The fun thing about dissolving the police in New Orleans is that we have a mayor who can't complain about us destroying them, as they were probably on his 'when I get around to it' section of the list of things he's planning to destroy. If only because it's easier to defund hospitals than people who have guns, as you have to worry about a bit more of a kinetic response than some issues with the community in the latter case. It's also something our mafia should be able to take advantage of, since we'll have informed them that we're planning to delete the police.
Similarly, if DoP people complain about New Orleans police, we can honestly say 'the fewer excuses that lunatic in the mayor's office has to defund the hospitals, the better' and it gives us an excuse to develop our own security.
The fun thing about dissolving the police in New Orleans is that we have a mayor who can't complain about us destroying them, as they were probably on his 'when I get around to it' section of the list of things he's planning to destroy. If only because it's easier to defund hospitals than people who have guns, as you have to worry about a bit more of a kinetic response than some issues with the community in the latter case. It's also something our mafia should be able to take advantage of, since we'll have informed them that we're planning to delete the police.
Similarly, if DoP people complain about New Orleans police, we can honestly say 'the fewer excuses that lunatic in the mayor's office has to defund the hospitals, the better' and it gives us an excuse to develop our own security.
Most of the public services will be privatize as part of the mayor's policies, they already receive little funding as it is from the government and are largely inefficient for count of that, privatization is not going to improve matters.
I think we going have to trow Local Philanthropies in New Orleans to at least give a little money for these services since the City Hall will not even pretend to help them anymore.
I have half an idea for an Omake of a Planet of the Apes alt timeline. I expect Edgar would have made a point to teach the apes about his own science knowledge so that they wouldn't end up completely screwed if he got killed, which might have had some serious knockons simply from continuing his work with radiotrophic plants and 'animal husbandry' with the attack plants.
[] Plan: Knightfall
--[] Floodwall Expansion (Baton Rouge)
---[] 1 die: (0/400 --> 45/400)
-[] AGENT (1 dice; +0)
--[] Hunting NEXT
---[] 1 die + 1 Skulder + 2 Sophia (81)
-[] FACILITIES (0 dice; +1)
--[] ACME Construction Catelogue
---[] 2 Benoit: (109/200 --> 194/200)
--[] AutoMenagerie Complex
---[] 2 Edgar (307/500 --> 377/500)
-[] SCIENCE (0 dice; +5)
--[] Laser Balloon Testing
---[] 1 Prototype (91/250 --> 186/250)
--[] Australia
---[] 2 Edgar + 1 Ecology (143)
--[] TAPP Analysis
---[] 1 Government (0/300 --> 55/300)
--[] Quarantine Procedure (Sunken Parish)
---[] 1 Disaster + 1 Ecology + 1 Genetics (200) SUCCESS
-[] OUTREACH (0 dice; +5)
--[] AlviCorp Community Development Program (New Alexandria)
---[] 2 Education + 1 Arcadian Agent (0/150 --> 149/150) AUTO-COMPLETE
--[] Co-Op Garden (Cambridge Louisiana)
---[] 1 Cambridge Louisiana (0/100 --> 42/100)
--[] Community Restoration Program (New Orleans)
---[] 1 Wilbur (0/50 --> 34/50)
--[] Community Restoration Program (Baton Rouge)
---[] 1 Baton Rouge (0/50 --> 50/50) COMPLETE
-[] MISCHIEF (8 dice; +2)
--[] Dissolve the Police (Baton Rouge)
---[] 3 dice + 1 Wilbur (156) SUCCESS
--[] Dissolve the Police (New Orleans)
---[] 3 dice + 1 Chems (240) SUCCESS
--[] Raiding the Warchest (Pinkerton National Detective Agency)
---[] 2 die + 1 Wilbur + 1 Free (161) SUCCESS
===== Floodwall Expansion [Construction, Ecology]:The New Orleans floodwall was one of the largest pieces of infrastructure in the state. It was expected to fail in 50 years: and unfortunately, it wasn't the only community that had that problem. 45/400, Baton Rouge. Increase Floodproofing.
