far different power level game than I am. Also seems like it would be different than the power level than the players since they are using a fishing trawler and not a fast attack sub. Force 12 spirits are very difficult to summon without doing real physical harm to the mage.

Unless someone uses a space-based platform to sink the pirate ship with a gigwatt laser or a small KE weapon, the next thing on the scene would be supersonic strike aircraft out of Seattle, LA, or an IJN carrier. Then tankers/recon, then a few hours later you'll get full up naval vessels. Including a full tier 1 assault team.

What are the supersonic strike aircraft going to do against the runner team that is already on board? Since the ship is off the Tir coast, it would likely be a Tir response (or possibly IJN). Do either of them have that kind of big time naval asset in the area.

The biggest problem that the runners have that I can see is "No Exit Strategy". If they have a clever plan on how to get away they might, might, be able to carry this off. They will be somewhat pressed for time to find the target, but not impossibly so.

I did like someone's idea about a security striketeam on board, decompressing after some heavy action. That is just the kind of "kill 2 birds with 1 stone" kind of reasource allocation that would make sense to a corp. Just remember that they need to have armament appropriate to the venue. Gel rounds and flechette ammo, no putting holes in the big expensive ship (or the guests)!

[kzt]

Satelite retasking is a major decision. Each Sat carries a very finite ammount of fuel that the thrusters can use to reposition the bird. In an era of privatized security and extrateritoriality, there would be less pressure on each government organization to expend their limited reasources on this type of incident. 90 Seconds is longer than it will take the person on the receiving radio to look up who to call and then get in contact with their immediate superior, let along reach the person who can have a satalite re-tasked.

It is now. It's isn't when corps or governments can economically launch 50,000 ton solar power sats into Geo and make major money by selling the power to the 3rd world. Space access is cheap. Every Mega has significant sats. Every major government military (and megas like Ares with real naval forces) has real-time ocean surveillance systems and the sufficient orbital assets to provide the ability to rapidly observe developments without messing with planned operations. Hell, the target acquisition and tracking system on any orbital weapons platform will give them high res imagery in real time.

If the standard response to 3 people boarding a ship is multiple force 12+ spirits, then you are playing a far different power level game than I am. Also seems like it would be different than the power level than the players since they are using a fishing trawler and not a fast attack sub. Force 12 spirits are very difficult to summon without doing real physical harm to the mage.

When a group of terrorists attack a ship full of rich people you get a significant response by organizations those mission in life is killing terrorists. You have to realize that the mages that support national level counter-terrorist teams are not 400 BP characters. They don't play to lose, they do this shit all the time and they are very good at it. The players are likely to never even notice the spirits until and unless the spirits act against them.

[HappyDaze]

If you want to make the event salvageable from a gaming point of view, go away from the gritty answers and have some form of sea monster attack the ship. If you'd like, make it a spirit, or even a spirit using Possession on the sea monster. Now the PCs can try their mad plan while the ship is in danger of sinking around them.

[Warlordtheft]

Don't forget, rail mounted drones with gel rounds in an HVAR Assault rifle. Wired of course to the ships security spider (wired not wifi). Normally this track is used for guiding drunk passengers back to their rooms.

BTW-The teams plan violated rule #1 of running:Keep a low profile!! I would have a hard time giving the players a pass on this.

Good luck whatever you decide to do! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/vegm.gif)

[phillosopherp]

It is now. It's isn't when corps or governments can economically launch 50,000 ton solar power sats into Geo and make major money by selling the power to the 3rd world. Space access is cheap. Every Mega has significant sats. Every major government military (and megas like Ares with real naval forces) has real-time ocean surveillance systems and the sufficient orbital assets to provide the ability to rapidly observe developments without messing with planned operations. Hell, the target acquisition and tracking system on any orbital weapons platform will give them high res imagery in real time.

I would tend to agree with this part. By the year 2070 and the tech level that SR is at Geo-synced sats are probably everywhere and it is probably a couple of companies that have the planet covered completely at all times for surveillance. Those two (or three or maybe four) companies compete to give their services to governments and other companies that don't want to dabble in a field that they are not focused on and thus buy the service from others. I would agree here.

When a group of terrorists attack a ship full of rich people you get a significant response by organizations those mission in life is killing terrorists. You have to realize that the mages that support national level counter-terrorist teams are not 400 BP characters. They don't play to lose, they do this shit all the time and they are very good at it. The players are likely to never even notice the spirits until and unless the spirits act against them.

Here is where I would slightly disagree with your response/time and such. I would still see bureaucracies and response being the same or maybe even longer due to the legal responses having to continually be questioned. While your right that if they are pirates or terrorists then response can be by anyone/everyone, they would have to be termed as such first. I feel that with all the legal issues, and let us face it while the Corp Court is supreme I bet that the legal system of SR still is a buggered set of crap when it comes to the decision process to think about legal issues. So I would say that it still takes a bit (by a bit I mean at least an hour if not more) for a response. An emergency that is not expected takes longer then if someone has a strike team up and ready for quick response. If the ship operator thought that this was possible, or likely, then I would say that response time would be down to minutes.

[toturi]

When a group of terrorists attack a ship full of rich people you get a significant response by organizations those mission in life is killing terrorists. You have to realize that the mages that support national level counter-terrorist teams are not 400 BP characters. They don't play to lose, they do this shit all the time and they are very good at it. The players are likely to never even notice the spirits until and unless the spirits act against them.

The problem with that is that those 400BP characters are not likely to be much less than than those mages that support national level counter-terrorist teams (compare Tir Ghost leader to a 400 BP PC hacker). These 400 BP guys don't play to lose either, likely to do this shit all the time as well and by dint of they being alive, should be even better than those mages at it.

[kzt]

Sure, as long as you think that a 400 BP character plus 300+ karma is a like a 400 BP character. Remember the Ares mages who routinely cast heavy magic in a -10 void? They are a lot like 400 BP characters too.

There are a lot of mages in the military. There are not a lot needed in the most elite units. To misquote Colonel Hammer: "With 5000 of you to choose from didn't they think I could find a decent mage?"

[nemafow]

I'd be interested to hear what your team and you decided to do in this siutation, so please post it up when its been run.