Ok, an Auqualogy. A nearly self-sustaining complex on the bottom of the ocean.

Pretty tough location to run an extraction.

However, if there's one thing I've learned from Dumpshock, it's that nothing is impossible.

So, this thread is a two-parter:
1)What kind of security would such a location have.
2)How would you and your team (or players) run an extraction. The mission is self-funded, and there's no practical time limit (A bit under a year). Other high-paying runs are assumed to have happened, giving good (but not unlimited) resources to the group.

PS: what kind of background count would the ocean's floor have?

1. Oceanic Paracritters patrolling, possibly some sort of cloaking tech of some sort to make it seem like its not there from above.

2. Depending on how far down, heavy duty scuba gear, possibly a low depth submersible of some sort. after that lots of heavy duty equipment to crack open a vault (about what I would expect to find sealing this place)

Well, the strongest point of security is the ability to control access. Since entry in and out of an ocean bottom complex would be very limited in terms of submersibles and you would need one helluva personal hardsuit to survive the pressure of a man-sized dive, the gateway is your best chance to stop undesirable people or products from entering.

Expect only a handful of entries and exits (if not just one), and expect them to be well funded, well staffed, and given the low traffic density they probably have thorough search procedures.

The low traffic density means that transit in and out is only via approved submersibles, which will likely have passenger manifests with decently detailed ID requirements.

There is the question of whether or not a AAA or nation would project sovereignty into the surrounding waters, but if they did they would be fully within their rights to re-route other vessels provided they did not restrict trade, and could engage with proportional means any vessel or diver they reasonably considered a threat - not that at 3 miles deep there's going to be a lot of survivors to argue otherwise. Expect active or passive sonar arrays to scan ostensibly for natural threats to allow this. This can be supplemented with anti-sea-life devices...which handily double over for killing divers in an environmentally friendly way.

Multiple pressure hulls will be necessary for safety's sake, and I would expect any breach outside of an air lock to send up a major red flag, what with it possibly meaning everyone inside is crushed and dies.

Extensive warding and astral support. You just cannot afford to have an ornery sea spirit get inside.

The community is probably smallish, so any false identity is going to be suspicious. When you live on the ocean floor with 100 other scientists and 100 support staff, you may not know everyone by name but Bob from Accounting is less likely to convince you hes just a different part of the company you don't see.

Restrictions. Lots. Firearms, explosives, anything like that is going to tied up TIGHT. Thew owners and the staff know they are just one accident away from finding out whether its better to die of oxygen loss, numbing cold, or crushing pressure. Anything that could even remotely have a chance of errantly damaging the hull or any life support is going to be controlled extensively.

The good news is that after all of this, the actual interior security around areas that don't pose a direct survival liability is probably lower. After all, who is going to manage to get in, convince people they belong, and then get our through all of the above? And hey, if we catch someone doing bad or notice something bad, we can just stop them from leaving.

Pretty much covere dup above. You generally have a single entrance/exit, plus some kind of emergency escape pods for when things go bad. One entrance means one real guarded location, probably automated, since who's gonna spring for guards unda da sea? The core enrty room likely has an airlock and some kind of robo-gun. Wrong person enters, and dakka dakka goes the place. Once you get past the main gun and airlock door, you're pretty much dealing with brainjocks who have frying pans and maybe a mop or particularly vicious clipboard.

Some kind of astral protection's a given, tho. Patrolling spirits, and maybe a ward and/or an on site mage if it's important enough; a couple of spirits, a Watcher, and a whistled-up astral projecting mage from afar if not.

A lot of this depends on how deep you're talking. Once you get to the deepest parts of the continental shelf (~150m), standard diving equipment starts to shift into the range of "this will kill you" and you have to start using special gas mixtures, which will get you to around 300m before you're back in "this will kill you" territory. Beyond that requires specialized equipment. You also start to encounter potentially insurmountable health problems from long-term exposure. You should probably keep your underwater arco fairly shallow.

Getting into an arcology is mainly going to be an exercise in passing a heavily secured portal both in and out. You can't just blow a hole in the hull the way you could go through a wall. There's pretty much going to be no way to hide that from everyone else, not to mention the doors auto-shutting. It's going to be worse than penetrating a space station from the hull - in theory, a space station should have survival bubbles or emergency suits that everyone will get into in the event of a breach. Under the water, if they have any provisions for such at all, they probably have safe-rooms that are basically small escape pods without the "escape" part.

