I'm not sure The Suit could take Baby Deus.

I doubt it as well. They think too much alike. You'd need someone that can think completely outside the box to completely confuse an AI.

Looks like it's Plan 9's time to shine.

Anyhow, back at the ranch...

"Hey, where the hell is Hackbaby?"

Well, I want to know how The Exchange could arrange a kidnapping. I'm picturing some remarkably Rube Goldberg-esque manipulations of people's actions in order to create a situation where the person kidnapping the kid may not realize it's a kidnapping. If each member of the chain thinks they're doing a good deed then they're much more likely to be fairly ordinary people and therefore less suspicious to those trying to track hackbaby down and more likely to help a poor lost baby than kidnap the child of two professional criminals. Perhaps some kind of a vehicular collision?

Maybe not Hackbaby stolen from home, but Hackbaby at the Shopping Mall. Slamm-0!s parents turn their back for a moment due to a series of distractions, and "A need for a delivery to a babysitter" call goes out to a Troll Messenger, and away Hackbaby goes faster than the parents can realize (s)hes gone.

I'd love to contribute something here, but I've never read any of the novels, or anything before SR4. I don't even have Emergence.

Throw out any ideas you have, Xahn! We've all started out at one time or another.

I've read two shadowrun novels that were absolutely terrible and totally not 4th edition relevant, and read Emergence in my local book store over the course of two hours. I'm not exceptionally qualified either.

I'm thinking the metaplanes should be involved somehow. Just for the hell of it. Maybe an Ares bughunt goes wrong and something follows them back, laying waste and generally being a big inconvenience. Nothing can stand in the way of the invae (that's what they're called, right?)..... until they see the Child. Ever see an insect spirit run away?

That would probably be jamming too much into one story. Putting as much as you can into something can sometimes be good, but too many spices, and you suddenly can't taste the meal any more.

And, um, I do have a storyline where some do run away from one cranky old man... Of course, he's a scary fragger of an SOB who saw Chicago as a "Vacation".

Money's Granddad, right?

I've been operating under the assumption that Money's father Sirrug. His grand pappy must be scary as heck.

*Chuckles* Yes, Money's Grandfather. No, his father isn't a dragon, he's a human from human parents. Hates his father with a passion, BTW. Grandpa is from his Mother's side of the family, as well.

Grandpa is Pink Mohawk, all the way. Starting with the New York Food Riots of 2000 when he was 20. There's a lot of background that goes into my characters, and Money is the oldest of my Shadowrun characters.

Which is why I'm hoping to get into Kane's head, in some ways. Despite being a semi-2D character, there's a lot of depth to his story.

Ok, so we should try to get a better out line of what the job that the Jackpointers will have to pull. I'm not up to date on politics, does Brackhaven have any current enemies that would warrant the best of the best?

Brackhaven's posession of the child is secondary. The handoff was done because the Exchange needs the Rose Garden shut down. The team that Slamm-O! puts together is the one that has the best statistical chance of succeeding. It is also one that Netcat cannot go on.

First, they need to find the Rose Garden. We can backtrace some of Puck's work on this one and use the entirety of Jackpoint to track it down. Traveller Jones has been everywhere, man, so he's likely heard of the places where a lot of MCT goons have been offloading stasis containers or gurneys or what-the-frag-ever we want it to be. Conversely, he would've heard where there's definite activity, but it's extremely hush-hush. We also know it can be narrowed down to Mitsuhama Zero Zones.

As a thought experiment, perhaps we should get our resident Dumpshockers to build a Zero Zone. We'll call it 'Festung Mitsuhama' and I'd like to see what they come up with - and what the 'runner team would need to do in order to get in.

Well, I was looking more as an outline for the later parts of the story, we were talking earlier about Brackhaven or someone in his posse trying to milk the hostage situation. We could drop that plot line altogether, It's beginning to not fit in with the rest of the plot.

I'm totally in to design the Zero Zone.

Well, I'd see the "Rose Garden" set up in various places. Thus the need for JackPoint, a group of International Deniable Assets, each with their area of expertise.

