BioZu (pronounced bee-oh-tsoo) Inc. is the employer of the characters as of day 0 in Behind the Crown.
The pronunciation is because it was founded by a couple of german scientists (something about a biologische zukunft) called Klaus von Unten and Maria Knochenkauer. This pair of geniuses was deeply engaged in biological creation of precursors for industrial chemistry and manufacturing. They received funding from a few private sources, then went more public and got buy-in from a few investment arms of various majors who like to have their fingers in lucrative pies.
The office where Day 0 starts is on a woodsy hilltop, about two miles from the border with the Salish-Shidhe lands near the southern fringes of the Seattle enclave, not far from a place called Tumwater. It's an R&D facility which is well out of the way for two clear reasons: one is risk in dealing with experimental biologicals, and the other is general secrecy around corporate R&D. There is road access, so that industrial tankers and trucks with supplies can come, but the office itself as a good 100 yards from the next nearest building, which is an electric charging station for electric vehicles, and the very last extended fringes of the street grid system.
The office itself is basically a three storey set of offices the size of a fancy mansion (but more blocky) tacked onto a warehouse, which has been converted to an R&D space.
Security is mostly of the cameras/locks/shoeleather variety, but the guards do carry weaponry, and there is a security rigger, to meet the needs of regulations around experimental biologicals.
For those of you who track earlier threads, consider the installation to have light-blue security as per http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...t&p=1317859
Rumours
Of course, as with every company with a german connection, it's all a Saeder-Krupp front! Or maybe Lofwyr is behind it all and they don't even know it. Or something. Watercooler speculation on this has reached the point of a corporate in-joke; that they're secretly incubating eggs for Lofwyr.
Another favourite set of rumours is all about where the backing and money come from. It was a cabal of dragons that backed the original founders! Or maybe they're over here as an Aztechnology move, because they could never survive in Germany!
Klaus and Maria are secretly wild, passionate S&M lovers. (The fact that Klaus looks as if a strong breeze would blow him away and Maria seems mostly obsessed with rose gardening, when she's not making mushrooms do unnatural things in the service of heavy industry, does nothing to dispel these inevitable rumours.)
BioZu is really a front for something dark, hideous and unspeakable! Do you know where the feedstock for the growth medium comes from? Do you know what it's made of? I bet you it's made of metahumans! Go on, prove me wrong!
BioZu is bankrupt, dying, on the ropes financially. It's all a lie, a money laundering front.
Yup, rumours aplenty, most of which have no bearing on the day-to-day life of growing vats of weird mutant sludge.
Full Version: Behind the Crown [OoC]
Limits to infinity. This is why Biozu has a business model.
The UCAS has done a great job of moving away from petrochemical power sources for years. This happened for a bunch of reasons, mostly coincidental but some deliberate. VITAS was a big reason; a sudden crash in population and economic activity will do that. Losing so much land, especially the oil-rich land, to the NAN and CAS, didn't help. Interrupted international supply chains didn't help either.
Unfortunately, folks do a lot with petrochemicals that has nothing to do with burning it in heat engines. Lubricants, polymer precursors, all sorts of things come from the ground courtesy of the mineral extraction industries. And in the days of artificial joints and complex electronics, these are more important, rather than less. So what to do, when you can't call up your old suppliers, given that half of them are dead courtesy of plagues and war, and the other half have been shut down courtesy of environmental freaks running governments of their own? You adapt your resources, and start pulling things from the air with the help of biological sources.
Then of course the real trick is, how do you extract your lubricant from your mycelium? Sometimes, the right answer is to get other biologicals to do the hard work of refinement for you. And then yet others to coalesce it all into useful flakes. And so on and so forth, until your multistage process end product is fed through a filter the size of a Bulldog, and you package the result for bulk sale. Profit!
If you're buying the Green Terror brand of bullets from Executive Solutions Logistics, then the lubricant coating that helps stop your barrel from overheating when you're fighting off a wave of ghouls was made from mushroom stems. Thanks, Biozu!
The UCAS has done a great job of moving away from petrochemical power sources for years. This happened for a bunch of reasons, mostly coincidental but some deliberate. VITAS was a big reason; a sudden crash in population and economic activity will do that. Losing so much land, especially the oil-rich land, to the NAN and CAS, didn't help. Interrupted international supply chains didn't help either.
Unfortunately, folks do a lot with petrochemicals that has nothing to do with burning it in heat engines. Lubricants, polymer precursors, all sorts of things come from the ground courtesy of the mineral extraction industries. And in the days of artificial joints and complex electronics, these are more important, rather than less. So what to do, when you can't call up your old suppliers, given that half of them are dead courtesy of plagues and war, and the other half have been shut down courtesy of environmental freaks running governments of their own? You adapt your resources, and start pulling things from the air with the help of biological sources.
Then of course the real trick is, how do you extract your lubricant from your mycelium? Sometimes, the right answer is to get other biologicals to do the hard work of refinement for you. And then yet others to coalesce it all into useful flakes. And so on and so forth, until your multistage process end product is fed through a filter the size of a Bulldog, and you package the result for bulk sale. Profit!
If you're buying the Green Terror brand of bullets from Executive Solutions Logistics, then the lubricant coating that helps stop your barrel from overheating when you're fighting off a wave of ghouls was made from mushroom stems. Thanks, Biozu!
While tigers prowl the forest floor, monkeys dance in the branches.
Ares. Mitsuhama. Renraku. We all know these names, and they prowl the world like mighty tigers, menacing each other with snarl and roar while disputing over the wealth of the world with swipe of claw. But what of the monkeys that dance in the branches above?
There are many small firms, ranging from the janitorial service on the corner, to multinational concerns elbowing their way up the corporate ladder to AAA stardom. However, one particular form has started to make waves in the financial press.
Invetsu.
The word Invetsu is a CalFree neologism, born from a combination of californian entrepreneurial structures, by analogy with some much older japanese structures. It works like this:
An investment firm (or syndicate, or partnership; the details hardly matter) pursues early stage investments in a number of promising startups. Of these, maybe twenty percent will survive the first five years, and maybe five percent will be the stars that return enough to satisfy the original investors. But what if something could nudge those numbers up, to twenty-five percent, and eight percent? Carefully-planned integration, both vertical and horizontal, to raise turnover and reduce collective risk? Then, as they grow and expand and go public, careful management of shareholdings and cross-investment, to increase structural resilience and hedge against risk?
Old rules would have limited or banned a lot of this sort of thing, of course, but in a wounded CalFree, led by a nation that grew on the backs of the Zaibatsu, and recovered on the backs of the Keiretsu, the Invetsu was an easy sell. After all, why should investors not guide their investment targets to success? Why should they not integrate, in the name of efficiency? Why should a population, shaken by one calamity after another, not enjoy the fruits of prosperity and stability?
Why indeed?
Ares. Mitsuhama. Renraku. We all know these names, and they prowl the world like mighty tigers, menacing each other with snarl and roar while disputing over the wealth of the world with swipe of claw. But what of the monkeys that dance in the branches above?
There are many small firms, ranging from the janitorial service on the corner, to multinational concerns elbowing their way up the corporate ladder to AAA stardom. However, one particular form has started to make waves in the financial press.
Invetsu.
The word Invetsu is a CalFree neologism, born from a combination of californian entrepreneurial structures, by analogy with some much older japanese structures. It works like this:
An investment firm (or syndicate, or partnership; the details hardly matter) pursues early stage investments in a number of promising startups. Of these, maybe twenty percent will survive the first five years, and maybe five percent will be the stars that return enough to satisfy the original investors. But what if something could nudge those numbers up, to twenty-five percent, and eight percent? Carefully-planned integration, both vertical and horizontal, to raise turnover and reduce collective risk? Then, as they grow and expand and go public, careful management of shareholdings and cross-investment, to increase structural resilience and hedge against risk?
Old rules would have limited or banned a lot of this sort of thing, of course, but in a wounded CalFree, led by a nation that grew on the backs of the Zaibatsu, and recovered on the backs of the Keiretsu, the Invetsu was an easy sell. After all, why should investors not guide their investment targets to success? Why should they not integrate, in the name of efficiency? Why should a population, shaken by one calamity after another, not enjoy the fruits of prosperity and stability?
Why indeed?
Mandrake Elkhunter
Mandrake is an elf, a member of the Salish-Shidhe community from the region south of the Seattle enclave. He is fairly old (whatever that means in elven terms) because he was one of the first generation born as elves, back in 2011. That means he's nearly fifty now, but the way that elves age, he could easily pass for twenty-five. He was an early naysayer as far as Tir Tairngire was concerned, but not important enough (at the time) for anybody to care about. Instead he just stayed where he'd grown up, and integrated into the new authorities. However, he was smart enough to work with local farmers, and the council, arguing that they'd make more money and build more alliances feeding the people of Seattle. Gradually he built from this quite an impressive little grocery business. Not bad for a pinkskin from the hills.
Amanda Chung
Amanda was, at the time that she was born, a third generation chinese-american US citizen. That seems like an awfully long time ago, but she's an important presence in Tacoma (always the little brother to Seattle, and now the junior partner in the enclave) where her father's painstakingly built logistics company passed to her when her brother (the intended heir) fell to VITAS in '22. This means that Chung Brothers Trucking is in her hands, but in the mean time she's also carefully built her surplus funds into a minor property empire in the enclave.
Ola Torssen
Ola is a giant. Literally; a nordic troll variant. There was enough of the old scandinavian blood in his family, from the early settlers in the Seattle area, that it came through and made him what he is. He stands about twelve feet tall, but looks pretty good in a sharp tailored suit. He can afford suits because he got a degree in early education, and then built his own school, specialising in metahuman upbringing. His huge size, combined with polished manners, persuaded quite a few corporate parents of metahuman children to entrust their little tearaways to him, for a fee that would only have been obscene if they weren't desperate. Of such things are exclusive, high dollar private schooling enterprises built.
Genady Voltsev
Genady was, early in his life, a Vory soldier. As the wheel turns, he took the fall in court on behalf of his group, and went inside for a few years on a shipment of drugs that had nothing to do with him. A grateful organisation, when he was out, set him up with a handsome lump sum, fully expecting that he would drink himself into a vodka grave within six months like so many of his comrades. Instead, he broke type and, based on years of choosing to do nothing but study economics and finance in prison, started to live on nutrisoy in a halfway house while sinking every nuyen into the stock and commodity markets. Three clever investments later, he upgraded his way of life to a bed in a basement, and krill sprinkles on his nutrisoy. Two years after getting out, he moved to a tiny apartment, and started eating mycoprotein and using a cruddy old pocket secretary for investment research. Three years after, a somewhat larger apartment in the same building, and an old cyberterminal. Within five years, he'd bought his own houseboat on Lake Washington. That was ten years ago.
Mandrake is an elf, a member of the Salish-Shidhe community from the region south of the Seattle enclave. He is fairly old (whatever that means in elven terms) because he was one of the first generation born as elves, back in 2011. That means he's nearly fifty now, but the way that elves age, he could easily pass for twenty-five. He was an early naysayer as far as Tir Tairngire was concerned, but not important enough (at the time) for anybody to care about. Instead he just stayed where he'd grown up, and integrated into the new authorities. However, he was smart enough to work with local farmers, and the council, arguing that they'd make more money and build more alliances feeding the people of Seattle. Gradually he built from this quite an impressive little grocery business. Not bad for a pinkskin from the hills.
