I still say that's because they know LS and KE are huge organizations, kzt. If it was just a solitary station, that'd be different.

I should point out that the Plastic Jungles have existed for longer than the Sixth World. The original fences have long been reinforced with scrap-metal Pandora-style (Borderlands Pandora, not James Cameron's Pandora) walls and guard towers and stuff. The gangs are just clever enough to stage diversions while sending in raiders to exploit gaps or holes or vulnerabilities.

Or how Odin and the other Aesir tricked some random dude into building a wall for them, and then getting Loki to sleep with the horse and produce Sleipnir. Except that the Norse Gods aren't quite as strong in the sixth world as they are in Asgard.

Where is this mentioned?

Ähm, they do not have gods at their disposal. If they would have some force 20 free spirit I guess there would not be any question to be asked...

It was a wall around a small village. It wasn't meant to be strong, lasting, or well built. It was just supposed to prevent about two dozen guys on horses from murdering the living fuck out of everyone in the town.

Here's the bit after it's built:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBSm3FPbozM

Can't find the bit where they were building it. "We have to go faster, and shittier!"

"Shape Concrete"-spell. Combine with random debris which you are certain to find in the Barrens and fortificate the damn thing harder than ever before.
This whole thing about diversions... It may help much if a safe communication network was established, as mentioned before. Some basic tactics in case of an attack...

@Draco18s
Well, and on every attacker there were around 10 defenders....

Not saying it won't work in Shadowrun. Espacially against go gangs a wall is quite helpful. Stripping those guys of their major advantage.
Everybody gets partial cover and people dropping down will be in full cover and retrivable without risking beeing shot.

Mostly it was the fact that two days prior (when the duke's son (one of the guys on horses) was at the town last time) there hadn't been a wall.

Point is: an unexpected wall is more of a deterrent than the wall itself. Had the attacking force known that there was going to be a wall manned by a bunch of farmers, they'd have over-run the town despite the wall.

Instead, one idiot jumped off his horse and tried to climb up and quite rightly got a pitchfork through his chest.

fyi, current 2012 technology has 2,000 workers supporting 2,310,844 sq.m. of greenhouses in British Columbia . That comes out to 1,155 sq.m.per worker. There an additional 600 working in warehouses and packing.

Using the same distribution, 200 staff would be 150 greenhouse workers in 17 hectares (6 acres) with another 50 packers.

Is that civilized people, or z-zone neo-primitives?

I've heard that BC has electricity and stuff like that.

We seem to have bogged the question down a bit in DIY semantics. While I totally support going John Rambo meets a Ghost Cartel levels of booby traps and b-movie, perhaps we should look at the numbers in the book itself.

As you asked, what would I do, here's a quick design thrown together:

To be a bit cheeky, first option would be to turn down the job. 15,000 to outfit any kind of fighting force capable of effectively repulsing armed street gangs AND my own fee, well, that's just not profitable consulting

Assuming I'd be happy to get away with 2,000 a head (I don't know how big your team is, assuming 4), I'd have 7,000 for munitions. On the (reasonable, IMHO) assumption that people from a dangerous urban hellscape provide their own armor jackets and commlinks, I'd settle for:
4 AK-97 assault rifles
2 Remington 750 sport rifles W/ Imaging Scope: Thermographic, Image Magnification
2 Browning Ultra-Power heavy pistols
100 explosive rounds
400 regular ammo
2 handheld sensors: Directional Mike, Motion Sensor, Radio Signal Scanner R2
Either 3 Colt Americas and more regular bullets or a R2 Infiltration Tutorsoft.

My reasoning:
Scummers like the ones you employ and are up against are raised to respect force and intimidation. Having your best prospects either be lieutenants or snipers. Your Lts can then impress the riflemen by messily killing your quarry (ex for their Ultra-powers), or messily killing deserters and mutineers, and your snipers will be able to kill targets from afar and/or in hiding (again, load Ex in their Remingtons), further stripping the other gangers of their bravado. Riflemen will provide the customary storm of AK fire both in in-town shootouts or when you have to defend your facility. Sensors are given to Lts or tech-savvy troops so you can get the drop on the bad guys.

