JackPoint: The Novel, To the rescue of Hackbaby! Options

[ggodo]

I'm not sure The Suit could take Baby Deus.

[CanRay]

I doubt it as well. They think too much alike. You'd need someone that can think completely outside the box to completely confuse an AI.

[ggodo]

I doubt it as well. They think too much alike. You'd need someone that can think completely outside the box to completely confuse an AI.

Looks like it's Plan 9's time to shine.

[CanRay]

Anyhow, back at the ranch...

"Hey, where the hell is Hackbaby?"

[ggodo]

Well, I want to know how The Exchange could arrange a kidnapping. I'm picturing some remarkably Rube Goldberg-esque manipulations of people's actions in order to create a situation where the person kidnapping the kid may not realize it's a kidnapping. If each member of the chain thinks they're doing a good deed then they're much more likely to be fairly ordinary people and therefore less suspicious to those trying to track hackbaby down and more likely to help a poor lost baby than kidnap the child of two professional criminals. Perhaps some kind of a vehicular collision?

[CanRay]

Maybe not Hackbaby stolen from home, but Hackbaby at the Shopping Mall. Slamm-0!s parents turn their back for a moment due to a series of distractions, and "A need for a delivery to a babysitter" call goes out to a Troll Messenger, and away Hackbaby goes faster than the parents can realize (s)hes gone.

[Xahn Borealis]

I'd love to contribute something here, but I've never read any of the novels, or anything before SR4. I don't even have Emergence.

[CanRay]

Throw out any ideas you have, Xahn! We've all started out at one time or another. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[ggodo]

I'd love to contribute something here, but I've never read any of the novels, or anything before SR4. I don't even have Emergence.

I've read two shadowrun novels that were absolutely terrible and totally not 4th edition relevant, and read Emergence in my local book store over the course of two hours. I'm not exceptionally qualified either.

[Xahn Borealis]

I'm thinking the metaplanes should be involved somehow. Just for the hell of it. Maybe an Ares bughunt goes wrong and something follows them back, laying waste and generally being a big inconvenience. Nothing can stand in the way of the invae (that's what they're called, right?)..... until they see the Child. Ever see an insect spirit run away?

[CanRay]

That would probably be jamming too much into one story. Putting as much as you can into something can sometimes be good, but too many spices, and you suddenly can't taste the meal any more.

And, um, I do have a storyline where some do run away from one cranky old man... Of course, he's a scary fragger of an SOB who saw Chicago as a "Vacation".

[Xahn Borealis]

Money's Granddad, right?

[ggodo]

Money's Granddad, right?

I've been operating under the assumption that Money's father Sirrug. His grand pappy must be scary as heck.

[CanRay]

*Chuckles* Yes, Money's Grandfather. No, his father isn't a dragon, he's a human from human parents. Hates his father with a passion, BTW. Grandpa is from his Mother's side of the family, as well.

Grandpa is Pink Mohawk, all the way. Starting with the New York Food Riots of 2000 when he was 20. There's a lot of background that goes into my characters, and Money is the oldest of my Shadowrun characters.

Which is why I'm hoping to get into Kane's head, in some ways. Despite being a semi-2D character, there's a lot of depth to his story.

[ggodo]

Ok, so we should try to get a better out line of what the job that the Jackpointers will have to pull. I'm not up to date on politics, does Brackhaven have any current enemies that would warrant the best of the best?

[Doc Chase]

Ok, so we should try to get a better out line of what the job that the Jackpointers will have to pull. I'm not up to date on politics, does Brackhaven have any current enemies that would warrant the best of the best?

Brackhaven's posession of the child is secondary. The handoff was done because the Exchange needs the Rose Garden shut down. The team that Slamm-O! puts together is the one that has the best statistical chance of succeeding. It is also one that Netcat cannot go on.

First, they need to find the Rose Garden. We can backtrace some of Puck's work on this one and use the entirety of Jackpoint to track it down. Traveller Jones has been everywhere, man, so he's likely heard of the places where a lot of MCT goons have been offloading stasis containers or gurneys or what-the-frag-ever we want it to be. Conversely, he would've heard where there's definite activity, but it's extremely hush-hush. We also know it can be narrowed down to Mitsuhama Zero Zones.

As a thought experiment, perhaps we should get our resident Dumpshockers to build a Zero Zone. We'll call it 'Festung Mitsuhama' and I'd like to see what they come up with - and what the 'runner team would need to do in order to get in.

[ggodo]

Well, I was looking more as an outline for the later parts of the story, we were talking earlier about Brackhaven or someone in his posse trying to milk the hostage situation. We could drop that plot line altogether, It's beginning to not fit in with the rest of the plot.

I'm totally in to design the Zero Zone.

