Eclipse Phase: Glory

[FatherJack]

Usagi's certainly not one for all guns blazing, indeed the only thing she has approaching a weapon is a stunner. She has some programming, infosec and interfacing skills if maybe messing with their systems remotely is a possibility.

[Dog Pants]

That's not a bad call actually, assuming they don't have a better hacker. Maybe that's what Yu was doing.

[Joose]

OK, so what you doing next then?

[Dog Pants]

Oh yeah, I'll get Ignacio to try to work out what the solar panel is for.

Hardware: Electronics:
3, 6: 36 Failure!

Oh Ignacio. You're just not that smart.

Anyone else fancy a go at this? Might be something we can pick at.

[fabyak]

Could I extend that to the general electrics of the place and if there's anything I can spot that we could use to scupper them as they're larger in number and heavier in firepower (probably)

Hardware: electronics (50 + 10(?) for working with Muse)

Roll(1d100)+0:
19,+0
Total:19

Winnar! (I think?)

[Joose]

Winnar! (I think?)

Winnar indeed!

The solar panel is not likely to be producing any juice to the system (not in amounts that would be at all noticeable anyway). What is conspicuously absent from the plans are any kind of antenna, which is weird considering they are supposed to be running a darkcasting network from this place. Its entirely possible to modify a solar panel of that size to work as an egocasting/darkcasting antenna though. You would put money on that being what they have done here. Probably this was done in part because they made the whole thing from junk and in part so that anyone who happens to pass by would go "Ha! Look at those morons trying to run a hab that size this far out on one shitty solar panel! The fools!" rather than "That tiny hab has its own egocasting set up. That is mighty suspicious!"

As for the rest of the habs electrics: The plans you have are not massively detailed and contain a fair amount of supposition. What you can tell is that although the whole thing is controlled from the Ops centre, *everything* runs through the Utility bay. You would probably have to be in Ops to do anything with fine control, but if you just wanted to kill power to stuff you could just go into the Utility bay and start swinging sharp implements at cable bundles. Habs like this tend to have emergency airlocks in case of loss of pressure, you could probably set them off pretty easily. In theory you could probably access most of the Habs systems by hacking its mesh, but that depends on a) how well set up and maintained their computers are and b) how secure they have things.

I forgot to mention before: There are two airlocks in the Utility bay (one by the solar panel, one on the opposite side), the Docking Spar (obviously), two in the drone bay (really designed for drones and more akin to torpedo tubes than an actual airlock) and an emergency access (more a "pop the door to be shot out into space" effort than an airlock) in the Ops centre.

[fabyak]

If we were able to get into their systems, could we set the doors off at will? Thinking we could trap people and threaten to jettison them or otherwise keep the flow of people to hit to a manageable level until they tell us what we're after

[Joose]

If we were able to get into their systems, could we set the doors off at will? Thinking we could trap people and threaten to jettison them or otherwise keep the flow of people to hit to a manageable level until they tell us what we're after

Theoretically, sure.

[Dog Pants]

I wonder how much explosives we'd need just to blow the head off the thing. Sever the Ops room. None of the solutions we have give me a fuzzy feeling because we're not that skilled for them and will probably just wind up in a shootout we're unlikely to win. On the other hand our only remaining option is to go in guns blazing. Maybe we should just go for it in order of most likely to be successful. We might still be able to recruit some help. Okay, this is my battle plan then. Feel free to modify or discuss.

1. Try to recruit Wong for some hacking. He already knows about Firewall and wants in, so he's likely to be helpful.
2. Convince Shoggy that if he wants his ship back he needs to help get us to the the Song Cai Flower, preferably undetected.
3. Take a backup.
4. Find the Flower and hack the door controls. Lock them out of the Ops room (even better if we can cripple it), space the Khanhs. Me might be able to get some info on Yu while we're at that.
5. Get in there and haul out the goods.
6. ...
7. Profit!

[Joose]

I wonder how much explosives we'd need just to blow the head off the thing. Sever the Ops room.

You can do an appropriate tech roll to see if you can work it out. Any demolitions or ship based skills would do.

[fabyak]

Would I be able to use my lab tech roll?

[Joose]

Would I be able to use my lab tech roll?

mmmmmmyes, but at a big ole' negative mod.

[Dog Pants]

I don't think I have any appropriate skills of note. None I'd pass a roll on anyway. I don't think explosives are the way forward here.

[fabyak]

My muse has an interest in Spaceship models (but no numbers), I'll get him to look and help him

Sampeyan kudu katon menyang iki. Aku bakal bantuan

[Joose]

Your Muse doesn't know. Probably lots though. Although they are technically separate modules that have all been bolted together, "bolted" doesn't really do it justice. Trying to guess at what point you go from "enough explosives" to "whoops, we vaporised the whole station" would be a complete crapshoot.

