@Fenris
Karma so far, IIRC we get 1 karma per RL week of game play? correct?

June 18th to now is
June 25 1 karma
July 2 1 Karma
July 9 1 Karma
July 16 1 Karma
July 23 1 Karma
July 30 1 Karma
Aug 6 1 Karma
Aug 13 1 Karma
Aug 20 1 Karma
Aug 27 1 Karma
Sept 3 1 Karma
Sept 10 1 Karma
Sept 17 1 Karma

13 Karma total
plus the 4 is 17 karma, is this correct karma accounting?

Sounds right

Did Porter's back up not make it? I liked it, the interweaving back and forth of the two teams was interesting to watch--especially when we came into conflict with competing priorities.

BishopMcQ - Crap, did I miss something? What was Porter's backup?

@Fenris: Yup that was an awesome post. I liked Dervish's part. Somehow I suspect that me narrrating my entry would have lacked the verbal poetry you gave it. C'est la vie. Kudos. I nominate you for 4 GM Karma.

@Red: No offense dude, I think from the IC post by the boss that Dervish spent the night in the Omni. Prolly not the smartest thing what with me glowing like a neon sign on the Astral. But It's my Neg and I have to live with. Or die with.

@Fenris
Can one use Karma to buy a positive quality? ie Aptitude(Demolitions)?

WMS

@WMS: Oh god no! *hides under bed*

@Meriss
To me at least it would be IC for him to seek the effects of such a positive quality, but then it is not my call.

I have other avenues to spend karma into.

WMS

@ WMZ - According to the BBB, Pg. 255, you can acquire positive qualities after char-gen, but it's a significant role-playing effort, and costs karma equal to 2 x the BP cost of the quality.

@Fenris
Yes but the text seems abit confusing, something about if you do not have all the karma upfront, any new karma goes to the new positive quality.*scratches head*

WMS

@ WMZ - My interpretation of that is that if you fulfill the significant roleplaying requirement, you can get the quality at the time appropriate for the story. If you don't have enough karma right at the moment, you pay what you have and any new karma you get until it's paid off.

Fenris--I was referring to the hacker support from the 10 accounts Porter created. Part of the plan was to build up rapport with my data haven for when I exchange a bunch of programs. (Also having a dozen hackers in the system would lower the chances of the system tracing my connection specifically.) My guess is that they weren't mentioned because they weren't actively in combat near Porter.

Our shopping list was:
5-Response 6 chips
5-Signal 6 cards
6-System 6 chips
4-Firewall 6 chips
--Several program upgrades (the more we get, the less down time.)
4-Smartgun Link Cameras (w/low light, flare comp, Vision Enhancement 3, Vision Mag.)
3-Sim Modules
22-Skinlinks

Can I get an accounting of how many programs at rating 6 we were actually able to grab? That will let me know how much time Porter will be spending cracking the copy protection.

Also, when I trade programs on the Data Haven, do I need to have removed the copy protection before uploading them?

@Fenris

I assume that the 400k in gear street value? Does that mean we should expect about 30% as per fencing rules (BBB pg 303)? Is any of the additional gear we snagged fly-spy drones? If so do they have upgrades like sensor rating and type (example: Thermo), response, pilot, firewall, encryption, etc?

@ALL
Ok team as we work through the end of the first run let's talk about the run on the Disassemblers. Here is a recap:

The Dissaemblers screwed Atreus' arms dealer contact out of 250k in high end weapons and ammunition. The are based just north of Sea-Tac in three buildings that, before it was abandoned, was an apartment complex. All entrances/exits exit the main one into the central courtyard have been blocked off. The remaining entrance has an improved gate. There are 40-50 gangers in the area with vehicles. Most are armed and many are cybered.

Initial recon showed no road construction in the area and the area is just off I-405 near its intersection with I-5. The courtyard and nearby road are lit up well and two watchful guards *appear* to be the initial lookouts.

I'm thinking a secondary recon is in order.
1) Memory serves than neither Dervish, Sweetness, nor Inkari can perceive nor project?
- That leaves Atreus for the recon of the astral defenses. He can only perceive but that should do to locate watchers/spirits if any.
2) Cameras and alarm based defenses.
3) Verification of deployment of guards.
Anything I missed?

Then for the extraction:
1) Distraction of external defenses by secondary team.
2) Penetration of site by insertion team.
3) Defeat internal defenses by insertion team.
4) Extraction of as many weapons as possible.
5) Destruction of remaining weapons.
6) Clear any tracking forces.
7) Fence weapons.
Look reasonable?

Peripheral note: The area is security rating "B", though barely.

@Redjack
Hopefully they have some explosives to aide us in our mission.

Clay has a sniper rifle with him, and a fair skill in using it.

