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 Shadowcaster > Cloaked (Skill 33)He had returned to Cybertron after an epochal tour of duty, having been sent to observe and ...address... any threats to his civilization that might have been brewing across the galaxy. It had been lonely work, but few had the particular set of skills necessary to carry out such a mission, and fewer still had the patience to carry it out properly. He had accepted the task without reservation, as few things were more important than ensuring the continued longevity and prosperity of his people. Naturally, he had returned to Cybertron just in time to observe the tail end of a horrifically disastrous civil war, with the leaders of both sides having apparently abandoned the planet, taking the best that Cybertron had to offer, and with them all hope of rebuilding or repairing the world they had ravaged. It was poetic irony, he new, though that did little to comfort him. His planet had been rendered into a nearly lifeless husk, its cities demolished -- some even vaporized -- and its people cannibalized for spare parts ...by both sides of the war, as far as he could tell. To say that he was not particularly impressed with either faction would have been the understatement of the lightyear. Never one to act without a plan, however, he had not rushed into the fray. Emotions got one killed in his line of work, and although he was pretty sure he had them ...somewhere, anyway... they wouldn't have done him any good at the time. And so it was that, thousands of years ago, upon his triumphant return to a Cybertron that no longer existed, Shadowcaster had begrudgingly commenced the second leg of his tour of duty. After all ...his mission had been to address threats to his civilization, and he had, apparently, missed one. As with every other name on his list, he approached the situation in the same manner: cautiously, invisibly, and with a healthy dose of skepticism. And so, for a thousand years, from a thousand miles high, cloaked by technology a generation beyond the reduced limitations of his war-torn homeworld, Shadowcaster simply watched. A policy of broad-spectrum communications analysis enabled him to keep an eye on the efforts of both sides of the war, as well as those caught in the middle. Methodical attention to detail allowed him to slowly but surely build up a list of names, locations, resources, and other topics of interest. In due course, the war effort was better understood. Plot posted:The Disconnect changed everything. Rolling power outages had been a fact of life for as long as most could remember, but a global disconnect of all power sowed even further chaos. Cities went dark, communications were nonexistent, and charging stations were rendered useless, their capacitors sucked dry within the first few hours. If Shockwave were up to something, he wasn't saying anything. The Autobots would have trumpeted their latest strike to the heavens, but all that could be heard was the echo of gun and laser fire in the distance, careening off of cold, metallic walls. If ever there was a time for dissent to take hold, it would be when all was quiet, when the tiny voices in one's head could finally be heard. As far as he could tell, the lights on Cybertron had simply ...gone out. Not with a whimper, nor even with a bang, he noted. It was a curious situation, and one that warranted better understanding. The implications of this disaster -- and its potential -- were immediately apparent to him. Obviously, something had caused this problem. If life were to continue on Cybertron in any meaningful way, it would need to be corrected. More importantly, though, the person who did correct it would likely come to understand the cause of the problem, and the ability to weaponize that information wouldn't be trailing far behind. There were few weapons of mass destruction more compelling than a planetary 'off' switch, and he rather suspected that The Mighty Shockwave had already arrived at the same conclusion. By the numbers, that was a race Shockwave would win. He had an entire army at his disposal, after all. That said, it was an army that required more than a little hand holding to prevent it from cannibalizing itself, as would-be officers seemingly regularly jockeyed for position, throwing each other into the scrapheap in the process. Moreover, with the communications grid down, and charging stations across the planet offline, the ability of that army to mobilize was likely to be less than impressive. Without a doubt, Shockwave had drawn a terrible hand for this round of the game. In contrast, everything was coming up Shadowcaster. He was quite literally the only game in town as far as functional communications grids went, and a planetary power outage meant that all of the military equipment that might have had a hope in hell of detecting him were offline. If ever there had been a time to start playing the many, many cards he had drawn in the years of his long watch, it was now. Acting directly would be unwise, though. The last thing he needed was for Shockwave to realize who he was up against, at least so early in the game. More accurately, he supposed, he didn't want the Decepticon leader to realize he was playing a game against an opponent until the last hand was ready to be dealt. Which meant ...he needed a few good bots. He'd spent enough time playing this particular sort of game to know the criteria he needed, too. Given the political climate, individuals unaffiliated with either side of the war effort seemed like the right choice. More importantly, people of low rank ...and therefore accustomed to taking orders... would be useful. More critically, he needed people with exceptionally high combat efficacy, and exceptionally low intelligence. Essentially, the sort of people who could get things done, but who were unlikely to see the larger game that was afoot. He turned his gaze downwards, and began to scan the planet for bots that met his search criteria. pre:Intelligence 34 Scanning Cybertron for people with the following criteria... > Neutral in the war effort, neither Autobot nor Decepticon. > Rank of 1. > Intelligence of 4 or lower. > Exceptional offensive and defensive capabilities. > Optional: Teenagers with attitude. Status: Alt-Mode / Null-field Cloak / Mission Log __________________________________________________________________________________________ Waador fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Jul 27, 2017 |
