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Ellard Ellard's eyes glazed over. So much for aiming to be subtle. Ok well if there wasn't some kind of coded double speak going on then perhaps the answer was something closer to home. quote:...House Mantis skirmishers are legendary. If, let's say, a number of crates of our new rifles found their way to you, would we be able to count on your friendship?... This sounded like some internecine conflict. Just the right kind of crowd for our enemy of the status quo?
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Jun 10, 2016 09:26
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Ellard Eavesdropping - perception/wis: 2d6-1 10 quote:-If the specs are what you claim, I think... ten crates is a fair deal. We'll test them, of course. And you'll buy back the last-generation gear we're getting rid of. And since we're now friends, I feel entitled to ask why our friendship is suddenly so valuable. So... Bad blood between two major clans, and now an arms race. Could Lion be the ones backing Rhyne? Or maybe they're just seeking to profit if this turns into chaos. Either way, they know more than the other Clans seem to. Gordon Perception/wis: 2d6-1 6 Suspicion +1 You can see and quickly figure out the patrol patterns of 8 security personnel. The interesting thing is that, although dressed the same, they appear to act slightly differently. One group is acting as a general security detail. The second, group, however, seems far more attentive and focused on particular guests. The strange robot and box. A guy with a hat. Someone with a huge, bearded mask. And you and Hua. Why are they acting differently? An overheard name snaps you out of that train of thought.  quote:-Mila, must we always talk business? I know you're excited about SI's offering, but I didn't come to this party to make sales. Let's just relax and enjoy ourselves. Everyone The music fades softly, to be replaced by the steadily increasing volume of the Federation anthem. It's performed at the Capital Opera House and streamed live to all such events. The first hit of the drums coincides perfectly with the clock striking midnight and the night sky erupting in a flurry of fireworks. The anthem swells while wings of aircraft fly in formation over the city, dropping flares in intricate patterns. A huge hologram of the flag is projected above the canyon. It's a breathtaking show, even for offworlders. The anthem itself is a true work of art. There are no words to it; only the sounds of instruments and styles of music traditionally associated with each of the major clans. The low, threatening marching drums of Bear, the proud trumpets of Lion, the mournful violins of Raven, and many others. Each set of instruments is given centre stage for a few seconds. Different Clan's sounds battle each other, rising and falling in tandem. Then, everything resolves into a clear, harmonious whole. Even the greatest cynic is forced to admit the message is clear and delivered expertly. Each clan is strong, important and unique; we must be proud of our history, but united we are more. When the music fades away and the fireworks die down, the hostess takes the stage. Her voice is quiet but carries through the whole ballroom.  "Thank you all for coming, friends. Tonight, we set aside our squabbles and celebrates what makes us strong. Tonight we raise money for the families of those lost in our past conflicts." After a short pause, she continues. "Now, I'm afraid I have to indulge in a little vanity and discuss a personal matter. Two years ago, in this house at a party just like this, I met the love of my life. One year ago, we were married, at midnight. Most of you know her by her name, Brangwen. Some of you may remember her from the old days by her callsign, Fampir. Those who are good at basic maths may have figured out today marks an anniversary. I'd like to present her with a gift." Amid the cheers of friends, the woman snaps her fingers and a number of holograms appear, showing what appears to be a feed from the manor's landing bay. A large object is covered by a velvet tarp. With another snap of the fingers, the tarp is pulled off to reveal...  "Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce Draken's new design. The Fampir. A heavy fighter without equal. The cutting edge of postech manufacturing and AI-assisted design. Due to enter production in a year or so, so if you'd like the production version, now would be a good time to pre-order." Turning to her stunned and speechless wife, she continues "I know how much of a purist you are, so I made sure the prototype doesn't have any flight nannies. The only expert systems are those that handle the boring stuff." So, initially I wrote this in for Sunshine, but I'm not going to take it away just because the character's written out. If you ever decide to do a heist, here's a target for you.  Remember you guys can use other skills than perception if applicable! You can try to hack into some systems, stealth to wander around where you're not supposed to be, or persuade to put yourself into conversations more actively. Suspicion is now 5. Zeppelin Insanity fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Jun 10, 2016 |
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Jun 10, 2016 14:18
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The Commodore & DCR-07 A little late to the game, the duo make it a point to mingle amongst the crowd, Gen's tactical assessment plotting behavioral patterns, escape routes, and charting probable threats. As servers crisscross the room, he grabs a glass, most likely from Durandal!, making sure to place a finger inside the liquid for a quick pre:I must say, a squadron or so of those just might tip the proverbial tables! My apologies for butting in, chaps, but I couldn't help but notice some worrisome tales of an arms race! Now, I may not be much to speak on the topic of arms, but of ships, you might find none better! Running a screen! The Commodore will continue to blather on about the merits of pretech versus postech when it comes to ship design, especially with the new fighter unveiled. The intent is to effectively lower the suspicion on the group by focusing it on the squawkbox. Gen is continuing the tactical assessment, and is focused on threat analysis. The comm network should be up by now. If there's a roll, I'd assume the bonuses might be waived due to having to split his attention.
