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Part 53 - Engineered Solutions  We've concluded that the banged-up corpse in the other room had likely ended up getting a bit too into an especially intense type of BTL chip, likely the same kind we managed to retrieve from the courier drone before it self-destructed and which our ill-mannered friend on the floor here also seems pretty keen on.  [Eiger glances up from your manic captive and looks you in the eye.]  Find what you were looking for? Yeah. I pried the dead guy's chipjack open and found a blob of melted plastic inside. It was still warm to the touch. Yeah, I agree. But the ganger who slotted this wasn't blissed out like a normal sim-junkie. It was almost the opposite... he looked wild, like a madman.Surprisingly expressive for a dead guy, really.  "Madman."[The Engineer lets out a chuckle. It's a hoarse, barking sound.] You don't know a damned thing. I know that you'd love to get your hands on that chip Eiger's holding... if you could move your hands, that is. You really want this thing, don't you?[She waves the chip in front of his eyes.] This is junkie behavior. Whatever this thing is, you're hooked on it. Okay... Getting the feeling this guy's less "hooked" and more "already on the cleaning table and offering his belly for the fillet knife". Eagerly, at that. [Eiger stares at him, her expression flat. The Engineer sneers.] I, too, was a skeptic. Then the Wolf caught me, and the Raven opened my eyes. And now, at last, I CAN *SEE!* Well he's sure gone off the deep end in a hurry. We're obviously holding a real strong bargaining chip in more ways than one, so now looks like our best chance to go on the offensive. Tell us who you're working for, and it's all yours. WHAT ...who? [There is a moment of silence. Finally, Eiger speaks.] Never heard of them. Of course you haven't, bitch. If you had, you'd already be dead. They don't leave loose ends.Yeah you sure are looking as tight as they come right now buddy. [His body begins to tremble. It looks like the drugs are wearing off.] T-they have money, she-troll. M-money and influence enough to put the syndicates to shame. Even I cannot say how much, but I d-do know that what I've seen is just the tip of the s-s-spear. All right. Let's say that you're telling the truth, and some sort of secret society is behind this. What do they want with Schattennest? Th-they do not tell me these things. All I know is that they w-w-want to store things here. Crates. Boxes. Shipped in f-f-from all over. No cargo inspections, and no t-t-traces back to th-them. What are they shipping in? Weapons? Drugs? More of these BTLs? [He eyes her incredulously.] You th-think that I asked them? It is n-n-not my p-place to know. All th-that I know is what was p-promised to m-m-me. Well...  *I,* on the other hand, didn't offer you a goddamned thing.Guy definitely got one thing right, as far as Eiger's concerned he was dead the moment we caught him. Understandable from all we've heard, and doubt anyone halfway decent would shed a tear for a scumbucket this rank getting thrown overboard, but we did certainly make a deal. After all if the man whose electronic bits have been disabled wants to slot a BTL chip this badly, then we can certainly oblige at least that much. Put the knife away, Eiger. I gave him my word. [She turns to stare at you.] You're not suggesting that we let this monster live, are you? Do you know what's going to happen when his cyberware powers back up?If we were feeling real soft we could claim that it's not right to coldly murder a captive even as rotten as him, but suffice it to say that it's not a plan Eiger is really onboard with when she already has him within stabbing distance. I'm suggesting that we keep my promise. If he wants the chip so badly, give it to him. [He licks his lips and nods feverishly.] I... I have a stash, here in this warehouse. A custom rifle. It's all yours if you give me what is mine.[Eiger looks back over to you and raises an eyebrow.] I could use a new rifle. What do you think, fearless leader?This is basically our last chance to decide which one of two potential pieces of equipment we'll walk away with. Coming this far and making this deal is the only way to obtain a unique assault rifle for Eiger, while any other path (including failing to retrieve the chip intact in the first place) nets her a unique grenade instead. For a min-maxer the grenade might be better since it deals major AP damage and one can always loan a store-bought rifle to a crew member, but we've never bothered doing that so a rifle suits our purposes quite well. Deal. Once we know where the stash is, give him the chip. [He nods feverishly.] O-over there. In the c-c-corner. Th-there's a duffel b-bag under the f-f-floor plate. N-now GIVE IT TO ME. All right, Yuli. It's all yours.Let no one say we don't keep our deals. Well, unless said deals really screw over someone undeserving and we're not paid quite enough to look the other way.  WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!? W-why don't I FEEL ANYTHING?Real shame for our man here that him and "undeserving" went their separate ways a long time ago.  I said that we'd give you the chip. I never promised that it would work. I'M G-G-GOING TO K-KILL YOU! D-do you HEAR ME? I-I'll RIP OUT YOUR SPINE! Good luck with that.Bet you don't even know how to input that Fatality.  [Eiger takes a step back.] Something's wrong. Look at his hands. ...Well that doesn't seem right. Did this guy just reactivate his electronics with the power of sheer anger? How long was that cyberware deactivator supposed to last?[She reaches for her shotgun.] Longer than this. I'm going to kill Bannik when-- Whoa! Step back, Rosa... *way* back. Oh gently caress!  