I'll volunteer to take point on the SpaceGate capture team, unless somebody else wants it.

Well, there's a few slots that have to get filled on each team. Each team needs a leader, and depending on where El Jefe (or us) decide where the PC team for Boronai's going to wind up, either capping the gate over Boronai or attacking the Spire (although they could be done in sequence, given the timing of the attack), we're gonna need a pilot or someone who knows a lot about Imperial tech, unless you guys want to count on the NPCs surviving a CQB situation in a armed military ship.

As for the ROBS hit, the main thing we need is another tech geek. This isn't a luxury, it's probably going to take more than one hardcore tech nerd to pull this off. We all just got a nice big bag of XP, so this is a more flexible role, but we still need some people. I'm thinking we need four currently named characters here, and at least two PCs. Everyone else can go on the Boronai raid.

One thing I'd say is going to be important is timing. We need to keep suprise on our side as much as possible, so all the Boronai Gate hits (ground and space) that we can do in the first few minutes need to be done then, before they can get a handle on what's happening and go to higher security and all that sort of thing.

EDIT: Also, in terms of troos per hit, I think the ground Gate initial strike teams should each be maybe two fireteams of guys with guns, and a few combat engineers. When their target Gate is dialed, they hustle through en masse before the other end can shut down the Gate, then quickly secure the immediate area (clear civilians, take up defensive positions, ect...). With this done, the combat engineers should then cut/disconnect the controls from the Gateport control room, to allow us to send more troops from our end without being cutoff.

This initial force should be quickly (read ten minutes or less) re-enforced by enough soldiers and engineers to establish a beachhead and take control of the Gateport in its entirety.

Again, the first strikes need to be pretty much sychronized. The entire "dial, deploy, shift to next Gate" thing needs to happen pretty quick, probably less than two minutes for the entire process of deploying the primary forces through the target Gate. The orbital Gates are a similar story, but with the added complication of being in space. Thus, those strike teams will need to be larger, ship-borne, and armed with more AT-4s and such.

I imagine that the ground Gate teams can be handled without requiring a PC's presence, provided the troops have been well-briefed and trained with the realities of the Imperium. The SpaceGates...well, just by needing a ship they make things harder. If we deploy PCs anywhere in the first phase of the Boronai strike, I'd say make it there.

Actually, I believe the plan was to have two strike teams aboard Mantas go through both gates first, disguised as resupply troops, and capture the Needleships first, to establish space superiority, which is by far the biggest issue we face. Once they're through and both ships have been captured, using your earlier idea of leaving the dialed gates open for as long as possible to keep them locked down, then the ground forces hit the gates, using whatever method is determined to work best (I like your idea of cutting off gate control and forcing manual dialing).

Simultaneously, the ground forces in the transport ships (the large majority of ground troops, the tanks and helicopters) begin assaulting the city and the Spire. The attack on the Spire will be focused on securing and maintaining a perimeter so the forces at the city can surround the city hostiles, isolate them and issue a demand for surrender. If they do (which hopefully they will, thanks to superior numbers and the speed of our strike, not to mention the shock-and-awe factor of being attacked by Homeworlders with powerful weapons they've never seen before), then after hostiles are captured and moved to a secure location, we can move most of our troops out of the city and swing north to the Spire, where we surround and push in like we did with the city.

I still think running a very quick strike mission through the Spire gate to knock it out by destroying the elevator it sits on would be best (five minutes, in and out) at the opening of all of this, preventing them from using it for reinforcements, to smuggle out the good tech stuff, and to stop them from blowing it up if they so choose.

(Edit: As far as the Napai team goes, I think most of it is intel and training. That team needs to drill over and over until we're able to be indistinguishable from a Turai quad, but most of all, we need intel. Depending on where we pick up the story, we're gonna need to know the layout of the entry area and hopefully some of the interior, whether or not our Faraday cage helmets protect us from the mind jellies (they should, it's not like they have eyes to see us with), access, and everything else. If we pick up just as the invasion team is about to roll through the orbital gates, we'll need to have the whole plan in place, which means we'll have spent a few weeks there, doing ground work and prepping for the penetration.

Aside from that, anyone else have any ideas or things we should do, or should we split into teams and get cracking? If so, I think Luis should come with the Napai team. With Max currently indisposed, he's our best tech guy and we need him to backup Jon on the hack.)

I don't recall there being Boronai Needleships. Are there?

Depends on what stage of the plan we fade back to. If it's before we do advance scouting (well, the Bashakrans do advance scouting) to get troop numbers, disposition and location, then we're operating under the assumption that there's two Needleships, one guarding each gate, as this is the world with their most holy building and there's going to be at least one. If we've got all our advance intel (both for Boronai and Napai), then we'll know who's where. Up to ADS which is which.

Punkey wrote:

Depends on what stage of the plan we fade back to. If it's before we do advance scouting (well, the Bashakrans do advance scouting) to get troop numbers, disposition and location, then we're operating under the assumption that there's two Needleships, one guarding each gate, as this is the world with their most holy building and there's going to be at least one. If we've got all our advance intel (both for Boronai and Napai), then we'll know who's where. Up to ADS which is which.

I didn't get the impression that Boronai was a holy world. The Spire's more like a archive/R&D place, not Mecca, right? That was my understanding.

