Jade Imperium OOC 4

Admiral Duck Sauce 2007-07-08 15:38:27
This is technically the end of the first "adventure", so to speak.

Advancement

Everyone is going to refresh back up to their 6 Wild Dice.

You all get 10 XP. You can raise Traits, buy new Specializations, raise Aspects, buy new ones, or add to your permanent stock of Wild Dice.

Traits cost XP equal to the NEXT HIGHEST die type. If Semo wants to raise his Move from d8 to d10, it costs him his full 10 XP. If Max wants to bump his d6 Shoot to a d10, he must first spent 8XP to bring it to d8, and then he has 2XP left over so he can't ALSO raise it to d10 in one go.

Specializations cost XP equal to the Trait's current value. If Max just wants to specialize in Submachine Gun with his d6 Shoot, it costs him 6 XP.

Raising an Aspect works like raising Traits - XP equal to the die type you're raising it to.

A new Aspect costs 4XP and starts at d4. It can be raised normally after that point. So with 10XP, Max wants to buy an Aspect called "Stabmaster". He pays 4XP and gets "Stabmaster" at d4. He then spends his remaining 6XP and bumps Stabmaster up to d6.

Raising your permanent Wild Dice limit costs 2XP per Wild Die.

Comments

As usual, I'd appreciate any comments on the game. What you loved, what you hated, what you loved to hate.

Things to Come

At this point, you guys have an idea of what all your characters think should happen. Now we'll all talk about the situation and we'll decide what will happen. Should the Gateway be made public? Should we make more? What happens to your characters? This is where, as a player, you tell everyone what you want to see in the game.

If you want to swap characters, this is fine place to do so. If anyone else reading this wants in (or if you need to bow out), this is a good time as well.
Gatac 2007-07-08 16:13:24
I'll upgrade Hugh's Cautious aspect to a d10 - if anything, the different ways Imperium tech can be used to ambush and outflank his guys has made him even more aware of the need for a strong defense.

Gatac
e of pi 2007-07-08 18:55:06
I'm taking Luis' Talk to a d8 and then getting two more permanent Wild Dice. I don't know if he's taking a Rossetta Stone language course or what, but in a situation where the aliens don't speak our language willingly, not being able to speak theirs is a hazard. After that, the last 4XP go to buying two more permanent Wild Dice. The benefits of experience, or something like that. Also, as to what next, we need an evac plan for Greene, and we need to start testing and trying to replicate the alien's weapons and defense tech. If it's ethically possible, we need to test the Frisbee and its effects. Dietrich needs medical attention from Walter Reed ASAP, and somebody should look into the wierd mental effects.
Gatac 2007-07-08 19:30:48
Okay, let's talk extraction.

Problem: The only way we can quickly get Greene through the gate is if the Imperium opens it from their side. That means we're strictly limited in what we can put through the gate. No bullets, no tear gas, etc.

That leaves the electromagnetic spectrum. Light (flashbang style) is out, we know turai armor compensates. Radio? Can we hack their armor systems?

Okay, that's probably not happening. So either we trick them into sending Greene through first, or we have to establish from our base, kill them, then hold out long enough until we can dial back to Earth. Given that they're prepared over there, that seems spectacularly unlikely.

Trickery then.

We have to convince them that it's a good idea to send Greene over first. I thought that we could threaten to torture their bigwig, but they'll probably just return the favor with Greene.

Hmmm...

How about this? We use the "bomb" plan I proposed earlier, but couple that with a robot-controlled wheeled vehicle we strap their bigwig to. We claim it's because he's too injured to walk (he probably is!), send the vehicle through, tell them it'll blow if they touch it unless we send the disarm code. We tell them that we're cutting the gate, and that they now have fifteen minutes to dial in before the timer on the bomb goes off by itself.

We cut, wait until they dial back in. (If they care about their guy, that should be pretty damn fast.) We demand that Greene walks through first. Once he's through, we activate our ace - some sort of weapon that'll disable / distract them for a few seconds. We steer the cart with their bigwig back through the gate, kill it with the emergency shutdown, then we block it up again.