Explosives can be used in a lot of the possibilities, but be aware Clay does not have a infinite supply of such.

Security rating B means we need to deal with the situation and then leave quickly, or plan to delay or divert the LEO's(Law Enforcement Officers) that might be responding.

@Fenris
At this time, I feel that Clay does not have the conditions/requirements for gaining the Attitude(Demolitions) quality, will look back at what other skills, and or attributes he used during the time. Then decide on which to increase.

I enjoyed the write also, *shakes head in wonder* the time it took you to do that.

WMS

How does planting a bomb in several schools sound? While the cops are busy running all over town and saving children, we'll rope-a-dope them and kill some gangers.

@BishopMcQ
Well how is school security in the year 2070 Seattle? ie cameras, etc.

To me the schools that the LEO's would respond to fastest are the better schools ie better on site security both devices and personnel.

Another idea is hit a university, in several places, that would draw the LEO's in large numbers along with the Media Circus to go with it.

One note, Clay has a contact who is Lonestar EOD/bomb squad member, would not like for him to call Clay up and pick his brains. IIRC Clay can not lie/deceive/con very well at all.

Also technically the explosives he has and used are traceable to some degree to their source.

WMS

@Bishop: Dervish will not support such a plan in any way shape or form. He's got these little hang ups about "morality" and crap. That said what about a corp target? Although we would want those screened fairly heavily. Would not do to have totSec on us agian so soon after a run on them.

@Redjack: You are correct Devish does not have Astral Sight. I thought Sweetness did though? Dire? Plan looks good, but also raises a couple of questions.

1) What kind of matrix security do they have? If any?
2) What kind of timeline are we looking at here?
3) Any major racial bias? (all elves, orks etc?)
4) How much heat can we expect to pull from the gang?
5) Ditto 4 from cops?
6) How paranoid are these guys?
7) What about known enemys (Theirs, we can maybe use them against the Dissassemblers)

I dunno more info would be nice.

@ Redjack - 400,000k was standard market value. Expect that to drop to 30% if you want to offload it fast, possibly more if you take the time, money, and resources to shop it around a bit.

@ Bishop - Uhh..yeah, that's totally it! They were in a different area of the system, grabbing goodies, etc. You'll receive full credit for your contribution, even if the GM forgot to leave it out of the writeup.

Programs: (You managed to find a few at or above 6. Anything 7 and above is a prototype, so be warned it may have bugs ;D ) Programs at rating below 6 are included as extra lewt, so sell/keep etc as you like.


And yes, any software you upload will have to be cracked first ;D

@ Meriss and all - If you're looking to answer questions about them, roll those skills!

Apparently everyone missed the reference...I'm not a complete monster after all.

Ok folks, next plan of action needs to be finding Porter hardware to run the rating 9 programs on...

I'll get the necessary rolls for cracking and building the hardware up in the next day or two...

@Fenris: I knew that, I was wondering what Atreus/Redjack knew. Sides I'm not sure if any of my skills would work. Well maybe some of my knowledge. Lemme look at my sheet.

@Bishop: what reference? Enlighten us oh wise one.

This One With all the cops looking the other way, we could steal city hall or kill a couple gangers...

@All
1) Do we off-load the gear fast, get what we can and distance ourselves from it?
2) Or do we play the slow, cautious, piecemeal approach to maximize?
My personal opinion is along the lines of Captain Malcom Reynolds here, "Half the world is middle-men and they don't take kindly to being cut out'a the loop." I vote for the first one.

@Wearz
I was hoping to convince you to blow some stuff up!! My next IC post, I'll follow up on explosives.

@DireRadiant
Great point! Watchers and spirits to do recon as well!!

@Bishop/All
When you first said that I starting on that very line. We just watched that Die Hard in the last month. I'm thinking we blow a small bomb at a school, during lunch. Use video feeds to insure that the room in question is clear. Lock down the cafeteria remotely then short out the door controls, send a ransom notice and BS about that being to show we are serious and how there is a big bomb if we don't get X million nuyen... then forget about them and do the job (no real big bomb and we blew up evidence of our involvement).
But I also thought. What a great diversion! Is it really worth wasting that on the gangers or save that for a later objective the cops might care about...?

Then I started thinking about ways to keep the Disassemblers off our tail when this is done... How about another gang? Gotta be one big enough not to get wiped out in the war, otherwise they might find out they've been had.. Halloweeners come to mind. They are close enough to take notice and big enough to survive a war. So we pull the job and leave signs that it looks like the Halloweeners did it.. Perhaps even a body (planted of course). What do you think?

@Meriss
They are organ leggers. I don't know of any meta-type bias. These are a mid-tier gang. They work a number of places in Seattle and I would imagine triple digit+ total membership. Time to find out for sure...