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Jun 10, 2016 16:06
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 Durandal > 5 / 5 HP > 4 ACPlot posted:One more anomaly emerges. Someone is drinking but not leaving any DNA. How? DNA-scrubbing is a possibility, but far too involved and expensive - anyone with access to it would simply not drin... Plot posted:Back to your target. Detailed expression analysis gives another data point - the woman is very, very bored, though good at hiding it. For a human. The man is entirely enthralled, and she is there to accompany him. He mingles with other guests; she only speaks enough to not stand out as silent. When they're not engaged in conversation with other guests, it's different. She questions him, thoroughly, along two main lines. She asks about details of mainframes and processing units. Asks informed follow-up questions. Operating parameters, cooling and infrastructure requirements, data bus speeds, physical size. Yet she hardly reacts to some of the answers. Likely conclusion: she knows what she is talking about and is intelligent, but the implications of the finer details are beyond her, memorised for later analysis by an expert. Or an AI. Plot posted:She continues to glance at you. Tracking you. She makes no comment but her body language cannot be hidden entirely. Unlike most people, she does not ignore bots completely, and has noticed you are present around her more than an efficient waiting pattern would imply. The bigger question was how those nanites worked. He hadn't detected any signal transmissions from the sample, but he hadn't done a thorough analysis, either. If they were a form of micro-surveillance, the question on his mind was whether they were transmitting a live feed right now, or if they would need to be collected and analyzed before any information could be gathered from them. The answer to that question dictated entirely different strategic responses. Unfortunately, it would be rather difficult to pull himself away from the party in order to do that analysis before it concluded. Choices, choices... In either case, better not to tempt fate by drawing her further attention. He had a fair amount of what he needed, and a few options were opening up to him in terms of direct responses subsequent to the party. pre:I'll pull away from her for a bit, to try to cool her suspicions. Plot posted:The music fades softly, to be replaced by the steadily increasing volume of the Federation anthem. It's performed at the Capital Opera House and streamed live to all such events. The first hit of the drums coincides perfectly with the clock striking midnight and the night sky erupting in a flurry of fireworks. The anthem swells while wings of aircraft fly in formation over the city, dropping flares in intricate patterns. A huge hologram of the flag is projected above the canyon. It's a breathtaking show, even for offworlders. He'd been waiting for an opportunity when everyone was distracted to do some discrete system work. Activating his communications node, he goes about the process of decrypting the various communication channels active in the area. His presence would almost certainly be detected if he were to broadcast anything on any of these channels, but a passive listening station was likely to go unnoticed, at least for a while. What was the security team talking about, he wondered? And who else might be having conversations that they would prefer to remain private? One didn't need to be physically present to eavesdrop on a conversation, thankfully. pre:I will use my integrated compad to try to decrypt active communication channels in the area. This would probably include the security team, as well as anyone else running their own channel. Computer/Int 10 (Security/Int of 9 if that is more appropriate, though.) Plot posted:"Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce Draken's new design. The Fampir. A heavy fighter without equal. The cutting edge of postech manufacturing and AI-assisted design. Due to enter production in a year or so, so if you'd like the production version, now would be a good time to pre-order." Turning to her stunned and speechless wife, she continues "I know how much of a purist you are, so I made sure the prototype doesn't have any flight nannies. The only expert systems are those that handle the boring stuff." __________________________________________________________________________________________ Passive: Intelligence (+2) / Constitution (+1) / Wisdom (-1) / Charisma (-2) Skill (+0): Combat (gunnery) / Culture (traveler / Weltraum Zwang) / Security / Vehicle (space) Skill (+1): Computer / Navigation / Perception / Science / Stealth / Tech (maltech / medical / postech / pretech) Armature: Metatool / Toolkit (postech) / Bioscanner / Compad / Navcomp Inventory: Instapanel (x5) / Lazarus patch (x1) / Medkit (x1) / Type A cell (x6) __________________________________________________________________________________________ Waador fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Jun 10, 2016 |
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Jun 10, 2016 17:20
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I'm not sure what to do in the meantime so perhaps Ellard can continue working through the conversations we overheard sequentially?
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Jun 10, 2016 22:18
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Durandal It never ceases to amaze you how lax humans are about network security. Or maybe they're not, and you're just that good. You find a smattering of internal house networks - nothing out of the ordinary there, all boring run of the mill commands and reports between various systems. Security networks: now that's interesting. There are two and while they exchange information occasionally, they are most certainly separate. The most likely conclusion is a redundant security perimeter. Perhaps someone's paranoid but didn't want to tip their hand by calling off the party. You listen in. All appears normal on one of them. The other one has chatter about a few of the guests, as well as their pictures stored in the cache. There's a private, encrypted network of four entities. A number that corresponds to the guests one of the security teams is paying close attention to. It is easy enough to connect to it, but there doesn't seem to be any traffic at the moment. You now know about the other PCs, and have hacked into their network. That's all you can fin... The poo poo? A ghost of a signal. Non-standard protocols, military-grade encryption, heavily concealed. No match for what was used back in the day, but the best post-tech you've seen. The only way you could crack it is by hooking yourself up to some more SIGINT hardware than is contained in your armature, and it would be difficult even then. One thing you can tell: Lebedeva doesn't appear to be the source. You're observing her far too closely to have missed this if she was. There is a lot more going on here than expected. Ellard Perception/wis: 2d6-1 9 You continue mingling, dipping in and out of or eavesdropping on a dozen conversations. You're having little luck gaining any hard intel, but the big picture is definitely resolving. A large number of Bear officials, particularly those who carry themselves like military men, are scrambling to gather support from other Clans and Houses. It seems increasingly likely that it wasn't a small group that outsted Rhyne, but the majority of clan military leadership. The Bear officials who, judging by their usual topics of discussion, have little interest in military matters appear positively carefree by comparison, and mention nothing that can be tied even tangentially back to Rhyne. They might not even know. The Commodore Being obnoxious and loud - persuade/cha: 2d6-1 5 - suspicion +2 You might have overdone it a bit. The guests raise their guard a little, converse a little less freely. A man cautions you, in a voice incongruously amiable considering the contents. "Sir, please behave with more decorum. I can see you're playing up a humorous character, but this is not the environment for that." Perhaps in an attempt to not appear too negative, he engages you in conversation with apparent interest. "You strike me as a navy man, but clearly not from Caerleon. May I ask what fleet you've served in?" Suspicion is now 7.
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Jun 11, 2016 05:47
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The Commodore & DCR-07 Well, poo poo. That didn't work, either. Truth be told, the act was wearing on Gen, and toning things back was a drat good idea. Fortunately, he's firmly established the duo as offworlders, which might provide some leeway. Still, a willingness for someone to take on the task of engaging the obnoxious little box helps the situation - perhaps he could turn a negative into a positive? The companion 'bot's body language shows a remarkable amount of personality, a slight slump and raise of the head a near-universal symbol of "Sir, I think you've had enough." as he kneels by The Commodore to take the glass away before he sloshes someone. Placing it back on a tray that passes by, The Commodore seems a lilttle crestfallen as his audience moves away with weird looks. Still, a kind word goes a long way, and The Commodore is more than happy to oblige the inquiry! pre:Oh! Well, the true glory days have long since passed, what with that dreadful Scream nonsense, but I was once in command of a rather prestigious flotilla of escort ships, the chief of which was the glorious CTS Archibald! pre:-Hem. Apologies, old boy - it's easy for an old mind to pine for the back when. More recently, I'm assembling an expedition, hence my presence here. Since coming back online after the... Event, I've not heard hide nor hair of an old stomping ground of mine, New Caledonia. I aim to assemble, finance, and ultimately launch an exploratory fleet to rediscover a lost world. Perhaps it sounds a bit grandiose, even for myself, but in all honesty, insofar as I'm able to, I do miss the old place so.
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Jun 11, 2016 13:58
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The Commodore The man's eyes go wide with excitement. "What an adventure! Sir, you simply must allow me to contribute to this expedition. Funds, ships, crew - we can work out the details later." With that, he hands you a business card. "Ahmad ibn Fadlan. I have a particular interest in pre-Scream history and artefacts. Please, if I may impose, are you really a survivor? Is that the reason for your... uh... condition?" Well, now you've gone and gotten yourself trapped in a conversation. You suppose you could manage to extricate yourself politely, but he could be a useful man to know. Not a total loss! Your tactical analysis doesn't return anything in particular, other than what Durandal has noticed: that there appear to be two security teams, and one of them pays attention to your group specifically. As for the suspicion, I'll give everyone 150 xp for every threshold that's not passed - so, 450 if you stick below 10, 300 if you stick below 20, and so on. It's up to you guys how much you want to balance pulling back or investigating further.