Possible Scenarios, from worst to best:

Worst case: They defuse the bomb after we send him through. Well, yeah, shit, but we didn't endanger any of our guys doing it.

Scenario 2: They try to defuse the bomb but fail. We don't get Greene or their bigwig back, but it's a nice big "fuck you".

Scenario 3: They don't try to defuse the bomb, but don't dial back in. It goes boom, maybe not as many people hurt but still a good "fuck you".

Scenario 4: They dial back, but don't want to trade us Greene / Greene is dead. We press the trigger, it goes boom, see above.

Scenario 5: They send Greene through, but we can't extract their bigwig. Eh, that's the trade as agreed upon, anyway.

Best Case: We get Greene and the bigwig. Good times.

Gatac
Gatac 2007-07-09 10:16:34
Revised Plan:

The Prep

The Gateway Room

- Evacuate. Have Delta Force soldiers stand outside behind the blast doors.
- Wire for cameras, sound, radio.
- Only one in the room when the thing goes down: Hugh. Armed with radio transmitter and full combat gear, crouched next to the gateway. (Out of sight from the other side.) Emergency shutdown node should be in his reach.
- Rig the gateway for remote operation of the emergency shutdown node, in case Hugh gets taken out somehow.
- Also rig the gateway with explosive charges to quickly topple it to the floor, where it's easier to block.
- Have material for quickly blocking the gateway room nearby in the cargo elevator, together with a team of combat engineers in MOPP suits to block the gateway.

The Rover

- Fitted with The Bomb and The Distraction (see below).
- Strap The Asset on top. Gag him. Put a copper cage around his head so he can't use those implants to establish radio contact.
- When the Imperium calls, tell them that the exchange is on, we're going to dial in first and send their guy over, they need to have their gate charged to dial back at once. Tell them that they'll need to do that in 30 seconds, else our "insurance" will go off and kill their guy. After that, they send our guy, we confirm receipt and tell them how to disable The Bomb.
- Rover should be rigged for radio control and possibly be driven backwards through the gate to maximize escape speed.

The Bomb

- Complicated, but not high-tech: if it's disabled somehow, we don't want them to know how good our tech really is.
- EMP-hardened, but with a twist: Run a secondary circuit that holds a metal ball via electromagnet. If they somehow disable the bomb's electronics and power supply, the ball drops (yay gravity!) and triggers a pyrotechnic charge to set off the main payload.
- Main payload: C4. Lots of C4.
- Otherwise, tamper-resistant: Put a shell around it and some wires criss-crossing over The Asset. If they try to cut him out or get to the innards, it triggers.
- Time Limit: 30 seconds, counting down from when it loses our "Hold" radio signal. And a big fat display on top so they can see it counting down.
- Secondary radio function: Detonate at once (in case they try to double-cross us with an open gate.)
- While "Hold" signal is sent, the bomb is not armed and can be worked on. This is our main thrust: as long as we're there to watch it and send the signal, they can cut The Asset out of the wiring and clear blast range.
- Master Disarm: While "Hold" is sent, a hatch at the side can be opened and a keycard inserted. This disables the electronic trigger and also physically blocks the steel ball, quickly rendering the whole bomb harmless.
- Hugh has both Master Disarm card and sends the "Hold" signal via his radio.
- Backup: Gateway Room transmitters can send "Hold", Delta team leaders have Master Disarm cards.

The Distraction

- Hidden surprise in The Rover.
- Uses smoke grenades to fog up the area quickly.
- Again, radio trigger. (Three frequencies in total, then - easy enough to remember and preset.)
- If we have time, we should test turai armor and find out its sensor systems - maybe we can specifically block them, but I'm not holding my breath.