Unless they actually do have escape pods. Then you could, in theory, perform your extraction by damaging the hull so severely as to cause an evacuation, then just scoop up the fellow you want while he's bobbing up and down on the ocean surface, decompressing.

They could "blow a hole" in it if they took an antechamber down with them. Something that could be affixed to the exterior of equal strength, so that they could operate within it, once attached. Then, enter without much ado. What are your walls made of?

I was going to go for a titanium composite, at least for the outer shell. Same general vein as the Russian nuclear subs of the cold war.
I was thinking about 300m deep. multiple layers, with lower sections being under the ocean floor.

Does anyone know if freeze-foam or barrier foam will harden underwater, or if there's a canon compound similar to those that will? A fire suppression system that also plugs minor hull breaches (if any hull breach under 300m water could be considered 'minor') would make a sensible investment.

I was also going to have pneumatic/gravity bulkheads separating every section to prevent a single catastrophic failure compromising the whole multi-trillion-nuyen facility. If we have a shipwright on the boards who's worked on submarines, any tips for other likely safety measures would be welcome. (yes, I know, internet. I was just hoping someone with hands-on experience might chime in).

Now the facility is going to be studying awakened sealife in addition to its other functions. That means observation drones, high-end sonar that can pick up objects the size of medium sized fish, a holding tank large and strong enough for a Megoladon, and probably a small security detail equipped to deal with rogue awakened critters in case some manage to get loose.

Now obviously having a security detail who's sole purpose is to hang around until something interesting happens isn't cost effective, so I'd suggest that they double as the primary maintenance team, checking the hull for damage ect. Most janitorial work is probably handled by drones, as that uses up less air than hiring actual janitors.

Back in the day a facility such as this would have a nanoforge to pump out any replacement parts they needed. With nanotech on the fritz that's no longer an option, so a sub carrying spare parts ect will occasionally have to come in to drop off new stuff. I have a hunch that'll be the group's way in.

Final thing: what kind of energy source would a facility like this have? Have they mastered fusion reactors in the 6th world? Would it be Geothermal? Tidal? All of the above, with extensive battery backups besides?

EDIT: A diving bell? It'd take a lot of work to set it up but it might be workable if they can work out how to get past the defenses...

Fusion is go. As an added bonus deuterium can be extracted from ocean water.

At 300m you're not getting a lot of light, and no photosynthetic plant life. Which means no astral barrier kelp or anything. Spellcasting is pretty boned with no good line of sight, so spirits, drones, and sensor-guided weapons are all you can rely on outside the habitat.

I kind of assumed they'd have worked out artificial light sufficient to grow plant life by this point in the game, so astral bacteria shouldn't be that big a deal. Also hydroponic life support would provide an alternative food source to spice up their fishy diet.

Do you think Ares would continue to expand downwards after the main structure is complete with an end-game of making the facility entirely self-sufficient (as a bit of a life-pod for metahumanity in the case of apocalypse)?

Yeah, at 300M, you're not in Abyssal Dark territory, but you're under 1% sunlight, so shit be DARK, yo. Just finding the place astrally will be a bear since, you know, which part of the jet black undersea do you eyeball?

A monthly supply-sub run is clearly the way in for most, so, once again, expect the main room security feature to come into play. If you're not the right guys, well, say hello to mr auto-turret, but if you can scam past that, you're home free.

For power, fusion's a go, and with all that seawtaer around, you're home free in terms of power consumption. There's probably some kind of back-up system, in case the main reactor has to be shut down for repairs, which isn't all that great but serves in a pinch.

If they're researching Awakened species, then you'll have to figure out what kind and if they're getting living ones or just bodies: Gathering up arm-length fish and squid is a different story than tuna, which is a whole othe rthing than sharks or giant squid. Bigger stuff can't just be scooped in a net and spat out; there'll need to be a second 'aquatic entrance' to the facility for feeding the things in. On the one hand, it's a possible second entrance, on teh other, it'll be filled with Awakened fish. Surprise!