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Jul 27, 2017 05:53
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Shadowcaster > Cloaked (Skill 33) He didn't recall seeing an advertisement for the Cybertron planetary lottery, and he certainly didn't recall purchasing tickets ...and yet, clearly, he was mistaken. Each successive ping on his scan of the surface yielded results of rising quality. The first candidate was more or less in line with his expectations, he supposed -- fast enough to avoid danger, with the reflexes necessary to navigate the hazardous roads of the surface. The subject appeared reasonably well-armed, but was constrained by gravity due to a wheel-based alternative mode. Nonetheless, all of the parameters were met, and the name was added to the list of final candidates. The second candidate was barely even in the same league. With an alternative mode that defied gravity, enough speed to make use of it, and sufficient firepower to take out hardened infrastructure with a single well-placed shot, he found it hard to believe that such a person hadn't been forcefully conscripted into the war effort. Though, he supposed, those very qualities might make it rather challenging to forcefully conscript the subject into doing much of anything they didn't want to do. How very interesting. The third candidate, however? It was like a gift from Primus himself. Physical strength was approaching the redline, and it was backed up with an armored carapace thick enough to ignore an entire building being dropped on him. More importantly, the subject registered a perfect score for malleability. The only downside was that this one was also landlocked, though with everything else on his chart, it hardly mattered. With three candidates identified, Shadowcaster began preparations for the most delicate phase of this whole ordeal ...first contact. Establishing the right sort of working relationship out of the gates was critical to long-term success. Thankfully, he knew just what sort of gift to get each of his new best friends. Locking in on each of their positions, he began a radial scan of their respective surrounding areas. pre:Intelligence 38 Scanning a 50km radius around each of Spinout, Skystrike, and Slam. Attempting to detect energy signatures consistent with a Decepticon Energon cache. He was certain that all of those facilities had already been secured, of course, but more likely they were secured with the overwhelming force of automated defenses, rather than the generally untrustworthy and unreliable force of Decepticon shock troops. The larger caches would no doubt also have been supplemented by trusted lieutenants and a contingent or two of warriors, but he wasn't after the main reserve. No, what he needed was a hat trick of contingency reserves -- one for each of his new best friends. He liked Shockwave, in that regard. The two thought alike. Primary plans, backup plans, contingency plans, the whole nine yards. Shockwave's own headquarters no doubt contained the bulk of his energy reserves, close enough to ensure a watchful eye on his most precious resource. Nonetheless, maintaining military control over an entire planet necessitated secondary supplies in or near the critical infrastructure his troops occupied or relied upon. A forward-thinker like Shockwave would have no doubt foreseen some of those facilities coming under attack one day, though. If one ever managed to be taken, a contingency cache of Energon nearby would have allowed a rallying force to retake the facility. Perhaps not every piece of critical infrastructure would be supported by contingency reserves, but a few of them would be. Now ...where were they? pre:Specifically, I am looking for Energon caches that Shockwave would have placed close to strategic objectives, but which were secured by automated defenses, rather than a contingent of live troops. The sort of automated defenses likely to have gone down with the entire planet's power grid. I suspect Shockwave will move to secure these as soon as he can, but he'll need time to get orders to his troops, and they'll need time to get into position. If I can find them before that, each of my new best friends might be able to liberate a full tank of gas. Status: Alt-Mode / Null-field Cloak / Mission Log __________________________________________________________________________________________ Waador fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Jul 28, 2017 |
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Jul 28, 2017 00:03
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Shadowcaster > Cloaked (Skill 33)Plot posted:Most of the sites with automated defenses are either hotly contested, destroyed entirely, or currently being looted. Others are being held by garrisons currently fighting off the desperate or determined. Allowing subconscious processes to narrow the field down, a few results begin to trickle in. Fort Scyk was the first to be crossed off his mental list. A fortified location would be challenging to breach before enemy reinforcements arrived, and a brazen strike against a military installation was almost certain to be a hard sell against individuals who had managed to remain neutral in the war for this long a time. What possible reason could they have to get involved now? Depot X-51 was crossed off the list next, for much the same reason. While it would be faster to breach, it simply didn't possess the right ...feeling to it. Esserlon, though. That one did feel right, and he rather suspected he knew