One in particular is an old MCT Container Ship that continues on something I heard about called a "Lloyd's Loop", a bit of accounting con artistry where it makes more sense for a freighter to loop in circles in International Waters rather than pulling into dock in a country. On the top of the freighter's cargo hold is a bunch of containers, but under it... A "Rose Garden". The ship itself is so old it has no Wireless Capabilities with it's systems, and the metal walls work just fine at blocking the natural wireless capabilities of TMs. And, as it's in International Waters, no customs inspections. It just floats around, completely secure from any Shadowrunners.

Too bad one of the people on JackPoint is a Pirate with an Blimp.

Easily the scariest man in the universe.

I'm now picturing parachuting out of a blimp, onto a ship, with guns on each hip.
And one in each hand.

Yeah.... this is perfect. So many great images of people pouring out of that blimp on zip lines, free falling adepts, driving personal subs out of the back into the water. It's just to awesome of an image, I wish I could animate, just to make this scene.

Re: Multiple Rose Gardens - I like it. We can call the boat the Event Horizon.

Regarding later parts of the story, Brackhaven doesn't necessarily need any enemies beyond the Jackpointers. He's the one with the kid, bought off the Vory or Tamanous or whom the hell ever we want to use that moved Hackbaby from Angry Johnny to Brackhaven. (Probably wouldn't be the Vory who sold it, think the one chick with the crazy name had Vory ties.)

Brackhaven I see as ultimately not caring about who's kid it is. I'm trying to noodle around as to why our Charisma Associates PR specialist has such a hard-on for the munchkin. I can see Brackhaven quite easily walking away from it the moment he finds out that it's a soiled child from a technomancer. Not yet sure why his assistant or CAPR wants to hold on so much.

Actually, I was picturing something like this... The Pirate Airship (With the Jolly Roger painted on the front, Kane isn't exactly subtle. Pink Mohawk all the way!), flying through the eye of a storm so bad that it blocks radar, and that also is over their head to protect against Satellite view, coming out of the storm, which parts just enough to leave it untouched, and parks itself right above the freighter. Concealed CIWS cannons reveal themselves on the freighter, and open up, but are unable to get an angle on the airship as the freighter is rocked from an underwater detonation, a torpedo version of the Ares Heimdall set up with a sonar head that is set to seek out the specific noise of the ship's propellers had just slammed into it.

Lines drop down, and a crew of rowdy pirates from every nation rappel down, assault rifles and SMGs in their hands, and a machete or wakizashi on their backs. They secure the above deck, and down slides Kane (Played by Joseph D. Kucan), his girlfriend at his side, and an LMG in his hands, screaming out, "UNCLE KANE IS COMING FOR YOU!!!" as the MCT Security Team comes up from below decks to try and fend off the assault.

Something like this, maybe?

No, but that's damn fine!

"Presentation!"

I liked the idea of Kane's blimp descending from the black clouds, loudspeakers blasting GnR (because it's the 70's, Wagner is so last century).

I was actually thinking "Paranoid" by Black Sabbath, back when Randy Rhoads was still around. Classical music by 2070s views, might as well be Wagner.

Pure image awesome aside, let's stat the Event Horizon. I'm thinking refurb'd supertanker, possibly with a few autotenders to ensure the boat and crew don't get snookered by the denizens of the deep.

Sounds like a good start. Old design with a simplistic, but highly secured computer system. As much physically mechanical devices running the ship as possible.

Lab is under the deck, in the belly of the ship, completely sterilized for the scientist's protection. The metal of the ship preventing any wireless transmission. Computer systems for the lab is old Fuchi systems bought at scrap prices, and are hardwired only, with the only outside link being Sneaker-Net to a satellite dish that's only activated to send/receive once a day, manually. No CommLinks or even radios on board, which limits combat ability but prevents any hacking attempts by the "Subjects".

Concealed CIWS to deal with any pirate issues (Good thing Kane got that great deal on hiring a Shaman!)... Anything I'm missing? Other than Kane spray painting "Moral" at the front of the ship's name?

Transport and resupply. If we're putting this thing on a loop, it needs a way to be able to keep the crew fed. If it's a supertanker then it won't be too difficult - We can put a helipad on it that's capable of landing an Airstar. I'd suggest a few loading cranes that would give it the capacity to lift 40-ft cargo containers onto the deck. I'd cut and reinforce a door into the hold from the top so they could bring the container straight in from other ships and lock it down into the hold. This also gives a runner team another option to insert if they want shock 'n awe instead of sneaky sneak.

