And so it is after breakfast. Bah. Will change, thanks.

You do get them after breakfast. Breakfast is sorta your last moments of freedom before being militarized temporarily.

(This whole sequence is meant to bond y'all and basically take the place of, say, Food Fight amidst a normal runner team. It'll just incorporate more training sequences. If anybody wants karma, they can do illos of the uniform, I can provide a concept. Not a drawing, not a sketch, but a written concept as to what it'd look like.)

Does it have to be a -good- illustration?

Edit: No really, please provide your description.

Okay, a quick description.

It's a navy blue...Well, if it were one piece you'd call it a jumpsuit, but it isn't - it's two piece (pants and shirt), plus optional protective gloves and black deck shoes. Not recommended for combat, but excellent for day-to-day duties. Made out of something kinda like the fire-resistant qualities of Nomex, but better for tropical climates and sea duty than Nomex (which is really heavy) is IRL. Made to be a few things: Practical; Protective (it does not include armor (because armor would cause you to sink, all other things being equal), but does include fire resistance); maneuverable. Notice that stylish and good-looking aren't among the attributes. That's because...It's not ugly, but it's made for -work-. It's not made for going around in. You would, in the Navy, have other uniforms for that. In your situation, you have your normal clothes.

As you might suspect, there's an ulterior motive in providing you guys the uniforms. The Navy is testing them out for enlisted use. Comments are invited.

You know, that description reminds me of the vault suits from fallout.

I was thinking Enterprise's blue/purple jumpsuits myself. But Vault suits would be tres wiz!

Which means they are nothing like what the military provides

The Enterprise jumpsuits are actually not unlike what I had in mind.

Sure, that's what I get for liking dystopia over standard Sci-fi

So Alan's the only non-officer, and others hold multiple positions? I really would have liked for him to be saddled with some kind of responsibility, if only because it's going to get pretty boring for me if he's got nothing to do. Also, I mean I already feel like Al's way out of place in this op, and I can't help but think: if he doesn't bring something specific to the table, why'd they bother bringing him along in the first place?

I'm not bitching or anything, I'm just trying to figure out why he's been passed over; I applied OOC to be a Chief Mate and Gunnery Officer, and just scanning over the character sheets, Al's just as qualified as John; but Budoka got both positions (I think Chief Mate got absorbed by Quartermaster somewhere in there). It's just gonna get boring quick if I've got nothing to write about.

-milk.

Well, we've got to have -someone- that we can send on a suicide mission without messing up the ship's operations

No worries Milk Ducks, thing can easily be reassigned at Rusty's discretion. Also I have a feeling I'll get some intelligence work after all. (Thanks CD!)

Gack....I checked yesterday around like 3, and there was nothing. I check again before I went to bed, and it explodes, and now there is more. Will try to play catch up after work today.

We all coordinate on IRC to post when you aren't looking

Milk: I tried to give everybody a position. It's only now that you commented that I realize I...forgot to give you anything. Entirely my screwup. In trying to give people positions that fit and do it all fairly quickly, while also dealing with the massive clusterf*** that was yesterday for me IRL, I forgot someone - that someone happened to be you. I assure you, it wasn't intentional.

So if nobody minds, I'm going to edit Rusty's post here, so far as the assignments go?

What might be best is to train two Gunnery Officers - Alan as the Primary one, Budoka's Character-whose-name-I-forget as the Secondary one, with Budoka and Alan both acting jointly as Quartermaster (perhaps splitting the duties somehow). During combat, in any case, there almost *needs* to be backup people - just in case anyone gets wounded, or in case Jane needs an assist in Damage Control - one person, after all, can't do everything when the ship's hit in multiple places.

If anyone has better ideas, please...Tell me. Via PM, via chat, however you want to reach me. I'll listen. I want to be fair to everyone OOCly, but ICly I also want to play to people's strengths.

I'm working on the OOC descriptor of training for each of you - including common stuff you'll all be going through, or perhaps doing as a group.