How it goes down

Phase One

- We wait for them to signal us that they're ready, eg Greene is there and ready to go, their gate is charged and ready to dial out, they have medics standing by for The Asset.
- We dial in -> if they want to screw with us right here, we can get Delta into the room and fire through the gate.
- We send The Rover through, remind them that it'll blow if they tamper or it's more than 30 seconds between shutting our gate down and dialing in.
- We close the gate.
- Important: Stay out of sight. They can only see The Rover. (Hugh's out of their field of fire at all times.)

Phase Two

- We wait while they dial back in.
- We've done our level best to screw them if they try to screw us, so we sit back, take a deep breath. If nothing happens, we think happy thoughts of a fiery explosion killing all the bastards and write the whole thing off -> go straight to Aftermath

Phase Three

- They dial back in.
- We reestablish radio contact with The Rover, the bomb resets to 30 seconds on "Hold". We remind them that, once again, we're still ready to drop them if there's any dickery.
- They send Greene through -> Hugh directs him to get to the far corner of the gateway room, out of the line of fire but as far away from Hugh and the exits as possible. (We don't know if he's a trojan horse, after all.)
- Greene is here, PRIMARY OBJECTIVE COMPLETED.

Phase Four

- Gate is still open from their side.
- Before they can make a move, Hugh switches off the "Hold" signal.
- Hugh screams into the radio that they've lost the signal, busy radio chatter between him and Gateway Command (all fake of course).
- Now, the Imperium guys are either saying "fuck it" and scramble to cut The Asset loose, or they beat it and try to clear blast range.
- Either way, they're moving, reacting and not thinking straight.
- That's when we trigger The Distraction. They might pick up the signal, but at this point it doesn't matter.
- Punch the gas on The Rover, catapulting it (and The Asset on top) back through the gateway. SECONDARY OBJECTIVE COMPLETED.
- Kill the gateway. If Hugh's taken out somehow, use the automatic we rigged up previously.

Phase Five

- Keep the gateway closed. Kill any dial-in attempts.
- Switch the "Hold" signal back on.
- Quickly drive The Rover behind the gateway, out of the line of fire, in the other corner (i.e. not to Greene).
- Call in the Delta teams. One has medics and secures Greene, the other has our demo experts and disables the bomb with the Master Disarm key.
- Give Greene all medical aid needed to stabilize him, cut The Asset off the Rover.
- Evacuate everyone in the gateway room to the quarantine station

Aftermath

- Blow the gateway charges.
- Block the gateway.
- Everybody who was in the gateway room without protection is quarantined.
- If the Imperium calls, mock them.

Long-Term Stuff

- Greene gets a full medical exam. We need to figure out what was done to him, how to fix it etc.
- Less stringent but still in-depth exams for everyone who was quarantined.
- Debrief Greene. Give him a honorable discharge with a very generous pension plus psychological counseling, then revoke his security clearance. No matter what he says, we can't trust him any more. Promise that we'll kick the Imperium's ass for him. Suggest that he buy a nice little house in the Midwest and enjoy the rest of his life. Keep tabs on him, obviously.

---

Phew, I think that covers everything. Of course, Hugh can't think of all that by himself, but we do have several science Wunderkinder around and some of the most devious minds in the country working the situation.

Comments welcome.

Gatac
e of pi 2007-07-09 13:12:42
Sounds good, and very well-thought-out, Gatac. Luis can take the lead on building The Bomb, Max is probably best for helping with The Rover.
Admiral Duck Sauce 2007-07-09 19:08:40
That all seems pretty feasible. I mean, it's a Goldberg contraption of epic proportions, but it seems to take into account everything you guys know about how the Gate and the Imperium work.

Options/Suggestions:

1. Hugh's "full assault gear". You know that Earth armor isn't worth jack, right? I suggest either you wear a radiation suit or if you wanted to take a chance, the Turai armor from Max (which would be ill-fitting, but you could suffer in it for a couple minutes).