At 300 meters it's possible to scuba dive (although that's the current world record), but you can't stay down for very long without a slow climb back to the surface. Slow to avoid getting the bends. For the scientist living in the complex, however, the model is different. They are already adapted to the pressure, for them to go out into the water and back again isn't an issue in the same way going to the surface would be. This is more similar to Saturation Diving, for which the world record is over 700 meters. Diving in such waters would require a hot water suit to keep the cold from being an issue, but it shouldn't require a hard suit because the diver is already saturated.

This means that the complex likely has at least one moon pool for sending out and receiving divers. A moon pool room would probably include most of the deep sea diving gear for the complex, and feature a pressure door to protect the complex in the event of a seal leak. The moon pool itself would likely have a secondary submerged doorway for security reasons. Essentially, think of it as a small pool with a door to the ocean at the bottom. Assuming the complex is intact, you could safely open the door at the bottom of the moon pool without flooding the complex. There could easily be more than one moon pool in a large underwater complex.

The second entrance the complex would likely have is a small sub bay. If they have the space, the sub bay would have the ability hoist the mini subs out of the water for repairs/maintenance/etc. In many ways the sub bay would function like a really big moon pool, but the submerged doors might be less solid, and intend more for security than for a pressure seal. Because of this, the hatch into the bay would be extra secured against possible pressure issues. There is probably only a single sub bay, but given that the complex studies underwater, often awakened & dangerous, life it is likely that the research portions of the complex designed to contain large critters would be connected to the sub bay. The bay might therefore have more than one link to other parts of the complex, possibly a way to move winched giant (tranquilized) awakened sharks into lab, through a pressure door setup.

The complex, if large enough and linked to a corp with decent underwater assets, might also have a docking hatch for connecting to larger subs that wouldn't fit in the sub may. This would a sort of airlock system, and might be large enough to transport decent sized supplies.

Signal loss is a big issue for being underwater. There is no way a radio signal is getting through 300 meters of sea water. More likely the complex has a floating comm-buoy at the surface and a communications cable running the full 300 meters to it. From there they could send and receive signals and access the matrix.

Security wise, this is Shadowrun: the seas are dangerous. The Sea Dragon has been waging a bit of a conflict on Aqualogy complexes in the setting fluff, and she has access to merrow, seadrakons, and worse. You can expect the various entrances into a complex studying paranormal sealife would secured and guarded. There are a few underwater guns in Shadowrun, as well as torpedos.

Drones are not a great option underwater. Sea water blocks radio signals at very short distances. Tethered drones, typically used for underwater construction and maintenance, are a limited security option for the obvious reason, but turrets stationed around the complex with a hardline cable connecting to them would be a viable and smart option. I could also see the complex messing with bleeding edge bio-rigging on sea life. Cyborg sharks would be interesting but untessted tech, but still suffer from the signal loss issue. These are less likely to be deployed in a patrol pattern and more likely to be in testing... but if you spook the staff they might release a razor-shark on you.

An aqualogy would be a great place to have sea-orientated staff. Changelings with gills, Dolphin Shifters, implanted gills and air tanks, these would all be ideal, but rare. Of course the best magic related option is spirits, particularly water spirits.

It's possible that hydrophones could partially fill in the gap for communications purposes. Drones and underwater guards could still talk to each other, but the bandwidth is too low for rigging or even sending images. Hydrophones are probably the way you send orders to a rigged shark or drone, and how it would communicate back simple details, but no imagery or rigging limits a rigger to just sending commands and letting the pilot program/instincts handle the rest.

I would imagine that the background count on the sea floor would vary by where you are more or less like it does on the surface. Given the complex is actively studying under-sea paranomal life, they may have built the complex in a minor background count hoping it would increase the access to awakened sea life. Inside the complex the local mages may have cleaned up the astral space or adapted to the background count.

