Just throwing it out there, since all we need is 1 way transportation across 8 miles of water. I know it's not the best option.

We could swim.

With a Force 5 doing Movement I can manage over 15 mph underwater.

I actually think we need 2 way transportation since we want to leave the Island at some point. The reason I suggested a smuggler is they have damn fast craft and they are skilled at what they do.

Getting off the island is mostly dictated by how different it is from the modern Bainbridge Island, which is pretty easy to get onto and off of thanks to the ferries and the bridge.

acording to my information, there is only one farrie once a week, but the bridge is still in working order but on the other side of it it's Salish so you have to beable to pass the check point.

Brent

I hope everyone's got chemically-sealed wetsuits. Didn't Runner Havens describe the water around Seattle as the "Brown Tide"?

Sorry I am not more active. I am studying overseas this year and leaving for Europe (from Canada) on Saturday. I've been pretty busy, but finding internet wherever I go is always a priority, so I should only be offline for a day, at most.

Yeah. Swimming across the sound is going to be a horrific prospect.

That does change things slightly. I figured that with the ferries being the only way off the island that didn't involve leaving the country, the ferry service would have been expanded from 1 boat that goes back and forth twenty-plus times a day to being multiple ferry services.

divine virus: Thats fine do what you can, until you get set-up. if you think your giong to be out for some time you might want to drop-out. I'll be doing more games soon.

Brent

Yeah with the VR and commuiting that changes things most poeple don't really have to leave the house to go to work.

Brent

My connection will just be irregular, but I should be able to get on at least once a day. But I shan't be able to do the four or five posts a day some folks here manage.

Divine Virus: I'm fine with that, anything gets to fast past I'll pitched in for yea. with rolls and things like that so you not having to race to get keep up.

Brent

It seems Noowan is the only one among us with any real spirit skill. I'd have a hard time binding anything beyond Force 2. Now, don't get me wrong, Force 2 spirits have their uses, and I could probably handle summoning a water spirit on the spot for each trip across to spare the binding materials.

Also, while we're considering ways to get in and out, did we ever conclude whether deactivated foci are astrally visible? p191 mentions that an activated focus has an astral form, and the assensing table on p183 doesn't have an entry for "deactivated focus", which seems to imply that a deactivated focus is a mundane object.

Right sorry, a deactivated foci is not astrally visible. any astrally visible stuff would be enbeded in the foci which cann't be seen.

Brent

To be honest you probably don't want to hire a smuggler. The more people who know about the job the more leaks there are.

What's to stop them leaving you there, calling up the owner and selling you out for a nice fat reward payment?

Stealing a boat from a rental place would be best, especially if you can find an automated one which is vulnerable to hacking.

Failing that it'd be fairly cheap to buy a row boat big enough to fit everyone in. Plus it's low tech enough that it shouldn't be picked up on anything but the highest grade sensors. (Things searching for the sounds of engines under water won't pick you up etc)

Did I miss where the Johnson specified where exactly on the island this facility is? I'm looking around and I don't see any mention of it.

Yes, he gave the address and the location. I'll pass a handout here soon.

Brent

You know, I can't find that reference.

I did find much mention of the SSC being pretty concerned about pollution in the Sound. They've had 50 years to crack down on it so I don't imagine it is too bad except near the shoreline of major industrial areas like Tacoma.

I did notice that the outlying islands are known as the 'Outremer' district. It's dominated by Corps, who lease most of the land, and transport is rubbish.

Looking around the group though I'm pretty much the only one that could swim to the island, we simply lack the necessary gear.

Acquiring a boat is probably the best way to go or we could stow away on a supply barge.

OK, things are firming up now. Just a couple of issues remain.

AFAIK Tom still lacks a legal character sheet and any gear at all.

Noowan is the only half decent Summoner and he does not possess any Binding Materials so one team is going to have to do without Concealment/Movement.

How exactly would he ditch us given that DD and Truth are staying on the boat? Also none of us are actually skilled at nautical stuff, if it comes down to a chase or vehicle combat we are going to want someone steering who knows what they are doing. With our payment being 440,000 I don't think we need to be stingy. Stealing a boat is an unneccesary hurdle we could flub and screw the whole run. Hiring a smuggler means your getting a fast boat and someoneused to outrunning pursuit. I think thats worth it.

Noowan, is special. The spirits he has right now are bond and he maintains that bind. There is a whole backstory to it, but it's with in RAW the way I have it working.