If this is a boat with cheap electronics, then that means our guards are likely low-tech as well. No 'ware, no smartlinks, classic guns. Man. Man. What if we could have an old-school pirate battle on board a 'modern' supertanker? How fucked is that?

"Low Tech" means using 1980s-style technology, like Shadowrun 1st Edition. It's not exactly "Low". You'd still have radar, and computers with shielded fiberoptic hardwired connections.

I'm sorry, but Captain Jack Sparrow would still be outclassed, even if he does have rum. Captain Kane, however... Well, they'd still have more class than Kane, but at least he wouldn't be outgunned.

Sure, but the books state that technology is pretty well integrated, even within firearms. They'd have to have a special cache of 'dumb' weaponry, no smartlinks, everything manual...pretty much the antithesis of what SR4 wants to be. By that point, I was just laughing that Sparrow might've had a chance.

All right, let's continue with the throwback. What if the researchers all had datajacks and old-school cyberdecks? Shit that runners haven't seen in six, seven years? Stuff you can't hack in AR?

I'm starting to see the Event Horizon as a transition ship, perhaps the precursor to one of the Garden facilities. Think - This boat floats close to a port, MCT pulls out the drugged TM's that they had sequestered away, fly them onto the boat or stuff them unconscious in a 40-foot container, the boat loads it all up with their supplies, and it sails on while the onboard medical/security staff takes all the information down, puts it on an optical disk, preps these guys for their ultimate homes, and ensures that a repeat of Emergence doesn't happen. Each Garden has a legacy system that can read the disk and patch the information into their networks, then they know exactly where to pick up in terms of their continuing research. The boat is used as overflow if TM's are hanging on longer than anticipated or if expansion has slowed at one of the sites. The chief aim is to ensure that TM's from one country aren't housed at a Garden in the same area. TM's from Chiba go to Los Angeles, Angelinos go to Macao, Taiwanese go to Johannesburg, and so on.

That works perfectly. And, yes, old skool equipment!

I was thinking during a walk I just had, the fighting inside the ship's corridors would be exceptionally CQB to the extreme. Even SMGs would be difficult to move around. In places like that, Melee Combat would certainly be the choice, with MCT Soldiers using Kendo and short blades. Might even appeal to their "Warrior Cultural Heritage". In that case, Captain Jack would be in serious trouble (It's outright stated that he's the worst swordsman in the series.).

And a transition ship and keeping the people out of their countries of origin make perfect sense.

Yes and no. This is a supertanker we're changing which is a bunch of narrow corridors intersperced with huge tanks full of nothing (or TM's being experimented on). The big open spaces I see are the supply hold, where the containers come in (but still full of containers and places to hide and seek) and one or two of the old oil resivoirs, one of which I see as a holding tank for TM's before they're prepped for experimentation.

Ah, right. I'm thinking different type of ship. Still, most corridors outside of the huge tanks of nothing are going to be TIGHT.

That new flechette ammo and a full-atuo shotgun sounds like a fun time.

Interestingly he'd be at a slight advantage in tight corridors over traditional Japanese weapons and training. Most of the traditional techniques are designed around cutting and chopping, something terribly hard in a cramped corridor. A light, long, stabby sword would work quite well those spaces, and that's the blade everyone uses in those movies.

So, aside from attmepting to stop something like Emergence again, what is goal of THe Rose Garden? Who's the man pulling the trigger? Where are the funds coming from? Why? What profit is it making, or what secret is it keeping hidden?

I had this great image of "The Last Otaku" the final son of Dues. He's slaved to the Rose Garden, unable to leave maybe. He'd be a middle aged man now, but but childish in maturity, though beyond genius level intellect. Able to process thousands of variables in a plan and come to logical plan that has a 99.9% chance of success. But .1% is all you need when you're dealing with JackPoint Crew.

So while Kane and Slamm-O are having a modern pirate battle, FastJack and NetKat are back in the streets of Seattle, looking for the HackBaby. Thus we get epic pirate battle, FastJack dropping Brackhaven with an ol' school Predator. Maybe NetKat takes a bullet from Brackhaven and when he tries to run FastJack is finally "Gettin' too old for this shit." and pulls the trigger.