why. Decepticons were, by and large, not laborers. They also killed Autobots on sight. How, then, did they keep a Cybertonium mine functioning? The answer was likely to be slave labor. And who would comprise that slave population? Other people neutral to the war effort. Yes, there would likely be some Decepticon guards, or administrative workers, but that was a ...surmountable problem. That situation would also provide the right tactical profile. If three heroes were to free their neutral brethren from slavery, that slave force would quickly become a defensive force that his troops could use as a smokescreen to escape. They would know the mine. At least one of them likely already had an escape plan in the works, statistically speaking. If these three could successfully free the captives inside the facility, the tail end of the mission would reap far greater rewards than mere energon. It might not begin a movement, but it would begin to disperse the seeds of a thousand debts owed to his three heroes. Debts they would need to call in before this was all over. Yes. Esserlon was perfect. He didn't know much about his three candidates, other than what was immediately apparently from his recent scan. That was enough to make a few educated guesses, though. First contact would be tricky, but it wouldn't be impossible. Thankfully, he was equipped with a metadimensional comm laser capable of tight-beam point-to-point communications. Obscuring his location by bouncing the signal off of one of the planet's moons, he began the process of his sales pitch. Spinout... This one had remained neutral in the war effort, but available data suggested Autobot sympathies. He imagined that was not particularly uncommon, as everyone loved to root for the underdog. Plus, the Autobots didn't make a habit of killing civilians for sport, which probably helped with their public image. Considering the information he had aggregated, it seemed that the title of 'mercenary' could be applied within a reasonable margin of error. That made for a rather simple approach. Taking a moment to collect himself, he rotated slightly to align the beam, and fired off a single pulse. "Good evening. For security purposes, this is a one-way communication. As you might have noticed, the power across Cybertron has gone out. Preliminary indications suggest it isn't coming back any time soon. If you're interested in profitable work that will help to solve this minor technical glitch, please proceed toward the following coordinates. Air and ground support will be en route shortly. Further details will follow closer to the area of operations. As this is a one-way communication, if you have questions, just ...swerve in the shape of a question mark, or something. Or just don't ask, that'd be great, too." Skystrike... This one was brighter than the others, which was a mixed blessing. Rather unfortunately, he didn't have much information to work with. With that much firepower, though, it seemed rather likely that both sides had attempted to recruit him already. Which meant he'd said 'no', and lived through the experience. Autobots took no for an answer, he supposed, but Decepticons? It was a curious situation. What reason did this one have for his neutrality? The list was narrow, but still contained enough possibilities that a guess could not be hazarded. Whatever the reason, it was likely either an emotional one, or a moral one. Either way, those reasons had strings that could be pulled. Another rotation, and he fired off another beam, this time with accompanying visuals. "Good evening. For security purposes, this is a one-way communication. What you're seeing is a live feed from the Esserlon Cybertonium mine. You are likely aware that the Decepticons have been using this mine to feed their war machine. What you might not know is that the Decepticons have put a slave force to work -- a formerly neutral slave force -- to operate the facility. In about forty minutes, a contact of mine is going to attempt to free the slaves. The facility is currently understaffed, as reinforcements have had to flow to other nearby locations. Unfortunately, that notwithstanding, this isn't a one-bot job, and without air support, they are unlikely to succeed. I don't know you very well -- in fact, just about all I know about you is that you've remained neutral in the war. Frankly, that's a plus in my book. I'm about to learn something about you, though. When confronted with this information, will you stand idly by and allow your fellow civilians to remain enslaved, furthering a war they want nothing to do with? Or will you help to shatter their chains? If you do nothing, their voices will fall silent before too long. If you help them, their voices will be added to the chorus that calls for an end to this war. Help me make that chorus loud enough to drown out the calls for bloodshed and revenge. Or don't, if you can live with that choice, I suppose." Slam... This one was going to be a pure roll of the dice. He had no idea how to communicate with someone so ...feral? Perhaps just wild. Without any better option, he decided to wing it. "Hello. I'm an invisible wizard who lives in the sky. If you're hungry, there's a meal waiting for you at the following location. It's all you can eat, but you have to get there quickly!" Meanwhile, in space... With the lures baited, he turns his attention to Esserlon, intent on acquiring useful information to aid his would-be team. He casually checks in on his three new friends every few moments, in order to determine whether they've altered course towards the area of operations or not. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Status: Alt-Mode / Null-field Cloak / Mission Log __________________________________________________________________________________________ Waador fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Jul 28, 2017 |
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Jul 28, 2017 05:39