Community Restoration Program [Charity, Ecology, Disaster]: Occasionally, communities were likely to be damaged by fires, storms, etc. It was technically FEMA's job to help these places repair themselves, but frankly if the DoP didn't step in it was very likely these communities would never actually recover. 50/50, select Community Card with a natural disaster triggered negative status condition. Gain progress to erasing status condition. Repeatable. Sufficient overflow will be reassigned to a different community project.
The two men peered through binoculars , standing underneath a singular lone tree. "Looks like trouble," One of them noted, watching the pair of vans pull up to the construction zone. Both the men were in tan suits, matching fedorahs, tie, and sunglasses- and of course, gloves. Boss- Sophy- was insistent: when they were on the clock and working for the Outfit, they were to be as forgettable as possible, and to leave no trace. "Should we step in?"
"Nyet," The other responded, drawling in a thick- if finally starting to thin from the decades in America- accent, before drawing out a walkee-talky. "This is Nikiforov, we have potential sighting of hostile. Everyone be at station, and be prepared if things get violent."
A chorus of acknowledgements came over the radio: the Reznikov's were out in force recently. Big boss- Wright- wanted reconstruction of Sherwood Park District, get the tent cities that had popped up to a reasonable, manageable size- day job was as some sort of government guy, and Nikiforov supposed he wanted to make sure his cover job was meeting expectations. However, since those worst hit and thus needing their homes repaired were all strikers, new boss was worried Pinkertons would try to sabotage, throw weight around. It wasn't an operation that brought in much money to the outfit, though
Watching through his binoculars, Nikiforov frowned as he watched men pile out, some with holstered clubs, some with holstered guns. Laser. Of course: some of them were likely off duty cops getting under table deal.
"Looks like they're here to cause trouble. Move in," Nikiforov said, and both he and his partner, a young rookie named Alexei, began to walk forward. Across the street, he watched the leader of the little band of corporate gangsters confront the foreman, the two of them beginning to talk, his men fanning out.
It did not take long for yelling to start as the foreman found himself grabbed by two men, the lead enforcer laughing and pulling his hand back, clearly intent on beating the man…
Only for his fist to be grabbed by Alexei, the younger mobster snorting. "I don't know what you think you're doing," He said, voice dripping disgust. "But from where I'm standing from, it looks like trespassing and assault of a government employee."
The lead enforcer sneered, ginger mustached lip curling in contempt and balding head wrinkling in fury. "Get the fuck out of the way. I have a court order- this place is being shut down: government ain't going to pay for a bunch of near-reds to get their houses back."
"Mmm." Nikiforov nodded, calmly strolling forward. "And would you happen to HAVE this court order, perhaps? Because I am afraid that without copy signed in triplicate this site cannot be shut down. "
The ginger mustached enforcer blinked, not expecting this response, his scowl deepening. "Yeah, sure, it's in my pants, right next to my dick. Now unless you want to get charged with contempt of curb, you'll get the fuck out of my face."
"Then I'm afraid you cannot shut this worksite down. I would politely ask you to leave."
"Are you stupid? I don't know if you've noticed, but you're outnumbered, Rusky," The lead enforcer growled, causing Nikiforov to raise an eyebrow. He gave a whistle, and suddenly the men had many- MANY guns pointed at them. Every single gangster that had been assigned guard duty.
"Check again," Alexei deadpanned, causing the ginger enforcer to blink around…and notice the dots on him, causing him to go pale.
"You…you wouldn't dare," The man growled, eye twitching, his men muttering in uncertainty as well, clearly looking around for the snipers. "The courts-"
"Have no power here." Nikiforov shrugged. "As far as I'm concerned, you are just trespassers. Potentially NEXT, even, with how aggressive you were. In eyes of law, I could order your death right now and it be entirely legal."