Well... guess that's one way to take care of any potential moral dilemmas regarding murdering prisoners. Good thing it wasn't a bigger bomb, decorating the walls of an old warehouse in the middle of Piss City isn't our first choice for a final resting place. His employers. Winternight. They must have implanted that thing in him. Yeah, and judging by the way he reacted, he didn't know that they'd done it. They must have thrown it in while he was getting other work done. I'm willing to bet that if we hadn't used the cyberware deactivator on him, he'd've gone up before he had the chance to spill any names. If you were looking for proof of who his employer was, I think that this was it.  Things took a bit of a turn there, but end of the day we can consider our mission a success and success should be rewarded.  Here you go, Eiger. All yours.We don't have the option to keep it for ourselves, even if we were interested in something as crude as guns instead of taking a much cooler and more literal approach to the concept of firearms. [She takes the bag from you and unzips it. Her eyes go wide.] When he said that this was custom, he wasn't kidding.[Gingerly, she reaches into the bag and pulls out a sleek, angular shape.]  This is a Steyr AUG-CSL multiweapon system. A very nice - and very expensive - piece of hardware. Yuli put a lot of after-market work into this. I don't even recognize some of the accessories he's bolted onto this thing.Pull the small lever on the side and it'll play some relaxing jazz and pour you a nice warm cup of chai. Oh, and the gun itself obviously doesn't have a 2-turn cooldown, that refers to the cooldown of its unique ability. Probably ended up listed among the other stats by mistake. You feel comfortable using it? Nothing like simultaneously carrying a shotgun, an assault rifle and a sniper rifle to make it clear that distance is never an obstacle for having a good time. [She slings the rifle, then claps you on the shoulder.] Come on, fearless leader. Let's get back home. Lead the way, I'm right behind you. Time to get out of here. Pretty nice and simple run where things more or less worked as expected for once. Gotta enjoy those when we can.   As tends to be the case for side runs like these, our karmic rewards are low and monetary ones non-existent. We do have a fair amount of Karma saved up at this point though, so we might as well take this opportunity to beef up our stats some.  We spend all of our 26 Karma and increase our Body by 2 and our Intelligence, Biotech and Charisma by 1, the latter allowing us to pick up the Academic etiquette. We're still wearing the suit providing us with +2 Charisma but that's entirely redundant so we're only really sticking to it for style reasons.  Alright, let's go hash out our conclusions about what happened in Schattennest and then see what's next on our plate. .jpg)  We should talk about what happened with the Engineer. [She nods.] Agreed. I'm ready to go over it if you are.The contents of this discussion obviously vary depending on what we learned during the run (or what Eiger learned if she handled it alone) but we'll cover the other versions later. So, the Engineer was working for a secret society. I wasn't expecting that. Neither was I.[She frowns.] A part of me is still having trouble believing it. But it's true... Yuli wasn't lying. I could see it in his eyes. Have you been able to do any digging on Winternight? No. There just isn't much reliable information out there. Whoever these guys are, they're very good at information control. None of my contacts could find anything but rumor and conjecture, and most of that is too crazy to even consider.Quick work considering we literally just arrived back home, but passage of time can get a bit weird when you can have these conversations at any point. Maybe they're not that much of a threat. A small-time operation wouldn't get much press, either. Maybe. But then, a small-time operation couldn't afford to hire the Engineer. He wouldn't even talk to an organization that couldn't pay top dollar for his services. Maybe they tricked him into popping one of those "God chips"? Got him addicted without ever offering him any money? [She frowns.] It's possible, I suppose, but I doubt it. Yuli was a bastard, but he was a careful bastard. Anyway, we stopped them, whatever they're up to.Probably learned their lesson and won't ever bother anyone again. Just out of curiosity, when you say the rumors about Winternight are crazy, how crazy are we talking? Gotta be at least twelve different Norwegian metal bands with lyrics about that exact combination of things. There are a lot of crazy things going on in this world. That doesn't mean they're not real. [She nods slowly.] Yes, there are, and no, it doesn't. But this... this is just too far out for me to accept. It's far more likely that they released these stories themselves to throw people off of whatever they're really doing. Anyway. We stopped 'em cold in Schattennest. Whatever their business is... whatever was going to be in those crates that the Engineer was having shipped there... it isn't our problem any more. The Kreuzbasar is safe. On that front, at least. I hope you're right. Chin up, fearless leader. We did good back there. Besides which, we still have a dragon to worry about.Yeah thanks Eiger, that little problem had almost slipped our mind. -- So since we're done talking about them, it's probably worth explaining the significance of Winternight for the setting which is primarily that, 10 years after the events of this game, they would team up with the Matrix cult Ex Pacis who'd at their behest develop a powerful dissonance virus dubbed Jormungand which would bring about the desruction of most of the globe's wired