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Shadowcaster > Cloaked (Skill 33)Plot posted:Three pings, three places, one point of convergence. Far more than simple numbers worth of data, however. Plot posted:Multiple entrances to facility. One entrance to mine. No energon signatures detected on surface. Multiple non-sentient robotic infantry units detected. Mine layout unstable. Unable to assess interior. Most recent historical records indicate mine as abandoned. The strategic situation warranted consideration, though. On the one hand, historical records labeled the mine as abandoned, and there wasn't a single blip of energon above the surface. On the other hand, the place was guarded by a contingent of drone infantry, a fair amount of artillery in the form of Decepticon lieutenants, and the interior of the mine was shielded from active scans. More likely than not, something of strategic value was hidden beneath the surface. He couldn't be sure if his off-the-cuff assessment of an enslaved work force was accurate or not, but he supposed time would tell. Plot posted:Visually, the mining facility was surprisingly pristine, if you were to take the craters and obvious bullet holes out of the picture. The expected scorch marks were nowhere to be seen, the rubble that should be ubiquitous is surprisingly absent. Plot posted:Give me a roll for any more detailed information, and what direction you want that information to be in. pre:Intelligence 31 Scanning the drone infantry. pre:Skill 34 Hacking the drone infantry. Spinout posted:There was movement at the facility and the mysterious voice had promised support, but hadn't detailed exactly what it was she was supposed to be looking for. Of course, it was probably something that would be really obvious Spinout figured. A haul of energon cubes, a solar fusion reactor core, or maybe a world energy chip. In any case Spinout didn't think too hard about it. Right now it looked like there were a bunch of automated infantry units around the facility and those things were a couple pistons short of an engine block. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Status: Alt-Mode / Null-field Cloak / Mission Log __________________________________________________________________________________________
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Jul 29, 2017 06:08
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Shadowcaster > Cloaked (Skill 33) He couldn't help but laugh to himself when the quadruped burst through one of the facility's reinforced steel walls like it was made of paper. He hadn't detected them just yet, but he had a feeling that one or both of 'Lock' and 'Load' had been getting into position, intending to take the invading muscle car out with a single round of sniper fire. He also imagined they would now be ...rather hesitant... to give away their position, since it would likely mean that thing heading in their general direction after the first shot was fired. Taking a brief moment away from his efforts to impersonate the command and control center for the infantry drones, he sends a quick message off to Slam. "Food's down that shaft over there. Three Decepticons got here first, I think they want to gobble it all up. You'll have to hurry or they might eat it. They might have some prisoners inside. If you free them I'm sure they can show you to the food. Also, that tiny blue car is friendly, don't smash that one please." He then fires off a second and third beam, relaying Spinout and Skystrike in on the same message. "Oh, good, we should be just about ready to kick things off. That's Slam, obviously. Don't worry, he's a gentle giant. Here's the situation: the Decepticons have gone to a fair amount of effort to make it look like this facility is abandoned, and yet it's guarded by a contingent of drone infantry, and three reasonably dangerous lieutenants. I can't be certain, but my intelligence indicates a high probability that this mining facility is still operational, and that the grunt work is being forced out of enslaved civilians who had otherwise attempted to remain neutral in the war effort. As a result, the first mission parameter is to find and release any civilians within the facility. More likely than not, they are being kept at half or one-quarter energy rations at best, in order to discourage any ideas of rebellion or escape. As a result, the second mission parameter is to locate the Energon storage cache within the facility, and get the civilians to it. Once everyone is operating on a full charge, yourselves included, we'll need to get those civilians to safety." He pauses briefly, and then continues, "As for the tactical situation, I'm dealing with the drone infantry presently. Once they've been ...reeducated... that will only leave three Decepticons in the facility, being Lock, Load, and their commander, Twinbarrel. I am hoping they will have the common sense to flee at the first sight of Slam. If they do, please give them every opportunity to leave the field. This isn't about bloodshed, nor should it be. As for roles and responsibilities, I've tasked Slam with taking point going into the mine. He's been asked to free any prisoners he encounters, and will assist with the search for the Energon cache. That said, he isn't exactly the fastest scout, which is where the two of you come in, if you're willing. We have a limited window of opportunity to search this facility for civilians and evacuate them before reinforcements receive a distress call. With the power outage, and the chaos of half the facilities on the planet currently being under fire, we should have a fair amount of time, but it isn't infinite." Another pauses, and then he adds, "If you have any questions, just ...shout, I suppose. That seems to have worked for Slam." __________________________________________________________________________________________ Status: Alt-Mode / Null-field Cloak / Mission Log __________________________________________________________________________________________
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Jul 29, 2017 08:41