"I-" The man swallowed, taking a deep breath. "Fine. We tried to do this the easy way," The enforcer responded, attempting to reassert his composure. "But this isn't over: you have no idea how much shit you've just stepped in," He growled. "Because what you don't know is that you just threatened a-"
"Detective Spooner Richardson." The man froze at his name being said. Nikiforov shrugged. "What, do you think DoP doesn't keep file on police? Tell me, how's Lexington? Still with the braces?"
"How the fuck do you know that name?" Richardson said, horrified, to which Nikiforov grinned, before craning his head.
"Let's see…Sgt. Mulvaney, I believe you have a grandmother who uses DoP hospital, Patrol Officer Sheridan, I heard about the wedding, congratulations to you and new bride, Detective Fitzpatrick- I heard about the baby, my condolences." With each name, the color drained from more and more of the groups face, the Pinkertons among them realizing what Nikiforov was trying to demonstrate. "As you can see, DoP knows who you are very well. Now run along, little man, or else DoP will have to start using that knowledge."
Richardson sputtered, before backing up indignantly, hand drifting to his waistband for a moment, the cop considering a shootout…before backing off. "Fine. This isn't over, you son of a bitch: you just made an enemy of every cop in the city."
Nikiforov gave a placid grin as a shiver went up his spine.
Housing repaired, Baton Rouge is now only Disaster-Swept
=====
Community Restoration Program [Charity, Ecology, Disaster]:Occasionally, communities were likely to be damaged by fires, storms, etc. It was technically FEMA's job to help these places repair themselves, but frankly if the DoP didn't step in it was very likely these communities would never actually recover. 34/50, New Orleans. Gain progress to erasing status condition. Repeatable. Sufficient overflow will be reassigned to a different community project.
"To Sen. Blackwell
The situation is bad here, sir. The city is beyond wrecked, and we've only been able to make some progress. Right now, the biggest problem is floods: the fella in charge of the DoP, Wright, is trying to put out fires across the state and that means New Orleans isn't getting near enough the assistance it needs. That floodwall is only halfway repaired, and it's expected it might be years before they start rebuilding a lot of neighborhoods.
We're still finding corpses: the city probably'll keep finding new ones years from now.
Worse, people are starting to run out of money to purchase food: Wright has authorized distribution of DoP medical stocks and running a bus line out to the Gecko hospital so people aren't getting sick, at least, but without the factories, these people don't have the means to sustain themselves much longer. The raft city that's forming in the Lower 9th Ward has seen a few fights break out.
Sir, I know things aren't going well at home, but unless something changes fast down here, these people need a lot more help than what we're giving them. Especially since it looks like the Pinkertons are starting to lean on people down here more and more. I can't advise you divert more effort to helping people who aren't part of your own constituency, but any additional assistance is appreciated.
With regards
Ella Ames
===
To Ella Ames
'We must hang together, or we will hang separately'. I'll see what I can do.
-Sen. Blackwood.
===
Hunting NEXT [Investigation, NEXT, Weird, Crime]: You should probably work on collecting a dossier on NEXT: the more you knew, the more you could do to disrupt their plans. Of course, finding them would likely require turning up a few rocks. DC ???, on success gain a NEXT Faction Card. Medium Suspicion DC. Increases Influence by 5. This Case is considered Cold on any turn where NEXT doesn't attack, increasing its DC. 81 - Failure
Skullder fails to find many leads on NEXT- by the end of the quarter, the FBI is deeply unsatisfied with your departments performance and progress. You skate by with a written complaint- something you frame and hang on the wall- but this does complicate your affairs a little, since this is your first real black mark as a Director- something that's going to cost you influence come the upcoming convention, since you no longer have a flawless track record.
Mandate failed! -5 Influence!
=====
ACME Construction Catelogue [Construction, Personel, Robotics]:Sigh. ACME. As much as you detested them, they were the only real option for advanced construction technology, including the ALL-N1, Labourtron, and various useful Pip-Peripherals and architecture software. If you were willing to shell out money, you might be able to upgrade your construction division's efficiency considerably. 194/200, gain +2 to [Construction] projects. Cost 1 Funding.
