Talk:Session 8: Pandemonium At The Harvest

We could slip one or two agents in before the attack as engineers (or other workers) at the station. This is probably a very unsafe assumption but I would suspect the terrorists would not immediately purge everyone who is working at the station. With something as complex as a tidal power plant, even if they had their own experts, they would probably need someone familiar with the plant to help hook up their artifact to the grid. Having someone on the inside during that procedure could give us a lot of useful information while the others sneak onto the facility. If we don't want the agent to be taken hostage, we could still put someone on the inside. Since we know the attack is coming, the undercover agent should be able to avoid being captured or killed by hiding. It's not without its risks. How does J.P. feel about doing this? Does he feel that the terrorists are just going to slaughter everyone they see, or are they likely to take hostages?

I think our top priority before we secure the artifact is to remain undetected. If they get any hint that there's a counterterrorist operation afoot while we are there, we are in big trouble.

Another key question: at what point is the artifact going to be vulnerable to capture? This will depend a lot on where the artifact is getting hooked up to the grid. Any time the artifact is in motion, it will be heavily guarded. It may be less guarded (though certainly monitored) during the time it is hooked up to the power grid. We should examine possible routes the artifact will take to and from loading areas to its power-up location.

If we get lucky, maybe they will be dressed in armor that conceals their face. It could be possible to pick off a terrorist or two and take their spot - walk around in their clothes/armor. Maybe even get on the inside of the artifact escort.

I'm torn on whether or not Dmitri should come along. He would be a liability to a stealthy operation, but with the station cut off from the larger Matrix, he would have to be on-site to access any nodes. The question becomes, do any of our plans require access to the station's systems?

I'm assuming they're going to have a mage with them. Eric needs to be careful that he doesn't stand out in astral space or get detected by someone running detect magic. Unless our cover is already blown.

We should weigh the pros and cons of artifact extraction by sea vs. by air.

Items we need to bring:

• Jamming equipment
• Maglock passkeys
• Uniforms that employees at the station wear
• Plenty of microwire
• Explosives

Kirkland 19:09, 18 January 2011 (EST)

While it would be an advantage to have someone aboard ahead of time, I do not think we can safely pull it off. I dont think we can make any assumptions about the unwillingness of terrorists taking innocent lives. Even if taken alive, I imagine the prisoners would be unarmed and bound. We could end up adding a rescue mission to our list of objectives. Gideon could use invisibility to hide, but detect magic would immediatly give him away.

Staying undetected as long as possible is good advice, but involves avoiding any conflict. With commlinks, bio-moniters, etc, even a silent kill will alert the other members of the group. If they have a mage with them, things get even stickier. Detect magic, detect life, detect human, etc would all give us away assuming a decent roll on the mages part. Spirits would be able to keep on eye on things from astral space.

The chink in their armor that I see is their ship(s). With that in mind, I have two ideas.

1) If we can get to their ship during the initial assault on the platform, we might be able to sneak on to the ship, steal the device and get out in the chaos. All of their men will be busy boarding the platform or manning guns/rigging, etc. They have little reason to gaurd the device while it is still aboard their ship. Any casualties would be chalked up to the combat, assuming we kill quick enough to prevent us being reported. Once we have our hands on the device, if it is small enough, we can take it out the way we came...if not, we blow a hole in the side of their ship that our boat is on, lower it to our boat, and make our get away.

2) After they have boarded the platform, we plant explosives under most of the ships and pick the biggest to board with team one. Team one makes noise, blows stuff up, kicks ass, etc. The terrorists entire mission fails if they can not get the device back to wherever they came from, so they will have to take a large chunk of the forces and direct them to the combat. Then team two kicks in. Under cover of the distraction, team two makes their way stealthily to the device. It will be hard for them to keep track of casualties if team one is doing a good job, so team two would be able to execute some quick kills if necesarry. If Eric brings spirits and is casting, the mage should be busy enough that he (or she) drops spells like detect magic and uses their spirits to help in the battle.