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Shadowcaster > Cloaked (Skill 33)Plot posted:Ground penetrating radar ping received! Tactical assessment: Multiple entrances to facility. One entrance to mine. No energon signatures detected on surface. Multiple non-sentient robotic infantry units detected. Mine layout unstable. Unable to assess interior. Most recent historical records indicate mine as abandoned. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Status: Alt-Mode / Null-field Cloak / Mission Log __________________________________________________________________________________________
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Jul 30, 2017 04:06
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Shadowcaster > Cloaked (Skill 33) While the team on the ground engages in a bit of small talk, and then begins to prepare to enter the depths of the mine, Shadowcaster contemplates his next move. pre:Intelligence 34 Scanning the subsurface for areas of high and low structural integrity. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Status: Alt-Mode / Null-field Cloak / Mission Log __________________________________________________________________________________________
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Aug 2, 2017 06:14
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Shadowcaster > Cloaked (Skill 33)Plot posted:Shadowcaster's structural scans show that the most fragile areas would be the entrance itself and the eastern wing of the mine. With regard to Slam, he comments, "The food's down that shaft. You might want to say hi to the car and the plane nearby, though, they're both friends." Moving on to Spinout and Skystrike, he sends a parallel set of beams, commenting, "I'll send along a subsurface scan momentarily. There's a rather concerning degree of structural integrity issues throughout the eastern section of the mine, but the other three quadrants seem to be fine. It would probably be unwise to fire off that moonraking cannon in that particular segment of the mine, though if you needed to make an exit in a hurry, that would definitely be the place to do it." Plot posted:Thanks to the disintegration from Skystrike, Shadowcaster is able to get a nice, echo-filled ping through the entrance to the mine, providing a more detailed map of the area. 4 branches in each of the cardinal directions, with a few further deviations from the main tunnels. Static defenses were in place, though their power status was questionable at best. Some larger units appeared to be patrolling the corridors, but the ends of each one fizzles into obscurity as shielding and signal attenuation takes hold. He highlights a suggested route throughout the mine, starting with the southern quadrant and rotating clockwise to save the east for last, offering, "Unless one of you is feeling particularly stealthy today, it likely makes sense to stick together. Don't split the party, and all that. It's a fair bet that any of the static defenses previously in place down there are down with the grid, or operating on backup battery power at best. If the latter, they might have one good shot in them if they were spooled up before the grid went down, but sustained fire should be an impossibility. If you come up against anything particularly dangerous, finding a way to make them waste their limited ammo would not be the worst idea. It ...appears... as if they have a few larger units patrolling the corridors, but otherwise nothing looks particularly dangerous." He also states the obvious, "Once you're inside the mine, communication reliability is obviously going to degrade. If you need something from me you might have to get creative, though I rather suspect blowing a few new air holes in the ceiling is well within your capability, moonraking cannon and all." __________________________________________________________________________________________ Status: Alt-Mode / Null-field Cloak / Mission Log __________________________________________________________________________________________
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Aug 3, 2017 05:28
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Shadowcaster > Cloaked (Skill +4/-2)Plot posted:Physics is a hilariously scary and wonderful thing. Slam has a few moments to contemplate how nice it feels to have all of his weight taken off of those 4 trunks of legs as he leaps into the proverbial deep end. 15 tons of metal SLAMs into the floor of the mine, the kinetic shockwave careening through the tunnel complex. The already-unstable east wing caves in and collapses, crushing bots, destroying equipment, and detonating an energon stock. Plot posted:etrans kvs comp 3t dnr In his experience, breaking a code often began by picking one word and divining its meaning. From there, all other pieces would fall into place -- sort of like a jigsaw puzzle. You were always best to start with one of the corner pieces, and build roads inward. He decided to begin with 'kvs'. There were many possible implications, many of them acronyms. The most interesting of the data set was not the acronym kvs, however, but rather the notation: Kvs. Specifically, the Kvs value expresses the amount of flow in a regulating valve at a fully-open valve position, and a pressure differential of 1 bar. While neither here nor there to the situation at hand, it was worth noting that the flow at a lower pressure could be calculated through use of the equation Kvs = Q / √ΔP. He filed that away for later use, imagining it might come in handy. If the 'kvs' element of the transmission did in fact refer to the flow of a regulating valve, considering the timing of the transmission immediately after a chain reaction of kinetic shockwaves, collapsing tunnels, and energon detonations, he rather assumed the 'comp' following the word meant 'compromised'. The other piece fell into place rather quickly, as well: etrans, was, of course, energon transmission. How very interesting. An energon transmission system was -- or had been -- hidden in the mine? Liquid energon, perhaps, if a flow valve was involved? Though he supposed that could have been a cooling system instead. With those pieces decoded, the '3t' element was hardly a challenge, obviously referring to the three horsemen of the apocalypse descending upon the facility. That left 'dnr'. He felt it was rather unlikely to mean Department of Natural Resources, but you never knew. Similarly, 'Do Not Resuscitate' made little sense. 