@Fenris
What does Atreus know about the Disassemblers? Number of members, enemies, current going ons?
(Ok, just got off the floor following my near heart attack.) Intuition(4) + Seattle Gangs(3): 5,3,6,6,6,6,6 = 6 hits

@Redjack
Clay would love to blow more things up, BUT he does not want the LEO's to be actively seeking him either.

If he can get another batch of explosive(s) from a different source/manufacturer then that can work.

As for a school, again my question on school security hard and soft.

Looking for possible targets in Downtown Seattle
[Downtown Seattle 4 Intuition 3 7 dice
http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=1284114
1 hit]

WMS

I can try to reach out through my data haven connections to find a "DeckMeister" They'd probably be willing to pay 30-40%...the problem we are going to run into is that sheer quantity--400,000 ¥ of electronics gear is a hell of a lot more stuff than it was in SR3. Some of it may be prototypes and the like...

Anyone know any smugglers? (OTOH, 30% of 400k is 120k a number easily divisable by our team count.)

Are we deducting expenses and then splitting evenly, or splitting evenly and then deducting, or deducting expenses, paying out a split, then running a common bank fund for the duration of the op?

OOC--Deduct reasonable expenses then divide. (IE, if you bind a spirit specifically for use by the team, we pay. If you are binding to have on backup later, then we don't pay.)

IC--Divide first, everyone covers their own expenses. I won't charge for my upgrades, you don't charge for spirits.

Edit: Probably the best way is just to tell Porter which way it's being done rather than include him in the conversation.

@Redjack: Alright as long as the school plan is non violent. Yes I know. Beating people up is very violent, murder is extremly violent. And yet Dervish will not blow up a bunch of whiny school kids. He's weird that way.

No plans to hurt anyone. Thats what the cameras are for. To insure that before detonation that no one is in the room. Locking the cafeteria doors then allows us variable control of the situation.

Atreus is a dark hero. Hurt the bad guys, not innocent people.

No offense, but you apply the hero moniker but couldn't find a better diversion then blowing up a section of a school full of kids? o_0

anti-hero perhaps? Keep the hero part and still blow up school yards...

Why not blow up something that keeps everyone happy like a Alamo2000 chapter house or Humanis Policlub Seattle Headquarters?

I think most would be behind a explosion there?

Oh Clay has a history with those two, mostly blowing their places apart.

Think of the LEO response to the Humanis Policlub's Seattle Headquarters suffering a series of explosions? Then the Media Circus? Again how deeply will most LEO's dig to locate who did such a thing?

WMS

IIRC, Brackhaven is a member of Humanis...they may be forced to look into things.

@BishopMcQ
Forcing someone to investigate, and having someone who wants to investigate can be two entirely different matters.

Bombing a Humanis chapter house/HQ and bombing a school to me will draw two entirely different investigations. To me the school will have much more media circus, meaning it will be more actively investigated longer etc.

WMS

Wearz makes an interesting point. If we assume human and meta human nature is somewhat similar in the 2070's then the investigation on a school bombing gets a hundred screaming parents + child advocacy groups + Any angry and well connected parents. Which means we have to do full workups on well everyone. Because if we miss one, and that kid turns out to be the son of a Mafia don, we are utterly and totally screwed.

Hit the local nutjobs and leave some Ork Underground or Sons of Suaron stuff and the LEOs have nut on nut violence. They are far less likely to investigate. (Maybe)

What about faking or causing some kind of city wide emergency? More chaos on a wider scale.

Options for our emergency.
1) Cause a blackout. Yah it's trite but even Seattle relies on power. We would have to organize a major strike thou.
2) Random invasion. This would have to be rumors and panic mostly unless we can figure out a way to actually cause an invasion. I dunno Bug spirits er somethin?
3) High level tailchaser hit. We find another team (The New Moon guys spring to mind) They make a run on something high level but nearby enough to keep the cops and stuff away from us. We owe them a nonspecific favour. Plus some money.

Right now though I think we should concentrate on the Dissasmblers. If they run Organ legging they work with the Tanamous right? So what if we cause or imply that our buds the Dissassemblers are maybe pulling a fast one on the Tanamous. Personally I'm going to try and get some more info outta the boss.

@Red: Yah might work, I'm going to try my contacts as well. Maybe we can get some more info.

@Fenris: Rolling Cha + Downtown Seattle + Gang ID: Hoping to get a general Idea of where the Dissassemblers hang their hat. And hopefully who's nearby for enemys 3 hits

@All
Clay will not be a participant in any form of use of school(s)(unoccupied or not) in a diversion.

WMS

@Wearz: Clay's moral's or yours?

@Meris
His to a large part, he is a SINer and lived thru the various race riots in Seattle where children were victims as either targets or as bystanders.

In the Ork Underground due the survival rate, children are not a "thing" to be used or not cherished.