Amanda Chung
Amanda was, at the time that she was born, a third generation chinese-american US citizen. That seems like an awfully long time ago, but she's an important presence in Tacoma (always the little brother to Seattle, and now the junior partner in the enclave) where her father's painstakingly built logistics company passed to her when her brother (the intended heir) fell to VITAS in '22. This means that Chung Brothers Trucking is in her hands, but in the mean time she's also carefully built her surplus funds into a minor property empire in the enclave.
Ola Torssen
Ola is a giant. Literally; a nordic troll variant. There was enough of the old scandinavian blood in his family, from the early settlers in the Seattle area, that it came through and made him what he is. He stands about twelve feet tall, but looks pretty good in a sharp tailored suit. He can afford suits because he got a degree in early education, and then built his own school, specialising in metahuman upbringing. His huge size, combined with polished manners, persuaded quite a few corporate parents of metahuman children to entrust their little tearaways to him, for a fee that would only have been obscene if they weren't desperate. Of such things are exclusive, high dollar private schooling enterprises built.
Genady Voltsev
Genady was, early in his life, a Vory soldier. As the wheel turns, he took the fall in court on behalf of his group, and went inside for a few years on a shipment of drugs that had nothing to do with him. A grateful organisation, when he was out, set him up with a handsome lump sum, fully expecting that he would drink himself into a vodka grave within six months like so many of his comrades. Instead, he broke type and, based on years of choosing to do nothing but study economics and finance in prison, started to live on nutrisoy in a halfway house while sinking every nuyen into the stock and commodity markets. Three clever investments later, he upgraded his way of life to a bed in a basement, and krill sprinkles on his nutrisoy. Two years after getting out, he moved to a tiny apartment, and started eating mycoprotein and using a cruddy old pocket secretary for investment research. Three years after, a somewhat larger apartment in the same building, and an old cyberterminal. Within five years, he'd bought his own houseboat on Lake Washington. That was ten years ago.
Noam "QED" Winkelman
QED is a fixer to the rich and famous. He is a nonobservant jew, but not shy about his heritage. He specialises in making quiet solutions available to sensitive problems, often family problems. He doesn't deal with drugs, but he has employed people to drag more than one chiphead into rehab. He's a genial fellow, full of half-corny, half-subversive sayings.
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate, and I'm a sieve."
"I accept payment on delivery. I trust you - and after the solution, you have reason to trust me."
"There are no problems. There are only opportunities - to hire very creative people."
"Conscience? I had mine surgically removed and replaced with work ethic."
"The need was to remove obstacles to a contract. The obstacles are removed - Q.E.D."
Brent "Heavyfunk" Stokes
Heavyfunk is a bit of an odd duck. He thought, at age 24, that as a regular, mundane human being, that he would have a fairly satisfying life as a heavy equipment sales engineer with a B.A. in English and Anthropology. He had a cush job for someone with his age and experience level, pushing semi-automated tunneling systems for Red Borer Drilling, a small company in the bigger Renraku family, and he liked the benefits, which included the chance to travel to remote areas where tunnels were being planned. Then he awoke to magic. The company tried to keep him on board, but they couldn't make it work, because he had become a shaman of Whale. Killer Whale, to be specific. However, he had lost none of his basic sales savvy, so he went to work with talismongers until he struck out on his own. He works out of a yacht (sail or sculling oar only, no propeller at all) that he uses to run up and down Puget Sound, and all over the world when the fancy takes him. He also produces music of a kind that has become pretty popular with junior wizards and wannabes.
Mama "Pillows" Comfort
Yup, she's a madam. She came by her nickname honestly, and her name is probably fake, but given she has a strict no-real-names policy at her place (for obvious reasons) it hardly matters. Pillows provides expert personal healing opportunities to the overworked and overstressed and overpaid. Her talented team of ladies, gentlemen, ambiguities and machinery will see to a truly wide range of unusual requirements. Her place isn't just all deviance and debauchery; she also has a large private club as part of it, where the most eyebrow-raising offering is expensive champagne. Why? Isn't it obvious? Plausible deniability for all comers. Her biggest ancillary expense is discreetly efficient security. But even the people kicked out of her place don't get identified.
QED is a fixer to the rich and famous. He is a nonobservant jew, but not shy about his heritage. He specialises in making quiet solutions available to sensitive problems, often family problems. He doesn't deal with drugs, but he has employed people to drag more than one chiphead into rehab. He's a genial fellow, full of half-corny, half-subversive sayings.
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate, and I'm a sieve."
"I accept payment on delivery. I trust you - and after the solution, you have reason to trust me."
"There are no problems. There are only opportunities - to hire very creative people."
"Conscience? I had mine surgically removed and replaced with work ethic."
"The need was to remove obstacles to a contract. The obstacles are removed - Q.E.D."
Brent "Heavyfunk" Stokes
Heavyfunk is a bit of an odd duck. He thought, at age 24, that as a regular, mundane human being, that he would have a fairly satisfying life as a heavy equipment sales engineer with a B.A. in English and Anthropology. He had a cush job for someone with his age and experience level, pushing semi-automated tunneling systems for Red Borer Drilling, a small company in the bigger Renraku family, and he liked the benefits, which included the chance to travel to remote areas where tunnels were being planned. Then he awoke to magic. The company tried to keep him on board, but they couldn't make it work, because he had become a shaman of Whale. Killer Whale, to be specific. However, he had lost none of his basic sales savvy, so he went to work with talismongers until he struck out on his own. He works out of a yacht (sail or sculling oar only, no propeller at all) that he uses to run up and down Puget Sound, and all over the world when the fancy takes him. He also produces music of a kind that has become pretty popular with junior wizards and wannabes.
Mama "Pillows" Comfort
Yup, she's a madam. She came by her nickname honestly, and her name is probably fake, but given she has a strict no-real-names policy at her place (for obvious reasons) it hardly matters. Pillows provides expert personal healing opportunities to the overworked and overstressed and overpaid. Her talented team of ladies, gentlemen, ambiguities and machinery will see to a truly wide range of unusual requirements. Her place isn't just all deviance and debauchery; she also has a large private club as part of it, where the most eyebrow-raising offering is expensive champagne. Why? Isn't it obvious? Plausible deniability for all comers. Her biggest ancillary expense is discreetly efficient security. But even the people kicked out of her place don't get identified.
Fircandle Realty
Fircandle is a property management and brokerage firm, specialising in property all over North America, west of the Rockies, that governments will let them. This makes them sound like a really big fish in the realty pond, but they're actually not. So much in the NAN lands is locked down to what tribal elders will permit, that the vast majority of what they do lies in CalFree and Seattle, although they have a few lucrative contracts managing lands to tribal standards, here and there. Their headquarters are in Sacramento, but they have a major office in Seattle proper. A lot of their revenue comes from condominium brokerage fees in Seattle, but their people travel all over the place.
ZenTem
ZenTem is a company devoted to building climate control. Everything from air conditioning to air filtration to heating to humidity management to pathogen removal. Building a hospital? They can help you. Building a house? No problem. Building a skyscraper? They have what you need. They can do everything from unit installation to custom sheetmetal work. It's not a surprise that they're a major employer of dwarves, but they'll hire anyone with the right paperwork.
Volcanic Metalwork
Volcanic are a tooling and machining concern, with half a dozen machineshops scattered around the Puget Sound region. They can do everything from custom-crafting you a ball bearing (although why would you need it?) to blueprinting a go ganger's engine.
Fircandle is a property management and brokerage firm, specialising in property all over North America, west of the Rockies, that governments will let them. This makes them sound like a really big fish in the realty pond, but they're actually not. So much in the NAN lands is locked down to what tribal elders will permit, that the vast majority of what they do lies in CalFree and Seattle, although they have a few lucrative contracts managing lands to tribal standards, here and there. Their headquarters are in Sacramento, but they have a major office in Seattle proper. A lot of their revenue comes from condominium brokerage fees in Seattle, but their people travel all over the place.
ZenTem
ZenTem is a company devoted to building climate control. Everything from air conditioning to air filtration to heating to humidity management to pathogen removal. Building a hospital? They can help you. Building a house? No problem. Building a skyscraper? They have what you need. They can do everything from unit installation to custom sheetmetal work. It's not a surprise that they're a major employer of dwarves, but they'll hire anyone with the right paperwork.
Volcanic Metalwork
Volcanic are a tooling and machining concern, with half a dozen machineshops scattered around the Puget Sound region. They can do everything from custom-crafting you a ball bearing (although why would you need it?) to blueprinting a go ganger's engine.
MaChef
MaChef used to be called Machine Chef. About twenty years ago they were basically semi-automated short order nutrisoy dispensers, and you could find their franchise holders on the fringes of wherever there were poor labourers building the shining future. In the intervening years they've climbed the quality ladder a bit, including quite a bit of real food (if you have the nuyen or scrip, and you're not too picky) but they still sell their 3NY RiseBukit (reconstituted bulk starch "rice", stir-fried in algae-derived cooking oil, with nutrisoy flavour "meat", served with a cup of seaweed "tea") and it will keep you vertical for a day. Slot a stick, punch a button, eat. But for 43NY you can get a real egg, bacon, cheddar and mushroom omelette with real coffee... if you don't have better options in reach.
RentaRig
Just what it sounds like, really; walk up, and rent heavy equipment or industrial vehicles. All fitted with rigger interfaces, all ready to go. Need a backhoe? Need a grader? Need a commercial van? They have what you want, chummer.
Svenson Auctions
These fellows have a big yard and warehouse in the old Federal Way area, between Seattle and Tacoma, a bit south of SeaTac. Estate auctions and business closures are their main thing. Don't try robbing their warehouse unless you really know what you're doing; it's secured in accordance with UCAS law, and they have a lot of lawyers that know them well. Not worth it for some crummy old credenza or something.
Highrise Farming
Oh, boy. It's a joke, but it's not a joke. They have an eight level aeroponic-aquaponic setup, over three hardened basement levels in what used to be a parking garage in downtown Tacoma. Years ago they sold that wacky tobaccy, Mary Jane herself, but they've branched out a lot. The top has wind generators as well as a bunch of solar panels, and internally all the light is that weird artificial light tuned to get the very most of the very best light to plants that you can. Even so, they get in what sunlight they can, when they can, and grow everything that they can. They get about four seasons' worth of growth, staggered across the year, and manage to crank out enough real food to keep local fancypants restaurants supplied. They have fish, they have crabs, they have mushrooms, they have berries, it's just crazy what they do. And it mostly pays better than that sweet leaf ganja used to, times being what they are.
MaChef used to be called Machine Chef. About twenty years ago they were basically semi-automated short order nutrisoy dispensers, and you could find their franchise holders on the fringes of wherever there were poor labourers building the shining future. In the intervening years they've climbed the quality ladder a bit, including quite a bit of real food (if you have the nuyen or scrip, and you're not too picky) but they still sell their 3NY RiseBukit (reconstituted bulk starch "rice", stir-fried in algae-derived cooking oil, with nutrisoy flavour "meat", served with a cup of seaweed "tea") and it will keep you vertical for a day. Slot a stick, punch a button, eat. But for 43NY you can get a real egg, bacon, cheddar and mushroom omelette with real coffee... if you don't have better options in reach.