Matrix network in an event that would become known as Crash 2.0 (named so as the first internet crash already happened in 2029). This was fueled by Winternight's belief that the Matrix held their god Loki prisoner and freeing the ol' trickster by blowing up the internet (alongside other fun things like terrorist attacks, inducing destructive earthquakes and causing a prolonged nuclear winter) was necessary to bring about Ragnarok. Also tried to redirect the Halley comet so that it'd collide with the Earth once, didn't work though. The so-called "God" chips that we got an early preview of were one of the methods used to control the key individuals which made such a large-scale operation possible. The actual leader of Winternight was a toxic Raven shaman known as Wednesday because of course it was, dig deep enough and you'll find some toxic shaman or another behind every drat problem. In fact a number of them were involved with Winternight, something of a rarity since they're not usually team players. Ultimately they managed to wreak quite a bit of havoc but full-on apocalyptic levels of damage were averted and both Wednesday and Winternight were brought to their end, but obviously the world would never be the same after. There's a lot more to the whole business of course, an AI wanting to become an internet god was also involved and the Matrix would eventually be rebuilt in wireless form, but that's outside the scope of this LP where Rosa & co. are still blissfully ignorant about all the nonsense to come. Speaking of, let's get back to it. -- While we're on the topic... when I left that room to search for clues, the Engineer told you something. Something that pushed you over the edge. [Her eyes narrow.] That son of a bitch said a lot of things. What of it? You knew that we needed him, but you beat him badly. I'm worried about that lapse of control. You don't need to be. There's nothing wrong with my self-control. I made a *choice* to unload on Yuli because he was a murderous rear end in a top hat. I knew how much pressure to apply, which bones to break, and which ones to leave alone. And I did all of those things....Glad we managed to put our initial differences aside, Eiger. Fair enough, but why? What did he tell you to push you to that point? He told me about a bunch of Polish towns that my unit swept for Syndicate activity. He told me how the mob poured back in right after we left, and what they did to the people who'd accepted our help. Polish towns really never catch a break. Yuli seemed to find all of this hilarious. Yeah, I know that he was pushing my buttons on purpose. And yeah, I know that he was trying to make me lose control. But the hell with it - he deserved a good beating. Yuli didn't pull any punches, so *I* didn't pull any punches. And if you have a problem with that, you can go and get hosed. Cool down, Eiger. We're both on the same side here. If I leave things where they stand, there'll always be some hope that he was lying. But if I dig into this and find that he was telling the truth... if I find out that none of what we did *meant* anything... Even if he was telling the truth, that doesn't invalidate what your unit was doing over there. Doesn't it? Our actions might have drawn attention to those people. Made them targets. You and your team were doing good over there. Whatever the Mafia did afterward is on them, not you. [She gives you a brusque nod.] You're right. It isn't. No more moping about - I promise. And I *will* look into this, Rosa. Wherever this trail leads me, I'll follow it, and I won't stop until I find the truth. Good to hear. For a second there, I thought you'd gone soft on me. When you are ready to start looking, you can call on me for help. I've got your back, Eiger.This offer comes with the caveat that we're not smouldering corpses on the ground by then, obviously. [She nods.] I know it. And I'm glad. Now, let's change tack. Is there anything else from the run that you'd like to go over?[She folds her arms across her chest.] If you have any thoughts, I want to hear them. Have you had a chance to play with that rifle that we got from the Engineer's stash? Yeah. It's a beautiful piece of engineering. Shoots straight, has good stopping power, holds a big magazine.[She nods appreciatively.] A really nice gun.Don't know much about rifles but it shooting bullets in a straight line definitely sounds like a feature you'd want in one. You mentioned a bunch of after-market mods when we found it. Have you figured out what they do yet? In layman's terms, you can use this thing to mark a target. There's cyberware that does the same thing, and deckers do it all the time. But this is the first time I've seen this kind of functionality on a rifle. In practice the tracer shot increases a target's chance to be hit by 10% for a turn, which indeed is basically a lesser version of deckers' Mark Target. Nothing earth-shaking but it's as damaging and accurate as a normal shot so it is a consistent performer. Not bad... not bad at all. Of course for us who don't bother buying weapons for crew members, the real prize is Eiger gaining an assault rifle which is pretty much the best weapon type in the game and eliminates Eiger's last remaining blind spot. All in all she wrecks house even better than before and she didn't leave many walls standing to begin with. [She pats the Engineer's rifle.] This thing, though... this adds enough utility that I think it's worth the extra weight. I'll find a way to make it work. That's all, Eiger. Thanks for the talk. Thank you, fearless leader. Both for the chat, and for the assist on the run. Alright, time to take a moment to relax from all this serious business and see what the Shadowland community is chatting about today.  