'Do not respond' was far more likely, though in his experience that code was often reserved for one's side bot when sending a text transmission when there was a fear that a response may cause problems with one's lover. He considered the matter for a moment, and decided to run the transmission through a regression analysis to be sure. pre:Intelligence +4/-0 Running the coded transmission through a cryptographic analysis. With his message sent, and cognizant of the very slight risk that his opponents had seen The Wire, he alters his altitude and position by a few degrees, settling into a new orbit as he begins to adjust his communications band. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Status: Alt-Mode / Null-field Cloak / Mission Log __________________________________________________________________________________________ Waador fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Aug 9, 2017 |
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Aug 9, 2017 06:34
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Shadowcaster > Cloaked (Skill +4/-2)Plot posted:As nice as software is, language is one of the most difficult ways of encoding a message. He reflexively sorted the challenge into buckets identified by their degrees of confidence. He was reasonably certain 'comp' meant compromised, and he was reasonably certain '3t' referred to his forces on the ground. While he couldn't place the specific flavor of 'dnr', its general contextual meaning was clear enough. Whether 'do not respond' or 'do not reinforce', the suggestion was that something of value was in fact hidden deep below the surface in the shielded chambers of the mine. 'Etrans' had a lower degree of confidence, though much like 'dnr' it was more the flavor than the context itself. It was the subject matter of the message, the thing that was, as it were. Whatever his forces on the ground would find, it would be the etrans. Energon transmission made sense to him, though any number of variations of possible 'energy transfer' options certainly also hit high on the list of likely answers. He supposed it didn't really matter. The 'kvs' notation continued to draw the bulk of his attention, its certainty being the lowest degree of confidence in the matrix. Whatever the 'etrans kvs' was, it was compromised, though. Looking at the literal crater in the ground where the entrance to a mine used to be, he took a certain degree of comfort in that. As much as he wanted to believe it was a liquid energon transfer facility of some sort, it was hardly lost on him that the general intelligence of the two lieutenants known to inhabit the facility was not, to put it politely, particularly advanced. The convenience of military shorthand aside, he rather doubted either of them would know enough to effectively apply, or really even be able to remember the Kvs formula with a great degree of reliability. More likely than not, it meant something simpler, and more apropos to military grunts. Perhaps that was the answer? What were the odds that these particular individuals knew more than a few seven letter words, let alone a single mathematical formula? It occurred to him that perhaps he was dealing with a puzzle within a puzzle: in this case, 'kvs' was the primary gear upon which everything else turned. His natural inclination, as with the original problem, was to work his way in from the edges. Fun fact, roughly 6.686% of all words started with 'S'. In contrast, 0.824% start with 'V', while 'K' brings up the rear with a mere 0.456% of the population. In this particular case, he was reasonably comfortable playing the odds -- specifically, the odds that either of the two likely senders of the transmission knew many words that contained more than seven or eight letters. Once you rounded out the edges that way, his next step was naturally to begin a dictionary attack on the letter 'K'. It didn't really matter where he stopped the analysis, he supposed. Once you removed all of the technical terms that would really only be used in niche scientific communities and specialized roles, as well as the outlying population of words like knowledgeable, kindheartedness, and an assortment of others likely to be in the Decepticon lexicon but irrelevant to the situation at hand, there were only a few options that had merit. Interestingly, there was a statistically unlikely cluster of volume measurements containing precisely nine letters, including kilobytes, kilocycle, kilohertz, kiloliter, kilometer, kilomoles, kilopound, kilostere, and kilovolts. He idly wondered if some ancient mathematician had gone out of his or her way to ensure that. The answer, quite likely, was yes. He filed that away under 'interesting trivia' and returned to the matter at hand. There weren't many useful options in the one, two, three, and four-letter buckets. The five-letter bucket contained 'kabob' and 'kebab', either of which sounded pretty good right about now, but were neither an option nor a likely culprit. 'Karat' had merit, mine context considered, but didn't seem too likely. 'Keeper', perhaps? As much as he hoped to be proven wrong, he crossed 'kobold' off the list, though he left 'kraken' in the tentative column, unwilling to abandon all his dreams in one singular moment. 'Keeping' seemed the most likely of the list he had compiled so far, though 'keyhole' had some interesting possibilities as well. He desperately hoped it didn't refer to keeper, though that certainly would be an interesting development. The mine context flag was up on that one, he supposed. It would take him a bit of time to run through all of the possibilities, but he was well on his way. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Status: Alt-Mode / Null-field Cloak / Mission Log __________________________________________________________________________________________ Waador fucked around with this message at 06:19 on Aug 16, 2017 |