If you're making an extraction run on such a complex your first order of business is getting the gear. You'll need a small sub, underwater diving gear, and/or good magic. Second is timing. You will want to hit the complex at a time when it would be justifiable to lose communications, such as a storm on the surface. Then you cut comm buoy so they can't call in help. Next you have to get past the ring of sensors/turrets surrounding the complex. Due to signal loss the sensors are likely tethered. Some on the sea floor, some floating up from the complex by those tethers. Your best bet is probably to creep along the sea floor where you can blend into the ground, or approach looking like sea life they won't be too concerned about (they are there to study sea life, so looking like a large shark swimming towards the complex means they probably won't shoot a torpedo at you.) Once you get to the complex, you'll need to get in through a hatch. You could try and hack the controls once you're close enough to get a signal, or plug into a maintenance port, because optical cables thankfully won't short out. Alternatively, you could wait lurking for them to send someone out (on patrol, on maintenance, to fix the comm buoy you destroyed). They have to open a hatch to the sub bay even if they are just sending out a repair drone. You could then sneak inside, especially with invisibility spells. Once inside you need to locate your target, make sure not to set off an alarms where they could seal the bulk heads trapping you, get the target into a condition where you can take him out of the complex (petrification would work rather well for this, but so would stealing a sub) and then get out. The mos dangerous part of the extraction would be getting back to the surface. You would need to rise slowly to avoid giving your team and your extraction target the bends, and once at the surface you would still need to spend time in a decompression chamber... unless you happen to have some kind of magic to bypass this issue.

Alternatively you could use subterfuge. Pretend your sub is damaged and request assistance... they might let you dock or into the sub bay. Wait for them to send someone out and then pretend to be that person returning with a damaged comm (disable them first and possibly use their gear). Or maybe even hack the comm buoy and attempt to trick the occupants into sending your target to the surface under some sort of faked emergencey pretense (you mother is dying!) so your extraction happens on the surface.

If it's an option, I'd go with petrification. It would seal the guy in at the appropriate pressure, and you could just manhandle him as you please. Then once you're on the surface, the people extracting him can be told to put him in an atmospheric pressure chamber pressurized to what the arcology was so they can depressurize him. The real bitch is going to be your team, though; you'll need some way to get up and do that, too. Of course, if the people you're extracting the guy to have a submarine that can wait at a similar depth some ridiculous distance away, you can just rendezvous and board their sub.

You could also probably hire a smuggler to do that bit, to drop your team off in their mini-sub/SCUBA gear at a certain place and have the sub remain on-station for a reasonable length of time to receive you and your crew and cargo, no questions asked. But if you do that, have a backup plan.


Honestly, though, this is the kind of run that deserves some legwork. Find a spot far enough away from their arcology that they aren't monitoring it, unleash a small horde of mini- or preferably microdrones to swarm towards the arcology and over it, passing it and being collectable at another point well beyond the arcology. They can be disguised as some kind of crab or another, and if they're genuinely tiny, the arcology probably won't even notice.

The micro-crabs can get you details such as the lay of the land, location of stuff on the sea floor, etcetera. With the right sensors, they ought to be able to detect electronics, such as would be found in bouys/patrol drones/turrets/etcetera. Later you can send in a micro-drone with an optical tap and spooling out your own cable on the sea floor to potentially let you tap into their gridoh, wait, sorry, you play SR5, where the Matrix doesn't follow any goddamned logic whatsoever.

You said you were doing an extraction, are you pulling out a researcher or a researchee, ie one of the paracritters they are examining?

Do you have anyway of tagging/locating/identifying the target and it's location prior to entry to the facility?
It does you little good to enter via a freshly blown hole on the east side of the complex when the target is over on the west end with lots of sealable doors/guards/others between you and them.

You may want to have one team member infiltrate staff well in advance, maybe fudge the records so they are working for the topside corp for a bit and actually turning up for work for a few months to establish themselves, then transfer them to the undersea unit. Then you have a person on the inside to help when the time to extract comes around, the closer to the target the better.

The best way for the rest of the team will probably involve hijacking the routine resupply sub, which will be a trick in itself. If successful this will let you get access to the facility under the guise of delivery.

Now if you do not mind going a little pink Mohawk, rather than breaking IN, why not look at breaking OFF?

I mean if the sections are compartmentalized, if our ringer team member on the inside can manoeuvre the target with just them to a section that can be sealed off, then pop the alarms so .. surprise... the airlocks close them off from the rest. Them a smaller sub swoops in, attaches to the section and blows off the connecting sections for them to lift away with the sealed section containing the target and team member. The resultant damage is a bit excessive, but it will also leave the facility with a priority to deal with that first.
I strongly recommend have a conjurer for this bit as a good sized spirit can help increase a minisub's movement rate

Then you withdraw to a safer location where you meet up with the big sub so you can decompress them and then it's off to the beaches.

