I'll agree. Afterwards I think we just have to watch and wait. And get Galina to look at the package.

Hmm, I think this thread's third birthday is comming up.

Still here. I'm afraid I've forgotten its birthday (don't let it know).

In game we're still waiting for whatever it is we were waiting for right?

I think this thread's time has probably passed. I post mostly to let you know the most recent reasons I fell off the grid. I only just recovered a semi-reliable connection last month. I used to make it up with public access, but I'm still living in the middle of nowhere -- ie. it's over an hour's walk to anywhere.

To this day my computer remains Flash- and ActiveX-challenged (and to a lesser extent Javascript): such that if it runs into that kind of programming, it crashes everything. Fortunately Dumpshock forums are as forgiving as anything out there -- but even so, the computer crashed once in the process of posting this.

Oh, and after a promising beginning -- most of the hundreds of plants died. We now have a drought, and may yet have brush fire issues.

Try disabling Flash and ActiveX in the browser, if available--it won't, obviously, help you see any of it, but it should at least help your browser crash less.

~J

I did. I even ran through the protocol and troubleshooting of uninstalling Flash, complete with the required download. And then I ran through cache and about a dozen history- and temporary-type files, and strategically deleted. Theoretically, my computer should now be completely Flash-free ... but for some reason it isn't.

A new computer is tentatively scheduled to move in in mid/late fall. (Yay, Vista.) I'd been hoping it would also move into a new residence by then, but that isn't going to happen so soon.

here's some registry keys that may shut down flash if you can't get it uninstalled. As for Vista, no t much the yay. I had to turn off almost all the bells and whistles (and most all of the 'security features') before I liked how everything worked.

Yay with period, not exclamation mark Wish there were a way around Vista, but I probably can't buy a new system now without that version unless I start learning Linux.

Been working my way a bit through that site, Crusher Bob -- still no joy, though I'm not through all the options yet. At this point, I've pretty much accepted the current level of computer working until the new system arrives -- and happy that I do have connection at all. (So looking forward to a non middle-of-nowhere living address which can support broadband!)

I forgot to ask: would anyone like a GM point-of-view summary of what was going on in this thread?

What do you do with a computer on a regular basis? Depending on what you use it for, Ubuntu or something similarly relatively new-user-friendly might serve your needs well.

~J

Easiest in this Internet multimedia age to say what I do not do with it: no videogames on this computer or its future replacement, ever. Beyond that, I dare not limit.

Well, if you've got a way to obtain a live CD to test with, I highly recommend it.

~J

? Sorry, I don't follow.

From here you can get a so-called "live", or bootable, CD. You can run your computer off of it on CD without having to install anything or muck with your hard drive or its contents. Of course, there are a lot of limitations to it, but it can give you an idea of whether or not you'll enjoy using a full install.

~J

Since you are on dialup downloading a linux install is probably not going to happen. So you'd have to come by a linux install CD some other way.

As for the GM's eyes view, sure. Some of the stuff never madde too much sense to me.

Ah. Thank you. I'll check that out.

It isn't precisely friendly, but Fd Linux should take under twenty minutes to download on dialup. For a real distro, you probably want to find some other way to get a disc.

hijack.release()

~J

Everything that I've heard about vista suggests that it's horrible. It's like you're buying negative value from Microsoft. I might have to turn to Linux.

I'd rather use DOS 3.0 than vista. At least DOS 3.0 doesn't work against you on purpose in order to fellate the entertainment industry.

My computer-fu isn't as good as it's going to need to be. Just to let you guys know thanks for the help; and slowness of feedback is entirely due to slowness of Talia's comprehension of these things. Heat wave wasn't helping the thinking thing, but it's finally beautifully cool today and the computer fan is no longer labouring.

You can get a free ubuntu CD, but it takes a few weeks to get to you.

Hi,

I'm intrigued in why there's mention of causing the building to evacuate, then locating and picking up the target ??

Load the ventilation system with something not-too nasty, notify law enforcement/emergency agencies of an emergency of a terrorist threat, pick up target once outside the building in the ensuing chaos.

[Hey, nothing to stop me using the plan from Neuromancer]


Just my thruppence..

Alas, the links to the old forums seem to be no longer working. One of the mission constraints was that whoever was holding the package not notice she had been rescued for some period of time (iirc, you'll also notice that this thread is somethingl ike 5 years old). There was some slight discussion about thingsl ike forced entry assault or some more overt monkey business like you suggest, but we decided to stay within the original contraints and see how things turned out.

We need /something/ to wrap this up!