RentaRig
Just what it sounds like, really; walk up, and rent heavy equipment or industrial vehicles. All fitted with rigger interfaces, all ready to go. Need a backhoe? Need a grader? Need a commercial van? They have what you want, chummer.
Svenson Auctions
These fellows have a big yard and warehouse in the old Federal Way area, between Seattle and Tacoma, a bit south of SeaTac. Estate auctions and business closures are their main thing. Don't try robbing their warehouse unless you really know what you're doing; it's secured in accordance with UCAS law, and they have a lot of lawyers that know them well. Not worth it for some crummy old credenza or something.
Highrise Farming
Oh, boy. It's a joke, but it's not a joke. They have an eight level aeroponic-aquaponic setup, over three hardened basement levels in what used to be a parking garage in downtown Tacoma. Years ago they sold that wacky tobaccy, Mary Jane herself, but they've branched out a lot. The top has wind generators as well as a bunch of solar panels, and internally all the light is that weird artificial light tuned to get the very most of the very best light to plants that you can. Even so, they get in what sunlight they can, when they can, and grow everything that they can. They get about four seasons' worth of growth, staggered across the year, and manage to crank out enough real food to keep local fancypants restaurants supplied. They have fish, they have crabs, they have mushrooms, they have berries, it's just crazy what they do. And it mostly pays better than that sweet leaf ganja used to, times being what they are.
Green Marine Shipping
A boring name for a weird combination of retro and futuristic technology. They run freight vessels, that are basically sailing ships. Rigger-driven sailing ships. That's right; you have one rigger in a life support tank running a whole ship. They aren't particularly large, but they don't need to be. Even just a couple of dozen TEU will pay for a voyage's expenses, and they have quite a few vessels.
Virtual Garage Investech
VGI is an investment syndicate based around the old mythology of inventors in garages. It's not all that different from the old days, but the structure's a little different. They've specialised in matrix developments, and are building a nice little invetsu based around ASIST technologies for business and entertainment. The synergies between their various arms tend to make for good adoption rates in the public, and this means financial success.
Cody "Goodies" Banks
Goodies is a movie producer. Or rather, he was. Way back when, his daddy sold the family farm when the rumblings of the NAN were still rumbling, and turned it into a big pot of cash. Little Cody got the chance, with some of that money, to go to school in California, for the movie industry. Time passed, things happened, and Cody got into financing adult entertainment - which turned massively positive when simsense took hold. That was the beauty; simsense recordings were too big to conveniently copy to the customer, so publishing turned into a real thing again. These days, he's a major financier of the kind of unspeakable, hideous, sinful filth that makes evangelists wrap it in a plain brown paper wrapper before taking it home. And if you're experiencing what it's like to be an ork getting it on with an elf for half an hour? Goodies might just be thanking you for your purchase.
A boring name for a weird combination of retro and futuristic technology. They run freight vessels, that are basically sailing ships. Rigger-driven sailing ships. That's right; you have one rigger in a life support tank running a whole ship. They aren't particularly large, but they don't need to be. Even just a couple of dozen TEU will pay for a voyage's expenses, and they have quite a few vessels.
Virtual Garage Investech
VGI is an investment syndicate based around the old mythology of inventors in garages. It's not all that different from the old days, but the structure's a little different. They've specialised in matrix developments, and are building a nice little invetsu based around ASIST technologies for business and entertainment. The synergies between their various arms tend to make for good adoption rates in the public, and this means financial success.
Cody "Goodies" Banks
Goodies is a movie producer. Or rather, he was. Way back when, his daddy sold the family farm when the rumblings of the NAN were still rumbling, and turned it into a big pot of cash. Little Cody got the chance, with some of that money, to go to school in California, for the movie industry. Time passed, things happened, and Cody got into financing adult entertainment - which turned massively positive when simsense took hold. That was the beauty; simsense recordings were too big to conveniently copy to the customer, so publishing turned into a real thing again. These days, he's a major financier of the kind of unspeakable, hideous, sinful filth that makes evangelists wrap it in a plain brown paper wrapper before taking it home. And if you're experiencing what it's like to be an ork getting it on with an elf for half an hour? Goodies might just be thanking you for your purchase.
Expeditious ExImport
A fancy name for a fancy gang. They're smugglers. No bones about it; their chosen way of life is transport past the eyes of authority. They started as a go-gang about fifteen years ago, but they got in the losing end of a gang war, and the (less hot-headed) survivors reshaped their purpose towards money instead of notoriety, and what with all the madness of the era, they graduated to smuggling with elan. Their conceit is that they're a serious business, and they treat it that way - but the fact is that no government recognises them except as being nuisances.
Barbara's Boys
Barbara's Boys are a pretty nasty crew. They will run whatever makes money. Kamikaze. Cram. BTLs. Protection rackets. Gambling. They have substantial control of seven blocks of downtown Tacoma near the docks, and don't tend to have a problem with body disposal for some reason. This is just as well, because the word is that there are bodies that need disappearances from time to time, resulting from their activities.
Fong Lai
Mister Fong is a well-known fixer, and generally understood to be in touch with a wide range of talented criminals, but if anyone out there could prove it, they're very quiet about it. Mostly, he's known to be a lawyer in good standing with the Seattle bar. And yet ...
A fancy name for a fancy gang. They're smugglers. No bones about it; their chosen way of life is transport past the eyes of authority. They started as a go-gang about fifteen years ago, but they got in the losing end of a gang war, and the (less hot-headed) survivors reshaped their purpose towards money instead of notoriety, and what with all the madness of the era, they graduated to smuggling with elan. Their conceit is that they're a serious business, and they treat it that way - but the fact is that no government recognises them except as being nuisances.
Barbara's Boys
Barbara's Boys are a pretty nasty crew. They will run whatever makes money. Kamikaze. Cram. BTLs. Protection rackets. Gambling. They have substantial control of seven blocks of downtown Tacoma near the docks, and don't tend to have a problem with body disposal for some reason. This is just as well, because the word is that there are bodies that need disappearances from time to time, resulting from their activities.
Fong Lai
Mister Fong is a well-known fixer, and generally understood to be in touch with a wide range of talented criminals, but if anyone out there could prove it, they're very quiet about it. Mostly, he's known to be a lawyer in good standing with the Seattle bar. And yet ...
Charles Maximilian
Charles is a business executive. No doubt about it - and a decent one at that. He used to be an executive director in Renraku Seattle, but quit that job some years back to go into entrepreneurialism. It was an amicable parting. It must have been, because he's still walking and talking, wheeling and dealing without a red team stalking him from the shadows. Instead, he's helped turn a few scrappy little startups into respectable small businesses, and by all accounts he's popular with the folks that make things happen.
Walden Kunai
Yeah, yeah, his parents liked Walt Whitman, whaddya gonna do? Walden is an ork from Hawaii, who left there when the environment got a little too racially challenging for his liking. Right now he mostly earns his keep as a security consultant. Yeah, it sounds like security guard, but it's really not. He works for a few security firms on a contract basis, but he's certified expert in about fifteen different vendors' blends of security hardware, ranging from pinhole cameras to dye squirters and he knows protocol from military black site through to revolver-in-the-cash-drawer corner store stuff.
Major Ronald Haversham IV
The major works for the UCAS marine corps, as part of the national guard. He's a reservist, and maintains a day job as a dentist in West Seattle. He's cleancut, squared away, patriotic and about as soft and snuggly as a brick. His role tends to fluctuate with whatever the metroplex's latest demand for support might be, but in general when you see him, it means the civilian world has created yet another drekheap that they need him to fix.
Commissioner Lightbringer Starlight
The commissioner ticks a lot of boxes. She's female, well-cybered because of a run-in with some 'weeners that left her nearly dead, more or less the colour of a chocolate malt, from humble origins, and ork. She was a police union representative for six years, a beat cop for eight, a detective for seven, and she's now the commissioner of public security services in Seattle. Mostly this means that she's the contract rep for metroplex policing, but there's a teeny-tiny rump of a police office that still notionally maintains an identity, and she's also in charge of that. Kind of like playing with toy cops instead of toy soldiers.
Chin-ho "Jeremy" Huang
Jeremy is a pioneer of urban renewal, and a pillar of the community. Yes, yes, when you've all stopped clutching your sides and laughing, that's what the tridshows call him. In reality, he's the proprietor of three different chains of businesses, which makes him a pretty wealthy man. The first is GridWorks, a bunch of mechanic shops. Rumour has it they're chopshops at night, but nobody with any smarts repeats that too loudly. The second is Camelia's - basically a combination morgue/organ/bioware/cyber shop. The third is HuangBilt, a chain of contractors doing everything from houses to hotels. All his locations are in or around the barrens, but somehow survive. The received wisdom is that he's as crooked as a dog's hind leg. But he's rich.
Charles is a business executive. No doubt about it - and a decent one at that. He used to be an executive director in Renraku Seattle, but quit that job some years back to go into entrepreneurialism. It was an amicable parting. It must have been, because he's still walking and talking, wheeling and dealing without a red team stalking him from the shadows. Instead, he's helped turn a few scrappy little startups into respectable small businesses, and by all accounts he's popular with the folks that make things happen.
Walden Kunai
Yeah, yeah, his parents liked Walt Whitman, whaddya gonna do? Walden is an ork from Hawaii, who left there when the environment got a little too racially challenging for his liking. Right now he mostly earns his keep as a security consultant. Yeah, it sounds like security guard, but it's really not. He works for a few security firms on a contract basis, but he's certified expert in about fifteen different vendors' blends of security hardware, ranging from pinhole cameras to dye squirters and he knows protocol from military black site through to revolver-in-the-cash-drawer corner store stuff.
Major Ronald Haversham IV
The major works for the UCAS marine corps, as part of the national guard. He's a reservist, and maintains a day job as a dentist in West Seattle. He's cleancut, squared away, patriotic and about as soft and snuggly as a brick. His role tends to fluctuate with whatever the metroplex's latest demand for support might be, but in general when you see him, it means the civilian world has created yet another drekheap that they need him to fix.
Commissioner Lightbringer Starlight
The commissioner ticks a lot of boxes. She's female, well-cybered because of a run-in with some 'weeners that left her nearly dead, more or less the colour of a chocolate malt, from humble origins, and ork. She was a police union representative for six years, a beat cop for eight, a detective for seven, and she's now the commissioner of public security services in Seattle. Mostly this means that she's the contract rep for metroplex policing, but there's a teeny-tiny rump of a police office that still notionally maintains an identity, and she's also in charge of that. Kind of like playing with toy cops instead of toy soldiers.
Chin-ho "Jeremy" Huang
Jeremy is a pioneer of urban renewal, and a pillar of the community. Yes, yes, when you've all stopped clutching your sides and laughing, that's what the tridshows call him. In reality, he's the proprietor of three different chains of businesses, which makes him a pretty wealthy man. The first is GridWorks, a bunch of mechanic shops. Rumour has it they're chopshops at night, but nobody with any smarts repeats that too loudly. The second is Camelia's - basically a combination morgue/organ/bioware/cyber shop. The third is HuangBilt, a chain of contractors doing everything from houses to hotels. All his locations are in or around the barrens, but somehow survive. The received wisdom is that he's as crooked as a dog's hind leg. But he's rich.