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Aug 16, 2017 06:14
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Shadowcaster > Cloaked (Skill +4/-2) After some more thought on the matter, he refocused his attention on 'etrans'. It occurred to him that the message was absent punctuation, but perhaps required it. In this case, it was conceivable that 'etrans' might mean 'emergency transmission', translating somewhere along the lines of "Emergency transmission: [KVS] compromised, three transformers, do not [respond/reinforce]." That certainly made sense, though it wasn't particularly efficient. If one was sending a message on an encrypted band using military shorthand, the context would indicate it was an emergency transmission, and there was no real need to increase the size of the message to clarify that -- particularly since the longer the message was, the more likely it was to be detected. There was, however, another interesting possibility. Could, 'etrans' perhaps mean emergency transport? What better place than a naturally shielded mine to construct -- or hide -- a spacefaring vessel? That would certainly be an interesting development. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Status: Alt-Mode / Null-field Cloak / Mission Log __________________________________________________________________________________________
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Aug 16, 2017 13:53
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Shadowcaster > Cloaked (Skill +4/-2)Shadowcaster (the past) posted:After some more thought on the matter, he refocused his attention on 'etrans'. It occurred to him that the message was absent punctuation, but perhaps required it. In this case, it was conceivable that 'etrans' might mean 'emergency transmission', translating somewhere along the lines of "Emergency transmission: [KVS] compromised, three transformers, do not [respond/reinforce]." There was, however, another interesting possibility. Could, 'etrans' perhaps mean emergency transport? What better place than a naturally shielded mine to construct -- or hide -- a spacefaring vessel? That would certainly be an interesting development. pre:Intelligence +5/-0 Taking a deeper dive on the analysis in light of etrans possibilities. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Status: Alt-Mode / Null-field Cloak / Mission Log __________________________________________________________________________________________ Waador fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Aug 16, 2017 |
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Aug 16, 2017 23:21
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Shadowcaster > Cloaked (Skill +4/-2)Plot posted:The analysis software all but confirms the theory - KVS isn't about flow rates or Energon transmission. They're looking for something far more important. He had solved for the variables in the mystery, and in truth it hadn't taken him very long to do so, but what had been his reward? Secret knowledge, yes, but nothing representing a net gain. Indeed, his skill in applied cryptography had merely gifted him with a tremendous burden. Understanding the situation allowed him to predict with a fair degree of accuracy the next few moves on the board, and the rather unpleasant conversations that would follow. Moreover, he was now cursed: before this was over, he would have to slay at least one dragon, and while he would find it truly enjoyable to arrange the board in such a manner so as to ensure his victory, he found it truly annoying that, as usual, he would have to spend the majority of his time carefully averting disaster and calamity for people who could never be allowed to know the danger at hand. Put plainly, he was going to come off as a complete loving rear end in a top hat to everyone involved in this situation, because he couldn't afford for anyone to know he was actually a hero. If they knew the truth, after all, they would know why his actions were heroic, and the whole god drat cycle would repeat. 'Absolutely loving typical', he thought to himself. Thankfully, as far as he could tell, the Decepticon forces were largely unaware of the risk they now faced -- a situation that needed to be maintained for as long as possible. With only three assailants on the ground, and given the context of the global blackout, the local Decepticon commander was almost certain to perceive this as an attack of opportunity, rather than a surgical strike. In truth, up until a few moments ago, that probably would have actually been an accurate description. Taking stock of the situation, it seemed that all of the relevant advantages remained on his side, at least for the moment. The global blackout currently served as a significant distraction for both the Autobot and Decepticon forces, and until that matter was resolved their ability to coordinate was going to be impaired. Hardly reduced to zero, he supposed, but it at least created an opportunity for a particularly well-informed group to move about relatively unimpeded. He struggled to think of a way that he might maneuver Slam about the board unseen, though he supposed the answer was obvious -- mine tunnels, and the network of tunnels well below it. Even if cornered, his group shouldn't have any real difficulty escaping through the basement. He wasn't entirely convinced that Slam wouldn't generate a traceable seismic signature as he maneuvered through those tunnels in a doubtlessly graceful manner, but that was a problem for later. He found himself struggling with the real question, though. Put plainly: did this new information actually change the