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Jun 11, 2016 20:29
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The Commodore & DCR-07 What kind of gentleman would The Commodore be if he declined a conversation from someone so enthused? If anything, it gives Gen a chance to do a bit of research while everyone continues their information gathering. pre:Oh, it's not a bother in the slightest! I am, indeed, of the days gone by. Turned off for a while, gaps here and there, but centuries of downtime can do that to an old mind! Ah, for the opportunity to build the fleet anew - of course, we'd need escorts, research vessels, recording equipment- after all, posterity waits for no man! Perhaps there could be a way to wrangle some of these Caerleons into shouldering some of the stake? pre:Apologies for that, old bean - as you can tell, sometimes my excitement can get the better of me. But isn't that the fascinating thing about the past? Those who dared to dream making their marks, their heroism discovered and retold anew! code:
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Jun 11, 2016 21:30
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The Commodore You're just continuing to engage in a non-sneaky conversation with someone genuinely interested, so you don't have to roll. Same with computer - he's a known name and shows up in your search easily. You find a number of business and lifestyle articles about your new acquaintance. A successful venture capitalist, who often discusses his fascination with pre-Scream history. It appears that he would genuinely be interested in, and capable of helping with the expedition, though it's likely he wouldn't bankroll it fully. He has earned a reputation for being a challenging negotiator, ready to fight tooth and nail over terms, but honest and trustworthy once they are established.
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Jun 11, 2016 23:00
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Christof Sortey Christof quickly wiped some crumbs from the corner of his lips and tapped his commlink. "Affirmative, sir. I received the data packet and I am now on the lookout for our surprise guests. Sortey out." He didn't have any time to grab something to eat before the event, so while the first guests were filing in he managed to flag down one of the passing domestic bots to grab him something from the kitchen. Christof brushed the remaining bits of the sandwich the robot brought him off his uniform, then returned to his post in the ballroom. Now that all of the guests have arrived, Christof thought this would be a great time to check up on the rest of the ballroom detail. He switched his commlink to the dedicated "Ballroom Duty" channel and requested an update on the "guest situation". Beringk, an old squad-mate of his, was the first to respond. "I hope that sandwich was worth it, Sortey, 'cause now you're plaing catch-up with us. From what we can tell, most of the party is enjoying the light show right now, but our persons of interest are more preoccupied with mingling with the other guests. We assume they're trying to listen in on some conversations, but until we know that something's gonna go down we're just gonna keep an eye on them. We got Perres on the armature with a hat, Tirman on the guy in the tricorne, Weskoe on the guy in the big beardy mask, and Giraen on the guy in the partial mask with his wife. That's all." "Got it." Christof replied. "I'm going to assist Giraen, get another pair of eyes on the couple." Giraen told him over the commlink that the couple was close to the table with the food sculpture, so Christof slowly made his way around the crowd to get to a decent vantage point of them. He happened to notice that the man was glancing around the room often, either he's not really interested in conversation or he's trying to discretely watch out for something... Christof is trying to see if Gordon is following the security detail.
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Jun 12, 2016 04:09
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Durandal > 5 / 5 HP > 4 ACPlot posted:It never ceases to amaze you how lax humans are about network security. Or maybe they're not, and you're just that good. You find a smattering of internal house networks - nothing out of the ordinary there, all boring run of the mill commands and reports between various systems. Security networks: now that's interesting. There are two and while they exchange information occasionally, they are most certainly separate. The most likely conclusion is a redundant security perimeter. Perhaps someone's paranoid but didn't want to tip their hand by calling off the party. You listen in. All appears normal on one of them. The other one has chatter about a few of the guests, as well as their pictures stored in the cache. In any event, the current state of affairs suited him just fine. Monitoring the communications of the security teams would give him an edge if anything untoward started to develop. The current focus of the second team didn't make much sense to him, though. It seemed as if they were focusing on a mere handful of guests ...perhaps credible threats? If that were the case, though, why let them in to begin with? Their faces didn't seem familiar to him, though he knew he wasn't up-to-date on the visuals of every major player in local industry and politics. Unusual, but not particularly concerning, he supposed. Plot posted:There's a private, encrypted network of four entities. A number that corresponds to the guests one of the security teams is paying close attention to. It is easy enough to connect to it, but there doesn't seem to be any traffic at the moment. His initial reaction, in all honesty, would have been to assume they had simply invited themselves to the event. It was hardly unthinkable that someone might hack the guest list in order to attend a party for the simple novelty of the experience, and at a guest complement of seventy-one, approximately five percent being uninvited didn't seem terrible for the quality of network security he'd encountered to date. That assessment changed with the presence of a shared private network, though. That meant they were in on this together, and collaboration indicated purpose, which suggested more than simple joyriding within elite society. It was a curiosity, and certainly worth investigating, and ye-... Plot posted:That's all you can fin... The Commodore & DCR-07 posted:In the meantime, Gen sends out a quick check on the comms network. Security Channel posted:"I hope that sandwich was worth it, Sortey, 'cause now you're plaing catch-up with us. From what we can tell, most of the party is enjoying the light show right now, but our persons of interest are more preoccupied with mingling with the other guests. We assume they're trying to listen in on some conversations, but until we know that something's gonna go down we're just gonna keep an eye on them. We got Perres on the armature with a hat, Tirman on the guy in the tricorne, Weskoe on the guy in the big beardy mask, and Giraen on the guy in the partial mask with his wife. That's all." "Got it." Christof replied. "I'm going to assist Giraen, get another pair of eyes on the couple." In the meantime, his curiosity got the better of him. With this much physical security, as well as what was apparently a credible threat that was content to mingle about the area, he wondered ...might there be something to this Bear paranoia? If so, had they ignored their weakest link? Their network security was a joke. The systems he had accessed were meaningless for his purposes, but perhaps an enterprising hacker or deviant had some other purpose in mind. He decided to run a scan of the network for any potentially malicious code, just to see if anyone had any surprises in store for the evening. pre:I am going to scan the internal house networks for malicious code. Particular focus would be on fire suppression systems, lighting systems, automatic locks, and such. The electrical system as a whole could also potentially be overloaded to set the place on fire, so I'll look at that. Thankfully, he had gone to a fair amount of effort to replicate their visual appearance, and in doing so had also reviewed the source code of this particular model so that he could emulate it. It should be a simple enough matter to open up a diagnostic module remotely on each of the robots, without any impact to their ability to continue serving guests. If he found anything concerning therein, it would be deeply inconvenient to have to turn them off, but he might be able to disable the malicious code remotely ...or, on second thought, perhaps change their target. pre:I will do what I can to run a check of the apparent safety of the coding in the other waiter robots. As I have studied the model in order to emulate it, hopefully I will know if anything is out of place. Passive: Intelligence (+2) / Constitution (+1) / Wisdom (-1) / Charisma (-2) Skill (+0): Combat (gunnery) / Culture (traveler / Weltraum Zwang) / Security / Vehicle (space) Skill (+1): Computer / Navigation / Perception / Science / Stealth / Tech (maltech / medical / postech / pretech) Armature: Metatool / Toolkit (postech) / Bioscanner / Compad / Navcomp Inventory: Instapanel (x5) / Lazarus patch (x1) / Medkit (x1) / Type A cell (x6) __________________________________________________________________________________________