That sounds... vaguely familiar... - Tolstoi <18:42:39/11-15-54> [So we've all seen this one floating about the 'trix, this is some serious stuff. It's got heavy-duty corp written all over it. Not a lot of players could be behind something like this... Ares, or S-K, or maybe one of the big pharma corps? Say Schering, or AGC?] - Ruby <20:19:11/11-15-54> ['Course, you can never totally discount the Azzies either.] - The Smiling Bandit <Strikes Again!/Ha-Ha-Ha> [Tolstoi, my esteemed colleague, this is indeed a recipe for some top-shelf drek. Whispers from the shadows say that this is sourced straight from the F-State.] - Brewmeister <22:43:52/11-15-54> [Hello, boys! I'm a big fan! You know, long time reader, first time poster. Quite an interesting concoction you have here, I'm just itching to cook some up! So many interesting properties to play with, I've already got a few tweaks in mind for my own special version 2.0!] - The Smiling Bandit <Strikes Again!/Ha-Ha-Ha> [You sure that you want to do that? This stuff doesn't play nice, and Corps are really bad at sharing their toys.] - Clockwork <22:49:23/11-15-54> [You can, of course, always share their secrets for them! Just gotta make sure that you run a little faster than them.] - The Smiling Bandit <Strikes Again!/Ha-Ha-Ha> [Always running, eh CW?] - Clockwork <23:02:41/11-15-54> [Like clockwork!] - Brewmeister <23:51:09/11-15-54> [Bandit, I'm touched by your concern. But don't you worry about little 'ole me. I do declare, this shall be ever such fun!] ...It'll probably be fine. This discussion is only here because we sold the data to the Schockwellenreiter, by the way. Speaking of those guys...  - SCHOCKWELLEN_REITERS <18:40:19/11-15-54> [The Reiters have it on good authority that the Winternight Cult is eyeing Schattennest for expansion. We do not have any information as to what purpose they have for Berlin yet, but for the good of the Flux, we should keep a watchful eye on this situation. See attached files for more details...] - Tolstoi <19:01:29/11-15-54> [Can’t track down much about these guys. What’s the big deal?] - ProShot <19:17:06/11-15-54> [Have a friend out in Cal Free State who swears that he's worked for them before. Says that they're the real deal - an honest-to-God global conspiracy. I thought he was full of drek... a Norwegian cult with money and influence to rival the big corps? Come on.] - Tolstoi <19:17:54/11-15-54> [Yeah, sounds a bit far-fetched.] - ProShot <19:18:32/11-15-54> [...That said, my buddy *is* rolling in nuyen, and hell if I know where it came from. Or maybe I should say "was."] - Tolstoi <19:17:54/11-15-54> [As in, past tense. So what happened?] - ProShot <19:18:32/11-15-54> [He went on a shooting rampage a few weeks back. Took out his entire family and a couple of neighbors before Lone Star managed to bring him down. He'll be sitting in one of their supermax facilities for the rest of his life, and the money got seized as evidence.] - Tolstoi <19:18:45/11-15-54> [Whoa. That's horrible, man.] - ProShot <19:18:32/11-15-54> [Yeah, it was. Thing is, I've read his arrest records. At the time that Lone Star tackled him, he was screaming crazy things... things about the world burning and a moon made of blood. So maybe there's something to all of this after all.]  - AlanAltbit <14:32:07/11-15-54> [I’ve got solar panels like everybody, but does anyone have experience with these mana-turbine services? I’m off the grid, so there are some times when I need to do some late night decking, or maintenance on my telescoping limbs.] - WraithLike44 <18:01:54/11-15-54> [Is that the thing where a mage comes by and drops some juice into a generator? My buddy was telling me about them last week. The turbine spins the mana around and the charge lasts for weeks, he said.] - Tolstoi <18:40:01/11-15-54> [They’re a scam, chummer. That mage is going to be out of there with your money before you realize how much power you’ve actually got. You’re better off pedaling a bike-battery.] And that'll more or less do it for today. Next time we'll take a trip to the ~Non-Canon Zone~ and see the less conclusive result to the Engineer job. Until then.  There's one potential discussion about stopping Winternight at the end of the mission which I opted not to take in the update proper. Just felt a bit out of character for Rosa who doesn't really have a personal stake in stopping them and has a pressing dragon issue besides, but there's enough to it that it's worth including here. quote:
Also this kind of funny way to skip the whole discussion about what the Engineer said to Eiger in the post-mission conversation: quote:
Finally, the quick and efficient alternative to agreeing to the rifle deal. quote:
Kanfy fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Feb 9, 2020 |
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Feb 9, 2020 13:36
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Oh, man. I'd forgotten Winternight was in the game.
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Feb 9, 2020 13:50
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Kanfy posted:The actual leader of Winternight was a toxic Raven shaman known as Wednesday because of course it was, dig deep enough and you'll find some toxic shaman or another behind every drat problem. In fact a number of them were involved with Winternight, something of a rarity since they're not usually team players.
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Feb 9, 2020 15:11
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Huh, I never knew about the alternative reward to the rifle. 'Course, I'm the type who would always go for a persistant upgrade as opposed to a one-and-done item, even if it restocks ever mission so I'm not likely to ever take it.