[CanRay]

Well, I'd see the "Rose Garden" set up in various places. Thus the need for JackPoint, a group of International Deniable Assets, each with their area of expertise.

One in particular is an old MCT Container Ship that continues on something I heard about called a "Lloyd's Loop", a bit of accounting con artistry where it makes more sense for a freighter to loop in circles in International Waters rather than pulling into dock in a country. On the top of the freighter's cargo hold is a bunch of containers, but under it... A "Rose Garden". The ship itself is so old it has no Wireless Capabilities with it's systems, and the metal walls work just fine at blocking the natural wireless capabilities of TMs. And, as it's in International Waters, no customs inspections. It just floats around, completely secure from any Shadowrunners.

Too bad one of the people on JackPoint is a Pirate with an Blimp.

[ggodo]

Too bad one of the people on JackPoint is a Pirate with an Blimp.

Easily the scariest man in the universe.

I'm now picturing parachuting out of a blimp, onto a ship, with guns on each hip.
And one in each hand.

[Belvidere]

Too bad one of the people on JackPoint is a Pirate with an Blimp.

Yeah.... this is perfect. So many great images of people pouring out of that blimp on zip lines, free falling adepts, driving personal subs out of the back into the water. It's just to awesome of an image, I wish I could animate, just to make this scene.

[Doc Chase]

Well, I was looking more as an outline for the later parts of the story, we were talking earlier about Brackhaven or someone in his posse trying to milk the hostage situation. We could drop that plot line altogether, It's beginning to not fit in with the rest of the plot.

I'm totally in to design the Zero Zone.

Re: Multiple Rose Gardens - I like it. We can call the boat the Event Horizon.

Regarding later parts of the story, Brackhaven doesn't necessarily need any enemies beyond the Jackpointers. He's the one with the kid, bought off the Vory or Tamanous or whom the hell ever we want to use that moved Hackbaby from Angry Johnny to Brackhaven. (Probably wouldn't be the Vory who sold it, think the one chick with the crazy name had Vory ties.)

Brackhaven I see as ultimately not caring about who's kid it is. I'm trying to noodle around as to why our Charisma Associates PR specialist has such a hard-on for the munchkin. I can see Brackhaven quite easily walking away from it the moment he finds out that it's a soiled child from a technomancer. Not yet sure why his assistant or CAPR wants to hold on so much.

[CanRay]

Actually, I was picturing something like this... The Pirate Airship (With the Jolly Roger painted on the front, Kane isn't exactly subtle. Pink Mohawk all the way!), flying through the eye of a storm so bad that it blocks radar, and that also is over their head to protect against Satellite view, coming out of the storm, which parts just enough to leave it untouched, and parks itself right above the freighter. Concealed CIWS cannons reveal themselves on the freighter, and open up, but are unable to get an angle on the airship as the freighter is rocked from an underwater detonation, a torpedo version of the Ares Heimdall set up with a sonar head that is set to seek out the specific noise of the ship's propellers had just slammed into it.

Lines drop down, and a crew of rowdy pirates from every nation rappel down, assault rifles and SMGs in their hands, and a machete or wakizashi on their backs. They secure the above deck, and down slides Kane (Played by Joseph D. Kucan), his girlfriend at his side, and an LMG in his hands, screaming out, "UNCLE KANE IS COMING FOR YOU!!!" as the MCT Security Team comes up from below decks to try and fend off the assault.

[Doc Chase]

Actually, I was picturing something like this... The Pirate Airship (With the Jolly Roger painted on the front, Kane isn't exactly subtle. Pink Mohawk all the way!), flying through the eye of a storm so bad that it blocks radar, and that also is over their head to protect against Satellite view, coming out of the storm, which parts just enough to leave it untouched, and parks itself right above the freighter. Concealed CIWS cannons reveal themselves on the freighter, and open up, but are unable to get an angle on the airship as the freighter is rocked from an underwater detonation, a torpedo version of the Ares Heimdall set up with a sonar head that is set to seek out the specific noise of the ship's propellers had just slammed into it.

Lines drop down, and a crew of rowdy pirates from every nation rappel down, assault rifles and SMGs in their hands, and a machete or wakizashi on their backs. They secure the above deck, and down slides Kane (Played by Joseph D. Kucan), his girlfriend at his side, and an LMG in his hands, screaming out, "UNCLE KANE IS COMING FOR YOU!!!" as the MCT Security Team comes up from below decks to try and fend off the assault.

Something like this, maybe?

[CanRay]

No, but that's damn fine!

"Presentation!"

[Doc Chase]

I liked the idea of Kane's blimp descending from the black clouds, loudspeakers blasting GnR (because it's the 70's, Wagner is so last century).