2. Blocking the Gate:
a. Topple gate over, have basically what amounts to a custom-built inflatable raft in the space where the gate falls. Topple over, inflate raft. This is pretty simple.
b. If you don't trust rubber and air vs. anything they might get through before the Gate's blocked, then have those Engineers rig up a fast-drop cover-stone type of thing made out of armor steel. Topple gate, drop the armored disk on top. The mechanism would just be pulleys and cable attached to a little remote.

3. Trickery:
In case the Imperium decides to screw you over and say, fire a couple hundred sunballs through the Gate, it'd basically be initiative between them and Hugh to hit that abort nodule/trigger the bomb. Just FYI.

The trade'll probably go down on Wednesday. Make any necessary adjustments/discussion before then. :)
Gatac 2007-07-09 19:17:36
Regarding full assault gear: I'll use a light vest. Even if it doesn't protect from direct hits, shrapnel and such are always a real danger. Can't afford chemical protection on Hugh or the Delta guys, we need as much mobility as we can get. It sucks, but if there's really a chemical/biological attack, we have the MOPP engineers to rescue us.

I'm in favor of the raft. I trust industrial-grade rubber. :D

Gatac
Admiral Duck Sauce 2007-07-10 15:27:48
Besides the immediate goal of rescuing Greene, what do you guys think should be done with:

1. Making the Gate/Imperium public? There are several degrees of public as well. I mean, security leaks aside, the US could make this knowledge available to its allies without just going whole-hog public. Keeping it secret is well and good until somebody finds out the truth, so the longer it's hidden (and note that the Gateway was discovered in the 1980s), the worse the fallout can be. If you're covering it up, you could probably release any found technology or reverse-engineering as natural technology advances. Given enough time, you could maybe even claim the Gateway is our own scientific breakthrough.

2. Making more Gateways? Semo and Angel made good points in that the whole reason for the Greene mousetrap is because the Imperium will definitely be watching their Gate. That's not to say you can't try to find other codes with the Gate you have. Part of making the knowledge public might involve making Gates for allies and whatnot.
Dieter 2007-07-10 16:00:41
Revised Plan:

The Prep

The Gateway Room

Sounds good, regardless of any further preperation.

The Rover

- Strap The Asset on top. Gag him. Put a copper cage around his head so he can't use those implants to establish radio contact.

I'd venture a guess there may be some psychic powers at work along with radio frequencies.

The Bomb

I'd be more inclined to have a fuel-air bomb. You've got the force and power of a nuke without the radioactive side-effects.

Phase One

-We dial in -> if they want to screw with us right here, we can get Delta into the room and fire through the gate.

*Ahem*

They -will- have a MantaShip ready to fire the moment the Gate is open, followed by several legions of the shock troopers we've already encountered. I'd venture another guess as to them having prepared for our firearms and other technology.

The Turai are ruthless and don't negotiate.

Honestly, I doubt this plan will go any further than Phase 1.

Max's plan: Nuke the Whirr Gate site from Orbit...it's on the only way to be sure. We go in hot and shoot every last Turai and then negotiate. If they are dumb enough to have their only bargaining chip at the scene, well...the military will no doubt call it a calculated loss.
Gatac 2007-07-10 16:13:30
Actually, we dial out, so they can't fire through the gate. That's precisely the reason we go first.

If they do have the means to fire through and Hugh can't kill it quickly enough, we're prepared with multiple soldiers standing by and brass knowing about our plan so any invasion can be shut down by killing Mesas Negras. I doubt it gets anywhere near that bad, but it's an option.

On the other hand, even if they don't intend to screw us, they will have heavy firepower parked near the gateway. We can't go in hot - they'll slaughter us. They have the tech edge and are the defenders, there's no way we can send enough people through the gate to overrun them and get a foothold.

If you just want to nuke them, shove the bomb through the gate. Me, I favor a honest attempt at rescueing Greene. Plus, if we nuke them, we'll piss off the Whirr.