Petsonal Petsonalities, LLC
Petsonal is where you go to get that pet barghest you've always wanted. And to equip it. And to train it. Wait, maybe a barghest isn't your thing? How about a nice clutch of cockatrices? Maybe you're more of a salamander kind of a gal? Petsonal is here for you. By appointment only. You really don't want to show up to their location in Ballard without calling first. It would be a bad idea.
Cookie Manander
Cookie used to be a bored housewife, until her husband and kids got turned into compost by a toxic shaman. That was kind of a life-changing event for her, and she's now a nonprofit executive, with a clear focus on environmental concerns. She also has a few new kids, but no husband.
Carvel Brasken
Carvel is a dwarf who is very happy working for Cross in Seattle. He's something of a bellwether for the metahumans-in-business movement, such as it is, and a regular in various clubs. Highly visible, that's him. Toastmasters, Rotary, all sorts of groups. Definitely in the top 1% of dwarves showing up on trid.
Kelly Grahame
Kelly is a serious bureaucrat. All 8 feet, 8 inches of her. She works in the Metroplex sanitation and sewage department as a senior office head - basically, she runs a lot of the place. It's a logical choice. Sewage is one of the best-paying jobs a lot of trogs can get.
Mario Avellini
Mario is a notable member of a prominent italian fraternal organisation .... ah, fraggit. He's a mobster. A capo. He's recently come to power in Seattle. How? ... who wants to know?
Petsonal is where you go to get that pet barghest you've always wanted. And to equip it. And to train it. Wait, maybe a barghest isn't your thing? How about a nice clutch of cockatrices? Maybe you're more of a salamander kind of a gal? Petsonal is here for you. By appointment only. You really don't want to show up to their location in Ballard without calling first. It would be a bad idea.
Cookie Manander
Cookie used to be a bored housewife, until her husband and kids got turned into compost by a toxic shaman. That was kind of a life-changing event for her, and she's now a nonprofit executive, with a clear focus on environmental concerns. She also has a few new kids, but no husband.
Carvel Brasken
Carvel is a dwarf who is very happy working for Cross in Seattle. He's something of a bellwether for the metahumans-in-business movement, such as it is, and a regular in various clubs. Highly visible, that's him. Toastmasters, Rotary, all sorts of groups. Definitely in the top 1% of dwarves showing up on trid.
Kelly Grahame
Kelly is a serious bureaucrat. All 8 feet, 8 inches of her. She works in the Metroplex sanitation and sewage department as a senior office head - basically, she runs a lot of the place. It's a logical choice. Sewage is one of the best-paying jobs a lot of trogs can get.
Mario Avellini
Mario is a notable member of a prominent italian fraternal organisation .... ah, fraggit. He's a mobster. A capo. He's recently come to power in Seattle. How? ... who wants to know?
Depending on new recruitment outcomes, I'll look at a soft start on the 12th of June, 2020.
Depending on how that goes, a serious kickoff on the 19th of June, 2020.
Posting rules: absent prior warning, I expect to see responses in 48 hours - after that, I assume you're doing nothing, drinking heavily, staring at the incredible plastic ass of the person walking the other way, or whatever - anything but taking command of the IC situation. After a week of no response, your character is liable to be written out in bloody (but amusing) ways.
Posting format:
"""Speech"""
<<<Matrix>>>
___Whisper___
+++Thought+++
:::Astral:::
Yup, it doesn't use colours. That makes it easy for those in text-based browsers.
Anything else that I need to clear up?
Depending on how that goes, a serious kickoff on the 19th of June, 2020.
Posting rules: absent prior warning, I expect to see responses in 48 hours - after that, I assume you're doing nothing, drinking heavily, staring at the incredible plastic ass of the person walking the other way, or whatever - anything but taking command of the IC situation. After a week of no response, your character is liable to be written out in bloody (but amusing) ways.
Posting format:
"""Speech"""
<<<Matrix>>>
___Whisper___
+++Thought+++
:::Astral:::
Yup, it doesn't use colours. That makes it easy for those in text-based browsers.
Anything else that I need to clear up?
Sounds good!
Check out the "Post or Die" and "Post or Die ... More" threads. Same de - termination.
QUOTE (Koekepan @ Jun 8 2020, 11:39 PM) 
After a week of no response, your character is liable to be written out in bloody (but amusing) ways.
Check out the "Post or Die" and "Post or Die ... More" threads. Same de - termination.
Sounds good to me. I'll make sure I give you advance warning of the times I may be unable to post.
Papeete Pete - Papeete Pete's Tahitian Treats
Possibly the damn largest troll you will ever see, Pete is a product of the unique genetic bottleneck that led to Polynesians being so big, no matter what metahuman form. He runs a clam and fish shop down by the docks and brooks no trouble in his establishment. No arguments from the locals, who know. Some scuttlebutt suggests South Pacific valuables like pearls and coral (what remains of it) runs through the shop. No proof in official circles.
Possibly the damn largest troll you will ever see, Pete is a product of the unique genetic bottleneck that led to Polynesians being so big, no matter what metahuman form. He runs a clam and fish shop down by the docks and brooks no trouble in his establishment. No arguments from the locals, who know. Some scuttlebutt suggests South Pacific valuables like pearls and coral (what remains of it) runs through the shop. No proof in official circles.
Devlin Mulloy
Devlin is a craftsman at the fine art of distillation. Not just any craftsman either; he's near the top of the field. If you want something that's 175 proof and tastes of flowers, he's the guy. If you're hoping for 40 proof and redolent of blackcurrant, rose and elderflower, he can make it happen. His products have graced the tables of pretty much every bigshot (or bigshot wannabe) in town, and far afield. His distillery is a carefully guarded, scrupulously monitored place in the Eastlake part of Seattle, and rumour has it that he's a man of over ten meganuyen.
Margaret Greenbaum
Margaret is a trid news personality. No, she doesn't just read the news; she comments on it actively, interviews people and generally makes it entertaining. She's also quite adept at riding the line between being a thorn in the side of the authorities, and a friendly voice. She also has a style that makes it just sexy enough to get listeners a bit more engaged than they might otherwise be. Old tricks, but reliable.
Ryu Takeda
It's quite the cliche, isn't it? Japanese sushi chef in Seattle. Even so, it works really well because he's not just any sushi chef. He's the one that will cater when visitors from Imperial Japan must be impressed. Yeah, he has a chain of four (very expensive) restaurants, but they're practically just the farm team for the top assistants who will have the privilege of assisting him in preparing the finest and most delicate work for the most rarified visitors.
PoliDemos Policlub
If you know some Greek, you might surmise that this policlub had an interest in city politics, from a democratic point of view. Or, perhaps, a fresh take on representative or direct democracy. You wouldn't be exactly wrong. But you'd be far from right. They're what happens when a lot of little folks from the suburbs get elbowed aside, and again, and again ... and have had just about enough. So, yeah, they're a policlub. Kind of the same way a homeowners' association is a neighbourhood club.
Devlin is a craftsman at the fine art of distillation. Not just any craftsman either; he's near the top of the field. If you want something that's 175 proof and tastes of flowers, he's the guy. If you're hoping for 40 proof and redolent of blackcurrant, rose and elderflower, he can make it happen. His products have graced the tables of pretty much every bigshot (or bigshot wannabe) in town, and far afield. His distillery is a carefully guarded, scrupulously monitored place in the Eastlake part of Seattle, and rumour has it that he's a man of over ten meganuyen.
Margaret Greenbaum
Margaret is a trid news personality. No, she doesn't just read the news; she comments on it actively, interviews people and generally makes it entertaining. She's also quite adept at riding the line between being a thorn in the side of the authorities, and a friendly voice. She also has a style that makes it just sexy enough to get listeners a bit more engaged than they might otherwise be. Old tricks, but reliable.
Ryu Takeda
It's quite the cliche, isn't it? Japanese sushi chef in Seattle. Even so, it works really well because he's not just any sushi chef. He's the one that will cater when visitors from Imperial Japan must be impressed. Yeah, he has a chain of four (very expensive) restaurants, but they're practically just the farm team for the top assistants who will have the privilege of assisting him in preparing the finest and most delicate work for the most rarified visitors.
PoliDemos Policlub
If you know some Greek, you might surmise that this policlub had an interest in city politics, from a democratic point of view. Or, perhaps, a fresh take on representative or direct democracy. You wouldn't be exactly wrong. But you'd be far from right. They're what happens when a lot of little folks from the suburbs get elbowed aside, and again, and again ... and have had just about enough. So, yeah, they're a policlub. Kind of the same way a homeowners' association is a neighbourhood club.
Elizabeth Stinovski
Elizabeth is wealth. Quite wealthy. She was the only daughter of a couple of pre-Matrix stock option multi-millionaires, and in the mean time has made a few stockbrokers and investment advisors quite rich. She survived various crashes and so on by cunning use of commodities and real estate, turning her investments over to move to the next one like a snake sliding through the financial jungle. She has self-consciously modeled herself after Queen Elizabeth the First of England, declaring that she'd never marry, because she expects that to do so would diminish her personal standing. Wealth breeds insanity, so they say.
Gannon Forkbeard, Thane of Lower Redmond
Gannon is a dwarf, and a bad-tempered traditionalist. He is the leader of a team of dwarves who have declared themselves to be separatists. They've built themselves a warren underneath Redmond, and seem to survive it fairly well. Nobody but dwarves can fit in those tunnels, so they're very defensible. The team is organised into a clan of sorts, and they have magical support in the form of a dwarf claimed to be a mole shaman. Nobody has told them they're wrong, and nobody seems to be in a position to unearth them, and nobody cares much about Redmond, so they get to run their own affairs. Shamans or no, they have a lot of old drones that they've rebuilt, re-equipped, and reloaded. Be polite to them.
Elizabeth is wealth. Quite wealthy. She was the only daughter of a couple of pre-Matrix stock option multi-millionaires, and in the mean time has made a few stockbrokers and investment advisors quite rich. She survived various crashes and so on by cunning use of commodities and real estate, turning her investments over to move to the next one like a snake sliding through the financial jungle. She has self-consciously modeled herself after Queen Elizabeth the First of England, declaring that she'd never marry, because she expects that to do so would diminish her personal standing. Wealth breeds insanity, so they say.
Gannon Forkbeard, Thane of Lower Redmond
Gannon is a dwarf, and a bad-tempered traditionalist. He is the leader of a team of dwarves who have declared themselves to be separatists. They've built themselves a warren underneath Redmond, and seem to survive it fairly well. Nobody but dwarves can fit in those tunnels, so they're very defensible. The team is organised into a clan of sorts, and they have magical support in the form of a dwarf claimed to be a mole shaman. Nobody has told them they're wrong, and nobody seems to be in a position to unearth them, and nobody cares much about Redmond, so they get to run their own affairs. Shamans or no, they have a lot of old drones that they've rebuilt, re-equipped, and reloaded. Be polite to them.
Explanation of 4/10 shifts:
Many companies that require a regular presence with some overlap between shifts to ensure regular handoffs, split their shifts into four, ten-hour day length shifts. Then each shift generally overlaps on Wednesday (or some other day, but Wednesday means that one leg of the shift works Sunday, the other Saturday, so everyone gets some regular weekend day off). Then, for the real 24/7 folks, the ten hour shifts are staggered across the 24 hours of a day, so that you actually have six hours during which the three shifts are handing off ...