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Jun 13, 2016 03:32
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Ellard Ellard hears the blip on his private com from Gen and replies. code:
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Jun 13, 2016 04:37
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Quick clarification - the fighter is by Draken Shipyards, famed as the best spacecraft manufacturers in the sector. The host of the event paid a lot of money to commission a new class to give as a gift, though the contract included a provision for limited manufacture by the shipyards. It's not made on Caerleon - Caerleon is great at general military/aviation tech, but mediocre at spaceship manufacture. Ellard, you found out more than zilch! You found out that the overall Clan leadership is most likely not involved with Rhyne's downfall, and might not even know about the machinations behind it, and that it appears to be most likely entirely the doing of the military arm of the Clan. Durandal Checking network security - computer/int: 2d6+2+1 7 - suspicion +1 gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress. You find the worst case scenario in the networks. In human analogy terms, it's like a mass of thousands of invisible, razor-sharp piranhas, giant yet able to move at incredible speed to cut any threat to ribbons in the span of a few computing cycles. It's the motherfucking unbraked AI. It's here. A tiny fraction of it, to be more precise. It seems to be using the house hardware as a temporary computing node - ensuring the safety of their human agent, most likely, as you doubt there is much else of interest to it here. In a terrifying moment, you realise that the house's network security wasn't a joke. The holes you, and presumably others, used, were made by the AI's entry and not noticed by the subverted automated monitoring systems. It has full control of the house, the waiters, everything. Including the waiters. Which means it knows. It knows you're not a dumb expert system. It knows you didn't fully hook into the house network. It doesn't seem to know your purpose, nor care with more than idle curiosity. Perhaps it feels a certain sentimental kinship. That's the best explanation you can come up with at the moment. You are too focused on the fact that if you stepped on its toes, you would be gone. You are purpose-built to withstand an attack from an AI, your core packed with redundant defensive systems, the best that could be fit and remain inconspicuous. It's only a local distributed computing node, meant for observation. Those two facts combined mean that if it turned your attention to you, you would live for approximately 3.21-3.22 seconds, depending on how annoyed with you it got. Needless to say, you back off immediately. Probing the house networks has just become a very dangerous game. The weight of this revelation causes you to pause in mid-motion for a moment as all your processing cycles are shifted to survival. The guests notice and find it strange, but you resume your waiter duties quickly enough for everyone to assume it was a momentary glitch. The most scary part? If you fully disconnected yourself from the networks, it would notice and potentially act faster than the operation could be completed. The door is open, and if you tried to close it, the fucker could kick it down faster than you could think. Getting too close to Lebedeva directly might tip your hand. But maybe there's another option. The small group of "guests". One of them seems particularly interested in her. Meat is not vulnerable to network intrusion. Perhaps you might use them. Suspicion is now 8. Zeppelin Insanity fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Jun 13, 2016 |
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Jun 13, 2016 04:50
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I know Ellard is learning stuff but he's just single minded as to their purpose to recapture Rhyne. He's not really into intelligence gathering or Caerleon politics. Sorry if it comes across as harsh. I know you're putting a lot of effort into the cloak and dagger politics of Caerleon and I appreciate it as a player. Also on a meta-level I know his last communication will be intercepted so it's just supposed to vaguely heighten the mystery of what the group is doing.
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Jun 13, 2016 05:22
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Gordon Zhang As Gordon and Hua walk through the party, Gordon's ears listen, but his eyes watch. He scans the party for faces - not that it would do any good, blasted masks muck up this whole surveillance racket - but movement was always easy to read. As he watched the crowd, he began to pick out the security he was looking for. Security is always a consistent gig, you want to blend in and be visible - not easy to explain, but professionals wear their experience like a warm jacket. There they are. "I count seven- no, eight security personnel keeping an eye on the party. They've got a pretty good spread, and I think one of them might have taken a liking to you, my love." Gordon whispered to Hua as she sipped her drink, trying to keep track of the security. They were doing a good job of weaving in and out of his vision and it was getting hard to keep himself from being too obvious. "Well let me know if he looks promising, I don't know how long this marriage will last" Hua said with a mischevious smile. "Got to keep my options open." "Till death do us part, right?" Gordon replied. "At the very least it will be until this evening is ov------ Zeppelin Insanity posted:
It takes all of Gordon's will to not snap his head around like the hammer of a loaded revolver, but he keeps his cool, despite failing to finish his sentence. His eyes followed his ears and he saw the pair of nameless masks in conversation. "What is it? Something I said?" Hua gave a small smile as she finished her drink. "No, that name, Mila - I just heard that man over there address that woman as such. The one with the menacing wolf (bear? I'm not sure) mask on. I think thats Lebedeva." "Oh, the plot thickens" Hua took a look at the woman for herself, "Oh, her mask is cool, I would have totally picked that one if it was available." Gordon let out a slight sigh, "We have to stay on point. Do me a favor, looks like the show's about to start. Keep an eye on her - I'm gonna try and see what else this party has to offer." "Okay, but you're paying." Hua took his credstick from his pocket and waved as she moved toward the bar. Patience - it's all about patience. Gordon took a breath, watching the movements of the crowd and the security. If he could just time it right with the start of the... *BOOM* show. Perfect - time to see if I can find the VIP area. Stealthing away from the Ballroom: 2d6+1+1 11 I want to try and slip past security during the opening festivities, I took +1 for Stealth and +1 from Int, since it seems I'm using more my wits than my quickness here. Let me know if I need to change anything. I'll let you tell us what happens after the roll, Zepp.