E's right. Sambasan is their "mostly kinda" holy planet. Boranai's Spire is a research hub, but as the Imperial religion does involve the worship of supremely technologically advanced aliens, there's a bit of religious awe to the place. At any rate, with a lot of their goodies in such a relatively small basket, there will mostly likely be a Needleship close to Boranai.

Aw, not quite as big a prize as I thought it would be. Still, it's tech we're after...

Makes the idea of blowing that Spire gate even more appealing. How's our intel on that?

If it's loot you're after, how about Turai kegs? They don't just make gates. How valuable would a frisbee keg be? Or a keg for the orbital gates?

I'd think that we're after anything that we can get our hands on, preferably everything we can get our hands on. Anyone disagree?

Yeah, let's loot techh whereever we can. We've got a lot of catching up to do.

Also, intel bump.

Gatac

The Spire Gate runs up and down the length of the main tower on a sort of elevator. You need the code for the Gate itself, and then a second security code for the machinery holding the gate. This'll run the Gate to the correct level of the Spire. Keepers are likely to have Gate codes for the Spire.

For all its electronic security, it's not exactly the most robust design. Blow the Gate off its runners and it'd probably be blocked off by the rubble no doubt joining it at the bottom of the main shaft.

From the outside, if you have space superiority you can eventually crack through the Spire's top and just slag the central shaft from above.

Does any of that help?

Would anyone we know, say, Hethna Varos know the gate codes? They revoked his security clearance but they can't revoke gate codes, and all we need is to open the gate and toss in a bomb. I think it's about time we try to finally flip him, anyway.

That's sound logic. Varos would have the Gate code no matter what they changed the security codes to.

admiralducksauce wrote:

That's sound logic. Varos would have the Gate code no matter what they changed the security codes to.

But would he be able to get them to open a Gate we could throw stuff through? That's the real question.


EDIT: Also, may I inquire as to something? What happens after Boronai/Napai? We need to consider our strategy from there on somewhat, I think. Some questions to consider (just off the top of my head):
1. What happens to Boronai? Is this a hit-and-fade or a full-on occupation? I think the former is really all that's needed, and that the latter makes us look as bad as the Imperium in the eyes of the very people we hope to win the hearts of.
2. What is our strategy after Go-Day? It's unlikely this one raid will win the war, so what do we do afterwards?
3. What do we do with our stretegic assets (in other words, the Gateship)? Do we leave it behind? If we take if with us, where do we park it, and what do we use it for?
4. Do we make use of the Gateship we now have contact with? At least until after the attack, it could make a valuable proxy, and it's a source of Imperium engine schematics and other techical data (presumably, some teams are already downloading this stuff to look over)?

P.S. I submit "Go-Day" or "G-Day" as the codename for the mission launch date. Obviously, D-Day is taken, and A-Day is a bit confusing in verbal use. However, since the -Day thing lines up with the Imperium's common "-ai" suffix, if we could 'by-chance' select a designator that line up with an Imperium curse, so much the better. (i.e. We use "Go-day," Imperium 'godai' happens to mean something suitably pajorative)

1. I'm going with occuapation. This isn't some little podunk country that we're going after, trying to force a regime change and spread democracy, and we're not the big bully superpower. This is the Imperium, and it's all-out war. We need to capture and hold territory, for all different kinds of strategic reasons. If we give it back, we won't look like the better party, we'll have retreated. Unless we start yanking people off the street and ripping their arms and legs off, we'll be better than the Imperials. Military importance aside, the fact that we've captured one of their planets would be a huge morale boost for us and a big problem for the Imperials.
2. They'll already be on alert, so more surgical hit-and-run strikes against military targets like shipyards, military bases and other large-scale military facilities would probably be the best option until we have a large enough fleet to face them in head-to-head battles.
3. Depends on where the gateship is going. We'll have to find that out before we decide what to do with it.
4. Ditto.

As for D-day, it's not called that because they thought it was a snazzy name, it's simply military lingo for the start date of a major invasion. D-day, H-hour, so you can refer to it in scheduling, for example, having our forces in place by D-2 days or securing the city by H+12 hours. Iraq and Desert Storm had one, the invasions of North Africa, Sicily and Italy one, Korea had one, and Boronai will have one.

(Edit: After talking/fighting with E, I want to clarify that we're not going to be locking down Boronai, just taking it over. We'll open it up to limited trade, probably only through footgates, after we stop blowing things up. Also, edited to remove the angry and frustration I have going on due to being ill. )

Regarding the Gateship, I wasn't able to find if I said where it was going, but it is taking a while to get there (80? years? I don't remember exactly). If you wanted to use it as a base, you might actually want to slow it down to minimize the time dilation.

OK dokey, I'm pretty ready to start the big show. The plan as I understand it is:

1. Napai team infiltrates to the surface using false Turai credentials. They bide their time.

2. Two separate boarding teams using false Turai suits and captured mantas hijack two Needleships.

3. Needleships take and hold the outsystem and orbital gates in Boranai's system. Ground forces blitz the Boranai Gateport and establish a beachhead. Explosives are shunted through the Spire Gate and cripple the enemy's escape.

4. Napai team infiltrates the ROBS and does their karate to it.

Not quite my understanding. I thought we were only planning to hijack a Needleship if there was already one in-system at Boronai. If there's not a Needle deployed in the system, we don't need to worry about it. Honestly, if there's no Needles in-system, a pair of frieghters or something can probably serve for what we need to do in orbit.

Of course, I could have the wrong impression. That may be more likely.