The Rose Garden we're envisioning is more than one site. Netcat and FastJack are most likely working hard in unison to hack MCT's databases and find the sites for the rest of the groups to hit, with Butch on standby for remote surgical care.

Nobody knows. The Rose Garden is the buzzword for MCT's blacker-than-black Technomancer project, and we know from Corp Guide that they're vivisecting people they snag. They should've learned a lot from Emergence, so they won't put all their eggs in one or two baskets and they will do their best to Zero Zone the projects they are working on. Faraday cages, old-school tech, Festung Mitsuhama.



That would depend on what, if anything, the license holders have planned in terms of the Rose Garden itself. They've managed to keep it very hush-hush, very vague and only faint allusions since 4th ed came out. I doubt they'd be able to get all the heads responsible, but if they can damn near wipe out the data that they've garnered on it then they've struck a big blow to the project itself. It would be enough that MCT execs would have to convene - or defend themselves to the Corporate Court if the information got into their hands. Where's Orbital DK been?




I think Brackhaven's walking away from this one more or less unscathed. He doesn't want a technomancer in his household, are you insane? Humanis would rake him over the coals for it! Privately, of course. No, once he knows who's kid this is, he'll hand it over and walk away with a polite request for them to lock the door behind them, oh and the dogs will be released in five minutes. Depending on how much dirt we want to throw on Horizon, we can make our Hackbaby baddie be the Charisma Associates Public Relations Specialist, Dadja Naviar*.

*The name is totally and strictly a stand-in right now, I'm not creative enough at work to stat out someone who's going to die

what other jack pointers was everyone thinking of using. i understand that you need slamm-o and netcat, kane has been spoken of, as has fastjack and /dev/grrl, but who else will be on the job.

i was having a look around the interwebs and found a list of jackpointers, i dont think its very up to date, but still who else is going to be used?

2xl, am-mut, arete, aufheben, axis mundi, baka dabora, beaker, black mamba, butch, clockwork, cosmo, dangersensei, dr. spin, ecotope, elijah, ethernaut, fastjack, fatima, fianchetto, frosty, glasswalker, glitch, goat foot, hannibelle, hard exit, haze, icarus, jimmy no, kane, kat o' nine tails, kay st. irregular, kia, lyran, ma'fan, man-of-many-names, marcos, mihosi oni, mika, mr. bonds, nephrine, netcat, orbital dk, picador, pistons, plan 9, puck, red anya, rigger x, riser, slamm-0!, smiling bandet, snopes, sounder, sticks, sunshine, traveler jones, turbo bunny, winter hawk?

dont get me wrong i think that its awesome that we have a solid idea, but if its going to be such a big deal that the jackpointers are going to get involved i think that we should maybe include some of the others.

personaly i was hoping that i could write up riser and maybe some others... but i do want riser

Yeah. Brackhaven is too big a tool for the universe at the moment. You just KNOW he'll be going after the oval office again.

Charisma Associates Public Relations Specialist "Michael Fredrick Overton", on the other hand, may end up in the "Too stupid to live" section if he finds out who Hackbaby is through various means at his disposal, and attempts to blackmail JackPoint again, after The Exchange has already done so. Karma is a bitch, and the JackPoint will be owed heavily at the Karma Bank as far as The Exchange is concerned, especially as they failed in protecting their primary interest...

Also been thinking, some of the chapters should be written in a chatroom style, with the characters popping onto the JackPoint at various times, and all the authors involved actually RPing as the characters. Have it be fluid and dynamic, like a RL chat. Give a bit of reality to the characters. Slamm-0! and NetCat calling an emergency meeting of the JackPoint members about the missing Hackbaby, and The Exchange butting into the FastJack-Approved secured chat room to give the ultimatum and promise of significant karmetic reward for the destruction of the MCT Rose Gardens. Which, knowing this group, would have them hitting the chatroom flamethrowers pretty hard and heavy until cooler heads, probably FastJack, pointing out, "This is just another Shadowrun. The Johnson just screwed us before the 'Run rather than after for once. Let's get it done, and may $Deity have mercy upon The Exchange if they screw us, because we sure as frag will have none!".