My reasoning on the last expenditure is that, seeing as you cannot arm a great deal of people, you should either get some scouts with Colts for protection who can snoop out potential ambushes and assaults, comming back to base so you can prepare fortifications or load the riflemen into your flatbed and haul ass to intercept - OR, use software to improve the infiltration abilities of the men you have so you can pursue a (probably ineffectual, but there's that cash gap again - just make sure it's the poor saps in your employ and not yourselves that get smoked!) campaign of guerilla harassment against the surrounding gangs.

As long as they cannot ID or follow you, there's a reasonable chance they'll start killing each other and stay out of your hair, or (if you're really good and/or fortunate) stay too weak to mount an offense on your facility. Also, I am here assuming that, as you said labor/manpower is not an issue, that it is possible to generate enough revenue somehow to stay in bullets - Even better if you have a black market pipeline and/or a good face to get a reasonable deal on looted weaponry and electronics that you can't find a use for when arming your militia.

E: You may want to swap some of the ordnance for Cram, Jazz or Kamikaze, I forgot we were dealing with urban gangs who are usually smashed to the gills on combat drugs themselves.

I actually decided to raise the budget to 20K instead of 15K, but my players heard the job and then skipped over the "negotiating your fee" part to go straight to "we'll do this for the food and to help out."

I reckon that kind of reckless altruism is worth Karma, so I'm giving them pretty much +1 per session on top of anything else. Though also in fairness, the Jungles would probably cut their Necessities payments in half for like, forever (for everyone except the AI, anyway,) and I imagine they're also hoping to get a lot of free plant Telesma out of it. And it helps to have people who like you. Some things are worth more than nuyen.

The AI may be able to get some of his monthly costs cut as well - all that biomatter creates certain warm gasses, and you can convert that heat into electricity fairly easily. You should look into Aquaponics.

Oh, allright. If they're genuinely hooding and care about the people they work with, go all in (and ignore the thing about shooting people who disobey ).

I'd expand the concept, maybe add a LMG/MMG, get explosives/traps/mines and grenades, or just expand the number of troops, then.

I would actually suggest giving them the Homegrown Farming advantage free to their lifestlye, That's suppose to represent having access to "real" food.

If the PCs do move in, here's my guess as to the lifestyle:
The Jungle Life

You could mix it up with aspected domain or Running Wild qualities like Rural Home and Animal Friendly Landlord.

They already have the Homegrown Farming quality, since the character who owns the group squat likes to grow his own stuff.

I think this goes a bit beyond "You can consider your food to be two ratings higher than the actual value," especially since you pay for that quality, so you're not really getting much out of it.

War!, in the chemtech section.




-k

I would recommend first getting a sensor & comm net. By default all comms are mesh network, meaning a signal can jump from comm to comm to comm or device to device. That means a couple of drones can also act as the backbone for your comm net as well as your security net. I figure you stick the drones on top of the greenhouses/tarps.

My pick would be Bust-a-move drones, with whatever stuffed-animal skin you think will be least conspicuous. Give them gecko tape grips so they can climb and upgrade their stock camera with Thermo, Low Light, VMag, and maybe vision enhancement. A pair of R6 laser-links on each one lets you create a mesh network that is immune to standard jammers, but can be affected by smoke & weather hence the R6. Even with those mods, those BaMs should be about 1300Y each (my copy of Arsenal is loaned out so I'm looking at notes from old characters), coming in under 5kY for your simple network/security guards.

The BaMs have AI. Not particularly smart AI but still, there are 3 AI who don't need sleep who can notice things moving beyond the perimeter and get many actions per round for "Observe in Detail" actions. If you've got a hacker or illicit software source, you can look to get cracked ClearSight or even TacNet software to make up for the relatively stupid AI. Even still, anyone in the network with Edit can watch the video take.