Its a bit like saying "can I cut a cruise liner in half with explosives". Can it be done? Probably. Can you do it? Probably not.

[Dog Pants]

Lets go with the hacking plan, with the shooting-things-in-the-face plan as a backup.

Step 1.

I'll contact Wong and ask him if he's interested in some wetwork with us. I won't promise Firewall membership or anything, but I'll hint that it will put him in a favourable position if he's helped us in the field (which it hopefully will). The spin for him is that we need to get on board the ship Yu went looking for and that someone who knows his way around a program could help avoid unnecessary risk.

Persuasion 55:
7, 2: 72 Failure!

Ugh. Hopefully he won't need persuading and will come of his own motive.

Step 2.

Go see Shoggy and explain to him that we know where the Keysrah is, but that we'll probably need to apply a little pressure to get it back. He can help by getting us there, or pointing us in the direction of someone who can (our friend the Jackalope herder maybe?).

Persuasion:
8, 7: 87 Severe Failure!

Oh FFS. Well, as before hopefully he won't need persuading.

Lets see how we get on with that.

[Joose]

I'll contact Wong and ask him if he's interested in some wetwork with us. I won't promise Firewall membership or anything, but I'll hint that it will put him in a favourable position if he's helped us in the field (which it hopefully will). The spin for him is that we need to get on board the ship Yu went looking for and that someone who knows his way around a program could help avoid unnecessary risk.

Persuasion 55:
7, 2: 72 Failure!

Ugh. Hopefully he won't need persuading and will come of his own motive.

Fuck no. Fuck. No.

Because CA isn't that far from Locus you can communicate with his on live video stream with only a slight delay. As such, have a kinesics roll.

Go see Shoggy and explain to him that we know where the Keysrah is, but that we'll probably need to apply a little pressure to get it back. He can help by getting us there, or pointing us in the direction of someone who can (our friend the Jackalope herder maybe?).

Persuasion:
8, 7: 87 Severe Failure!

Oh FFS. Well, as before hopefully he won't need persuading.

Luckily, Shoggy would really like the Keysrah back so doesn't take any persuading at all. He is happy to lend you a smallish shuttle. Its not exactly a stealth ship but he loads it up with a limited AI pilot he designed himself: it will take you to whatever destination you enter using various tricks like using minimal power and coasting the final approach without thrusters. As long as no one is actively looking for you at the exact moment you make your final approach you should be able to go undetected. In return however, he expects both this ship and the Keysrah returned. If you fail to return either of them you or your backups will be responsible for their replacement, which you will be expected to deliver no more than 6 months from today's date (in case you are wondering, this long timespan is to allow for the possibility if you never being seen again. Its common for people to have their insurance guys wait at least a couple of months before resleeving you from backups, just in case you are just out of communication and not actually dead. This is why you haven't been able to talk to Yu's backup). If you are happy with this arrangement he will make you enter a standard salvage agreement to that effect and lodge it with Nomic (meaning if you try to ditch the deal at a later date someone like Vasquez and her team will hunt you down to ask very pointed questions, not to mention the hit your reps would take).

[Dog Pants]

Good old kinesics (55).
1, 7: 17 Excellent Success!

I'm shit at everything else but I've a fine robo-eye for motives. I should be a policeman. A robot policeman. Robocop!

As for Shoggy.

That doesn't seem like such a fair deal to me, Shoggy. You already got a bond on the Keysrah from Yu, and I'm offering to go get it for you for free. So if I don't bring it back you get that payout twice? You must think I was downloaded into this can yesterday. Here's the deal: For the kind service of finding your pretty ship for you and taking it from the bad men who have it, you can lend us the shuttle. If I come back without the Keysrah then I'll give you the coordinates for it for free, since I couldn't manage my part of the deal. Don't worry, my backup has them. If we lose the shuttle but bring back the Keysrah then you can consider yourself to be in a better position than you were before you met me and we'll both be happy campers. If I lose the shuttle and don't recover the Keysrah then I owe you one shuttle, and you can work the rest out with Yu's backup on whatever deal you had with her.

As reluctant as I am to risk failing another roll.
Persuade (55):
6, 0: 60 Failure!

GAAAAAAAH!

[Joose]

I'll start with Shoggy:

Hmm. It seems that you have the location of the Keysrah already. If you were to give me the location now, I would not need to worry. I will, of course, not initiate any recovery unless I am confident you have failed. I would not want to interfere. Accept this and I will agree to your other amendments.

For the kinesics:

He seems a lot more closed off than he was previously, like he has since experienced something that gave him a shock. He is certainly more guarded with you than he was when you met him on Locus.

[fabyak]

Hmmmm, makes me wonder if he's in on it. But the question is who is he in with? Yu or the other guys?