Then starts the actual storylines from the points of view of the characters, each doing their jobs:
The Hackers and Faces seeking the Rose Garden Locations and getting whatever Legwork they can get done subtly.
The Grifters and Thieves hitting the more subtle places. The Hitters attacking the sites that can't be intrusively entered.
And the Fixers getting supplies and hiring Shadowrunners. Lots of Shadowrunners. For peripheral support of all the groups. Decoy 'Runs, for example, and Getaway drivers in the right place at the right time. (This will allow Non-JackPointers to make an appearance. I'd like to see Hood again, personally.).
Butch getting into position and using her contacts to arrange for telepresence surgery for the teams if needed. Frankly, Frosty is the only JackPointer that would be the odd person out, and even she can hum the 'Running tune if needed. Of course, her Master might just put the coat and face paint back on for something like this...

*Wicked Grin* The tools available today... I'm loving how the world is coming along in a lot of way. Technology and culture. Internet Culture here we come, people! A society of people, rather than a rash of cultural preconceptions. as other points of view are brought into play. We could have teams working on various parts of this from all over the world if need-be.

Yes, all we need are the sign-off and the authors that can do this novel(s) justice.

I'll work on the list of JackPointers and their likely positions and roles in detail when I'm not about to pass out.

Thanks for making the list for me, BTW.

no big deal mate, as i have said though i dont think its up to date, i know this as /dev/grrl isnt on their...

as for the outside hire part: i was thinking about a few decoy jobs.

have someone hire a massive runner team to simultainiously hit multipule targets at a specific time, something like all of the A rated corps in the downtown area of seattle, so that a big enough responce is put onto the job/jobs and that if something like this happens the matrix would explode with infomation on it, kinda like the news channels did with teh recent japan earthquake/tsunami (bad example) so that alot of "normal" people would be drawn to this. this could work as a cover for the infiltration of the ship

Or a lot of MCT Zero Zones that don't have Rose Gardens, in the same geographic area, so that MCT has to move their security forces around. Then another. Then another. Subtle attempts at infiltration that get caught. Maybe some outright destruction 'Runs.

Suddenly the local commander has to deal with "Order, Counter-Order, Chaos" as he's trying to juggle his limited security personnel to ensure that MCT keeps the reputation that Zero Zones are ZERO ZONES. Leaving the actual site, which also had an attempt, but early on, more exposed.

As for "Subtly infiltrating the ship", I did mention that I wanted to have Kane do that, right? He's a full-blown Pink Mohawk Shadowrunner. Right down to writing his name on the walls with an LMG on certain 'Runs (When he was looking for his Wingman that the CAS denied existed and was rotting away in an Aztlaner Prison.).

I've been thinking about what a Zero-Zero zone would look like.
Military Personnel, Magical personnel, Drones.
You're talking about choke point entry ways, wards, patrols, guardian spirits, Spiders, Security Drones. Then it occured to me, this is the Rose Garden, you want to limit Matrix/Network access. Absolutely no wifi, everything is wired. Additionally, very limited drone and matrix security measures. Instead, you increase the Magical and Physical Security. Technomancers are too dangerous to have Armed Drones running around. Noone wants a repeat of the Seattle Arcology.

Truth be told, the Event Horizon is the lynchpin. The manifests on board are going to be able to tell the team all the locations that this boat has made 'landfall' at and what it took on board. I assume the only port of call it's actually docked at would be one MCT runs at, or near, its headquarters.

You have the general layout of our tanker, now. Fill it with security, minimize technology and emphasize training, and see what kind of bloodbath it will be if Kane makes a go at it. Also look at a few articles about the Somali pirates - see how they do things.

That's what my ideas were for research if I get a chance to write it.

Oh man, if the lynchpin to the operation relies of a Pink Mohawk like Kane, you know you're in a Charlie-Foxtrot of a Shadowrun!

If you're relying on Kane you are Foxtrot Uniform Charlied Kilo Echo Delta

Nah, Kane delivers. I mean, he found one woman in all of Aztlan that was held in their many drekhole prisons after all.

It might be in a blood soaked bag with lots of signs on it, but he delivers.

With regards to who does what I'm thinking Hard Exit will be busting the Event Horizon with Kane. They may be totally different in personality, but they do have some overlap in skill. . .

Did he? I never realized he actually found her.