The drones have a default Device Rating/Signal of 3, so three of them can act as the backbone for an area 1.6km long and about 0.8km wide, and the network will get even bigger when the farmer's comms are added in.

edit: remember that every 2070 vehicle with a Pilot rating is a drone that should be set to keep watch at night and beef up the comm net. IIRC from Arsenal, a standard vehicle has two cameras, ultrasonic motion/collision sensor, an atmosphere sensor and maybe a radar.

Then you want 4 watch towers inside the perimeter with at least one shooter each that are supposed to stay in place, not be pulled away by distractions. Having farm workers and farming equipment, it shouldn't be too hard to construct a bullet-proof structure using local cut heavy timbers and packed earth (excluding the windows, of course).

They could have some light office work, equipment repair, or other busy work but should be awake and able to move to a shooting position at any alarm. The watch towers should be assigned helmets with Thermo/FlareComp/Vmag/Image Link (475Y), Urban Explorer jump suits (500Y), and the weapons (~1050Y AK97 + gas vent3 + shockpad+lasersight) for ~2,000Y per watch-guard. Assuming you can get those 4 guards trained up to Automatics 1 (specialized:assault rifle), Agility 4, they get 8 dice for shooting and have enough recoil comp to fire one short burst completely recoil free and the second with only a small penalty.

4x guards + 3x drones would be about 12,000Y. That leaves 8,000Y to split between their fee and either adding more tower guards, arming some farm workers, adding more BaM watch-drones, or just WiFi cameras (maybe 350Y each, with the same sensors as the helmets).

At 1155m^2 per worker, and assuming 150 greenhouse workers, we have 173,250m^2 under cultivation; or 2.31% of the seven-and-a-half million square meters taken up by the Plastic Jungles. Forgive me, but I'm afraid I'm not seeing your point.

How am I not surprised. ...

Do they include freeze-dried water too?

No, but there's an armor de-bonder that can reduce ballistic armor in the splash area by one per hit on a success test, using it's rating as the dice pool. The rating goes up to 12. Somehow works on any armor with a Ballistic rating.

Also, the barrier foam has a variation that launches a dispenser into the air, and while spinning it sprays the foam to form an instant circular gun pit.

Hmmm...

If you had a large capacity dispenser mounted to the rear of a bike, could you leave a jetwall behind like the light cycles from Tron?





-k

my point is either the plastic jungle is really heavy on 2070s drone tech or maybe the size and/or population is off.

though I suppose the jungle could be holding row crops, like corn, soy, or potatoes instead of traditional greenhouse plants (tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries ). One farmer with a dinky 30hp tractor can handle 50+ acres of row crops as a full time job. More if a full size combine is available. Possibly three or four times that under a mega-greenhouse that moderates weather conditions and controls precipitation.

I wasn't kidding before: I thought these people were supposed to be neo-primitives?

Yep. Well, by the book, anyway. Here's the most recent source:

So that doesn't sound like highly-organized drone-based farming. Or even 'very good vehicle'-based.

Interesting that they cut the references to "tribal shamans" and that the metahumans were organized into "urban tribes." Glad to see that the shamans were at least able to get everything clean -- Barrens success stories are always neat.

Freeze foam, page 82, Arsenal.

Why is the AK the go to weapon? I'd use the Defiance T250. Its cheaper needs fewer accessories, does more damage and requires less ammo, one can field more shooters or even afford a Remington or two for long range support.

On a metagaming perceptive, you'll much rather know automatics rather than longarms. But in a general case, it really depends on the level of recoil compensation. A fully compensated AK-97 outputs effectively 11P and 8P shots and that's better than a Defiance. You can also wide burst which is a boon for low dice pool shooters. There's also the range angle, but I don't think that matters much in the Plastic Jungles.