Both plans have plenty of details to iron out. Regardless, we are going to need ECMs on our ship to avoid detection by their sensors and to help prevent being targeted during the escape. Your guys turn to pick apart my plans. :)

--Macabreengel 13:00, 19 January 2011 (EST)

I suppose I should chime in as well.

• Getting anyone on the platform before the mission goes down would be next to impossible and extremely risky. As the briefing says the mission is taking place tonight, as in as soon as the briefing finishes you'll be on a plane to the boat and then the boat to the platform. You'll be arriving approximately the same time as the terrorists will. (Unless you chose to delay as a part of the plan.) You could in theory attempt to parachute someone to the platform before the terrorists arrived (cutting out the boat time) but that'd be pretty risky and real hard to do stealthy. (Did anyone take parachuting?)
• Its tough to say what to expect from a terrorist organization taking over a power plant as far as hostages and what not. I wouldn't count on it either way, it's possible they have an inside man or someone within the group with the expertise to handle the technical know-how to use the device. (Basically we have no intel on this and not much way of gathering it before the mission)
• When and where the artifact will be vulnerable is certainly key to the mission. Its a good call to guess that while it's in motion it will be most heavily guarded. So immediately before/after hook up to the power grid stands to be the worst time. (As far as guards go.) While its "plugged in" may have a smaller security force, though you would need to "unplug" it without harming yourselves. Dr. Meow thinks it's pretty reasonable for our operatives to be able to do this, though likely a little harder than unplugging a lamp. (Likely no harder than disarming the generators during a previous mission. Expect a Logic+Demolitions+Engineering-ish roll if you plan to do this.) Other available times would be before the device is onboard and after it has been extracted. Both bring with them risks. Afterwards you'll be trying to steal the device in the midst of their escape so instead of being spread throughout the platform they will all be in one place. That poses a notable problem, while on board the platform the security will be spread relatively thin, but before/after they'll be gathered together.
• As far as air vs. sea extraction of the device that is at least somewhat up to you Brian. I'm not sure what FATE has at their disposal as far as helicopters go, but they'd need something capable of extracting the entire crew and towing the device. Additionally I'd imagine some sort of stealth approach would be wise. Keep in mind this is an unsanctioned mission to getting one from the military is likely out of the question. The boat we have should in theory be capable of all these feats (though its stealth ability may be somewhat in question) Stealing one of their boats is also possible, in theory at least, depending on the rigger set up.
• Remember that we have to move the device, and we're not sure how big it is. At least not specifically, we're not sure anyone will be able to lift it. (Pretty sure humans wouldn't be able to) Obviously they have means to move the device, but if we strike before they move/load it anywhere we may not be able to hijack their moving equipment to help us out.
• Plan 2, looks to be the best combination of both of your posts. Including heavy stealth to get close to the device is probably wise (going unnoticed is probably an overall better way to move around the platform if your going that route) and using some upfront assault as a distraction.
• Some thoughts my characters or NPC's might throw out there.
  • Just as we pointed out, their boats are critical to their success in the mission, they are aware of that as well.
  • Our boat (or aircraft) is equally important to our success, so we would want to be careful not to get sunk if we engaged in any boat-to-boat combat. JP would point out that we don't expect them to have military equipment, so submarines/torpedoes/etc are very unlikely, but the ships will probably be heavily armed. (Mounted weaponry, machine guns, grenade launchers, and handheld rocket launchers are possible. Probably nothing a high-end shadowrunning group wouldn't have.)
  • If part of our plan includes bringing Dimitri he'll probably need to board the platform to be effective (though depends what you want him to do) and keeping an escort with him is likely a good idea.
  • Regardless of the plans we'll probably need at least 2 teams accomplishing objectives. We'll have to look at the breakdown depending on what teams are accomplishing.

Let me know if there are more questions, comments, or whatever. I'll try to post again tonight or something if people respond this evening. I'm currently planning to have some maps pre-drawn for the group to use. Though I havn't done that yet, hopefully I will tonight.

--FyreFly 15:27, 19 January 2011 (EST)