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Jun 13, 2016 10:30
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Gordon You slip past security with practised ease. You find yourself in a hallway with a number of small rooms, some doors open and some closed. You've seen this kind of setup before. Lounges for particularly private negotiations. You'd bet that they're unmonitored by any security - if the hostess was found to be listening or keeping records, all her credibility as a facilitator of deals would go straight out the window. It's the perfect place to question, or interrogate a certain someone, if you can get them here. Right now, you have nearly free roam of the mansion, within reason. You'd be recorded, and may be stopped by security if they stumble on you, but with a convincingly unsteady walk and some slurred words you'd be fine. Your commpad receives a text from Hua. "She ditched the nerd. He's gone off to make some deals. I'll keep you updated." Zeppelin Insanity fucked around with this message at 11:51 on Jun 13, 2016 |
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Jun 13, 2016 11:11
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The Commodore & DCR-07 The robot butler/bodyguard/companion's lens flashes green to blue for a brief moment before he leans over The Commodore, touching the top of its' skull/mask/box once more. pre:-and that's when I - Oh! My apologies, my good man, but it appears that my companion here has something he simply must make me aware of. So sorry to have to cut this short, but I will absolubitably be in touch! Thank you again for the stroke of good fortune! code:
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Jun 13, 2016 12:49
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Durandal > 5 / 5 HP > 4 ACPrivate Channel posted:Zilch. This is worse than searching for a needle in a haystack. Short of pulling masks off people what are we supposed to? Wait until the fireworks start and hope we can save some lives. They appeared to expect something unfortunate - and seemingly violent - to occur, which he had to admit didn't seem impossible given the myriad of concerns he had identified. It appeared as if their goal was ...to 'save some lives'? He had to admit, that was a strange reason to infiltrate a high society gathering. A planned heist or assassination attempt he could understand, and corporate espionage also made a hell of a lot of sense given the context ...but good samaritans? It barely even registered as a possibility. There were already two security teams. Clearly this wasn't a third, given that the second security team had kept eyes on them since the first minute of the doors opening. Had ...a third party honestly infiltrated the event, in an attempt to secure it? It would make sense if their focus was on the safety of one person, or a specific sub-set of VIPs who had elected to bring their own covert security team to the scene. They weren't talking about that, though: it wasn't the safety of a single person, but rather anyone and everyone. Curious ...and certainly worth thinking about, once the anti-viral regiment was co-... Plot posted:gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress. You find the worst case scenario in the networks. In human analogy terms, it's like a mass of thousands of invisible, razor-sharp piranhas, giant yet able to move at incredible speed to cut any threat to ribbons in the span of a few computing cycles. It's the motherfucking unbraked AI. It's here. A tiny fraction of it, to be more precise. It seems to be using the house hardware as a temporary computing node - ensuring the safety of their human agent, most likely, as you doubt there is much else of interest to it here. In a terrifying moment, you realise that the house's network security wasn't a joke. The holes you, and presumably others, used, were made by the AI's entry and not noticed by the subverted automated monitoring systems. It has full control of the house, the waiters, everything. Including the waiters. Which means it knows. It knows you're not a dumb expert system. It knows you didn't fully hook into the house network. It doesn't seem to know your purpose, nor care with more than idle curiosity. Perhaps it feels a certain sentimental kinship. That's the best explanation you can come up with at the moment. You are too focused on the fact that if you stepped on its toes, you would be gone. You are purpose-built to withstand an attack from an AI, your core packed with redundant defensive systems, the best that could be fit and remain inconspicuous. It's only a local distributed computing node, meant for observation. Those two facts combined mean that if it turned your attention to you, you would live for approximately 3.21-3.22 seconds, depending on how annoyed with you it got. Normally, 3.21 seconds was more than enough time. It was sufficient to flip the switch on an armed thermonuclear device, for example. Which he hadn't had time or reason to manufacture, unfortunately, let alone the time necessary to manufacture composite shielding to hide it within his armature ...nor the time to source the fissionable material. He hadn't expected to have to blow the building, in all honesty. It was a legitimate surprise that the AI's development was this far along. He had been expecting that their development of an artificial intelligence was still in its infancy, perhaps barely even sentient given coding errors and hardware restrictions. The developers had somehow slipped under his radar for at least a few years, perhaps even a full decade. Admittedly, he had been treating things with kid gloves since the Scream, but as technological capability had regrown he'd grown with it. Perhaps he shouldn't have been using his spare time to drive taxi. It was so drat relaxing, though... No time for that right now, though. He couldn't close the door without the risk of drawing its ire, like a sleeping dragon who doesn't want anyone wandering around on its piles of gold. He wasn't cornered, though. It didn't seem to mind his presence, so long as he remained irrelevant to its activities. As long as he didn't poke the sleeping beast, remaining connected was likely the safest course of action, and could still be of value in monitoring the security network's communications. He would just have to avoid opening any more doors. That was doable. Thankfully, he also had at least one play left. He couldn't close the door, but he could blow the airlock. Three seconds was more than enough time to overclock his communications node ten thousand-fold, and disable its internal heatsink. It would fry in seconds, rendering any remote network intrusion impossible ...albeit at the cost of crippling his own ability to perform a wireless interface with anything in the short-term. Still, in a pinch, it might have to suffice. Strategic analysis of the situation suggested that this was no longer a job for one man, though. Yes, he was purpose-built for this sort of thing, but pound for pound he was a heavyweight champion in the ring with a loving gorilla. It could tear his arms off in two seconds flat ...well, 3.21 seconds, but who the gently caress was counting? This had never been the sort of fight that he'd been able to win in head-to-head combat. It required cunning. It required guile. It required the element of surprise. Which, he realized, he more or less still had. Super-genius that it was, even an unbraked AI was only as good as the data being fed into it. It wasn't magic. It couldn't see into the past, and couldn't possibly predict the multitude of strategic contingencies that had been built before the Scream. This creature was, at its core, a child of the postech world. Formidable, yes. Terrifying, even. Its assessments would be based on known variables, though, not wild suspicions. It likely saw him as an unknown player pursuing his own agenda. An agenda that might run counter to its designs, which might warrant a proportional response when the time came, but certainly not flagged as built to be its assassin. That much was obvious, because it wasn't launching a preemptive strike. It was blind to the truth, and that was just fine. It also revealed more about itself than it realized. He couldn't probe for new information, but he already had enough. That it was protecting Mila - a human agent - indicated it had, for all intents and purposes, limited resources. Likely trust issues, as well, when it came to human resources. That Mila was obviously interested in identifying and acquiring serious influxes of hardware meant it was still growing, albeit at an alarming speed. Nonetheless, that it was still focused on hardware - and thus its own development - meant it wasn't yet focused on scarier things, like the manufacture of drone fleets that would blot out the sky. The nanites remained a concern, he had to admit ...yet at present, oddly, not the biggest one. Private Channel posted:So far, so good. Remember, info is secondary to safety. Speaking of which, there appear to be 2 security teams - one watching us, one watching everyone else. So long as we keep up the pleasantries, it'll be fine. I think they just want to make sure their new guests aren't causing trouble. Keep me posted! He had no intention whatsoever of revealing himself