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Feb 9, 2020 15:33
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Sylphosaurus posted:Oh my god, they really went all out with the old Norse mythology connections for these assholes didn´t they? Considering that Wednesday is Odin´s day. Did the dumbass shaman have two ravens as companions as well? Oh yeah, "Wednesday" was in fact a javelin-using one-eyed man with accompanied by two raven spirits. More or less everything was themed around Nordic mythology, their main bases were called Valhalla and Hel, the first step of their plan was Operation Fimbul (use of weather magic to cause a harsh winter which was followed by a giant illusion of a wolf's head devouring the sun above Boston) and the final and mostly failed stage was Operation Mjöllnir which was the earthquake thing accompanied by an attempt to detonate nuclear weapons magically altered to send out massive EMP pulses around the globe. Of the other two main leaders, Thursday was a Norwegian berserker adept handling the military and weapon side of things (he called his troops Einherjar) and Friday a Swedish tech specialist who amongst other things developed the God chips. Kanfy fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Feb 9, 2020 |
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Feb 9, 2020 15:34
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Kanfy posted:Oh yeah, "Wednesday" was in fact a javelin-using one-eyed man with accompanied by two raven spirits. Briefly expounded upon using info from SR3's System Failure, Winternight pretty much ran the board of "evil bad guy" checklists with their plots: Operation: Firmbul -used blood-magic to target various mana nexuses to gain power -created weather-based chaos to tie up civilian & corporate resources -the aforementioned wolf's head eating the sun illusion Operation: Jormungand -worked with "enemy-of-my-enemy" allies to develop a worm/daemon to attack various Matrix infrastuctures (daemons that can only be activated by the sacrifice of said allies) -included in the targets were communications satellites/rockets, hoping to have them crash to earth -daemon's attack sites defended by "Sutr" nanovirus that caused spontaneous human combustion and "Ymir" aerosolized toxin that caused blood cells to rapidly crystallize Operation: Mjolnir -secret extra step/betrayal of the folks they worked with in Jormungand -supposed to detonate magic nukes in various capitals & tectonic fault lines ~~ And given that SF was the sendoff book for SR3, various other metaplots & groups tie into this. It's a bit of a shitshow, that Crash 2.0.
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Feb 9, 2020 16:55
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Oh. Despite only recently recommending American Gods to someone, I actually assumed that was a "The Man Who Was Thursday" shoutout. Oh well.
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Feb 9, 2020 20:12
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IIRC, what makes all that metaplot 'work' for me is that it was a way to explain why the Matrix rules for the next edition were so dramatically different from the previous ones  I generally dislike metaplot stuff, and I personally think that rule changes don't really need to be explained away between editions, but there's just something about how dramatic Winternight is in-universe compared to the mundane IRL reasons it had to be included that just amuses me.
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Feb 9, 2020 21:01
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Xander77 posted:Oh. Despite only recently recommending American Gods to someone, I actually assumed that was a "The Man Who Was Thursday" shoutout.
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Feb 9, 2020 21:03
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Sylphosaurus posted:It´s an old trope since all weekdays(except saturday) are connected to the Norse gods. And Sunday and Monday.
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Feb 9, 2020 21:37
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Yeah, Wintermute caused a metric fuckton of death and destruction, and were also very big on murdering the poo poo out of their contractors to keep them quiet. Finding out they were involved in the game was a "woah, that might actually be scarier than having a dragon coming after you" moment.
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Feb 9, 2020 23:00
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habeasdorkus posted:Yeah, Wintermute caused a metric fuckton of death and destruction, and were also very big on murdering the poo poo out of their contractors to keep them quiet. Finding out they were involved in the game was a "woah, that might actually be scarier than having a dragon coming after you" moment. I agree that Wintermute was up to all kinds of poo poo, but that's Case's problem, not ours. Our problem was Winternight. And at this point, we're aiming for three stooges syndrome with all the heat headed in this direction.
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Feb 10, 2020 00:18
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The greatest strength, and greatest weakness, of the Flux State is that its anarchic self-governance means that it's under no corp's umbrella. That means it's a no man's land ripe for the plucking if you have the power to subjugate it, which means that its biggest threats are very large, very unpleasant, and very much not going to make it obvious just what they're doing. Agents that know how to harvest and utilize that chaos instead of trying to control it.
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Feb 10, 2020 01:23
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chiasaur11 posted:I agree that Wintermute was up to all kinds of poo poo, but that's Case's problem, not ours. poo poo, I always write that wrong.
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Feb 10, 2020 02:42
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So what do the God chips actually do, beyond cause an intense addiction?
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Feb 10, 2020 13:38
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Puts you in a super hyper realistic simulation while your body can still move, amps up aggression, and gives you delusions of grandeur as the name implied.
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Feb 10, 2020 15:12
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sounds like the entire life experiences and writings of Philip K. Dick, concentrated to a single moment. I'd leave it in storage until I'm old and dying.
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Feb 10, 2020 17:02
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They probably also grant the skills to do the things the delusion/personality overlay says they should. It adds to the addictive aspect of the chip when there are things you know when you're chipping that are completely unavailable when you're not chipping.
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Feb 10, 2020 18:14
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Sylphosaurus posted:It´s an old trope since all weekdays(except saturday) are connected to the Norse gods. Neil Gaiman was hardly the first to use that particular twist in books or comics. I personally know that etymology thanks to a Calendar Man story in Batman. His Thor costume was ridiculous.