If that is a little messy for your tastes, then move them into one of the pods and eject them with the sub picking them up on the way up. You will need some distraction back at the facility to cover this exit, preferably with some property damage to really keep their interest elsewhere.

Well, depends. Keeping the crew at ambient pressure makes infiltration and extractions harder, but it also makes any legitimate interaction harder. So if the story warrants it the corp decides they want to be able to ferry their personnel around, a habitat working at atmospheric pressure might be a good idea.

As for the other security measures, the unmentionable book gave us giant squid biodrones, with an onboard expert system for control (since remote control does not work underwater). Logical conclusion, freaking' sharks with freakin' laser beams are totally a thing...

Part of me wants to mention the novel Shadowboxer and another part wants to strangle the first part. Make of that what you will.

Shapechangers with SINs. Shark Adept Shapechangers can be quite fearsome!

That will never work their regeneration would reject the lasers. Also they would be a detriment to the surfing team.

umm... aren't they just called Lawyers?

Or one hell of an encouragement. Or they ARE the surfing team!The snake shamans beat them to it.

Extractee is an employee.

Is there any reason that they wouldn't just tap into one of the old fiberoptic cables that run along the sea bed as part of the backbone of the matrix? (We have them right now. considering the noise rules for SR5 there's no reason that they wouldn't still maintain and use them for intercontinental communication).

Also, one of my players is a dive instructor. That should help a lot.

Either tap into one of the backbones (which do, indeed, still exist!) or run a special one out to their spot from a secured location on the surface for security purposes (essentially their own Mini-Matrix with a doorway out from there.).

Also consider something truly ridiculous like an underground/water high speed freight/passenger tube from an onshore site or offshore platform. That could make for some fun.

No one said they needed to be implanted.

I'd add hardwired senors and weapons platforms away from the main compound. Kind of a early warning and defense system.

That makes sense. I'm going to need to start transferring the 4A torpedoes to 5th edition, aren't I?

This might help.

300 meters typically means it isn't that far from land. Like a hundred km or less.

So this is an Ares site? That means it's probably very well funded and supported, plus it is extraterritorial. Well funded means probably multiple fiber links, plus radio from the surface marker. Extraterritorial means it can have whatever defenses it wants, and if it's studying awakened sea life it will have very effective ones. Obvious would be sonar and lidar detection systems for perimeter, plus video for close in. Being it's researching awakended sea life I'd assume it's warded to hell. Use wireguided torpedoes to deal with serious threats, light RoVs to investigate and deal with minor issues and use green lasers on turrets to deal with serious threats that get in close.

Then there are the spirits summoned or bound by the numerous mages. At least I'd certainly expect that the staff of a underwater base studying awakened sealife would have more then a few mages. And I'd expect that all Ares mages have some fairly decent selection of combat spells plus a few bound spirits in addition to whatever else they might have. For example, one might have a bound spirit that has been to a warded room on the surface inside an Ares security facility where it can yell for help into the PA via a metaplane shortcut.

Critical decision is whether this is a saturation site or an atmospheric pressure site. It's going to be virtually impossible to extract someone from a sat site, as they need about 20 days of decompression. In addition, the players exposed to 300 meter pressure for even a few minutes will need extensive decompression (like a day) before they can be at atmospheric pressure.

So if it's a sat site the players will need an entire support crew along to handle decompression and running the ship that their deco chambers are located on.

So they need a multi-hundred million $ ship or sub, a crew for said ship and a dive medical staff. And this, if successful, will result in seriously annoying Ares. How is this cost effective? How much does this pay?

Some of the health issues could be alleviated with a mage casting Stabilize and Oxygenate on the runners and extractee.

If it's an Ares facility, an alternative suggests itself: wait until they're having a full-on bug hive crisis and sneak in when they're already dancing the Charlie Foxtrot.

Haha. Indeed. Or introducing such a horrible thing into their ecosystem, waiting for said effect to take place, then capitalizing on the chaos.

The thing that seems to pose the most difficult piece of this entire extraction though, is the cost to get down there for the potential reward of doing so. The cost in nuyen is the immediate cost, of course. But the cost in the potential danger of losing one's life in such a hostile environment.. well, this seems like an end run to me. Or at the very least, a prime run.