However, you really do need to have acceptable RC for an AK to work. If you can't afford that, I'll go with the Defiance for the reasons you mentioned above.

Rate of Fire or Weight of Fire. You have to choose.

But if you're dealing with a bunch of barely trained troops, the Rate of Fire and inherent inaccuracy of the Kalash makes it a great "bullet hose" for suppressive fire.

That point has already been made, in some detail, mainly by me. ShadowDragon's response was to cut the number of enclosed jungles from ten to three, with only one being under complete, full-time cultivation. Read the thread again.

If we're talking row-crops, having a couple dozen 30+hp tractors with all the appropriate implements would let 200 people farm 10,000 acres aka 40 km^2. I've got a 1965 Ford tractor suitable for pulling a double plow and assuming I don't screw it up, there's no reason it won't be running in 2065.

And having enough old tractors to plant that much land isn't nearly as implausible as someone leaving a greenhouse several square kilometers in size in close proximity to a major city.

Especially the really old ones. A Blacksmith can make most of the parts for those!

Freeze Foam breaks down in a few hours.

Barrier Foam seemingly does not.




-k

The way I see it is that they probably have the original crap from the first installation of the Plastic Jungles. Remember, it was first built for indoor agriculture, only everything that grew was too contaminated to use. So I figure all the old tractors got put in a big fuckoff shed and they were converted to tropical ornamental use.


As for the inhabitants themselves, I figure they're "neo-tribal" in the sense that for decades after the Night of Rage, the only Talents inside were from the Native American Shamanistic traditions, and they tended to last a while - as in, the oldest one there, the oldest shaman, pre-dates the Ghost Dance War by enough that she fought in it and participated in the Ghost Dance itself. (Yes, that old broad is pushing 90. No mean feat in Redmond Barrens.) So that culture would have rubbed off to a large extend as people grew up in the Jungles and such.

But they're not primitives. They may not all have a commlink, but there's probably enough that have been rigged for communal use that they wouldn't have the Incompetence quality. They're glad to adopt and use any forms of technology they can that won't involve wrecking the ecosystems they've spent so long sustaining.


I still haven't figured out what they do for power, though. Maybe they tap a main, like that hospital in Puyallup, or maybe they run generators using fuel they get from trading with the inhabitants of the Rat's Nest. Probably also some old solar panels and stuff.

As far as fuel go, there a several solutions to produce it locally:
* vegetal oil (colza, sunflower...) works fine in diesel engines provided they're not using high pressure injection. You may have to add some heating to keep the oil fluid enough in low temperatures, but that's about it
* methanisation : dump biological wastes (especialy dung) into a tank, let them ferment and you get methane. Can be burned, can work in gazoline engines, can also be used to feed a fuel cell provided it has cracking unit. that sort of fuel cells already exists now, it means that by 2070 it's probably available even in the Barrens.
* alcohol based fuel : ferment stuff, distill it (possibly using solar heat) and you get usable fuel (and possibly booze). Genemoded yeast to get better yelds and/or different alcohols out of celullose (meaning just about any inedible bit of the plants) are likely to be old tech by 2070 and available.

It's also worth pointing out that the crops don't have to be "worked" at the level we'd consider standard for modern agriculture. My family has a plot of land we cultivate, without any mechanized tools,* and it produces more than enough food to feed four generations of family. If they've "acres" of land under biofilm domes and not that many mouths to feed, there's no reason, particularly with moderate use of "technology...that won't involve wrecking the ecosystem." They don't have to grow at modern megafarm rates, just at modern garden rates.


Biodiesel. Methane fermentation. Solar. If you've got land, and you've got feedstock [read: undesired organic material], then fuel isn't difficult at all.

*Edit: That's not true. We do use a motorized tiller, but that's just because we don't have a horse. Or a troll. There's also an electric pump to bring water up from the stream, but in Seattle it can be easily replaced with gravity and cisterns.