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Feb 10, 2020 19:40
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CommissarMega posted:IIRC, what makes all that metaplot 'work' for me is that it was a way to explain why the Matrix rules for the next edition were so dramatically different from the previous ones Yeah, the Matrix rules were dreamt up in the 80s when wired mainframes were still the standard and they never saw the mobile and wireless revolution coming, so in 3rd in the early 2000s, it just seemed really dated. Might as well change up everything and write it into the metaplot (and give an excuse for Novatech to return to and expand the Big 10, if only to knock them back down 2 editions later lol). I had forgotten Winternight was mentioned in this mission until reminded when you started it up. Gotta end those fuckers moving into Berlin.
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Feb 10, 2020 22:55
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GhostStalker posted:I had forgotten Winternight was mentioned in this mission until reminded when you started it up. Gotta end those fuckers moving into Berlin. Been a lot of "oh yeah I forgot about this being a thing" surrounding this run and yeah, overall this is probably the most forgettable of the 5 Director's Cut runs. It's not bad but it's pretty short, especially since the first half before entering the gang base doesn't really add anything to the overall story. The Engineer's also not as memorable a character as the KNIGHT-KING, Hasenkamp, or the dysfunctional trio in the Trial Run, especially since he never gets to demonstrate the hardware that supposedly makes him so feared. Just kind of a generic rear end in a top hat thug you never even get to fight and instead you just end up shooting up a bunch of generic gangers. Kanfy fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Feb 11, 2020 |
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Feb 11, 2020 14:59
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Kanfy posted:Been a lot of "oh yeah I forgot about this being a thing" surrounding this run and yeah, overall this is probably the most forgettable of the 5 Director's Cut runs. It's not bad but it's pretty short, especially since the first half before entering the gang base doesn't really add anything to the overall story. yeah this mission really feels like it was just a shoutout to the real lore-heads much like in any other piece of media where there's a shoutout to the real lore-heads, it's extremely forgettable to anyone else and the loreheads react with an "oh, that's nice"
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Feb 11, 2020 16:39
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I'm a bit curious about fenrir shamans, are they like wolf shamans older and meaner sibling?
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Feb 11, 2020 19:32
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Special snowflake brand of toxic wolf shamans iirc?
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Feb 11, 2020 20:20
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paragon1 posted:Special snowflake brand of toxic wolf shamans iirc? Norse pagan shamanism. Different totems, different bonii, lots of berserker traits. Different belief system.
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Feb 11, 2020 22:09
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:yeah this mission really feels like it was just a shoutout to the real lore-heads Thankfully this is a unique form of media consumption where, instead of being a disappointing wink and nudge, the shoutout leads to ignoramuses like myself learning cool new lore tidbits.
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Feb 11, 2020 22:54
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Part 54 - Engineered to Fail.jpg)  Taking advantage of the Engineer's crippling chip addiction, we eventually got him to spill the true identity of his employers which turned out to be the apocalyptic cult Winternight who are unknown to the world at present but will one day cause all sorts of trouble for the decent (and indecent) people of the Sixth World. Ended up spilling a lot more than that too, thanks to a bomb they implanted in him.  In today's trip to the ~Non-Canon Zone~ we'll take a look at how things could've gone down had we not had that particular ace up our sleeve, accomplished simply by not bothering with passwords or hacking and instead trying to force open the drone containing the Engineer's precious chip and failing the Quickness check required to save it.  As before we find the dead guy and the "Wednesday" ledger and return to Eiger who has rearranged Yuli's face some in the meantime, then chat a bit about what those two things mean and finally bring up the drone: Have you found anything else? There was a courier drone back there, but it self-destructed. Whatever it was carrying went up with it."It self-destructed" is technically a 100% correct description of what happened, and any mentions about us trying to punch our way through an anti-tampering system which required all of 2 Intelligence to detect are to be erased from the official records as both inaccurate and blatantly slanderous.  What was the drone carrying, Yuli? Sounds like it was something important. [He grinds his teeth.] It was MINE. But as for *what* it was... you'll never know, slag.[Eiger looks you in the eye. Desperation hangs over her like a wet blanket.] Was there anything else out there, Rosa? Any other clues at all? I don't think so. I gave the building a thorough sweep.Yeah, Johnny Clean himself couldn't have left the place more spotless. Might've done a better job with any password-locked devices involved, but that's neither here nor there seeing as we never encountered such a thing.  [The Engineer smiles.] You're wrong, slag. I'll give you that much for free.[Eiger glances down at him. Shakes her head.] Oh, shut up, Yuli. ...Well so much for any other potential approaches. We have 7 Charisma and everything, surely we could've at least tried to figure out some angle here. What the hell, Eiger? We weren't done with him! Torture wasn't going to get us anywhere... in my experience, it seldom does. And that sack of poo poo has had this coming for years now. He's done more than enough damage for one lifetime. That wasn't your call to make. Wrong, fearless leader. When it comes to the team, I'll follow your orders. But this wasn't the team's job. This was *my* op, and *you* elected to tag along.Alternatively: quote:
