Good question. My suggestion would be we try to land together and stick together, since if we don't, we'll probably lose comms to one another soon. Also retracing the other teams steps would take time, so if things seem calm (other than the nimrods), then we should land where we see our team (or activity that our team was there) to save time in meeting up with them.

Of course, if we can't take the nimrods down, we may have no choice, and will just have to parachute in wherever we happen to be flying when they flow up our skytrains.

You are 'together' in that you are on the command channel, you are in separate Skytrains

Blackhat: yes, you are outside the jamming

The wreckage by the school is of a drone and explosions (a while ago...), there is more recent wreckage of a FB Commando on the tower itself and as you get closer you can see the command LAV has landed on the tower so it's a fair bet they got that far...

No flares or other call signs so far...

Between your spiders and air support those nimrods should be no trouble...question, how are the nimrods being commanded given the scale of the jamming?!? - and yes, I know the answer

That sounds good to me, though if we land inside the jamming zone then I'm gonna send a squad to backtrack towards the original DZ until they get comms back. Then we can see how wide the jamming is, and can relay instructions through them using the LOS laser link (provided we can get a guy with LOS and inside our microwave range.

How far is the microware range btw?

ps. I've read your first IC post and think we'll complement each other well. You do the warfare and tactics, I'll do the speeches

Right. I figured if we tried to land AT the tower, we'd just be adding the wreckage of a couple of skytrains to that pile, but if it looks safe, I think that's ultimately where we want to be. IIRC from the map, the schoolhouse looked like it was basically a block away. Which might be close enough to travel on foot and not lose a lot of time, but might also mean that its no safer at all.

I'm up for anything, and can edit my previous post if need be. If we're not in jamming range, yet, then it seems like we're sure the other team is deeper in, so we might as well keep going. If we cross into jamming range, we could drop a few guys to land and establish a remote communications linkup. There is also a good chance that once the nimrods are dealt with, and we get closer to the tower, soemthing worse will appear that will change our minds about where to land... so aiming for the school seems like as good a plan as any, for now.

At this point, we know something is up, but we don't know that we need to start taking anyone out, yet, right? The fact that the drones from the tower are being sent to intercept our transport probably means they are hostile. If it comes to that, do we have the firepower on these plane/helicopters/whatever to do serious damage to the tower, or are they mostly built for transport and self-defense?

IOW, the first question is if we possess the capability to just level the tower and be done with it? Second question is, other than suspecting that our men are inside, do we have any reason not to treat that installation as a hostile enemy base?

When did I lose control of the Nimrods! Bah humbug. We've been using them to take out the stationary defense positions, and to run patrol on our LAV. I would think we would have noticed if they went rogue again. Especially after last time.

Lol. So you had drones, and some TMs took them from you, and you got them back, and then sent them out again and you're surprised they got taken again?

No, I'm surprised I didn't NOTICE them being taken again when the last time I got a post about them, they were flying interference and responding normally.

Maybe the hackers decided to have them report in regularly with fake reports that everything is A-OK.
That's what I'd do.

Or even real reports. Until they needed to use them to shoot down our helicopters, the hackers really had no reason to change their orders. Once the drones were compromised (again) they could avoid them, or keep them from reporting specific things.

Like Cptn. Roberts said in his IC, though. If a cyberterrorist takes your gear, once, its probably a bad idea to take it back. Its probably riddled with backdoors, viruses, and trojan programs (not to mention sprites). Safer to just blow it up, and deny them the hardware.

I would notice if my commands didn't work though, and they've been on a rotating frequency, and they're goddamn slaved to my Nexus. I know tms cheat like bastards, but still.

What I am saying is that the hackers could have let your commands continue to work.
Of course, if they are slaved to your nexus, that either means they are spoofing their own commands, or your nexus is compromised.

SEE WHAT I MEAN? You connect to a dirty compromised drone, and now all your nexi are belong to them!

... or, these could be entirely different nimrods... or you could just be flying them over to escort us safely to your location (lols).... lots of possibilities. Too bad we have to shoot them down, rather than find out.

Ah the joys of being an EVIL GM

Don't worry Sabs, as far as you are concerned the drones are slaved to your nexus and operating normally...of course as they are outside you no longer have LOS to them so...

But the Sultan has LOS on them.
I mean, come on. I'm not going to leave behind 2 giant death machines like that unsecured. Neither is Reid. Especially not after they almost blew up the LAV. Kit and Reid are both in the LAV that's landed. Not to mention Reid ordered me to go into the building, except now I out rank him So there's a slight discontinuity error.