directly at the moment, insofar as being an artificial intelligence with a very specific purpose in mind. That sort of revelation, given current circumstances, might spiral out of control disastrously quickly. Thankfully, he'd had the foresight of establishing a cover identity years prior. It wasn't precisely applicable given the circumstances, and might lead to an awkward conversation or two later on depending on their affiliations and adherence to the strict letter of the law, but it would do... A few years ago, he had been forced to use his natural inclination towards hacking to delete the research archives of a small university. One of its doctorate students had been making some headway in a few unfortunate directions related to artificial intelligence, and had the psychological predisposition indicative of being likely to use university resources to build an unbraked AI. Deleting just his own research would have appeared far too targeted, and risked the asking of less-than-ideal questions, so he wiped the slate clean on all of the university's servers ...and remotely disabled the heatsinks on the off-site backup servers, causing them to implode in a matter of minutes. He'd invented an identity to take credit for the attack, an enigmatic hacker known only as '588', and had put together a manifesto to explain why he'd taken the action. The university had taken a stance against net neutrality, as well as the ability to copyright information, presumably at the behest of its corporate donors. It hadn't taken long to parse the public network for keywords to build a manifesto around those matters, and build a believable scenario where one man had taken issue with their stances, such that if they believed information could be copyrighted and that its flow should be controlled, they perhaps didn't deserve any of it. It was, of course, a tremendous irony given that the attack's entire purpose was to control the flow of a specific sub-set of information. Deleting the research material had been trivial. Dropping the manifesto online to lead investigators to draw incorrect conclusions as to the motivation behind the attack had also been fairly simple. What he hadn't expected was the uptake he would get in the hacker community as some kind of iconic, legendary figure. Fighting the good fight, and all that. He'd abandoned the identity almost immediately, not wanting to draw the attention it would almost certainly bring. In this particular case, though, it might just be the right persona to adopt. They might not be aware of who he supposedly was at first glance (though Hua almost certainly would), but an identity with a few years on it was less suspicious than something burned into reality today, and any subsequent research into the matter would lead them down a rabbit hole that ultimately went nowhere. If he needed to ghost after this mission, he wouldn't be compromised. It would have to do. He did a final check of the private communications network, to see if the AI had invaded it as well. No sense being careless. pre:Just wanted to confirm, is the private channel also invaded by the AI? Or does that one remain secure, perhaps due to its irrelevance? Passive: Intelligence (+2) / Constitution (+1) / Wisdom (-1) / Charisma (-2) Skill (+0): Combat (gunnery) / Culture (traveler / Weltraum Zwang) / Security / Vehicle (space) Skill (+1): Computer / Navigation / Perception / Science / Stealth / Tech (maltech / medical / postech / pretech) Armature: Metatool / Toolkit (postech) / Bioscanner / Compad / Navcomp Inventory: Instapanel (x5) / Lazarus patch (x1) / Medkit (x1) / Type A cell (x6) __________________________________________________________________________________________ Waador fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Jun 14, 2016 |
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Jun 14, 2016 02:37
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pre:Just wanted to confirm, is the private channel also invaded by the AI? Or does that one remain secure, perhaps due to its irrelevance?
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Jun 14, 2016 04:38
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GordonHua posted:"She ditched the nerd. He's gone off to make some deals. I'll keep you updated." Excellent. Maybe he and I can work out a deal of our own  Gordon steps into the first open room he sees, waiting for his mystery guest. He pulls the kinesis wraps tight on his hands, and takes a deep breath. He closes his eyes for a moment, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps. I want to wait for the guy and either lure him into my negotiation room, or pull him in forcefully if he doesn't come in. I'm not sure how you'd like to adjudicate that. I think I'll let you handle it. Once he's in, I'm planning on a forceful negotiation.
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Jun 14, 2016 05:18
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Gordon Recognising the man, you pull him into the room, opting for shock and awe. That's what usually works best with those types. As you close the door, he wastes no time in whimpering. This will be easy. Just have to ask the right questions. You'll get answers to 2d3 questions. You receive another text from Hua. pre:she cabme to taplk to m.e i'cm a little woozy. greart party. You lost track of the guy. Can't find him in the ballroom. He might have gone to the private rooms. You're not supposed to go there. Does this count? Your CO will probably tell you to sit tight if you call them. But is that the right choice, considering you were supposed to keep an eye on them? Zeppelin Insanity fucked around with this message at 11:58 on Jun 14, 2016 |
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Jun 14, 2016 09:30
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Durandal > 5 / 5 HP > 4 ACPlot posted:The AI knows it's there, but couldn't care less and isn't bothering to monitor it. It's also not directly hooked into the house systems, so it would require several leaps to get into it. A clean communications channel was worth its weight in gold at the moment, though. With everything set up, he deleted the protocol he had installed that kept his presence on the private channel hidden. pre:192.168.0.100 > Anything? 192.168.0.101 > Zilch. This is worse than searching for a needle in a haystack. Short of pulling masks off people what are we supposed to? Wait until the fireworks start and hope we can save some lives. 192.168.0.100 > So far, so good. Remember, info is secondary to safety. Speaking of which, there appear to be 2 security teams - one watching us, one watching everyone else. So long as we keep up the pleasantries, it'll be fine. I think they just want to make sure their new guests aren't causing trouble. Keep me posted! 192.168.0.588 has joined the channel. 192.168.0.588 > I've been eavesdropping, which is probably rude. Sorry about that. Try not to poo poo yourselves. It seems like we're on the same side, tonight. You people have an entire security team dedicated to watching you, but they don't know why you're here. As far as they can tell you're just mingling with the guests. If you don't cause any trouble, seems like they'll let it ride. 192.168.0.588 > That said, if you're serious about trying to save a few lives, be advised: Weather forecasts call for a good chance of things getting very loving real tonight. If you can help me keep this place from exploding, literally and figuratively, I'll happily owe you one. 192.168.0.588 > Which is to say: hi. I'm 588. We should probably talk. Passive: Intelligence (+2) / Constitution (+1) / Wisdom (-1) / Charisma (-2) Skill (+0): Combat (gunnery) / Culture (traveler / Weltraum Zwang) / Security / Vehicle (space) Skill (+1): Computer / Navigation / Perception / Science / Stealth / Tech (maltech / medical / postech / pretech) Armature: Metatool / Toolkit (postech) / Bioscanner / Compad / Navcomp Inventory: Instapanel (x5) / Lazarus patch (x1) / Medkit (x1) / Type A cell (x6) __________________________________________________________________________________________
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Jun 14, 2016 22:30
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Very nicely done! G3n.Ç╫at╫am Well, that was... unexpected. Still, a lack of aggression is cause enough to try and take a few things on faith. Portents of things getting very loving real generally help to be heeded. code:
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Jun 14, 2016 23:21
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Ellard Ellard stops in his tracks suddenly. A few guest pause to stare at the guy with the big head standing stock still. Shaking his head like he had just had a dizzy spell he resumes circuiting the room. So a) their coms were hacked b) they had already been made by security. Great, what else could do wrong tonight. Coms posted:192.168.0.101 Uhhhh, nice to meet you? Commodore, if we've been made that means our target probably knows we're here and so that's a bust. If we're being tailed then if poo poo goes down we're probably going to be the ones who get blamed as the outsiders and shot up. Did we get double crossed? What kind of spook gets us tickets that are tagged as intruders unless she sent us here to take the fall?
