[19:00 22 Aug 2070 – Deep Watch Briefing Post, Fort Lewis, Seattle]

“Listen up maggots, Deep Watch is the best merc force reconnaissance unit on the planet and you will not let me down! We have staked our reputation on professionalism, stealth, technology and above all a ninety nine percent success rate…”

I’m looking for a number of players for a single multi target mission (with the intention of finishing the game rather than having it fizzle). You will create either one of the Deep Watch mercs or a runner employed to make up numbers due to a ‘rushed job.’ Each of you will then be accompanied by 1-3 NPCs to form your fire team depending on your role (it’s up to you whether you determine the actions of these NPCs or you leave it entirely to me…). This way you can post independently of other players without anyone needing to wait too long for others’ actions…don’t post and your team is likely to die in a horrible fashion (see below on posting)! I will keep recruitment open after things have started…new players can either take over some of the NPCs or be reinforcements as they wish.

The IC thread will begin straight in to the action so any planning can be done here or on the fly as you approach your targets (to avoid the protracted planning stage and no action).

Emerging seems to have hit a lull and so events in this game will take place some months after that thread - I am still willing to continue that game if the original players want to keep posting…hints dropped there will apply to this game…I’m just jumping ahead in the timeline to play out an event I’ve been planning for a while. If the Emerging players want to post as their characters in this thread then that’s fine too!

Given that you will be better equipped and trained than your opponents (to begin with) most initial dice rolls will be via bought success to save time as these can be pregenned before play even begins (please add a note to your character sheets for key attack and defense rolls – including any tacnet bonuses once that is determined – see below). The roleplay aspect of the conflict will be the most important thing and I’m happy for PCs to pen the gory details of their actions without requiring damage resistance rolls (etc) from me…speed is the key, and not letting rules slow down the action too much. Don’t worry, I will ramp up the challenge as the game progresses and rolls will be required for those that like the ‘bucket full of dice’ effect!

The action will be in an urban environment! Signals intelligence (ie hackers) will be NPCs unless someone is desperate to play a field hacker (I’m still getting to grips with the matrix rules and given the background to Emergence I may let the NPCs do things not strictly in accordance with RAW so I don’t want to upset anyone). Weird metatypes or other ‘strange’ character concepts will need good justifications for why they would be hired by Deep Watch. It is likely that most character back stories will be from a security or military background but that is hardly set in stone.

PCs will be standard 400BPs (Deep Watch personnel may wish to use some/all of the following equipment package to give some uniformity - based on AH’s PACKS):

Deep Watch Covert Ops Package (0 Ess/7 BP)
Bioware (0 Ess): Bio-tattoo (“Dog tag” with blood type and SIN) [1,500¥]
Gear (7BP 35,000¥): Clothing (military uniforms) [1,000¥], Chameleon Suit (thermal damping [R:4], chem. seal [R:4]) [11,000¥], Integral helmet (ruthenium coating, image link, thermo, smartlink, integrated Ares Golem Commlink + Iris Orb OS + Sim module + Pro User Suite + ECCM [R:6] + Firewall [R:6], backup micro transceiver [R:3]) [650 + 6,100 + 9,600 + 600¥], Ares Pred 4 [350¥], Ares Alpha (ruthenium coating, air burst grenade link) [3,200¥]

In addition there will be a group requisitions budget for gear that would normally be outside the reach of most runners. Tacnets etc can come out of this and milspec equipment within reason (you will be operating on UCAS soil). I’m not going to set this budget but let you request things and then veto them or not as the whim takes me! Just please point out if any of the equipment you want has an availability over 20.

Posting rules: I’d like a minimum of one post from each of you per fortnight unless you PM me to let me know you can’t make that for some reason. Don’t post and your character expires, probably messily! If the players are willing I’ll amend this to min. one post per week to keep the game moving along but I don’t want to push too hard as I know people are busy (myself included!)

IC posting conventions I’ll use: [Time/location stamp] in bold and orange, “speech” (cyan optional) and <<comms>> (yellow optional), first time your character’s name or key NPCs are mentioned in a post in bold please.

Rewards: In line with Unsound’s 2072 ‘persistent campaign’ thread I will give 1 karma and 2500¥ for the first post per week. This way, once the game is completed you will be able to join that thread if you want to (recruitment is always open!). I’m weaving the themes and events from this game in to that one but will try to keep time based spoilers to a minimum if you want to track that thread. You may be able to negotiate keeping some of the requisitioned items with this hard won cash…we’ll have to see how the game pans out.

Any questions or comments please let me know.

A

Mission Brief

“Take your seats please, this won’t take long, I want you in the air in the next thirty minutes. You will no doubt have heard all about the Technomancer scare and the Sojourner incident aboard the Aztec station. Well I have to tell you that the wildest rumours are in fact true and that there are AIs in our shiny new matrix and they represent a clear danger to the national interest. The UCAS government has been monitoring their activities and identified a target on UCAS soil who have been in communication with the Sojourner and Pulsar entities and soft intel shows they are part of a terrorist organisation. The government cannot act without further clear intelligence, however, and that’s where we come in.

We have multiple targets in the Seattle Metroplex area that need to be dealt with more or less simultaneously.

The primary target is the Stillwater community on the edge of the Redmond Barrens. Secondary targets are associated groups; a runner team called Balefire who are based out of Renton, specifically their hacker who is believed to be one of these Technomancers, and a political figure, Jared Engles who has been publicly supporting these Technomancers and privately funding their terrorist activities.

On the face of it the Stillwater group are hippies and back to nature types living in a commune but analysis of their data traffic shows that there is much more going on beneath the surface. They have confirmed links to eco cells, anti government and corporate groups and the Seattle shadow community. We will infiltrate their central compound and access their offline servers and download the information. Force has been authorised and we anticipate reasonable resistance. Threat assessment is Beta Four. I can tell you that the UCAS authorities have provided us with the option of calling in a metroplex guard air strike if the intelligence proves to be accurate; this is a measure of the seriousness of this mission.

Balefire are assessed as threat level Alpha and Engles as Beta Eight.

Time is of the essence, we need to gather this information before the Sojourner incident escalates, wheels are up in twenty, any questions?”

To be continued…

Reserved for Mission Rosta

Reserved for Requisitioned Equipment