The key message is: most of the people working in this environment are in the office, on this day.
Many companies that require a regular presence with some overlap between shifts to ensure regular handoffs, split their shifts into four, ten-hour day length shifts. Then each shift generally overlaps on Wednesday (or some other day, but Wednesday means that one leg of the shift works Sunday, the other Saturday, so everyone gets some regular weekend day off). Then, for the real 24/7 folks, the ten hour shifts are staggered across the 24 hours of a day, so that you actually have six hours during which the three shifts are handing off ...
The key message is: most of the people working in this environment are in the office, on this day.
Mary Margaret mcMahon
Mary is not a big-timer in this profession, but she's professional, reliable, and capable. She's tapped into some of the more independent groups, so while her prices aren't necessarily the best, her scope is excellent.
Henry Swift
Henry is half bookseller, half antiquarian, and all datahound. If you want to know what's hot in tattoos this month, he neither knows nor cares. If you want to know what the legendary haunts of manticores are, he not only can sell you a book on that, but he probably knows most of what's in that book off by heart - as well as two dozen others. What Fuchi's latest deck design teasers are? He couldn't really help you. Who might have been instrumental in the creation of a mainframe from the '80s? He probably even could dig up their Ph.D. thesis. He has expensive taste in coffee.
Billy Morgan
Billy is a guy who will build what you need - as long as it's machine-based, anyway. He's a bit of a prankster, in his way, but his technical work is unimpeachable. He's in high demand with Seattle region R&D shops that need his services for custom prototyping work, as well as the use of his equipment. You don't stuff a van with a full 3D fabrication and packaging setup, without it costing a lot of money - which should tell you what he bills for his time as well. But it's worth every penny. One of the results is that, not only can he repair or customise broken decks, but he can also probably tell you who's working on some new, exciting hotness.
Mary is not a big-timer in this profession, but she's professional, reliable, and capable. She's tapped into some of the more independent groups, so while her prices aren't necessarily the best, her scope is excellent.
Henry Swift
Henry is half bookseller, half antiquarian, and all datahound. If you want to know what's hot in tattoos this month, he neither knows nor cares. If you want to know what the legendary haunts of manticores are, he not only can sell you a book on that, but he probably knows most of what's in that book off by heart - as well as two dozen others. What Fuchi's latest deck design teasers are? He couldn't really help you. Who might have been instrumental in the creation of a mainframe from the '80s? He probably even could dig up their Ph.D. thesis. He has expensive taste in coffee.
Billy Morgan
Billy is a guy who will build what you need - as long as it's machine-based, anyway. He's a bit of a prankster, in his way, but his technical work is unimpeachable. He's in high demand with Seattle region R&D shops that need his services for custom prototyping work, as well as the use of his equipment. You don't stuff a van with a full 3D fabrication and packaging setup, without it costing a lot of money - which should tell you what he bills for his time as well. But it's worth every penny. One of the results is that, not only can he repair or customise broken decks, but he can also probably tell you who's working on some new, exciting hotness.
I'm wondering what spirit domain a research facility is. My guess is a hearth spirit is more for a home/residence, and may apply only to the cafeteria and kitchen. The rest ... a city spirit?
Oh, and the Owl shaman thanks you for starting us off in the @&@^ daytime.
Oh, and the Owl shaman thanks you for starting us off in the @&@^ daytime.
QUOTE (pbangarth @ Jun 13 2020, 07:17 AM)
I'm wondering what spirit domain a research facility is. My guess is a hearth spirit is more for a home/residence, and may apply only to the cafeteria and kitchen. The rest ... a city spirit?
Oh, and the Owl shaman thanks you for starting us off in the @&@^ daytime.
Oh, and the Owl shaman thanks you for starting us off in the @&@^ daytime.
Oh, I'm sure you'll be fine. You're just tired, coming on the tail end of your night shift, and in the office for the Wednesday morning birthday cake stuff before going home to roost.
Consider the workshop/R&D facility also to be a hearth domain, but a different hearth domain from the office space. The spirits drifting around the office space look more like sararimen, while the R&D space is more like technicians and labtechs in general feel.
Hey! Happy Birthday, ntwi!
You know you want his smarts when the biodrones emerge from the fermentation sumps and start consuming human flesh.
Thanks. Birthdays get strange as a parent. The kids are so wrapped up in them while I picked up a new set of d6's for my latest runner. No mini's for shadowrun so I'll get a new set of dice for a character. My wife laughs at me but doesn't mind as they're cheap and don't take much space... Far less than the assorted 3d terrain I've build at various time for D&D (that's been acquired and repurposed by my little girl, but thats another story).
On a different note, I've finally gotten the rest of the details locked in, and that money disappears fast when you're trying to cover all the bases. Given your preference for the Main Book, I'm gleefully ignoring the programs from the Matrix book to save on money, the legwork heavy style of Matrix run you've posted elsewhere seems to mesh with that. I was second guessing myself on the bioware by the end, but I squeaked it in with ~500Y in my pocket and one month of lifestyle. But with two cars, a handful of drones, a decent cyberdeck with a stack of software and assorted other things with lights that blink, I have my toys, heck I even upgraded my Neo-A Trid-Pirate contact to level 2. Give me a few minutes to edit the other post.
On a different note, I've finally gotten the rest of the details locked in, and that money disappears fast when you're trying to cover all the bases. Given your preference for the Main Book, I'm gleefully ignoring the programs from the Matrix book to save on money, the legwork heavy style of Matrix run you've posted elsewhere seems to mesh with that. I was second guessing myself on the bioware by the end, but I squeaked it in with ~500
Happy birthday, indeed!
And little girls repurposing Daddy's gaming gear is their prerogative. It's written in the stars, I think.
Yes, I tend to go well with legwork, prep and so on. Of course, if you WANT to do things the hard way, that's always an option, but ... why would you?
And I have a birthday treat for you when you get active, so you can look forward to that.
And little girls repurposing Daddy's gaming gear is their prerogative. It's written in the stars, I think.
Yes, I tend to go well with legwork, prep and so on. Of course, if you WANT to do things the hard way, that's always an option, but ... why would you?
And I have a birthday treat for you when you get active, so you can look forward to that.
Neo-Anarchist trid pirate
Gollum is the name that he chose. Why? Because he's a troglodytic pain in the hoop to all that the swell folks hold dear.
Gollum's pretty cool in his way. Technically fairly adept, but will come to Carlos for the heavy stuff. Realistically, his forte is getting news around. Especially the stuff that royally ticks off the high and mighty. He is the walking, talking proof that information can be sold, but that verification of information can be sold higher. How does he finance his work? A combination of brokerage of information, donations, and taking a percentage on bounties.
Data Haven
Corner Library is a homage to one of those things you sometimes still find, with give-a-book, take-a-book sort of attitudes going on. Granted, the books themselves are an oddity now, but there's something about old tech that appeals to the senses of humour of the keepers of Corner Library. In the Matrix, it's even presented to look like a library, complete with card catalogues, and a cheesy sculpted hot librarian figure as the gatekeeper.
Rigger
Jon Martinez is a rigger. Nothing very fancy, in some ways. He specialises in big, heavy, industrial equipment. The kind of stuff that costs meganuyens to buy, and many kilonuyens to insure. Why? Because in some ways, it's the pinnacle of the career. Where else do you get to feel three megawatts of power delivered to your arms? Nowhere, that's where. He is also a pilot for extreme conditions freight planes, which means that he can pilot a plane carrying very expensive equipment to hellish places, run the equipment, cart it all back, and collect a credstick. A very, very fat credstick. He lives well.
Go-Ganger
Carlos and Blazer have crossed swords - or smoking rubber trails - a few times. But Blazer's one of those who will win against you, and then buy you drinks afterwards. Not a bad sort. Also, Blazer is quite capable of transporting a few small items in a hidden compartment in a vehicle, and staying quiet about it - for a price.
Bartender
Tamra is a bartender. She can whip you up a cocktail, sure, but she's best at getting a good head in a frosty glass, quickly, and helping folks get past a rough time. She could have been a therapist, but the licensing body frowns on people who were caught dealing pills as teens. Mid-tier clubs are less picky.
Corp Scientist
Marilyn Steck is a combustion scientist for Ares. In theory, she should be designing rocket nozzles. In practice, she spends a lot of time setting tiny little lumps of impossible chemistry on fire and watching trids of them burn in ultra-slow motion. She also moonlights as a pyrotechnician for a fireworks crew, but Ares doesn't mind.
Street Doc
"Sewing Machine" is the only name you need. She's fast, she's grim, and she has her own little medlab where she can culture tissues. Go-gangers like this, because she can patch up burn wounds well. She charges for this - usually in kind, but she'll take money. A lot of what she uses isn't legal for unlicensed people. Nobody she helps seems to care. The last troll that made fun of her short dwarf legs got his foot nailgunned to the floor, and she made him apologise on trid before she'd treat him.
Security Decker
Joy Takahara works for Renraku. She's cool, or at least cool enough to walk among the freakier elements of the Matrix and still go to work for Renraku. Carlos suspects that she gathers intelligence, but she seems to drop a few hints on what's hot as well, so maybe it's a wash? Or maybe she genuinely does walk on the wild side.
Mafia Soldier
Tony Menicucci is a solid dude. Really, walk right up and rap your knuckles on his pecs. Feels real, but solid, somehow? Yeah, they're paid for. The capo likes it when his boys have all the trimmings, and has the means to pay.
Ork Nation Organizer
Bella Wildwood's a serious pragmatist. She can be calm, dispassionate, a negotiator with style, or she can grab a mic and go nuts. She finds people, pulls them in, and brings the nation together. She also has a little black book of about five hundred orks to help her do nearly anything.
Lone Star Dispatcher
Bobby Grant has a job to do, and it's to connect problems with solutions. And he has heard it all. The whispered requests, the bored status reports, the final screams, and the entitled idiots. Then he goes, takes his pay, drinks, sleeps, and does it again.
Club Owner
Nolan Beres owns the Rebasket, a club noted for the opposite number of goblin rock - they tend to do more complex music, even things that in principle could get intellectual snobs interested, if only there weren't hundreds of people in glowing clothing gyrating to it. There are some back rooms available for more private discussions, if necessary.
Shark Lawyer
Alicia Conter, Esq. is a well-presented, talented raconteur, witty, charming, and probably has a heart of ice and a brain of steel. She knows Carlos. She knows things about Carlos that she might not officially know. And as long as he pays, on time, in full, nobody else needs to know.
Gunsmith
Mark mcNeely is one of the old school. He can trick out your Fichetti, he can repair your Ingram, and he can also turn a screw on a lathe to replace a part on your old '94 Winchester. That's 1894. Would you like the slide on your Predator case hardened?
ID Manufacturer
Carlos is pretty sure her name isn't Tookigoo, but she has an ID that says so. And Carlos doesn't know how to see if it's fake or not, it's that clean. OK, Tookigoo can do IDs.
Talent Scout
"Eeey, howyadoin'? Ever thought about trid work? It's easy, one day, three hundred nuyen. Catered. Here's a chip, if you're ever interested." Hugh Maxinet gets around, gets orders, finds people. Sometimes even a few gangers get drinking money for looking tough on a camera for half a day. They like that. They also know that he has a line on some contracts for more interesting things, like combat biking. Good to stay on his good side.