I've been waiting four years to see what the deal is here and you can't let us down now

Oops, sorry, Xirces.

I'd based The Enemy loosely off a character in the Nosferatu novel. The premise here was that a high-initiate nosferatu -- formerly a spike elf, for the plot device -- had established a headquarters here. He'd chosen it specifically for the manaline which ran under it.

Under the guise of an import company, he'd been bringing in people from abroad: every one of which was soon quickened with two control spells: thoughts and emotions. (The addictive nature of essence drain reinforced the emotional aspect.) The place itself he gradually began to have overhauled to his specific needs: always maintaining the facade of a smallish company without anything of value sufficient even to require warding. His idea of security was, however, a bit antiquated: and because he was specifically limiting independence of thought in others, there was no independent source to bring him fully up to date in some of the tech involved.

He was enough tech-savvy, however, to have made a small addition to the ventilation system: just a light Willpower-reducing gas which was added only during the daytime and flushed at night. This made it much easier to establish the above control spells. Ghost had been briefly exposed to it. It had the potential to become an issue, but never did.

The longer he'd been there, the more he was able to completely shut off the company front from outside annoyances, such as outside security contractors who might have started to suspect something was going on; and who couldn't be made to vanish as easily as the (meta)human imports. In the meantime the turnover of people gave a constant source of Essence. Elves he'd occasionally tried to turn, without long- or even medium-term success: although some lasted long enough to work for him as in-house security. You encountered two of them just before they became non-successes. What remained of the non-successes was sold by the company as fertiliser.

(All of which contributed to quite a nasty background count, to the point where it lightly influenced those who encountered it. Basically, stable situations were likely to become uneasy, and uneasy situations were likely to turn bad.)

After long research he'd determined the one key element that would be needed to complete his goals: a young elf anchorwoman. He'd been stalking her for some time, and had discovered that she was not only secretly Awakened but an initiate. If he managed to make her nosferatu of her own "free" will, all the rest would follow.

The girl was kidnapped secretly, in such a way that everyone thought she'd fled the station after an argument with her producer that had left him in a coma. (He was actually a friend of hers, and had tried to defend her, unsuccessfully.) Several people "saw" her leave the building.

The ritual began. Time was critical, now.

Unbeknownst to our Enemy, the girl had friends who didn't believe the surface story. One of those friends suspected who might be behind it and had the resources to hire and keep hired some high-level, reliable shadowrunners to confirm it (and, if the girl was on site, to free her): but that friend (of the "Friends in High Places" variety) also intended to make the counter-abduction a small demonstration of personal power against the nosferatu. That's why part of the run condition was to leave no traces (or at least no traces that could be quickly uncovered). That friend thinks of power not as a hammer but as the horse's head -- though he's not mafioso.

That's all I can pull out of memory, cold. If anyone has specific questions, I'll try to answer them.

I think the thing that jumps to mind most was that weird Astral vacuum thing that was going on, where Trogdor ended up not being able to leave (and had to zap himself, sparking that debate over whether or not he could, etc etc.) I think that's the part that really unnerved me, mostly because I had no idea what could be going on.

You had the equivalent of a significant astral river running through that part of the basement. Trogdor was astral, and thus could be caught in the current.

Sorry, forgot --

The collar was anchoring an Agony spell to Juliana, the trigger was her attempting spellcasting, and, because of the nature of her spellcasting, anyone in the area would get the backwash. (She had originally been created under SR2 rules with innate "project emotion" and "project sensation" spells: a strong major for her is anything empathy/emotion-related.) Despite that, she'd managed to burn her way out of the iron manacles -- which helped, you'll remember she had a severe allergy to unalloyed iron. That's where the burns you saw came from.

Besides the one who put the collar on: any mundane with no magic being held on them (sustained or quickened spell) could have removed it safely. It responds badly only to the touch of a magic-influenced aura.

You might encounter her and other members of the d'Erethiel family in the Living in the Shadows threads, over in Welcome to the Shadows. The events of this thread are a part of its history.

And finally: because she was reluctant to speak up, you left her foci behind

*laugh* ... so I guess this would not be the time to mention that the target has since undergone a metaquest specifically to learn more of the true nature of her Enemy.

I don't know if I explicitly mentioned it or not, but the team that succeeded in this would have been handsomely rewarded ... and then immediately given a second commission: to retrieve those foci.

That reference goes back to the very first ever IC page of LitS ... and thus predates me.

Make of that what you will.

Yeah, but you were the one who ended up picking up that reference and running with it into a full-fledged story. Would I put it past you to figure out a way to intertwine the two seemingly unrelated items? Absolutely not.