Okay, now, about that training program.

Basically, it runs by position, though there is a "common core" (which, naturally, you might be waived from if you already know it - they'll just reallocate the time to other training).

Simsense, because it can make a minute contain an hour's class (something mentioned for penal use in the Lone Star sourcebook, if I recall), is used a lot, though live-fire is used (against fake targets) in marksmanship training. The more academic courses are a combination of lecture and simsense. Think of a college class.

Training is highly individualized, or at least customized for you guys.
---

Now, by position:

CO: Rusty basically gets the Mazer Rackham treatment from Capt. Walker. In other words, she's practically his personal student. She is taught a little bit of each of the positions, where possible; enough to get a basic grounding in what everybody else is doing so she knows how to use them efrectively. She's also put through very, very intense simsense scenarios - putting her on the bridge of the Fedallah, "fighting the ship" - commanding it through a boarding action, repelling boarders, a ship-vs-ship fight, controlling damage, sailing through storms, just to name a few. After each scenario, she gets thoroughly debriefed by Captain Walker, and given pointers on her performance. Should she be haughty and proclaim she knows all this already, his reply is cutting: "And where, may I ask, is your last command? Oh, yes. The scrap heap, if I recall."

These scenarios happen at any time of the day or night, including during other classes - they come pretty much out of nowhere.

This will take a fairly massive chunk of your time, roughly 10 hours, not counting the disruptions to your other studies due to 'pop quizes'

XO: Zalermo is also given a crushing workload. He's slammed through an excruciating course of study covering military basics, tactics, leadership, intelligence analysis, maritime law, first aid...In short, a course designed to turn him from a cop/womanizer into a passable imitation of a naval officer. It's not easy, and in 4 days it probably isn't completely possible, but he'd be given a basic grounding in what he needs to know.

Despite the wide range of things covered, most of them will be handled through the individual courses that you will pick out, so expect the XO portion to only take about 5 hours.

Purser: Jane is given a very quick introduction to basic accounting. She's briefed on what the auditors want, basically. Not hard, not long, leaves her a lot of time for other coursework more posting-related. Figure an hour to get acquainted with the software and forms.

And now, by position:

Medical Officer: The medical officer and their assistant is given a crash course on first aid at sea. CPR will be given particular review due to its importance at sea. A large chunk of the rest of the training will be devoded to learning how to deal with the rocking and swaying of the boat when preforming delicate operations, as well as the sort of injuries and illnesses that particularly occur at sea, and a short overview of what sort of medicines you're likely to find in the region. The course will take a total of 4 hours.

Engineering Officer: The engineering officers are given an introduction to the ship from the keel up by Lt. Benitez. Literally. Beyond merely a tour of the ship, they get slammed through an introduction of ship's systems - applying what they already know to the system of systems known as the MY Fedallah. This especially covers damage control. There is an *immense* amount to learn, and a very short amount of time to learn it in. Due to the large amount of practical work required, this course will take 6 hours.

Marine CO: Boarding ops. Underwater ops. Amphibious ops. What isn't known by the selectee here is taught, using simsense and live-fire at fake steel targets. This is possibly the most physically -exerting- course set. This course will take a total of 3 hours.

Thaumaturgical Officer: It's hard to teach magic between traditions (Esteban is an old-school hermetic mage), but Esteban does his best to teach about the thaumaturgical threats of the region of operations - everything from the weirdness of the Bermuda triangle to what's known about Voudun (Voodoo) to what's known and declassified about Aztlaner Blood Magic (GM question: *is* anything known? If not, delete that clause). Mostly lecture, but Esteban is an effective teacher, that said. There are limited things to cover here, and Esteban won't be repeating himself, so have your commlink recording for the two hours of direct lecture and Q&A

Intelligence Officer: A crushing course load. The intelligence officers are taught the basics of intelligence analysis - everything from how to analyze intelligence to presenting the final analysis in writing to briefing the analysis to the CO or higher headquarters. This is a 4-month course crushed into 4 days, and it's hard to strip down any more than they did to get the course to 4 months long. This will eat up a prodigious 8 hours -per day- which will rather severally limit what other instructors you can take advantage of.

