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)