Dock Worker
Steve Receno is a bit of a stereotype. He's a dockworker. The pay is good, and while the rig he got from the company isn't top grade, it can be upgraded. Maybe one day he'll go independent, but first he just has to pay this off. In the mean time, he gets good overtime rates, and on off days his buddies let him fish off the end of the dock. It could be worse.
Taxi Driver
Joao Vigo is an old go-ganger, known to Carlos through the network. He got a job as a taxi driver when the heat got too heavy, and too many of his generation were dead. But you know what? The gangs remember him, and he gets to drive in places other drivers don't. It keeps him going.
Technician
Samantha Pettigrew doesn't look or sound like a technician, rather than a preppy kid from the Boston metroplex. This is because she is one - or was one, until something happened. Carlos doesn't know what, but he knows that she is a great tech, and knows how to play tennis, polo, and sail. Maybe one day if he gets close to her, he'll find out what happened. Or if he plays his cards wrong, he'll find out how a soldering torch up his urethra feels. Life is full of learning experiences.
Troll Street Sam
You may call him Soft Touch. That's because he teaches Aikido and Tai Chi. He's very gentle. Until he's not, and then things are usually over too fast for conversation anyway.
Fixer
Snoochy used to be a pimp, so the saying goes, until his networking skills turned out to have more than one dimension. Snoochy is a really nice guy who just so happens to know all the people you need to solve tough problems. If all he is telling you is where to get your car fixed without nasty questions, it's cool. It probably just costs a cup of good coffee. If it's something a bit tougher - well, that's why it's a business, right?
Electronics Shop
Ada Edison is the poorly-chosen name of a shop where you can buy, fabricate, or order any of a vast range of bits and pieces - either whole items, or components. What's a lot more interesting to some people is the used and recyclable bins out the back of their place in the Kent area. Fewer regulations about heavy metals, in that end of Kent. But lots of biz.
Gollum is the name that he chose. Why? Because he's a troglodytic pain in the hoop to all that the swell folks hold dear.
Gollum's pretty cool in his way. Technically fairly adept, but will come to Carlos for the heavy stuff. Realistically, his forte is getting news around. Especially the stuff that royally ticks off the high and mighty. He is the walking, talking proof that information can be sold, but that verification of information can be sold higher. How does he finance his work? A combination of brokerage of information, donations, and taking a percentage on bounties.
Data Haven
Corner Library is a homage to one of those things you sometimes still find, with give-a-book, take-a-book sort of attitudes going on. Granted, the books themselves are an oddity now, but there's something about old tech that appeals to the senses of humour of the keepers of Corner Library. In the Matrix, it's even presented to look like a library, complete with card catalogues, and a cheesy sculpted hot librarian figure as the gatekeeper.
Rigger
Jon Martinez is a rigger. Nothing very fancy, in some ways. He specialises in big, heavy, industrial equipment. The kind of stuff that costs meganuyens to buy, and many kilonuyens to insure. Why? Because in some ways, it's the pinnacle of the career. Where else do you get to feel three megawatts of power delivered to your arms? Nowhere, that's where. He is also a pilot for extreme conditions freight planes, which means that he can pilot a plane carrying very expensive equipment to hellish places, run the equipment, cart it all back, and collect a credstick. A very, very fat credstick. He lives well.
Go-Ganger
Carlos and Blazer have crossed swords - or smoking rubber trails - a few times. But Blazer's one of those who will win against you, and then buy you drinks afterwards. Not a bad sort. Also, Blazer is quite capable of transporting a few small items in a hidden compartment in a vehicle, and staying quiet about it - for a price.
Bartender
Tamra is a bartender. She can whip you up a cocktail, sure, but she's best at getting a good head in a frosty glass, quickly, and helping folks get past a rough time. She could have been a therapist, but the licensing body frowns on people who were caught dealing pills as teens. Mid-tier clubs are less picky.
Corp Scientist
Marilyn Steck is a combustion scientist for Ares. In theory, she should be designing rocket nozzles. In practice, she spends a lot of time setting tiny little lumps of impossible chemistry on fire and watching trids of them burn in ultra-slow motion. She also moonlights as a pyrotechnician for a fireworks crew, but Ares doesn't mind.
Street Doc
"Sewing Machine" is the only name you need. She's fast, she's grim, and she has her own little medlab where she can culture tissues. Go-gangers like this, because she can patch up burn wounds well. She charges for this - usually in kind, but she'll take money. A lot of what she uses isn't legal for unlicensed people. Nobody she helps seems to care. The last troll that made fun of her short dwarf legs got his foot nailgunned to the floor, and she made him apologise on trid before she'd treat him.
Security Decker
Joy Takahara works for Renraku. She's cool, or at least cool enough to walk among the freakier elements of the Matrix and still go to work for Renraku. Carlos suspects that she gathers intelligence, but she seems to drop a few hints on what's hot as well, so maybe it's a wash? Or maybe she genuinely does walk on the wild side.
Mafia Soldier
Tony Menicucci is a solid dude. Really, walk right up and rap your knuckles on his pecs. Feels real, but solid, somehow? Yeah, they're paid for. The capo likes it when his boys have all the trimmings, and has the means to pay.
Ork Nation Organizer
Bella Wildwood's a serious pragmatist. She can be calm, dispassionate, a negotiator with style, or she can grab a mic and go nuts. She finds people, pulls them in, and brings the nation together. She also has a little black book of about five hundred orks to help her do nearly anything.
Lone Star Dispatcher
Bobby Grant has a job to do, and it's to connect problems with solutions. And he has heard it all. The whispered requests, the bored status reports, the final screams, and the entitled idiots. Then he goes, takes his pay, drinks, sleeps, and does it again.
Club Owner
Nolan Beres owns the Rebasket, a club noted for the opposite number of goblin rock - they tend to do more complex music, even things that in principle could get intellectual snobs interested, if only there weren't hundreds of people in glowing clothing gyrating to it. There are some back rooms available for more private discussions, if necessary.
Shark Lawyer
Alicia Conter, Esq. is a well-presented, talented raconteur, witty, charming, and probably has a heart of ice and a brain of steel. She knows Carlos. She knows things about Carlos that she might not officially know. And as long as he pays, on time, in full, nobody else needs to know.
Gunsmith
Mark mcNeely is one of the old school. He can trick out your Fichetti, he can repair your Ingram, and he can also turn a screw on a lathe to replace a part on your old '94 Winchester. That's 1894. Would you like the slide on your Predator case hardened?
ID Manufacturer
Carlos is pretty sure her name isn't Tookigoo, but she has an ID that says so. And Carlos doesn't know how to see if it's fake or not, it's that clean. OK, Tookigoo can do IDs.
Talent Scout
"Eeey, howyadoin'? Ever thought about trid work? It's easy, one day, three hundred nuyen. Catered. Here's a chip, if you're ever interested." Hugh Maxinet gets around, gets orders, finds people. Sometimes even a few gangers get drinking money for looking tough on a camera for half a day. They like that. They also know that he has a line on some contracts for more interesting things, like combat biking. Good to stay on his good side.
Dock Worker
Steve Receno is a bit of a stereotype. He's a dockworker. The pay is good, and while the rig he got from the company isn't top grade, it can be upgraded. Maybe one day he'll go independent, but first he just has to pay this off. In the mean time, he gets good overtime rates, and on off days his buddies let him fish off the end of the dock. It could be worse.
Taxi Driver
Joao Vigo is an old go-ganger, known to Carlos through the network. He got a job as a taxi driver when the heat got too heavy, and too many of his generation were dead. But you know what? The gangs remember him, and he gets to drive in places other drivers don't. It keeps him going.
Technician
Samantha Pettigrew doesn't look or sound like a technician, rather than a preppy kid from the Boston metroplex. This is because she is one - or was one, until something happened. Carlos doesn't know what, but he knows that she is a great tech, and knows how to play tennis, polo, and sail. Maybe one day if he gets close to her, he'll find out what happened. Or if he plays his cards wrong, he'll find out how a soldering torch up his urethra feels. Life is full of learning experiences.
Troll Street Sam
You may call him Soft Touch. That's because he teaches Aikido and Tai Chi. He's very gentle. Until he's not, and then things are usually over too fast for conversation anyway.
Fixer
Snoochy used to be a pimp, so the saying goes, until his networking skills turned out to have more than one dimension. Snoochy is a really nice guy who just so happens to know all the people you need to solve tough problems. If all he is telling you is where to get your car fixed without nasty questions, it's cool. It probably just costs a cup of good coffee. If it's something a bit tougher - well, that's why it's a business, right?
Electronics Shop
Ada Edison is the poorly-chosen name of a shop where you can buy, fabricate, or order any of a vast range of bits and pieces - either whole items, or components. What's a lot more interesting to some people is the used and recyclable bins out the back of their place in the Kent area. Fewer regulations about heavy metals, in that end of Kent. But lots of biz.
The "Talent Scout" contact I had in mind was from pg57 of Mr Johnson's Little Black Book. He's a fixer that only deals in people rather than a combination of people, gear, safehouses etc. If the Tri-D scout works better for the story that's just fine. I just want to make sure we have some ways to get temp muscle when needed, or a link to future runners when people see this story take off.
QUOTE (ntwi @ Jun 14 2020, 07:25 PM)
The "Talent Scout" contact I had in mind was from pg57 of Mr Johnson's Little Black Book. He's a fixer that only deals in people rather than a combination of people, gear, safehouses etc. If the Tri-D scout works better for the story that's just fine. I just want to make sure we have some ways to get temp muscle when needed, or a link to future runners when people see this story take off.
Point taken. It's more that he has a cover job. Can he get someone who has the skills you need? Sure. But it's easier to slide by when asking someone: "Do you know how to boost cars?" when you can tell the 'Star "It's for a trid show, here's my business, calm down officer."
Hmmm. We haven't talked about how you want to roll dice yet. I'm not decking or anything but running more of a reverse image search on those two unknown suits. Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, the Corps internal site, that kind of thing. Not expecting any hits but you never know when someone is autotagged in the background of another photo.
And you never know when I'll be able to fit in "The cake is a lie" for the fun of it. If I was a corp firing a group of people in shadowrun, there just might be a sedative in the cake.
And you never know when I'll be able to fit in "The cake is a lie" for the fun of it. If I was a corp firing a group of people in shadowrun, there just might be a sedative in the cake.
QUOTE (ntwi @ Jun 15 2020, 03:01 AM)
Hmmm. We haven't talked about how you want to roll dice yet. I'm not decking or anything but running more of a reverse image search on those two unknown suits. Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, the Corps internal site, that kind of thing. Not expecting any hits but you never know when someone is autotagged in the background of another photo.
Dice rolling (sorry, should have mentioned before):
https://orokos.com/roll/
But sure, I'll give you the image search for free: the unknown suits are:
Gareth Rhys-Davies
Ahmed Chatterjee
They both work for Mitsuhama, based out of Seattle. Gareth is an HR director and headhunter, while Ahmed is a finance and investment expert with a role in Mitsuhama's internal investments wing. Of the two, Ahmed is senior, but they're both pretty heavy hitters.
Good timing with that. I was about to roll against Impulsive to hijack the wireless connection to the projector and display it for everyone in the room.
That may be kinda fun anyway!
Couple of area questions. Do the majority of the workers commute here in their own vehicles or take a company shuttle from somewhere?