Quartermaster: Not long, not hard. A 30-minute class that shows you where the converted cargo area is, the SOP of distributing gear, a crash course in the use of the inventory software, and a short Q&A.

Navigation Officer: This is part advanced math class, part basic map-reading and chart use, part use of "alternative navigation methods". Lots of annoying trigonometry problem sets related to the craft of navigation at sea, both tactical movement (say, intercepting a target) and long-distance movement. Use of the automatic systems is also covered, but there's a huge emphasis here on surviving if the tech breaks (or is damaged or somehow unavailable), including teaching of celestial navigation, using dead-reckoning to navigate, etc, though that is a very small part of the training package. Expect to spend 4 hours memorizing painfully dull things.

Communications Officer: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Comms, But Were Afraid To Ask. Electronic warfare, hacking at sea, satellite comms and radio usage. All are covered in this fairly inclusive 4 hour course.

Note that these courses can be taken by people besides the listed officer for those wanting to provide assistance, just learn about what the job entails, or pick up the relevant skills for your own reasons.
---
Common Curriculum

There's some stuff everybody needs to know. You may not think you need to know it. Your trainers do. Certain characters may be exempt from certain portions of the common curriculum. Maybe they've been through it before, for instance. That just means their time gets allocated to other stuff not in the common curriculum.

Stuff included:

Basic Military Skills: Boot Camp, supremely compressed. How to salute. How to wear the uniform. How to address people. Basic naval knowledge (including knots, always a navy favorite - fortunately they only spend 30 minutes on this!), including vocabulary, is covered. How to simulate a Navy or Marine Corps enlisted person or officer, if nothing else. (I see Rusty and George being exempt from this to greater or lesser degrees. Iago basically gets enough to translate his Army knowledge into Naval knowledge. I'm otherwise willing to entertain exemptions.)3 hours.

Damage Control: Nobody Is Exempt From This. Covered through real life and simsense, this is an introduction to damage control for all systems for everybody. 2 hours.

Marksmanship: If you have automatics and pistols of 3 or better, you don't need this. Otherwise, you go through basic shooting exercises (simsense and live-fire) to train you in shooting with automatic weapons and pistols. 2-3 hours.

Firearm Care: Sea air plays hell with your weaponry if you don't keep it well cared for, this covers the basic things to keep an eye out for in particular while out on the sea. 30 minutes for those with sufficient armorer skill already, 1 hour otherwise.

Intro to the Carib: A basic introduction, taught by Maj. Vaccaro, of politics and geography and such in the Caribbean region. Nobody is exempt. 1 hour.

First Aid: Your average Red Cross CPR/First Aid/AED course (yes, the ship has AEDs available commonly). Nobody is exempt unless they ICly already have this level of knowledge or better (So Karoline and maybe Ears). 1 hour.

Swim test: Not a swimming course. You all know how to do that. This makes SURE you can swim. By throwing you INTO the water (while the boat's stopped) and having you swim to safety. Don't worry, there'll be people around to save you if you start to drown...Maybe. Really, maybe 15 minutes per person. If you start to drown, someone will save you. And don't worry, they'll clear the area of sharks. If you -can't- pass it expect to spend a lot more time being thrown back into the water.

Magic for Mundanes: Everybody but Iago (for obvious reasons) takes this. Magical awareness training - what magic can do, what it can't, tactical uses of magic, etc. 2 hours.

Intro to watchstanding: A basic introduction to watchstanding in your assigned post. 1 hour.

Psychological Wellbeing: A quick overview of how to keep sane when stuck on a ship for weeks or even months at a time. Includes instruction on stress relief, and especially on diffusing hostility between members of the ship, as being stuck on a boat with someone you hate can be horrible for morale. While a seemingly frivolous course, psychology is a stronger weapon to wield than any number of bullets. 2 hours.