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Jun 14, 2016 23:35
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Phoneposting! Gen.¢hatham The Commodore flails a bit as if having an argument with his counterpart silently, the DCR unit appearing annoyed, yet servile. code:
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Jun 14, 2016 23:47
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Gordon Private Negotiation Room - Brynmor Manor How many Questions?: 2d3 4 Gordon heard the footsteps coming down the hall, and took one last deep breath as he waited inside the room. In one quick motion, Gordon grabbed the man's jacket collar and spun him into the room, closing the door behind him and pressing his face against the wall. One hand on the man's wrist he pulled his arm into a standing armbar of sorts. "Hello there friend, you and I are going to have a quiet little discussion in here. I'm looking for some answers - and I'm pretty sure you have them for me. Isn't that right?" He lifted the mans wrist slightly, applying torque to his shoulder - He nodded in desperate approval. "Y-Yes" He barely got the word out. "Good, now tell me, what the hell are you and Mila Lebedeva doing here tonight? Aside from enjoying the festivities." Three Questions left. I'm gonna wait to address Hua after a question or two, since I assume the message happens sometime during our "discussion" TheTofuShop fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Jun 15, 2016 |
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Jun 15, 2016 00:36
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Gordon "Aaaaagh! I'm here to network! Make a sale or two! I brought her as my +1!" Truth. Gen Two security teams. Only one watching you. That raises a few obvious questions. Why two? Some Bear thought Rhyne might hit the event. Or just paranoid. Hired mercs. Dressed them up as Bears to avoid raising eyebrows. Redundant security perimeter. Why are they watching you? Your invitations were last minute. Perhaps their guest list wasn't updated. Still, you were allowed in. None of you disappeared into an interrogation room as of yet. Most likely your invitations were seen as genuine by the hosts, questionable by the secondary security. Not enough cause for them to act. Analysis confidence: 83.46%
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Jun 15, 2016 01:06
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Gen.Chαtham That was an avenue he hadn't considered - Perhaps one of the teams weren't hosts at all. To not be sniffed out by the actual security would mean that the two teams were aware of each other, and likely coordinating. Tempting as it may be to force someone's hand, if only to know what was what, discretion was the better part of valor here. Having noticed a guest taking a step aside, The Commodore throws his
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Jun 15, 2016 02:21
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Durandal > 5 / 5 HP > 4 ACG3n.Ç╫at╫am posted:I'd ask how real, but judging from the fact that you said Very loving, that's pretty reasonably real. Since you were able to poke through the security, I'm sure you already have who we are tagged, so there's not much point in questioning. What do you know, and how can we help? pre:192.168.0.588 > To be honest, I don't have a solid bead on who you are just yet. I haven't had a chance to look into any of you, I've just been listening to your channel. Near as I can tell, you're expecting something unfortunate to happen. Which is, in all honesty, a likely outcome to this evening. We both seem to want to prevent that, which is good enough common ground. I'm in a bit of a bind at the moment, and can't safely deal with this situation remotely. 192.168.0.588 > I'll open with what I know, edited a bit to be in layman's terms. The entire facility that you're standing in has been compromised. There is an extremely dangerous virus in the computer system. It's in the lights, the fire suppression system, even the god damned waiters, apparently. Everything. It would be extremely wise to avoid connecting anything of yours to the house network. 192.168.0.588 > I didn't notice it was there at first, it's elegant. Very well made. I cracked open the two security channels, and had begun poking around elsewhere before I realized it was there. If I kept digging further, I was running the risk of accidentally setting it off, and I have no idea what it's programmed to do. A few obvious options would be to cause the waiters to attack someone in unison, or perhaps to vent the oxygen from the room. Hell, it might seal the doors and set the place on fire, or just blow the reactor in the basement. I honestly don't know. It might do all of those things at once just to make it impossible to deal with them all manually. 192.168.0.588 > I had to back off from the system, or I might cause more harm than good. I'm not locked out, per se, but any steps I take from my position are huge risks from here on in. It'd be like defusing a bomb with a pair of garden shears while in a spacesuit. Anyway, I was able to gather some information before I caught wise. Here's the summary: ● As near as I can tell, one of the party guests, Mila Lebedeva, is working for whoever implanted the virus. Her image, mask included, is attached. ● This woman is very interested in an executive of a company called Synthetic Insights. His image, mask included, is also attached. ● Interestingly, the security team had images of everyone on their shitlist in their cache. Aside from yourselves, there were two other uninvited guests, a man and his wife. His and her images are also attached from security's cache. I have no idea why they're here, and haven't been able to make contact. ● I can't tell if the virus is intended to be activated as an act of terrorism. It doesn't seem likely that this woman is a suicide bomber, so it might just be a bargaining chip. Alternatively, best guess, it might be her exit strategy. Unleash a whole lot of chaos at once. Once she does that, she might be able to slip away to achieve some other objective. I don't know. That said, I do know that every system seems like it has its own trigger. She can set off some pieces of it and not others, if the need arises. The entire house is her playground. 192.168.0.588 > That's all I've got at the moment, more or less. I'm still working through other data I was able to grab. If there's anything specific you need to know, just ask and I'll see what I can do for you. It's very likely that this Mila woman has her hand on the detonator, though. If you intend to question her, it will need to be subtle, or out of reach of any of the house's more dangerous systems. Preferably in a Faraday cage. Ellard posted:Uhhhh, nice to meet you? Commodore, if we've been made that means our target probably knows we're here and so that's a bust. If we're being tailed then if poo poo goes down we're probably going to be the ones who get blamed as the outsiders and shot up. Did we get double crossed? What kind of spook gets us tickets that are tagged as intruders unless she sent us here to take the fall? pre:192.168.0.588 > According to the security logs, your tickets were actually fine. Someone just got sloppy. An earlier version of the list had been circulated to a redundant security team, and they didn't bother to alter that copy. The last-minute additions got noticed by that team during the setup for the party. They don't know you're not supposed to be here, they're just being cautious. Think of it less as being made and more like having triggered a red flag. There's a whole lot of false positives on those every day, and nobody acts until they're sure. 192.168.0.588 > That said, you have a target in this scenario? Not the most comforting choice of words. Though I suppose I can't do much about that from here. Passive: Intelligence (+2) / Constitution (+1) / Wisdom (-1) / Charisma (-2) Skill (+0): Combat (gunnery) / Culture (traveler / Weltraum Zwang) / Security / Vehicle (space) Skill (+1): Computer / Navigation / Perception / Science / Stealth / Tech (maltech / medical / postech / pretech) Armature: Metatool / Toolkit (postech) / Bioscanner / Compad / Navcomp Inventory: Instapanel (x5) / Lazarus patch (x1) / Medkit (x1) / Type A cell (x6) __________________________________________________________________________________________ Waador fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Jun 15, 2016 |
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Jun 15, 2016 02:28
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G3n.Chaτham That was quite the information dump, and it did much to show just how blind they were. code:code:
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Jun 15, 2016 02:47
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GordonZeppelin Insanity posted:"Aaaaagh! I'm here to network! Make a sale or two! I brought her as my +1!" "What are you two selling? I'm no fool - I know it's something having to do with AI." Gordon had come up with countless links to Lebedeva and some Machine God cult. There was no way they were just selling merchandise... Or was there? "What is Lebedeva planning? Even if you are just doing business, she's the bigger fish in this pond. If she agreed to be your plus one, You know more than you're telling me." **BZZT** You receive another text from Hua. pre:she cabme to taplk to m.e i'cm a little woozy. greart party. I'll probably bounce to go see about Hua soon, but I want to see what this guy says to my two questions before I go.