Hrm. Interesting, and thanks for those points, Manunancy. Though they're big on not polluting their home, a little carbon emissions are probably tolerable, especially since all their mages know the whole Clean line of spells and they can easily purify more air than they pollute as a way of making up for it... Since the Jungles were set up by a rich eco-nut in the first place, they might also have that fuel cell cracking stuff set-up. After all, it would be a good way to dispose of plant waste in a Green way.

Anyway, here's what I've got so far, in a post I'm thinking of giving to my players on the forum where non-real-time stuff in the game can be handled.





The Plastic Jungles defense tour:

Jat walks you around the Jungles – or drives, if you prefer. There's really a lot of area to cover; the perimeter wall itself is 8.8 kilometers, and encloses Echo Lake on the southwest side, with the northeastern most edge of the wall inside the curve of Devil's Lake. It's not a perfect square, either; the south wall is longer than the north.

The walls themselves are constructed out of seemingly whatever was on-hand when that segment of wall was being built; the rusting remains of an old chain-link fence are the constant base of the wall, with newer posts made of old steel I-beams, timbers, long segments of large, sturdy pipe, and the like. Upon this framework, additional reinforcement has been added in most areas; corrugated sheets of metal are common, of course, as are flat pieces that appear to be salvaged scrap from whatever junked vehicles or buildings were scavenged. Heavy-duty plastic and timber are also installed on the walls, often to cover gaps between the larger, heavier metal plates, but in some segments the heavier wall pieces have fallen off, or look as if they were never installed, leaving a segment of basic chain-link fence looking out at old, miserable wooded areas.

There are gates in the walls where the old roads intersect them; all of the gates have been reinforced in some way. There are four; two in the north wall, one at Lake Road, one at Lost Lake Loop Road, one in the eastern wall at 228 Street South, along the old suburban neighborhood, and one in the western wall, looking onto open terrain that leads towards Paradise Lake Road. The one you came through was the main entrance, with the most heavily-built-up gate; mammoth and heavy, built of metal reinforced with wood, anchored by towers on each side and swinging inward manually, the original sliding fence remains as reinforcement. The other gates have all simply reinforced the original sliding gates with heavier dense plastic, wood, and metal sheets.

The walls were clearly built to be manned; they're not simple vertical obstacles, but a full palisade with a walkway around the top, with a crenelated battlement that stretched around the entire Jungles, over top of the gates, in an unbroken line, even in areas where there's nothing but chain-link fence below.

It's clear that the gang raiders have been doing due diligence in their reconnaissance efforts: the hole in the wall they made to raid in and steal the last food shipment to the Rat's Nest wasn't made in a chain-link area, where patrols are high at night. Rather, according to Jat, they staged a mounted raid at the Lost Lake Loop Road gate, driving up in a pickup truck and taking pot-shots at the gates, triggering a reinforcement response. At the same time, their infiltration team cut through a heavy section of the wall near Echo Lake, roughly where the truck was, and moved in; they shot a group of dogs and their handler, stole the unmanned truck, and took some pot-shots at anything that moved as they departed.



In terms of personnel, there's no shortage of teenagers and adults willing to fight to defend their homes; the shortages are of armaments, ammunition, training, and force-multipliers. The adult population of the Jungles which are within fighting age is roughly 150, 200 if you're not too picky about putting the mid-teenagers and the particularly active forty-five to sixty demographics in the fight.

Electronically speaking, the Jungles are pretty barren. There's a few cobbled-together Nexi in the various centers of population that those who have a care for the outside world can use to contact it, assuming they can bounce through something with a Signal rating high enough to reach the Seattle grid.

In terms of mobility, the Jungles have a number of antiquated vehicles still rolling; primarily farm equipment, tractors mostly, along with a harvester, an ancient backhoe loader, and a small excavator, as well as a flatbed truck very similar to a Gaz except it's eighty years old and has a winch and a ramp. They had two trucks, but the other was stolen. Neither of the earthmovers are currently operating, but given their advanced age and common design, full plans are available on the matrix and they could be brought back to life with the investment of some nuyen and time to get a machine shop to produce replacement parts and a mechanic to repair them.