If we are "light blue" security I presume that there are no weapons emplacements to send haywire but I could try and run the corp goons over with a rigged forklift?
Most of the Seattle Maps that I have seen end at the south side of Ft Lewis (JBLM) where the Nisqually River is (as the eruptions from Rainier would erase that entire river valley). What type of security zones are in this area, can you still get around the base on the south side or is that all Salish territory in 2060 (as you go through the Reservation today)? Just looking at options if we want to have the pink mowhawk sticking out of the moonroof or if I roll all 1's on impulsive at some point.
If we are "light blue" security I presume that there are no weapons emplacements to send haywire but I could try and run the corp goons over with a rigged forklift?
Most of the Seattle Maps that I have seen end at the south side of Ft Lewis (JBLM) where the Nisqually River is (as the eruptions from Rainier would erase that entire river valley). What type of security zones are in this area, can you still get around the base on the south side or is that all Salish territory in 2060 (as you go through the Reservation today)? Just looking at options if we want to have the pink mowhawk sticking out of the moonroof or if I roll all 1's on impulsive at some point.
Commuting: majority commute, although there's a bus service that does stop at the charging station, so quite a few (especially the lower-paid workers) take that. It's one of the far ends of the metroplex transit system.
There are no weapons placements as such, although it's possible to flood the building with CO2 as a fire control measure. This is obviously bad for people inside. It doesn't do much with respect to people outside. You could run over goons with a forklift when they're on a paved surface, but otherwise the chances are strong they'd just duck behind a tree.
This place is south of the Nisqually, but not very far south of it. The river valley got whacked, but a sort of float-capable bridge did get installed so that traffic down the old I-5 corridor could continue. It's still a major logistics route, and even the tribes recognise that this has value for them.
In other words, there are ways around the south, and security here is relatively light. Some of the old exurbs of Olympia were basically abandoned, but the tribes were happy to have the metroplex take on, and pay for the maintenance of, a chunk of road that they didn't care about except to sell the palefaces food - and money sure is nice, even when you're in a tribe.
That said, a lot of the commuters here could easily, if there were a corp outing with booze aplenty, tell their vehicles to run home driverless on their autopilots, or even stumble into their vehicles drunk and take a ride home on autopilot. If you want to avoid the road on the way out, well, that's a tougher proposition. If you're considering that, you may want to roll for some smarts on that front.
There are no weapons placements as such, although it's possible to flood the building with CO2 as a fire control measure. This is obviously bad for people inside. It doesn't do much with respect to people outside. You could run over goons with a forklift when they're on a paved surface, but otherwise the chances are strong they'd just duck behind a tree.
This place is south of the Nisqually, but not very far south of it. The river valley got whacked, but a sort of float-capable bridge did get installed so that traffic down the old I-5 corridor could continue. It's still a major logistics route, and even the tribes recognise that this has value for them.
In other words, there are ways around the south, and security here is relatively light. Some of the old exurbs of Olympia were basically abandoned, but the tribes were happy to have the metroplex take on, and pay for the maintenance of, a chunk of road that they didn't care about except to sell the palefaces food - and money sure is nice, even when you're in a tribe.
That said, a lot of the commuters here could easily, if there were a corp outing with booze aplenty, tell their vehicles to run home driverless on their autopilots, or even stumble into their vehicles drunk and take a ride home on autopilot. If you want to avoid the road on the way out, well, that's a tougher proposition. If you're considering that, you may want to roll for some smarts on that front.
I was thinking more the Yelm Highway - 510 - 507 route around the south side of the base. The feds have cameras covering it certainly, but will they give the footage to someone else, less likely.
Actually potentially relevant roll, did I drive the SUV or the 3220 today (1=SUV, 2=3220) The 3220
hmmm... no off road capability but I can certainly lose a Bulldog. Their support is an entirely different story. Just starting to work through options in my head.
Actually potentially relevant roll, did I drive the SUV or the 3220 today (1=SUV, 2=3220) The 3220
hmmm... no off road capability but I can certainly lose a Bulldog. Their support is an entirely different story. Just starting to work through options in my head.
The Yelm highway certainly still exists, but is in rough shape. The feds maintain it to a standard that doesn't bother military vehicles, but they really don't want anyone else casually using it, so potholes are repaired on an as-needed basis. The further reaches, down in the direciton of Yelm itself, end up in tribal hands, and they've applied a policy of benign neglect, to the point that it should be considered just this side of offroading.
If ntwi were to bust out of here with screaming engine and bad attitude, he could get off the hill, onto an old rural route that serves the remnants of the the old Lacey/Tumwater area, and then head south into tribal lands, east to skirt tribal lands, or onto I-5. The old route 101 is pretty much where the Metroplex's last gasp ends, going south, and heading west on it is solidly tribal.
Alternatively, if he were feeling more like a smuggler, he could in principle suggest to his vehicle that it autopilot empty, to look as if it's headed home, and then pick him up at some other point on the roads if he can make it to the pickup point on foot. How he would get past the goons on foot is a separate and different question.
If ntwi were to bust out of here with screaming engine and bad attitude, he could get off the hill, onto an old rural route that serves the remnants of the the old Lacey/Tumwater area, and then head south into tribal lands, east to skirt tribal lands, or onto I-5. The old route 101 is pretty much where the Metroplex's last gasp ends, going south, and heading west on it is solidly tribal.
Alternatively, if he were feeling more like a smuggler, he could in principle suggest to his vehicle that it autopilot empty, to look as if it's headed home, and then pick him up at some other point on the roads if he can make it to the pickup point on foot. How he would get past the goons on foot is a separate and different question.
Knowledge skills and background info that may be relevant. No rapid colorful and narrow hair growth planned, just wanting to understand the area as you see it and options that may be available if we end up on the bus.
1. Where might Mitsuhama be taking us in the bus? (presuming they plan to take us all somewhere in it) - No relevant knowledge skill, default to Intelligence at +4 TN (expecting somewhere closer to Seattle):
2. How secure is I-5 or other likely route to location from Question 1? - Gang Turf 2? Police Procedures 2? Street Racing 5? Default to INT?
3. Is Blazer (Go-Gang Contact) part of a big enough gang to hit a bus and bulldogs on I-5 (or location along #2) and pull everyone off the bus for random go-gang fun (preferably near the barrens)
4. Could Joy Takahara (Renraku Decker) loop the traffic cams or other footage in the area of #3? Street Racing 5 (might know the density of cameras in an area)? Police Procedures 2 (who owns what sets of cameras?)
5. What would the Lone Star response be to a AAA bus being hit on I-5? Police Procedures 2, Bobby Grant (Lone Star Dispatcher, how could he alter or slow the response?)
6. How long might it take Bella Wood (Ork Nation organizer) to get a protest going somewhere useful?
7. Is the bus likely to be remotely rigged or auto-drive? Corporate Security 3?
8. Chance of stunbolt and replace the driver/rigger without crashing the bus?
Feel free to answer or not (and correctly or incorrectly as Carlos would know). Just trying to reset from all the home ruled changes to the Seattle area that I'm used to playing with. (My in person group have all be in the metroplex for decades and modified the Book setting in many ways, both subtle and not)
1. Where might Mitsuhama be taking us in the bus? (presuming they plan to take us all somewhere in it) - No relevant knowledge skill, default to Intelligence at +4 TN (expecting somewhere closer to Seattle):
2. How secure is I-5 or other likely route to location from Question 1? - Gang Turf 2? Police Procedures 2? Street Racing 5? Default to INT?
3. Is Blazer (Go-Gang Contact) part of a big enough gang to hit a bus and bulldogs on I-5 (or location along #2) and pull everyone off the bus for random go-gang fun (preferably near the barrens)
4. Could Joy Takahara (Renraku Decker) loop the traffic cams or other footage in the area of #3? Street Racing 5 (might know the density of cameras in an area)? Police Procedures 2 (who owns what sets of cameras?)
5. What would the Lone Star response be to a AAA bus being hit on I-5? Police Procedures 2, Bobby Grant (Lone Star Dispatcher, how could he alter or slow the response?)
6. How long might it take Bella Wood (Ork Nation organizer) to get a protest going somewhere useful?
7. Is the bus likely to be remotely rigged or auto-drive? Corporate Security 3?
8. Chance of stunbolt and replace the driver/rigger without crashing the bus?
Feel free to answer or not (and correctly or incorrectly as Carlos would know). Just trying to reset from all the home ruled changes to the Seattle area that I'm used to playing with. (My in person group have all be in the metroplex for decades and modified the Book setting in many ways, both subtle and not)
QUOTE (ntwi @ Jun 15 2020, 06:52 AM)
Knowledge skills and background info that may be relevant. No rapid colorful and narrow hair growth planned, just wanting to understand the area as you see it and options that may be available if we end up on the bus.
What I will do is give you a screamsheet level of knowledge, and either agree with your roll or suggest a roll if you want to puzzle out more/better info.
QUOTE (ntwi @ Jun 15 2020, 06:52 AM)
1. Where might Mitsuhama be taking us in the bus? (presuming they plan to take us all somewhere in it) - No relevant knowledge skill, default to Intelligence at +4 TN (expecting somewhere closer to Seattle):
Mitsuhama corp. central for the metroplex: downtown Seattle. Unless they have some other site lined up, in which case how would you know? Certainly the bus looks like a highway trip, and Seattle's in easy range for the job.
QUOTE (ntwi @ Jun 15 2020, 06:52 AM)
2. How secure is I-5 or other likely route to location from Question 1? - Gang Turf 2? Police Procedures 2? Street Racing 5? Default to INT?
Pretty good; it's well-patrolled along most of its length. It's a little dicey in the sweep past the Tacoma/Puyallup area. The exact roll would depend on what you want to discover, but Police Procedures would be a good bet.
It has been much worse in the past, but it's such an important route, that if anything, that's the safest part of any such trip. Some of the old industrial areas around Tukwila can be hairy as well. Now, if they're going to divert to the east side, all bets are off - but why would they do that?
QUOTE (ntwi @ Jun 15 2020, 06:52 AM)
3. Is Blazer (Go-Gang Contact) part of a big enough gang to hit a bus and bulldogs on I-5 (or location along #2) and pull everyone off the bus for random go-gang fun (preferably near the barrens)
Maybe. A definite maybe. What they almost certainly could do is run the 'dogs off the road and finagle a roadblock by making an 18-wheeler fishtail, or similar. How much time they'd have before they got a hard response? That's different.
QUOTE (ntwi @ Jun 15 2020, 06:52 AM)
4. Could Joy Takahara (Renraku Decker) loop the traffic cams or other footage in the area of #3? Street Racing 5 (might know the density of cameras in an area)? Police Procedures 2 (who owns what sets of cameras?)
Possibly, although she'd probably want some notice if so. The real problem would be the bus's own comms, which are guaranteed not to be nil. Mind you, what you could arrange on the long trip up, is an open question. Street racing could help you dredge camera density and placement out of your memory, but it's a fair bet that any particular stretch has between two and four cameras roughly watching it. Mind you, if a trog with a concrete cutter were just to cut some posts down, those cameras would get useless really quickly.... but that's the sort of thing five go-gangs would arrange before a major race for honour.
QUOTE (ntwi @ Jun 15 2020, 06:52 AM)
5. What would the Lone Star response be to a AAA bus being hit on I-5? Police Procedures 2, Bobby Grant (Lone Star Dispatcher, how could he alter or slow the response?)