Flag recognition: It is important that you know who flies what flag. A fairly quick course, but everyone will be expected to pass the short exam at the end. 30 minutes.
---

Electives:

You don't have to take these courses, but they're available, either live-taught or simsense.
--

SCUBA diving: Basic SCUBA operations. Simsense taught mostly, but with a live dive to cap things off. Meant to get you up to the level of scuba certification in the civilian world. Pass it, you get a SCUBA certification card. 4 hours.

Introduction to UCAS Government: Live-taught in the evening. A poli-sci 101 course for shadowrunners. 2 hours.

Magic for Mundanes +: This course will cover arcana, the only magic skill available to non-awakened characters. It will include things from a basic understanding of what arcana is, to the very basics of what to actually do with it and how. 3 hours.

Meet the Locals: This class covers knowledge of who lives where and some of the basics of those people. Good for getting an idea of who controls what areas, and just how in general to interact with said people. 2 hours

Flura and Fauna: A quick overview of the particular sorts of plants and animals you might encounter both in the surrounding land, and the surrounding water. If you pay close enough attention you just might remember if the purple mushrooms with red spots are good for food, fun, or final prayers. 2 hours

Spanish: You'll have a ton of Spanish vocabulary thrown at you, and a few basic rules on stringing the words together. By the time you've finished this you just might be able to ask where the bathroom is. 3 hours

Portuguese: You'll have a ton of Portuguese vocabulary thrown at you, and a few basic rules on stringing the words together. By the time you've finished this you just might be able to ask where the bathroom is. 3 hours

In-Ship combat tactics: Everything you ever wanted to know about fighting inside or on a ship, ways to use the ship's environment to your advantage, and things you need to be cautious of while fighting in a ship. Also advises on the things you should keep an eye on and out for while infiltrating or fighting on someone else's ship. 2 hours

Drone tactics: Effective use of drones in combat, both against large forces and small. Mostly focused of course on how to make use of various kinds of drones aboard a ship. Positioning and targeting priorities are covered along with program teaks that should be made along with a host of other things. 4 hours.

Sabotage: How to disable an enemy ship from the inside. While not always the simplest of things to manage, if done right it can make things worlds easier. Also covers how to help prevent your own ship being compremised. 2 hours.

Explosive Sabotage: The use of explosives to deal a crippling blow to an enemy ship. Focuses largely on where the most vulnerable and damaging spots on a wide verity of ships are, as well has how to properly place the explosives without blowing yourself up. 3 hours (no practicals, sorry)

Leadership 101: While not everyone can be a leader, it is important to know how to give an order, as well as how to take one. 2 hours

Piloting 101: Despite the autopilot on the ship, it is still sometimes handy to know how to handle it yourself in those delicate situations. 2 hours

Self Defense: This course comes in two parts which can be taken separately. The first part is for defending yourself in melee combat, how to block a blow and throw your own. The second deals with not getting shot. 2 hours each.

Note that you can spend -more- time on any of the courses if you'd like to get a more in-depth review of the info provided in them, but the times posted are the minimums you'll need to devote to get any kind of real benefit from them.
---
General comments:

Academically, every course is like drinking water from a fire-hose and trying not to get the rest of you wet. Very Difficult. On the good side, they're really customized to you and your mission, and the teachers are actually damned effective, especially helped by the fact that the largest classes contain only 9 of you.

Everything's customized...except the simsense. The simsense, while nobody expects it to refer to them by NAME, refers to you as "Midshipman". If asked, and only if asked, Roberts explains: They're tutorsofts currently in Beta testing. Safe and complete, but they haven't yet been proven effective as learning tools. They're designed for the midshipmen of the UCAS Naval Academy at Annapolis, hence why they keep referring to you as Midshipman. Comments are welcome. It's meant to be very effective, ICly, but it's still meant for Middies. None of it is at BTL or even Cal Hots level, but a lot of it can be very intense.