With explosives despite the best plans etc, sh*t happens.

But that is my POV of him and children.

WMS

@WMZ: Ah. Neat. Okay. Well Dervish agrees with him on the no hurting kids angle. Actually Dervish's Philosophy fits Leon's from "The Professional" "No Women No kids"

If mind you this is a super huge if. If We could control the flow of kids into the bombable space. And say we give the LEOs plenty of warning and make the bomb as nearly low impact as possible would he be on board?

I realize I'm reaching. But what we really want here is mass panic and confuson. This plan hopefully offers us the max of that.

So returning to my original intent, I wish to then solicit suggestions. I want to create a media circus that will force the Star to have their attention there as well, but without actually hurting anyone.

How do we accomplish that? Where? How? I liked the Die Hard example of a school, but I'm flexible I just care about the effects. The details are irrelevant to me.

Quoting myself here. Adding a couple of ideas

The Die Hard model has us bomb something else to prove we are serious, and then tell them that a bomb is placed in a school. While EOD checks every school and LoneStar mobilizes to evac, we make our move. No bomb actually even goes into a school. (The big one at the elementary was filled with raspberry syrup, because as the terrorist said, he's not a complete monster.) The whole idea of a rope-a-dope is to make them think we are doing A and in fact do B. It's all misdirection.

Taking children off the agenda, we can start a z-zone riot. If it looks like it will spill over into a neighboring district, LoneStar will respond in force.

Or, we say fuck LS and go complete black on black here. Contaminate water lines, do solo-assassination as people leave for a few hours. In the middle of the night, when half the gang has dysentery, we hit them like a bad covert ops sim-flick. Paragliders, silenced SMGs, the works.

Out of a desire to not have to roll and copy all of these tests, I’m going to use dice turn-in on all tests.

Porter will download schematics for basic upgrades
Data Search test to find AR enhanced schematics 3 hits per test, 10 minutes for 30 hits.

Hardware tests (Hardware 4 + Logic 4 + Distractions (-1) + AR Schematics +2), 9 Dice,

Threshold (4, 30 min) for Basic adjustments to the Commlinks
Threshold (10, 1 hour) for HotSim Modifications


Meriss
Currently: Response 3/Signal 4/Firewall 3/System 4
Being Upgraded to 6/6/6/6
Adding SimModule, modified for HotSim, Add Skinlink
7 hours

Redjack
Currently: Response 4/Signal 5/System 4/Firewall 6 (Sim Module)
Being Upgraded to 6/6/6/6
Adding SimModule, modified for HotSim, Add Skinlink
7 hours

BishopMcQ
Currently: Response 5/Signal 5/System 5/Firewall 5 (Sim Module Mod)
Being Upgraded to 6/6/6/6
Add Skinlink
2 hours

DireRadiant
Currently: Commlink - Meta Link Response 1/Signal 2/System 1/Firewall 1 (Sim Module)
Being Upgraded to 6/6/6/6
Adding SimModule, modified for HotSim, Add Skinlink
7 hours

Buddha72
Currently: Response 4/Signal 5/System 4/Firewall 3
Being Upgraded to 6/6/6/6
Adding SimModule, modified for HotSim, Add Skinlink
7 hours

Wearzmanyskins
Currently: Response 5/Signal 5/System 5/Firewall 6
Being Upgraded to 5/5/6/6 Note will still function at rating 5, until cyber-components raise Response to 6
0 hours

Total Time: 30 Hours

Cracking Copy Protection:
Threshold (10-20, 1 hour), presuming 10 + 1.5*Rating (Round Up)

Total time to Crack all 1,085 hours

Technically, with the sleep regulator, he could work 40 out of every 48 hours—and do it all in under 55 days. Porter doesn’t like any of you that much.

Priorities to crack:
Agents (all)
Analyze 6
Browse 6
Encrypt 6
Armor 6
Attack 6
Black Hammer 6
Spoof 6
Stealth 6
Total 107 hours

Clay's guns will have new smartgun camera links (w/low light, flare comp, Vision Enhancement 3, Vision Mag.)

Every piece of non-cybernetic gear that has a wireless function will have a skinlink installed if it is presented to Porter. He will ask for everything you have on your person at the moment.

I'm also scouring every piece of gear for RFID tags and zapping any that I see.

@Bishop: That is the single nastiest peice of work I've ever heard. ..... Let's do it.

I call the stealth hits as folks leave. Nothing like an elf in a black Urban Explorer strangling you from above to say "Have a Nice Day"

What!? Don't look at me like that.

The problem becomes funding our black ops hit.

Also why the Hot Sim module?

For the +2 Dice. As for funding, everyone just received a large bit of money and poisoning the water is easy--roadkill, feces, etc.