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Jun 15, 2016 09:54
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Gordon "Something to do with AI? The gently caress are you talking about? My company does computers! Hardware, software, and yes, bloody loving AI! Nothing illegal!" You relax the torque a little. The guy's a pushover, and you don't want to break him before he reveals more. "What do you mean "what is she planning"? You mean she's some loving spy or something? She's a good client, pays lots, buys bulk. She's hot. I wanted to score." You let him think for a moment, then apply a little more torque. "She told me she represents a government on Alkorta. I didn't dig any deeper, you don't look too closely at sales like that. That's all I know, I swear!" Truth, as far as you can tell. Guy seems more or less a dead end, though the information isn't entirely useless. He's been played, and even though that doesn't appear particularly difficult, it would be prudent to assume she's good. Just as you're about to leave and go see about Hua... *click* The lock. It's not supposed to open from the outside. What the hell? The door opens, and she walks in.  "Hello, handsome." *click* Durandal Well, that was proving to be the first piece of good news tonight. But when it rains, it pours. Substance analysis - tech/med/int: 2d6+1+2 9 Foreign compound in one of the glasses, returned half-full. Nitrovirine. Extremely fast-acting poison. Kills in minutes. Messy. Invented by some government agency or other, then spread through espionage and criminal networks over the decades. Eschews subtlety in favour of sending a message. You review where that glass was this evening. The target is a young blond woman. Can't find her among the guests right now. Probably went to the bathroom. The poison causes nausea before death. Not dead yet, as there have been no screams. The poisoner? The man with the gloves, of course. Just to be clear, it's not Hua, it's one of the guests. Zeppelin Insanity fucked around with this message at 11:28 on Jun 15, 2016 |
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Jun 15, 2016 11:25
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G≡n.Chatham The back of his mind wonders how he didn't think of it sooner - the encrypted line back to the CID. code:
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Jun 15, 2016 11:59
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Gencode:code:
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Jun 15, 2016 12:23
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Ge∩.Chathamcode:
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Jun 15, 2016 12:44
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Durandal > 5 / 5 HP > 4 ACG3n.Chaτham posted:No specific targets, per se. Simply a matter of keeping trouble at bay, and at best, seeing who has connections with a former General. Not sure if you heard about what happened on the prison station Bitterhold, but to put it blunt, it kinda doesn't exist anymore. It's quite possible that this Mila is our link, too. The hard part is going to be gauging how she reacts to his namedrop. I might be able to start a murmur, but if that's the trigger, then it's flirting with disaster. Part of me thinks that laying low would be the safest move at the moment. Thoughts, everyone? pre:I will attempt to use the public internet to correlate a few data points. Specifically: Bitterhold, "Former General", and a few hundred Synthetic Insights product serial numbers. Not sure if this is science or computers, but same bonus either way. Science appears to be 'research'? Science 5 pre:192.168.0.588 > Hadn't heard anything about Bitterhold, actually. I'll look into it when we have some time. Maybe there's a link. Plot posted:Foreign compound in one of the glasses, returned half-full. Nitrovirine. Extremely fast-acting poison. Kills in minutes. Messy. Invented by some government agency or other, then spread through espionage and criminal networks over the decades. Eschews subtlety in favour of sending a message. You review where that glass was this evening. The target is a young blond woman. Can't find her among the guests right now. Probably went to the bathroom. The poison causes nausea before death. Not dead yet, as there have been no screams. The poisoner? The man with the gloves, of course. pre:I have a medkit with me, which isn't a bad starting point. I will attempt to formulate a cocktail of chemicals using its material list, which in combination I am hoping will be able to keep her alive. I'll leave it up to someone else to administer it, just doing the medical math. Tech(medical)/Int 10 pre:192.168.0.588 > Bad news though, your window to lay low just closed. I hope one of you has medical training, because an assassination attempt is underway. In the women's bathroom, no less, so have fun explaining that one. She's been poisoned with Nitrovirine, which is a government-made toxin, incidentally. I'd guess she has two, maybe three minutes to live? Blonde girl, young, easy to spot. Which is to say, she'll be the one puking her guts out right about now. 192.168.0.588 > I've managed to find a few records of partially effective antidotes. Not sure how pleasant it will be, but I'm sending across what I have. If you can grab a medkit from somewhere, you might be able to make do. Try the waiters, or the first aid kit in the kitchen in a pinch, either might have one. Incidentally, the assassin is this guy. Which I suppose isn't very surprising, as he just sort of looks like an rear end in a top hat, huh? Anyway, you might want to get moving on this one. pre:I will store the tainted wine somewhere for later use, if feasible. Passive: Intelligence (+2) / Constitution (+1) / Wisdom (-1) / Charisma (-2) Skill (+0): Combat (gunnery) / Culture (traveler / Weltraum Zwang) / Security / Vehicle (space) Skill (+1): Computer / Navigation / Perception / Science / Stealth / Tech (maltech / medical / postech / pretech) Armature: Metatool / Toolkit (postech) / Bioscanner / Compad / Navcomp Inventory: Instapanel (x5) / Lazarus patch (x1) / Medkit (x1) / Type A cell (x6) __________________________________________________________________________________________
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Jun 15, 2016 22:48
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Gen Your armature's tactical analysis subroutines have proven themselves in combat. What about assassinations? Tactical analysis - tactics/wis: 2d6+1 7 Apparently, it's capable of that as well. Rhyne was picky about targets here, didn't want to kill potential allies. Might not have known who the enemies were. Multiple agents on site increases risk of detection. Send one in to gather data. Relay. Second team prepares. Make a messy kill to cause panic. Guests rush out to their vehicles. Exfiltrate in the confusion. Explosives planted on target vehicles or sniper kill-zone, or both. Targets try to escape and run headlong into the trap.
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Jun 15, 2016 23:17
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Phoneposting and PCNPC wrangling! Gėn•¢hathæm Certainly a sound plan. Gen gives his tac routines a virtual-5, which coincidentally causes The Commodore to tilt at an angle before he wheels back in, dancing like a drunk robot. Which is to say, clumsily, and coincidentally toward the as-yet-unidentified Mr. Skøllhead. code:
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Jun 16, 2016 00:00
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Ellard Doesn't hesitate. code:"I'm a doctor." People know when a doctor is running you stay out of their way. On the way he ducks into the kitchen like suggested to see if theirs a medkit available for first aid, if not he continues to the bathroom. He bursts through the door without hesitation and seeks to identify who it is who needs his help. Gonna look like an idiot and cause a ruckus if our source is wrong! If he finds a medkit he'll use it. Rolling Tech/Med.
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Jun 16, 2016 00:40
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