plan? He didn't think so. While his recently recruited team of heroes would almost certainly not find a pen of captured slaves within the interior of the mine, he supposed there was an off chance that they might. They definitely wouldn't find an operational energy extraction operation, though they would likely find the next best thing: a cache of resources sufficient to support the equivalent of a covert Nazi dig site. They would still come out of this able to fuel themselves up, which had been the primary goal of the mission to begin with, and more likely than not there would be a sizable bounty of salvageable equipment, data, security codes, and other useful tidbits that would fuel his own rather quickly growing list of needs. While he found it rather hard to believe that the object of their search would simply be lying down there waiting to be recovered, he was rather confident that he could plunder the data they had on the dig in order to make an educated guess. All of that would have to come later, though. Essentially, the plan was unchanged. He had no intention of going down to the surface until the threat was addressed, and while he didn't expect it would take the one-two combo of an invulnerable dinosaur and a glass cannon very long to resolve the situation, they would still need time. He might have to urge them to be a bit more careful with the collateral damage when next they were within signal range, but that would have to wait until the aforementioned cannon blew a new hole in the roof, or until one of the two actually capable of conversation crossed back through the main entryway. In the meantime, he decided to start his own search ...of historical records. They had long since been archived well outside of his active memory, but the library of ancient Cybertron lived on somewhere within him. After all, when he had set off on his mission to begin with, he didn't want to go insane during the prolonged periods of interstellar transit and nearly constant radio silence. One had to take a few good books with them. Or, in his case, essentially all of them. That made it a rather frustrating problem, though: was it possible to find a single needle in a haystack built up over literal eons? He hoped so, he supposed. pre:Intelligence +4/-3 Consulting my historical archives for relevant information. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Status: Alt-Mode / Null-field Cloak / Mission Log __________________________________________________________________________________________
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Aug 28, 2017 08:12
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Shadowcaster > Cloaked (Skill +4/-2)Plot posted:As the group makes their way back to the center of the complex, keeping to cover along the way, it becomes difficult to tell the difference between falling debris and the movement of objects. Rocks crumble, steel groans, but as the group enters the central shaft, an awkward-sounding toomp~ sounds from the western corridor just before a bright purple flash envelops the room, a harsh electronic whine threatening to overload auditory sensors - it's a flashbang! Compensating for thermal flare was not a particularly daunting challenge, particularly with the benefit of a few hundred kilometers in distance and a suite of sensors that run the gamut of the spectrum and -- if he was being honest -- more than one dimension. Zoom. Enhance. Edge detect. Radial blur decrystallization. He already had algorithms and filters loaded for just this sort of thing, as, unfortunately, they tended to come up more frequently than he would care to admit. pre:Intelligence +4/-1 Cleaning up the footage from the shaft. Detecting and calculating the path of the grenade before it went off. He decides to send a message down to Spinout and Skystrike. While probably not strictly necessary, he continues to be careful insofar as signal intelligence protocols demanded, bouncing the signal off of one of Cybertron's moons to protect his position. Old habits and all that. "You're making fast friends with the locals, it seems? Sending you his position relative to your own now. I assume he's going to move, but frankly he doesn't strike me as the speedy type. If you fire at his location before the sensor flare wears off, you'll probably get him. I doubt he'll be expecting you to pinpoint his location within a few inches less than a second after the grenade went off, after all. If you're unaccustomed to firing blind, just repeat after me: 'I do not shoot with my hand; he who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind.' There are a few other verses but they don't really apply here." Shadowcaster (the past) posted:He might have to urge them to be a bit more careful with the collateral damage when next they were within signal range, but that would have to wait until the aforementioned cannon blew a new hole in the roof, or until one of the two actually capable of conversation crossed back through the main entryway. Plot posted:Archival searches show more matters of lore than of actual scientific fact. The Key to Vector Sigma has been said to control the Behemoths Below/The Sentinels/The Guardians of Primus, along with permitting access to Vector Sigma itself, a transdimensional supercomputer capable of Creation itself. It went without saying that access to either of those devices by either party would unleash a whole new kind of hell on Cybertron. As for how to find it, records didn't say much. Instinct, feeling, that resonating feeling in your cogs (or servos, it doesn't discriminate) were how it had been found in the past. With the war on, who knows who had it last or how it got to where it was. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Status: Alt-Mode / Null-field Cloak / Mission Log __________________________________________________________________________________________
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Aug 30, 2017 03:29
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