And if LOS is going to be that big of a problem, why the hell don't we pack up in the LAV and fly out of here, and get backup. We can dump the drones, and make room in the LAV for personnel.

Is that the same LAV "wreckage" that we saw by the tower where the nimrods came from?

EDIT: Nevermind, reread Aria's post. There is wreackage AND a LAV near the tower.

That does bring us back to my question about whether or not we CAN level the tower, and whether or not we SHOULD level the tower.
I imagine that at this point, a direct assault is looking pretty grim, and every piece of equipment we bring in range just gets used against us.
Seems like DW just needs to roll up in something that can take out a building with "dumb" missiles or something.

Once we do that, our jamming problem goes away, as do most of our technomancer problems, I imagine.

Yeah, I was hoping the rank issue wouldn't matter, perhaps we can gloss over that one (or make him equal rank and you the best person in the field to do what you are doing?!?)

...as I said (kinda), you are in full control of the Nimrods (via the Sultan, your rotadrones or another retrans effort) and nothing is wrong with them or their mission...as far as you are concerned...that doesn't alter the fact that they are on an attack run against the skytrains (so something screwy is going on?!? )

To Blackhat: the skytrains have basic defense but no 'big guns' as such. You've got some aerial defenses, possibly in the form of more Nimrods (sorry to rub salt in there ). Certainly nothing that could level the tower. I guess DW could get some stuff but that wouldn't exactly get the evidence you need. Part of the initial brief is that the metroplex guard have an airstrike prepped to go once the intel is verrified...and they will be packing all sorts of nasty! I don't know how they'll get past the jurisdictional stuff as the Stillwater community is technically in the NAN but that's for the politicos to sort

I'm just letting you know that I am still here. I'll post when sabs has told us what to do

When he stops seething at me pinching his drones again

Are the Nimrods flying above the background count area?

Is our mission time sensitive?

The nimrods are inside the area affected by the background count'

The mission is only time sensitive in that the Sojourner incident is going on and these technomancer scum are involved somehow...

Aria: the Shadowrunners, are they with me and Squad 2?
I'm putting together a giant post so I'd like to know.
Also, Who is carrying Gash's meat?

I thought he was back in his meat body....?

I am just look at last IC post

He is, but I thought someone was carrying him for when he goes Astral.

Haha. That's given me an idea for a master blaster character. Mage on trolls shoulders

I like this plan

The group 2 shadowrunners are still with you (Dahlia, Hemlock, Opium, Fold - Tirade bought the farm!)

Don't forget you have some wounded to make the comms teams back to the Sultan (although maintaining LOS will be difficult, I'm sure there's a spool of fibre optic cable on board the Sultan - or you could strip some from somewhere...)

As far as I know Rodriguez has Gash's meat but it's not exactly the best choice of transport...one of the less equipped soldiers might make a better choice?!?

Yes, we'll have to move Gash's carrying companion to someone else.
I'm thinking of keeping Rodriguez and her wounded companions back to cover our retreat. we can use a combination of spooled wire and two man teams to help with LOS communication. At least until we clear this floor and figure out what we're doing.

Huuh!

Do you mind if I ask what may be a rather noobish question? What is the Sojourner incident exactly? I have no clue

Sojourner is an AI that's 'creating' technomancers and doing bad things™
It's the beginning of the Rise of the Technomancers plot line in Shadowrun. I might actually ruin some of the game if I go into lots of details.

While waiting for sabs to come up with his tactical plan, I'm going to astrally scout again around where we are. I don't want to get ambushed. I have no problem with my body being carted around by someone other Rodriquez: just be gentle please.

Have you got any spirits you could send to do an astral search? Seems like if wireless communications is out, and you know where the background counts are to avoid them, you could probably set up a magical communications network (send a spirit back to DW HQ with a report), or even jsut have one scouting around the area looking for deepwatch personnel (if/when you think there might be some to find, like if some of your drone sensors pick up two incoming skytrains).... Not that we trust your drones much, anymore.

yes but I don't know what I can ask them him to look for. In this background count I am probably as good as the spirit (who is with me anyway) at searching.

I don't have a bound spirit so I cannot send it on remote service. (or at least I don't think I can)

I could go back to Deep Watch HQ anyway...and thats probably a very good idea! at 1000 miles an hour I suspect it will only take a minute for a round trip...