So what do you propose that we do now? Inform the F-State? Well, first we search the body. Who knows? Maybe he has some additional evidence on him... or in him. Could be that he has headware storage. We won't know until we go digging. I'll leave you to it. Like hell you will. Get in here and help out.What happened to "stabbers looters", the ancient rule of the streets? Man, we're never giving up our position as the boss again, this sucks.   Does that mean something to you? Yeah, actually. It's a pulse grenade. The last I heard, the Russian military were developing them as crowd dispersal devices, but that was years ago. Looks like Yuli kept a memento of his time in the Spetsnaz.[She examines the grenade with a critical eye.] Looks like typical Russian engineering... clunky, but functional.Hell, same. If I took this thing apart, I bet that I could figure out how they made it. Anything else in there?[She dips her hand into the secret compartment one more time.] No, not that I can-- [Eiger snatches her hand back and steps backward.] What the he-- Bastard didn't even have the courtesy not to blow up all over our face this time, this is truly the worst timeline. Does the Lobatchevski Syndicate do things like that? Plant those kinds of bombs in people? There's no extra conversation or anything at the end this time because this path is overall a lot more boring and less involved than the other one, so we take our leave in silence. We should talk about what happened with the Engineer. [She nods.] Agreed. I'm ready to go over it if you are. We found some evidence to suggest that it was the Lobatchevski Syndicate, but nothing concrete. That worries me. Yeah.[She nods.] I'm worried too. Have you been able to do any digging since we got back? I need to know that we made the right decision back there.And by "we" we mean "you" and by "decision" we mean "the part where you suddenly stabbed the guy in the drat throat in the middle of an interrogation".  Yes, but it's also possible that we had Bannik publicize a bunch of false information. We didn't find any definite proof. In my experience, you usually don't. You work with the intel that you have, and make the best decisions that you can in the moment. It's easy to fall into the trap of second-guessing ourselves, but we shouldn't let it consume us. We have other things to worry about.what about that part of intel where the guy straight-up told us our conclusion was wrong without even showing signs of lying for once Eiger maybe we could've tried to find some follow-up on that if not for the fact that ten seconds later he was no longer in possession of a functioning trachea Yeah, I get that. I'm still worried, though. Now, is there something else that you wanted to ask me about the run? If you have any other concerns, I want to hear them. You said that you thought you could reverse engineer that pulse grenade that you pulled from the Engineer. Any luck with that?"The Reverse Engineer" is also a pretty good posthumous title for the man himself with how much of his insides ultimately ended up on the outside. Yeah, actually. It wasn't too difficult to pull the thing apart and see what made it tick.[She smiles.] Making one of my own was a different story, but I got it in the end.[She reaches into her desk and grabs a cylindrical object. Gently, she lifts it up and hands it to you.]  Nice. You said that these things were designed for crowd control? Originally, yeah. Mine has a lot more bite, though... I bumped up the amperage quite a bit. When that thing goes off, it'll both shut down the nervous system and cook the organs of anyone in its blast radius.  As far as actual gameplay mechanics go, "shut down the nervous system and cook the organs" is sadly something of an embellishment, in practical terms the Voltaic Grenade is simply a top-tier (3 AP) stun grenade except it also deals some physical damage and does not inflict the Unbalanced status which slightly increases hit chance against the affected targets. Nothing one would call especially interesting, but AP damage continues to be great so it's certainly a fine package deal which remains useful for the entire rest of the game. Or would if this wasn't all just a dream. [Hand it back.] Sounds nasty.[She nods, and tucks the weapon back into her desk.] It is. You wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of one of these. So you'll only have one per run? That's right, fearless leader. But if used in the right situation, that one could turn the tide of an otherwise unwinnable firefight. Hey, I'll take it.The conversation about what Yuli said to Eiger while we were gone is identical to before, so next we'll rewind back to the start of the conversation and jump to yet another alternate reality where we didn't join Eiger on the run at all and instead she sat out one mission and went by herself. *** I'm all ears. How did it go? Well enough. The Engineer is dead, and I found out who he was working for. Don't leave me in suspense. Who was it? It's really too bad Eiger was working with X-COM probabilities with this one. So you're not completely sure? No, I'm not. But I'm close enough to move forward with what I did find. Isn't that... I don't know... reckless? Alternatively: quote:
And that's that for that, not joining in on the run means you miss out on both rewards which is obviously not optimal. One last difference left to cover is that the Shadowland thread pertaining to the mission has changed accordingly: - SCHOCKWELLEN_REITERS <18:40:19/11-15-54> [The Reiters have it on good authority that the Lobatchevski Syndicate is eyeing Schattennest for expansion. For the good of the Flux, we should keep a watchful eye on this situation. See attached files for more details...] - Tolstoi <19:01:29/11-15-54> [Okay… bad news for Schattennest. But if the Rammbock isn’t going to stop them, and I hear Surfturf is out of the picture… Well, I’m sure there’s *some* policlub out there who wants that piece of the pie. I know we’ve got enough of them.] - Ruby <19:17:06/11-15-54> [I know that Humanis has some presence there, but I doubt they’ll fight the Russians too much. I’d say they’re far more likely to form a partnership.] *** Alright, back to reality, reality where we have successfully helped three of our four comrades with their personal problems, and by our math that means exactly one remains.  And this one is probably going to be a doozy.  