Back on the materia lside, the hull is likely to be some sort of high performance concrete rather than titanium or other metal - since it's a fixed installation, you don't have to worry about vibrations, pressure changes and weight as you would with a submarine. And it will save a befty bundle in construction costs

That works.

I could swear that there was some mention somewhere in a splatbook of a transparent concrete. If anyone can confirm this for me then in my 6th world there's a variant strong enough for this construction. I invoke rule of cool on this.

Transparent Concrete is mentioned in SR5 pg 363 "Doors, Windows, & Locks" end of the first paragraph.

Que?

How about transparent rebar? I expect you'd need some serious reinforcement at about 30 atmospheres (if my maths are right).

Tangentially, it's threads like this that make me wonder what the karma cost of Dumpshock as a group contact would be.

too much for most people to afford at creation lol

Thanks to the matrix & VR, there probably isn't a lot of need to pull the "Aquanauts" out of the complex for meetings/etc. If the corp frequently moves the people into and out of the facility, then you might as well do the extraction when the target isn't under water, which ruins the fun of the run concept. Moreover, if the facility is capturing and working with deep sea life, or has frequent need to send people into the water, then a saturation facility is more reasonable. It might also be easier to maintain, as the internal pressure would be closer to the external pressure, making access to the water safer. Many real world underwater labs were saturation for these reasons, including oil rig/corp owned setups. Also, I think it's cooler, so it's what I would go with... but that's just me.

To make the extraction possible, I'd probably use magic. Some combination of magical spells can remove the issues with the bends, allowing people to rapidly return to the surface. Using what I could look up on wikipeida, 300 meters is a 20 day decompression at 15 meters per day, but with magic hand-waving and 2070s tech that might be reduced to 20 hours. Sadly this is not the kind of thing that smugglers might be making use of. They might have mini subs for sneaking contraband into ports, but they aren't likely to need to deal with saturation diving issues.

On the Topic Wards
Normal corp facilities often have wards, which can be setup & maintained by a host of wage-mages, the combined magic of which limits the size of the ward. This is actually a lot less likely in a deep water habitat because of the difficult in access to the complex. The ritual participants would need to be physically present in the deep water habitat to cast the ward(s). It's more likely that the wards would be just those setup by the local mages in the complex (if they are studying paranormal animals, they probably have a few mage-scientists). This lack of extra bodies for rituals would likely limit the size of the wards, and thus limit them to key locations in need of protection instead of complex wide wards. It also increases the likelihood that key parts of the facility may be dug into or buried under the sea floor in order to take advantage of the earth being a barrier to astral forms.

Aqua Tech in 5th Edition
There is a mini sub in the 5th edition book, but it only holds 2 people. The Vulkan Electronaut is a lot cheaper and less restricted than I expected, and it's a good starting point for designing other subs the complex might have, or that the players might use to access the complex. There are also the "Proteus Lamprey," which is a 4-person underwater scooter with drone rack.

You could convert the existing 4th edition torpedoes, but for ease of play I'd probably just use 5th edition rocket & missile stats. Underwater propulsion and explosions are very different than air based ones, but that's a lot of added complexity for not much game-play gain, so I wouldn't bother.

4th edition had a variety of underwater projectile weapon options thanks to Arsenal, but 5th edition Core lacks a lot of them (for now). Harpoon guns might be based on crossbow stats. Underwater firearms came in two types: air-fed guns that shoot normal caseless bullets but need to be hooked into an airsupply, and gyrojet exotic weapons that shoot small missile rounds and do +1dv in water, and come with a variety of special (including taser) ammo types. Both can easily be mocked up in 5th edition using the existing weapons and rules and prices from 4th edition.

What's the point of the air-feed ? Even caseless ammo doesn't rely on the surrounding air to oxydize the propellant. About the only use i see would be to drive water out of the barrel when firing.

That makes perfect sense if you know anything about guns. If however you are a SR dev or writer....

Hey, some of us know about firearms and explosives thank-you-very-much!

Have they told you about the operation you need to be promoted to senior writer? It's a frontal something or other.

The Full-Frontal Lobotomy is for Editors. (Or so my Great-Aunt has informed me.).

EDIT: Sorry, sorry. My Great-Aunt was the first person in my family to get published.

Not full frontal vasectomy?

Isn't that procedure more commonly known as castration?