Bobby would be out of the loop, unless he somehow were given a reason to fire off a whole lot of police tailchasers before the action started. You think Lone Star would probably offer hands-off assistance and information to a Mitsuhama response team, who would be some very bad asses.
QUOTE (ntwi @ Jun 15 2020, 06:52 AM)
6. How long might it take Bella Wood (Ork Nation organizer) to get a protest going somewhere useful?
You've seen her sweep up flash mobs in 15 minutes, when the excuses were right.
QUOTE (ntwi @ Jun 15 2020, 06:52 AM)
7. Is the bus likely to be remotely rigged or auto-drive? Corporate Security 3?
If it's important, it's a cinch that there will be a rigger in a crash-proof armoured cel inside the bus. So ... odds are good it's direct drive, plugged in.
QUOTE (ntwi @ Jun 15 2020, 06:52 AM)
8. Chance of stunbolt and replace the driver/rigger without crashing the bus?
You can't be sure. Probably not good. The pro drivers are very, very well protected precisely to avoid hijacking stunts.
QUOTE (ntwi @ Jun 15 2020, 06:52 AM)
Feel free to answer or not (and correctly or incorrectly as Carlos would know). Just trying to reset from all the home ruled changes to the Seattle area that I'm used to playing with. (My in person group have all be in the metroplex for decades and modified the Book setting in many ways, both subtle and not)
Your gutfeel is: once on that bus, you're cargo with very few options until the bus stops, and no meaningful way of affecting the driver. Your instincts are screaming that the only place you want to be on that bus, is in the rigger's seat, and what with the security goons around, your odds of getting in there are very, very low. If you do not want your hoop to be branded with a corp logo, then you want to find a plan B that involves not getting on board. Maybe Connor knows something different; maybe. But you don't.
QUOTE (Koekepan @ Jun 15 2020, 12:22 AM)
Maybe Connor knows something different; maybe. But you don't.
Off the top of my head, most spirits provide Concealment. We could sleaze our way out and about. Daytime makes the Force of the spirit tricky, so how strong the Concealment might be is a question, but I think that, and some distractions provided by other spirits that don't need to be all that powerful, would be one avenue.
QUOTE (pbangarth @ Jun 15 2020, 05:44 PM)
Off the top of my head, most spirits provide Concealment. We could sleaze our way out and about. Daytime makes the Force of the spirit tricky, so how strong the Concealment might be is a question, but I think that, and some distractions provided by other spirits that don't need to be all that powerful, would be one avenue.
Of course, that largely depends on domain - and the degree to which you're in view, anyway.
Good call, it was spoken, not thought. I'll get a hang of it.
ntwi has caught on that I used :
OoOoOo as Owl talking to Connor, and
_+_+_+ as mindlink-speak
ntwi has caught on that I used :
OoOoOo as Owl talking to Connor, and
_+_+_+ as mindlink-speak
The building itself is about all covered in cameras. The only exceptions are the bathrooms, some crawlspaces, and effluent flush pipes.
Is the bakery delivery truck still here?
How plausible is the effleuent channel -> holding tank -> sewage system for egress? You mentioned it as a "a tunnel leading like a short, wide sewer." Are we talking 12-18" pipes or 3-4' culvert size pipes. - Hey, Carlos probably saw this on the Tri-D.
Corporate Security 3 How likely for a mage to be here in one of the Bulldogs? Given LOS and such, how likely to notice a spirit using its concealment power on us? 5,5,3
Security Systems 4 (and knowledge of the building) Route out of the building (side door, loading dock, etc) that provides the most cover/concealment from the goon squad and the buildings security system. 10,7,4,2
???? I know our security systems, how difficult would it be for me to loop camera footage on one or two cameras?
Worst case, Ork Flash Mob on Ellis and 509 at the docks while a big rig gets jackknifed on I-5 over the Puyallup river might be enough to force them out 512-167 where bad things are known to happen to corporate stuff.
How plausible is the effleuent channel -> holding tank -> sewage system for egress? You mentioned it as a "a tunnel leading like a short, wide sewer." Are we talking 12-18" pipes or 3-4' culvert size pipes. - Hey, Carlos probably saw this on the Tri-D.
Corporate Security 3 How likely for a mage to be here in one of the Bulldogs? Given LOS and such, how likely to notice a spirit using its concealment power on us? 5,5,3
Security Systems 4 (and knowledge of the building) Route out of the building (side door, loading dock, etc) that provides the most cover/concealment from the goon squad and the buildings security system. 10,7,4,2
???? I know our security systems, how difficult would it be for me to loop camera footage on one or two cameras?
Worst case, Ork Flash Mob on Ellis and 509 at the docks while a big rig gets jackknifed on I-5 over the Puyallup river might be enough to force them out 512-167 where bad things are known to happen to corporate stuff.
A problem will be transitioning from inside the facility to outside. As we change domains, the hearth spirit inside will lose power over the two escapees, and Connor will have to summon another 'outside' spirit to take over the task. So if we can duck out a culvert or something, we may end up in a place where they are not looking, and he can summon another spirit without getting noticed.
Oh! How armoured up is Carlos at the moment? If not much, Connor can change the appearance of their clothing, and makeup/hair etc. That may help confuse searchers.
Speaking of confusion, there are lots of other things spirits can do. If Connor gets lucky in the daytime (!!) a summoned spirit may be able to do more than one thing for the two of them.
Oh! How armoured up is Carlos at the moment? If not much, Connor can change the appearance of their clothing, and makeup/hair etc. That may help confuse searchers.
Speaking of confusion, there are lots of other things spirits can do. If Connor gets lucky in the daytime (!!) a summoned spirit may be able to do more than one thing for the two of them.
The bakery van left shortly after delivery. They didn't even stop to flirt with some of the cuter ladies in the office; they must be on a delivery schedule.
Effluent pipe pathway: plausible, if dirty and smelly. The pipes have to, by law, be available to inspection, and given that they're buried beneath the building, that means that they're crawlable. If one of you were a troll, that would be off the cards, but they're 1m internal diameter round tunnels. They lead right into the holding tank, which is basically a covered reservoir on the hillside. The reservoir has multiple access hatches (again, a legal requirement) as well as the valve controlling when the effluent is flushed to the sewage infrastructure. The reservoir itself is maybe 20m distant from the outer wall of the R&D facility, somewhat downhill, with a little grass and dirt around it. The reservoir stands about 2m proud of the soil level at its highest point, but rests on piles driven deep into the hill for seismic stability.
Mage in bulldogs: Enh. Could happen. Maybe fifty-fifty. Are they really expecting trouble? Depends. But it didn't look like a HTR tac team.
Security: The doors all have at least one camera on them, and while there's a bit of overhang at each (this is a rainy part of the world), there's barely visual cover from the goons' lines of sight, and none to speak of once you step away from the doors. The roof is a bit of a blind spot, but even if you climbed up there, what would you do? Jump down screaming a warcry?
Looping camera footage wouldn't be hard, assuming they haven't sneakily revoked access in the last ten minutes. Or simply turning a few cameras off.
Effluent pipe pathway: plausible, if dirty and smelly. The pipes have to, by law, be available to inspection, and given that they're buried beneath the building, that means that they're crawlable. If one of you were a troll, that would be off the cards, but they're 1m internal diameter round tunnels. They lead right into the holding tank, which is basically a covered reservoir on the hillside. The reservoir has multiple access hatches (again, a legal requirement) as well as the valve controlling when the effluent is flushed to the sewage infrastructure. The reservoir itself is maybe 20m distant from the outer wall of the R&D facility, somewhat downhill, with a little grass and dirt around it. The reservoir stands about 2m proud of the soil level at its highest point, but rests on piles driven deep into the hill for seismic stability.
Mage in bulldogs: Enh. Could happen. Maybe fifty-fifty. Are they really expecting trouble? Depends. But it didn't look like a HTR tac team.
Security: The doors all have at least one camera on them, and while there's a bit of overhang at each (this is a rainy part of the world), there's barely visual cover from the goons' lines of sight, and none to speak of once you step away from the doors. The roof is a bit of a blind spot, but even if you climbed up there, what would you do? Jump down screaming a warcry?
Looping camera footage wouldn't be hard, assuming they haven't sneakily revoked access in the last ten minutes. Or simply turning a few cameras off.
Carlos is not wearing armor currently. He has a Secure Longcoat hung on the back of his chair. (It's March in Olympia, but you'll never see a local with an umbrella)
How tall is the perimeter fence? Cleared area, sensors, cameras on the other side?
Do I have any idea about the sewage infrastructure on the other side of the tank? Any rebreathers or other air systems for servicing the insides of the tanks?
How tall is the perimeter fence? Cleared area, sensors, cameras on the other side?
Do I have any idea about the sewage infrastructure on the other side of the tank? Any rebreathers or other air systems for servicing the insides of the tanks?
There is no perimeter fence. It's patrolled, but the perimeter that the company cared about was the building.
There are cameras on the building, facing outwards (which is how Carlos got to spot the vans and bus) but nothing too fancy in terms of sensors. The real security is the fact that the place is constantly occupied, there is a rig into the building, and a couple of rentacops walking around just in case of stupids - which has never happened, because this place is just out of the way. The worst is the occasional vagrant, who gets told to buzz off, and that's that.
The reservoir for flushed biologicals isn't under particular separate surveillance, and while you can see that it's there in a camera, the cameras that pick it up are a lot more directed at the area immediately around the building itself.
The sewage infrastructure goes down through a grating, into a big effluent pipe that leads ... somewhere. Carlos honestly doesn't know beyond "sewage infrastructure".
Inside the building, specifically in the fermentation lab, which is where the technicians manage the flushing and maintenance, there are filtration masks and bunnysuits. Honestly, they're more to satisfy regs than anything else, but the interior of the tanks and pipes is smelly and will stain your clothes, so they do get used. The pipes are ventilated, so it's not as if it's a gas chamber.
There are cameras on the building, facing outwards (which is how Carlos got to spot the vans and bus) but nothing too fancy in terms of sensors. The real security is the fact that the place is constantly occupied, there is a rig into the building, and a couple of rentacops walking around just in case of stupids - which has never happened, because this place is just out of the way. The worst is the occasional vagrant, who gets told to buzz off, and that's that.
The reservoir for flushed biologicals isn't under particular separate surveillance, and while you can see that it's there in a camera, the cameras that pick it up are a lot more directed at the area immediately around the building itself.
The sewage infrastructure goes down through a grating, into a big effluent pipe that leads ... somewhere. Carlos honestly doesn't know beyond "sewage infrastructure".
Inside the building, specifically in the fermentation lab, which is where the technicians manage the flushing and maintenance, there are filtration masks and bunnysuits. Honestly, they're more to satisfy regs than anything else, but the interior of the tanks and pipes is smelly and will stain your clothes, so they do get used. The pipes are ventilated, so it's not as if it's a gas chamber.
Gotcha, I had misread "The reservoir itself is maybe 20m distant from the outer wall of the R&D facility" and thought there was a perimeter fence around the entire area. Guess I won't need to practice Dwarf throwing after all.
Hey, Connor could have a spirit fly him over! None of this meta-speciesist humour, alright? 
I'll get something in tonight, work went crazy the past two days.
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