And I'm working with Little Johnson right now on his character, he will be ready before things get hairy.

Brent

One thing I want to point out now, Etoile isn't going to be using the tacsoft unless someone actually talks her into it. She dislikes the idea of sending out information which can be compromised revealing her position etc.

She really isn't fond of relying upon any matrix feeds for information.

Umm...I'm actually a pretty good summoner, no binding but definitely summoning. You must have missed the discussion between Charlie and Noowan talking about Noowan binding an Elemental and sending it with us to do handle the conceal on the boat. On the way in an out Charlie can handle the movement part of it with a spirit she summons on the fly. Her ability to summon and resisst the drain is pretty good (11 for summoning, 10 for drain), if she summons a water elemental right after dark she'll have time to recover any drain. If Noowan agrees to lend Charlie his bound water elemental to handle the conceal on the boat he can use his air elemental to handle the concealment on the wetwork team.

As to getting new binding materials, that isn't a problem, Charlie's teacher (Connection 3, loyalty 5) is a talismonger, she can run by his shop easily enough over in the morning, and probably get them at a discount. We certainly have the money to pay for the materials, they aren't restrcted in anyway so we can pick them up legally with no problem, or do it under the table but still immediately with the business services aspect of Contacts.

I'm not sure there will be any point in Etoile using the TacSoft.

The Hit Team is very small, it probably won't qualify for any bonuses.

That just means instead of being left behind you have a witness watching you.

Bringing in an extra person is just as much of a risk to the run as obtaining our own boat. Given who the mission is up against if you're caught in a chase then chances are you're in enough trouble the smugglers boat isn't going to help very much. As it won't be boats after you that'll be a problem, it'll be flying drones and maybe a UCAS military helicopter.

Edit


I meant using it at all, so if there is a follow up mission etc....

Ah. I figured something odd was going on, since Shinto mages summon spirits of Air, Water, Plant, Beast, and Man, not Earth or Fire. No objections here, of course.

Besides, binding materials are legal. It shouldn't take longer to acquire them than it takes to hop a cab to Snohomish and pick them up.

Etoile wouldn't be on the team using it so why would they have to convince her they were allowed to use it?

@Shalimar

Sorry, didn't add up your pool just looked at your skill, 2 didn't look like much.

Even so, Noowan's Force 3's aren't going to conceal us reliably.

Technically you still have to deal with the availability for Binding Materials, even if you get them from a contact. It will probably take 48hrs to get Rating 4 Binding Materials. You'd almost be quicker buying the Refined Materials and making them yourself.

As I said in the edit above, she wouldn't be wanting to ever use one. I was simply pointing it out now as it occured to me. And I didn't say anything about anyone else using it, she doesn't care in the least about that aspect.

Besides in the whole lets get a tacsoft bit earlier it was heavily implied /everyone/ was getting a copy thrown at them.

Opps, your right I'll edit that.

Brent

They are a legal good, your able to walk into any store that has them and purchase them off the shelf, the contact owns a Talismonger shop, so he therefore has them availible. The business services rule for contacts would let me purchase the materials from the contact under the table. So it realistically is as easy as walking in and buying them, and even if we didn't want to do it under the table we could certainly buy them legally and that wouldn't mean anything at all as there isn't anyway to track which spirit was bound with which materials.

Keep in mind the contact could get +/- to threshold and DP based on supply and demand etc. So if they run a store which sells the appropriate goods the GM is well within his right to make it a stupidly easy roll which the contact then adds contact rating to.

Meaning unless they glitch and had somehow sold out of whatever we wanted during the day we should be fine.

No, you are thinking of things with an availability of --.

Things with an availability of 1+ take at least 12 hours to acquire. Which is why we were trying to think up ways of getting sensors in a hurry.

Not that it matters if you can't do Binding.

Looking at the rules, availibility only comes into the picture when you are dealing with the black market. The rules for availibility tests are listed under the heading of black market, with the first words being: 'If a character wishes to purchase a controlled item on the black market'. Unless the availibility code includes R or F, it is not a controlled item. If you don't mind the data trail that says you purchased X, then you can buy it legally.

Jake, I don't know if you meant to make that double-link, but it's awesome either way.

Mainly Etoile is curious about the fine details of her schedule. Like how she travels to/from work, which classrooms she's in and stuff like that.