---

Stuff you'll be doing as a group:

Damage Control. You'll be doing a lot of this by simsense, as a group working to drive and fight the ship, repair damage, and generally survive while under fire.

Boarding ops: To the extent they can be practical, they run you through boarding ops in simsense. Everything from the approach through to fighting for control of the enemy ship to egress. Repeatedly.

--
Other stuff:

3 of you (Rusty, Melisandre, Simon) have sleep regulators. Those 3? Expect to be pushed to the limits of those, especially Rusty and Melisandre. They have a lot to teach you, and little time to do it in. Everybody else, figure on 4 hours of sleep a night, maximum. Figure 2 hours a day for food, hygiene, etc etc. The other 18 hours, you're in training of some sort (positional, elective, or common core), for 4 days.

It's meant to be hard, intense training. They're absolutely unapologetic about making you work hard.

Some of it (Basic Military Skills, for instance) may not seem relevant. To your trainers, it all is, and is something they will be insistent upon.

Yes, the information about Aztlan Blood Magic is well known. Two sources: from our own very own Dumpshock, there is a discussion occurring in 2056 about the potential danger of Aztlan blood magic. Since then in the game universe, the knowledge about Aztlan blood magic is definitely well know on JackPoint and Shadowland. That information is detailed in the new Corporate Enclaves Source Book. Pretty nasty stuff they do!

Now a quick question about Aztland related: what about Yucatan? Last according to the 2060's, the Yucatan Peninsula was occupied by rebels and were in a tense standoff with Aztlan. Is that still the case?

I will post my Character's information course schedule up shortly.

WAIT, where is the gunnery course?

I'm going to say re the Yucatan that the situation is unchanged since the last time it was noted in SR fluff.

That's a lot of stuff! Will read through that a few times.

Karoline helped me put together the course listing and keep my times reasonable.

Obviously, we forgot a course. I shall now rectify that, at the cost of the karma Karoline was *going* to get for helping.
---
Gunnery Officer: Covering everything from basic ballistics to advanced quick-reaction gunnery drills, this simsense and lecture course teaches the basics of gunnery using ship-mounted weapons, and of indirect fire shooting using sensors. 4 hours.
---

Basically, any of these courses give you a head start on linked skills so far as IC justification goes. I figure it's good for anything from skill 1 to skill 3, depending on the course. (As far as what skills are linked? Be reasonable, and we'll talk.)

John Nobunaga's Schedule



EDIT: after getting the update about the Gunnery, I'll subtract 4 hours from the Intelligence training for the Gunnery.

ANOTHER EDIT: Who's going to be in charge of food? Do one of the char need to volunteer?

Our manservant will be in charge of food.

Sweet....

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.

Fair enough. Fare well, milk ducks.

Laying out the IC stuff, just for everybody's reference:

I'm taking milk ducks's suggestion for his character. He fails the training. Or, more to the point, doesn't make it -to- the training. The UCAS dug his record out of the clutches of Lone Star, finally, and they didn't like what they saw. He is thus brought before Captain Walker after breakfast, informed of this, escorted off the ship with his stuff, given an injection of Laes to sufficient to assure the erasure of all memory of the meet, and brought to a hotel with a decent amount of money ("compensation for his time"), and contact information for a fixer in the Miami area on his commlink, it being portrayed that he's just another guy who went out clubbing and came out drunk, and is being helped by a good samaritan.

OOCly, I'm serious when I say "No hard feelings". This happens, guys. In the future, however, if you have concerns re the game...Bring them up to me -before- you quit. Whether they be little or big.

Call it ego, call it vanity, but I really hate losing players. It's my one biggest flaw as a GM; I am simultaneously protective of and possessive of my players. When you've RPed as long as I have on MUSH/MOO environments, it becomes natural, but it's still a flaw.

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

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.

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.

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' ) 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.

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.

Sad to see you go, milky.

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

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

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.

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



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.

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

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.

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.

Iago's Training Load



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.

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.

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.

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.

Melisandre's schedule

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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?