By way of armaments, the Jungles are rather poor. An accurate inventory of the weapons whose owners feel safe enough to fire them has been taken: 10 assorted bolt-action rifles, only one of which has a scope, the rest relying on iron sights. 15 break-action double-barreled shotguns, 12 gauge, 10 pump-action shotguns, also 12 gauge. 5 Light Pistols, 5 Heavy Pistols and 3 Steyr TMPs.

In terms of experienced combatants, there are two; Screaming Hawk and the man who only goes by Takai. Both are reasonably experienced Shadowrunners, though they lack experience in fortifying an area. Screaming Hawk is a Troll Adept focusing on the use of the bow, while Takai is an augmented Street Samurai specializing in the use of his No-Daichi, and carrying an Ingram Smartgun X. Both are well-armored, well-equipped, and with the advantage of prepared fighting positions, more than a match for any number of gangers; but they can't be everywhere at once. Both are committed to the cause and will see the crisis with the 3LBs out, but will probably move on once the 3LBs are no longer a threat, so long-term defensive planning can't rely on their presence.

Magically speaking, you have a mixed-bag.
The ancient medicine woman, Flying Eagle, is a Native American Shaman who seems to be pushing ninety years old, and is a devout pacifist, but a tremendous healer who can bring victims of violence back from the brink of death.
Aaron Howling Wolf is a nondescript Orc who follows Flying Eagle's Shamanistic tradition, and is the only remaining Shaman in the Jungles besides Flying Eagle, the others having passed on of age years ago. He is not a pacifist, and is in fact a hot-blooded advocate of violently repelling the enemies of the Jungles, having combat spells to his name.
Nadja Black and Eric Novell are Hermetic Mages from MIT&T, a female Elf and a male Human respectively, in the Jungles doing research on the strange metamagic that Flying Eagle possesses, allowing members of disparate traditions to work together on Ritual spellcasting. It was Nadja's idea to hire Shadowrunners, and she seems emotionally invested in the Jungles; Eric less so, but he doesn't want to see good people he's lived among for two years come to harm. Neither of them have any combat spells in their repertoire, however both are willing to attempt to learn some from Aaron Howling Wolf (or another tutor, preferably another Hermetic Mage to make things easier,) in the name of protecting the Jungles if need be. Eric also has a suite of headware including an implanted commlink, and he's got some electronics skill and has a rigging background.
Kathryn Jain is an exotic in every sense of the word; a four-armed, golden-skinned Nartaki, she follows a tradition of spellcasting tantric Vajrayana Buddhism. She knows the indirect series of stunning magic (Punch, Clout and Blast,) all of which are fetish-linked, and thanks to her training in enlightenment she has the Centering metamagic, allowing her to efficaciously cast at levels others might hesitate.
Lordana Vladimirescu is a weak spellcaster, a Troll who was being trained as a Romany witch until she goblinized and her caravan members shot her, leaving her for dead. She's a weak spellcaster going through a crisis of faith that leaves her Talent unreliable as she's torn between other traditions which appeal greatly to her, but she wants to defend her new home however she can.
Simon Reid is a Goddess Wiccan elf who followed a vision and led a small coven to the Jungles from the city. He primarily knows utility spells; cleansing, healing, detection, and he's a strong assenser with an ability at Astral Combat. His Initiation, however, requires him to perform magic in the nude, so he's a poor choice for a front-line response.





One thing that I'm wondering about is whether the players will advise for the outlay of money to bring the earthmovers back online. Long-term, there's no doubt they'd be handy, and knowing my players there's a good chance they'll want to up-armor them each to hillbilly Armor 20 and go IDF on the raiders with the backhoe loader. What would be a reasonable price for that, 2,500 to get all the parts made? Would it require a facility or a shop, too, because my players have a shop and if that's all it'll take, one of them has the Mechanic skill group, so they'd likely try to cut costs by paying 1,250 each for the parts and make them themselves.