Hmmm and is she awakened or a TM? That's something which could mess up our plans, less so about the TM side. After all she'd have to hack on the fly, against encypted and hidden nodes, before we stabbed/shot/magic'd her. Only real TM trouble is calls for help.

So maybe if a watcher can do a quick astral scan of her and/or her place to confirm she's mundane?

OH and are we ICly moving to somewhere a bit more private for the rest of the planning and legwork? Or are we going to try get Johnson to offer us the room we're in?

Watchers are horrible for that. Be better to have one of the mages do it.

@Brent - Etoile is asking her contact what he has in stock in the way of assault rifles or submachine guns. As she's buying on fairly short notice she's not all that picky about what she gets.

Preferably she'd want a FN P93 Praetor with both the standard options (low light flashlight and electronic firing) a spare clip and 100 rounds of normal ammo. (She's hoping he'll have one as the company which makes it is European and thus one of the things he might sell).

If not she'll settle for something vanilla like an AK Carbine or a Beretta Model 70 with no upgrades. (But whatever it is she wants a spare clip and enough rounds of caseless ammo for both clips)

In terms of payment she'll let him offer a figure and just pay, unless he's totally ripping her off. (Because honestly Etoile sucks at negotiation in the most shamefull way)

With commlinks, do we even need to be in the same place to carry out the planning? If we get a list together we can have someone put an order in with a fixer to pick up a gun for etoile...what where you thinking of for a gun? It'd have to be somethng with a low availibility, and even then we'd probably have to double or triple what we are willing to pay for it to get it in a day.

So I have learned from reading your thread

I'm hoping that Dancing Eyes will do the assensing since Charlie sucks at it so much she thought a Drake was a mundane human . From what the Johnson said though I don't think she is anything but mundane possibly with some productivity ware, nothing useful to combat.

He have the following.
SMG's AK-97 Carbine, Beretta Model 70, Colt Corba, HK MP-5 TX, Ingram Warrior-10, Sandler TMP, Uzi IV
Assault Rifles AK-97, Colt M23

they'd be at list price +10%

If who ever is going to the assesment they can roll here, and we'd just say they did it via astral projection.

Brent

It would be nice if Ralph could do it but he'd have to go in person.

He rolls a shit load of dice for assensing. He rocks.

I've finished the list of open availability gear I said I was picking up on the way over to the club.



There was much software offered about by Jake and DD so I copied a System 6 and a Firewall 6 and got Jake to purchase the following from his Warez site if he is the one with the best Warez contacts...



Which leaves me with just over 5000 before we get to the meet.

The three good comm-links will have the wireless disabled and be linked by Fiber to my original Link which is still operating in hidden mode.

Load up that IC with all the new software onto all three new links and slave them to my master link and slave it to DD.

The master link will be running Encrypt, Analyse and the TacSoft and I'll have the IC encrypt the node before we get to the meet.

All my other electronics are slaved via Skinlink or Fiber to my master comm-link or chain-slaved to DD.

I've got my SIN on one of the Meta Links which is in Passive Mode.

Yeah I'm hoping he's giving us accurate info on that score too, otherwise it gets a whole lot more complicated.

As to being in the same place... well technically no. But if we're in the same room we can check it for bugs, run a white noise generator and then talk. Which has less chance of anyone listening in, which could be a risk now that Johnson has been in the room with us a while. Who knows if he's got a Radio Signal Scanner running in the room, then some hacker going through our plans.

@Brent - Etoile will take the AK-97 Carbine, with a spare clip and 60 rounds of caseless ammo. She'll off him 600 Nuyen for it if he can throw in a sling too (the weapon accessory kind from Arsenal, not the weapon upgrade kind) or 580 Nuyen without (by my maths the total should come to about 578 if he's also marking the price up for the ammo and extra clip).

Ha, fat chance.

At the minute I'm preparing for her to be some kind of insect spirit or shedim. That way when it turns out she's packing enough chrome to make a cyberzombie green with envy it'll be a nice surprise.

@Oenone

I could be crazy but was it not Ralph who spotted he was a Drake?

You keep suggested sending Dancing Eyes to Assense the girl.

He's the one that thinks the sun shines out of the Drakes arse and would probably side with him if things turn nasty.

[no offence]

Yes, it was Ralph who spotted him.

Brent

Heh I haven't actually suggested anyone specific go assense her. I left that entirely up to the magic users to decide between themselves.

Like crizh said, this is probably why they didn't suggest Ralph for it.