Thanks for the idea.

BlackHat, are you waiting to find out the results of the Drone combat and our countermeasures before making a call on where to land or whether to bail out?

I may start prepping for a parachute jump....

Prepping for parachuting seems wise. Aria said our ships "shouldn't" have any trouble with the nimrods, but better safe than sorry.

As for where to land. Yeah, I think landing at the original LZ would be way too far from the action. By the time we retraced the otehr team's steps, they'll all be dead. Landing right at the tower seems risky, but given the LAV, it might be doable. For now, I think the pilot should head for the schoolhouse (if for no other reason as then I don't have to change my order) and we'll play it by ear. If we take out the nimrods easily and don't see any other sign of danger, we can always swing by the tower and land there. Otherwise, it is only about a block to travel on foot.

In any case, until we've dealt with the nimrods, we may not have any choice in the matter, as all 79 of us might be bailing out of flaming wreckage in a few moments.

BTW.. Deep Watch has a protocol for LOS communications. You guys can see the Sultan, so you can probably communicate with it. Or Try to. Should give you voice at the very least.

If you give the order (IC) then I'll start prepping the platoons for parachuting. That's how I see our relationship working anyway. Shout if you think differently, but I imagined you not being much of a 'talk directly to the troops' sort whereas my guy is more the old school shouty type

Assuming Aria confirms, this seems like a good idea. There is probably some protocol for saying "Hey, you. Anyone alive down there?" You're in jamming range, but if we can use LOS communications to bypass that (or have our mage pop down and say hey, or send a watcher spirit or something), we probably should. Astral-projection can probably wait until we find out if the nimrods are going to hit us, or not, though. Gotta conserve our mages, ya know.

@sabs

Sir Yes Sir! Do you need some help with that Sir?

@aria
Can you give me a clue who I report to. I imagine there is an operations team there that is monitoring us. If you give me a name, I can run with the rest.

Cptn. Roberts is fairly sociable, but much more accustomed to interacting through AR/VR, and through a tacnet (he'll be chucking 11 dice for leadership), but, like you said, you're "old school" and he's "new school". He's not so hot at intimidation, and he's more focused on having sound tactics than inspiring people. In this sort of case, I think it makes a lot of sense to have you give a speech to the troops. Its more important that Cptn. Roberts be able to lead you and the other ranking officers than to lead every man we've crammed into here personally.

I figure, like you said, we've been working together for a while, and the situation has sort of evolved to the point that Cptn. Roberts is comfortable delegating to you, and staying focused on the high level objectives, as well as coordinating tactics/assets at the company level.

To that end, Cptn. Roberts has already mentioned the possibility of jumping of the drones intercept us before we make it to our landing zone (on the command channel). You could take that as your cue to talk to the platoons (or individual squad leaders or something) over another channel (general chat?) or in person (although the men on my skytrain might appreciate a streaming version of your speech).

I *imagine* that we're the leaders of each platoon, but that each squad has a leader who should be listening in on the command channel - so hopefully the men are already prepping to bail if shit goes badly here in a second.

That's an idea. I thought that at the time, but were't sure how we were organised. I'll edit my post to fit

*post edited*

I'm sure there is some sort of magical command back at HQ (Fort Lewis for anyone not paying attention...) ...let's say you report to Colonel Scott...

For a spot of variety I wanted to give the newbies something other than Nimrods to play with...the Horizon-Doble is from the Dumpshock Datahaven post...sadly the link to the draft seems to be gone so unless anyone knows where it is we'll gloss over that too

Enjoy the weirdness!

At first I was going to ask whether we could use LOS Comms to log into the LAVs node and look around with its sensors, or look for a report from the team assigned to the vehicle - but then I remembered that Cptn Roberts is going to distrust any compromised tech until their own techies have a chance to carefully go over it with a Purge program.

Regarding Seth's last IC post, I thought you couldn't leave the tower because of the ward around it mentioned a couple of posts before, or at least I think that is the intention of the ward as I read it

Well he does seem to have jumped the gun a bit but I'll put that down to youthful enthusiasm Seth: Rather than making you change your post I'll adapt my plans a little bit (the differences with a pbp game) but it'll be for the betterment of all ...I have the advantage that you were moving at astral speeds so will have been unaware of all the weirdness...enjoy the next few IC posts, if they don't make your head spin I'll have to work harder

it's ok I will change the post and send a watcher