All that's leaving aside the fact that the military guys won't authorize a goddamn nuclear strike while we've still got options. In fact, our success at fighting turai on their turf has probably killed that option - the fact that our regular guns work well enough means we don't have to resort to desperation attacks.

And if they get their ships into orbit somehow, we're gonna need every nuke we have. THEN it's desperate enough to ask for nuclear authorisation.

(I never thought I'd shoot down a "nuke it from orbit" plan, but there I go.)

Gatac
Dieter 2007-07-10 16:19:47
I'm lobbying for a fuel-air bomb. It's a profound "fuck you and right back at yer!" manuever and lets the Turai know we -also- mean business. I'm pretty sure the Whirr's Gate would definitely survive the blast and the collateral damage would be limited to the immediate 500 or so yards from Ground Zero.

Simply, I do not trust the Turai at all. I also do not trust ADS to play the Turai as anything but the ruthless, enslaving, alien bastards they've been since First Contact. :P
fanchergw 2007-07-10 17:28:56
admiralducksauce wrote:

Besides the immediate goal of rescuing Greene, what do you guys think should be done with:

1. Making the Gate/Imperium public? There are several degrees of public as well. I mean, security leaks aside, the US could make this knowledge available to its allies without just going whole-hog public. Keeping it secret is well and good until somebody finds out the truth, so the longer it's hidden (and note that the Gateway was discovered in the 1980s), the worse the fallout can be. If you're covering it up, you could probably release any found technology or reverse-engineering as natural technology advances. Given enough time, you could maybe even claim the Gateway is our own scientific breakthrough.

2. Making more Gateways? Semo and Angel made good points in that the whole reason for the Greene mousetrap is because the Imperium will definitely be watching their Gate. That's not to say you can't try to find other codes with the Gate you have. Part of making the knowledge public might involve making Gates for allies and whatnot.

Personally, I think the government should share the info about the gates and Turai with other governments through back channels, not publically (this kind of thing goes on all the time). They're going to need to know if the Turai find a way to Earth. Also, there may be other gates already in existance in the world that we don't know about.

I think there are too many reasons for making new gates to not do so. However, I think that's a long-term consideration, so may not be relevant to the campaign. If it's fast and we can find other valid gates fast, then the Greene exchange becomes easier with an intermediate gate to work with.
Gatac 2007-07-11 14:07:01
I think we should keep the FAE in mind for later, but let's try the carrot first.

Once we either have Greene or he's confirmed to be dead, we can start fucking with them.

Gatac
e of pi 2007-07-11 19:49:26
Greene's alive, but his uncompleted words to me sound like a warning of some kind of trickery on their end. "There's t..." could end with anything from "-en guys with sharp sticks" to "-en thousand Mantas all pointed at you." Stay sharp.
Gatac 2007-07-11 19:54:56
We've sent them our conditions. If they give us shit and want to change the deal, we abort. Simple as that. We're as dug in as we can be while still having a method to retrieve Greene.

Gatac
Dieter 2007-07-11 20:00:15
Gatac wrote:

We've sent them our conditions. If they give us shit and want to change the deal, we abort. Simple as that. We're as dug in as we can be while still having a method to retrieve Greene.

Gatac

Yep. Time to shit or get off the pot.
Admiral Duck Sauce 2007-07-11 21:21:30
Short answer, yes, you can get a spacesuit. It'll take a couple hours to get there. Alternatively, you can squeeze Varos into one of the Turai suits. There were a couple that were only killed with headshots and they could be patched. That's maybe... 15 minutes' work.
Gatac 2007-07-11 21:24:20
No way we're gonna stick him in turai armor.

The way I see it, we either tell them it'll take a couple more hours, that they should find another place where he won't need protection, or that it's off.

Gatac
Dieter 2007-07-11 21:31:55
They've lugged the Gate out of atmo which means we're going to have deal with this in a Zero-G mindset.

IIRC nuclear weapons work fine in a vacuum. ;)

Other than that approach, I'd force them to bring the Gate back to a ground site. We should not yield to their current terms.