Rosa. What do you need? We left off in a bad place last time. I've been thinking about your story, and I have a question for you. Yeah? What's that? Are you still looking for closure? Because your story had a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up.The story being that of this Harrow guy's twisted Adversary cult which Glory eventually severed ties with (more literally than anyone should have to) but which is still up and operating. See Part 30 if you need a refresher on the man and the nature of the totem he follows. [She holds her silence for a long time. Finally, she nods.] Yes. I've been thinking about this for a long time, Rosa. And every time that I've gotten close to making a decision, I've turned and run away again. No more running. I'm ready to face this thing, but I can't do it alone. I'm going to need your help. That's the idea. All right. If we're going to do this, we need to be clear on what our goal is. There are a lot of innocent people in that place... lost street kids who got sucked in by Marta and the other girls like her. Saving them won't be easy, but it feels like the right thing to do.Right, Glory was in a relationship with this Marta back in the cult days. ...Which could make for an awkward reunion if she's still around.  We're likely to run into other complications, as well. So I think that we need to make a decision here, up-front. What would you do in my place? Rescue the kids, or take down Harrow? I don't think that we can manage both.Glory getting real proactive here, usually we have to make these big choices at the end of a run instead of before it. Well let's see here then, probably depends on the exact circumstances but if we imagine a clear-cut "Either let me escape or watch all these kids blow up" -kind of scenario, well, despite what she says it's probably still easier to pick up the hunt for Harrow again someday than it is to put those kids back together. So we'll see how things actually go, but for now it feels like... Freeing the kids should be our first priority. We raid Feuerstelle, round up the runaways, and clear Harrow's influence from their minds. Killing him will have to be secondary. Glad to hear that we're in agreement. When you're ready to go, meet me at the van - it's a long drive from here to the Schönbuch.No kidding, Schönbuch is a natural park located southwest from Stuttgart, almost 700 kilometers (roughly 430 miles) from Berlin. Best pack a lunch. [She nods.] Right. I'll get my things. Always happy to help our friends, and this sounds like a pretty worthwhile cause too unlike say, clearing the personal debts of a certain gently caress-up.  Since we're taking the car this time we won't head for the usual U-Bahn station, but instead back down the same ladder we entered the safehouse from way back in the beginning.   It's not uncommon for a runner not to be entirely sure what to expect heading out for a run, but facing a devil-worshipping cult in the countryside on the other side of Germany is definitely way outside our sphere of expertise. This ought to be a memorable one, if nothing else. Not much to see here except choosing to prioritize taking out Harrow over saving the kids: quote:
Kanfy fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Feb 16, 2020 |
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Feb 16, 2020 16:54
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Hoo boy. It's finally time.
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Feb 16, 2020 18:17
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Aw poo poo here we go
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Feb 16, 2020 18:21
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The train to Crazytown is about to depart, all aboard!
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Feb 16, 2020 18:34
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Eiger's failure path is exactly as disappointing with proper context as I remember feeling it was when I got it.
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Feb 16, 2020 20:55
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I grabbed the chip out of the bot with Quickness. Unfortunately the threat of being burned is kind of hollow because the game made it pretty clear there weren't going to be any fights after the Engineer chase sequence. So any damage received completely doesn't matter, which is an unfortunate gameplay/immersion segregation.
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Feb 16, 2020 21:03
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Oh boy. Glory’s mission is definitely my favorite of the companion ones.
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Feb 16, 2020 21:44
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Glory's run is a doozy.
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Feb 17, 2020 01:07
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Glory's run was very memorable for me. I look forward to seeing it again.
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Feb 17, 2020 02:48
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It's the one part of the game I missed, basically by accident
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Feb 17, 2020 03:45
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Is Lobachevski Syndicate also a part of the greater lore, or is what we've been told basically it?
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Feb 17, 2020 09:20
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I was reading the Shadowrun Returns LP, and I came across something interesting. Did anyone mention the fiction book Lone Wolf and Lynne Telestrian?
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Feb 17, 2020 14:08
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A few things:Kanfy posted:
So this check needed at least 2 Int, so that means the game knows what to do when a character has 1 Int. I hope it acts like the 90s Fallout games with 1 Int characters. Kanfy posted:
Also, Glory's run looks to be very very serious.
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Feb 17, 2020 18:57
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Rogue AI Goddess posted:Is Lobachevski Syndicate also a part of the greater lore, or is what we've been told basically it? This is basically it. I mean, 4th Ed on tried to diversify the low level syndicates that Street level characters will start out working for beyond the classic Italian Mob, Yakuza, and Triads; and the Russian mob was one of those added. This is just HBS giving a name to one of their syndicates.
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Feb 18, 2020 00:56
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