Recoil compensation costs even more! I thought this was for cost effective solutions and not a very limited number of shooters with unlimited funds. Instead of buying full recoil compensation for a more expensive weapon and needing EVEN MORE ammo, one can buy more shotguns or the same amount and use the spare cash for body armor. The cost per damage of the AK is much higher than the shotgun, how is that the cost effective solution for maximum firepower at minimum cost?

By the numbers that's only helpful though if the target is unseen, otherwise more numerous(more shotguns can be fielded since they are cheaper) aimed shots are more deadly.

That was my thought process on the bows also. Yeah, it'll take a week to train people to use them, but one shotgun is 75 more expensive than a R4 bow that can be made with materials harvested from the Jungles.

I still think it is an extremely valid and cost-efficient method. Your players will probably go for something like 15 guns though.

If they still have shamans then they may have access to that "perpetual power" spell in War! Clean energy source. Alternatively all it takes is 1-2 bound Fire Elementals and they have clean steam power. I also wouldn't put it past them having a Free Spirit or two around that may help out since it is Tribal Shamans cleaning up the land. Stuff like that draws attention.

Another option could be the thermo/magn. scoped remingtons I mentioned and then larger fireteams with heavy pistols and LMGs - Seeing that they not only have a larger budget but probably are able to cajole assistance from some very different magic users*, holding the place together seems a lot easier now.

* I'm thinking Howling Wolf wouldn't mind binding a ticked-off Beast or Fire spirit into the defense, and the Nartaki girl could stun people for interrogation, or even mass-stun invaders if she has the capacity.

There won't be ANY power running through the barrens that you can tap. It would be like putting a bike path through the barrens. If someone needs to run something through the barrens it will be sufficiently hardened that you can't get to it without a lot of work, and then patrolled to spot said work.

It's essential. 9km of wall means that you'd have about 50 meters between the 200 combatants if everyone is standing there ready to fight. They have to make the perimeter harder. In terms of armoring the vehicles, not so much. What you need are is a lot of earth moved.

It's really hard to cut a hole in fence that is really a 3 meter thick berm. Plus you can stop everything up to and including auto cannon and AT rockets with 3 meters of dirt.

The issue is getting the dirt. The best bet is probably to excavate a trench in front of the fence, then use the front loader to put the dirt over the wall where you haven't done the ditch yet. This will take many days to weeks to do 9km of fence, and hundreds of gallons of fuel. If someone had contacts with anyone who might have a spare 20-30 km of concertina or a few hundred km of barbed with that would be nice.

I'd get a bunch of bicycles and clear paths so that your dozen or two designated fighters can get around fast. And a bunch of cheap flying drones to run a patrol along the perimeter.

I don't think I have War!, but that does sound like a mighty useful spell. If any of them have it, it would probably be Lordana, because something that can power a caravan in the middle of nowhere without eating their fuel supplies sounds like one of the first things a Romany gypsy witch would be taught.

And they don't bind spirits here, though they might try negotiating with them for services.




I figured that if they got the earthmovers online, they'd probably put nearly everyone to work digging a moat and using the excavated material to reinforce the front of the wall with an earth berm. It's not just the earthmovers, too - they can always get the shovel-and-spade-brigade into action, and some of the spellcasters could probably get in on it. Are there any spells that deal with mass moving of earth? I mean, besides Levitation?

Yes, the quickend firewall spell. Better than every fusion reactor.
Clean energy 24/7 no fuel and stable.

Actually, that is a pretty good idea, assuming you have a steam boiler set up that can generate electricity from it... Probably something that a corporate-sponsored commune might have, not necessarily these guys. Getting a boiler set up to generate electricity's not easy, especially since the whole thing has to be built so you can move it the hell off the fire in a clinch, because you really don't have to have to terminate a Quickened spell unless you absolutely have to.