Activating Autocomplete Protocol. Please stand by for +6.
AutoMenagerie Complex [Ecology, Genetics]: The department was planning to construct one in the next few years: why not get a head start? Having a functional AutoMenagerie would be vital for restoring life to the wetlands. 377/500. Gain Louisiana AutoMenagerie Community Card.
More of the automenagerie was complete. You were at the point where you needed to start figuring out distribution: AutoMenagerie was designed to start with insects at it's most basic, so you modify a small fleet of eyebots, equipping them with geiger-counters and other scanners and adding a module allowing them to carry a small terrarium on their underside.
A fairly simple mechanism for the problem, these Eyebots, once the facility was active, would use their collected scan data to determine the most viable sites to introduce insect-life in the region. Their range was relatively short- five miles radius- but assuming you could preserve enough of the surrounding region's ecology, it meant that the area around the automenagerie would likely retain at least a degree of biodiversity- which would hopefully spread out to the rest of the region.
Housing these eyebots was the AutoMenageries delivery bay: they'd come online only once the facility did. The addition was aided by the addition of advanced construction robots to your assets: your crews gain ALLN1's, Labourtrons, and even ACME's newest product, Liftbots, entirely automated forklifts.
When not in use, you store these robots in an annex of the DoP Garage, making sure you keep strict track of where any given robot was at any given time…and then fradulizing said records to hide RADICAL borrowing some of the machines to construct it's new lair, transporting them via boats to your new evil lair to use in the construction of RADICAL headquarters.
The Doomsday Retreat. At present, it's just some docks, a little housing for the Reznikov's, and a small asphalt road connecting both to a three story headquarters containing a modest research lab courtesy of Feelgood, much more expensive mainframes courtesy of ENFERR, and a phone line out to the mainland courtesy of Wilbur. All built on an island off the coast of Louisiana: Isle Maudite, accessible only by boat, owned by Wright Technologies, your front corporation.
It isn't much to begin with, but it provided RADICAL a base of operations, and the island, being several miles in diameter, had plenty of space for development and infrastructure that could be used to expand the organizations assets.
Doomsday Retreat: They say that somewhere in the Gulf, off the coast of Louisiana, there exists an island owned by a mysterious organizations of Ne'erdowells: the Doomsday Retreat, constructed on Calamity Island, where RADICAL partisans organize and prepare for their insidious schemes. -Special: Can use Mischief dice in this community on non-mischief projects. Grants Influence per Turn based on stat total.
====
TAPP Analysis [Government, Education]: One of the worst things your sister had ever done: countless people had been thrown into jail. The actual criteria it worked to determine who was a 'true american patriot' and who was a 'godless red in waiting' was a black box: if you could figure out how the algorithm worked, however, you might be able to game it to help people avoid falling afoul of it. 55/300, gain TAPP Manipulation projects. Massively increases Wrath.
Laser Balloon Testing [Prototype, Ecology, Energy, Daisy]: Daisy was experimenting with a new technology: extremely light-weight and cheap lasers that could be added to swarms of remotely piloted weather balloons. It was, to be frank, a highly dubiously effective technology: the idea was that the balloons would serve as yet another method by which nukes could be shot down. Still, if the technology was successful, it would be trivially easy to modify existing and future weather facilities with, and even a little more coverage could be the difference between total or merely partial annihilation. 186/250, upgrades Weather Monitoring Stations with Laser Balloon Technology, increasing Community Clear Skies.
Lab work goes. On the more public end, you and Nancy manage to successfully design a battery that works and is lightweight enough while having enough power to be efficient. The balloon prototypes stay in the air longer as a result, with more shots per day.
The problem now is targeting, reliability, and simplifying manufacturing costs. Right now, each laser had to be handcrafted in a workshop. That would probably still be the case when the project was done until Daisy invested in its manufacturing ability, but until then that meant that you needed to keep working on the devices if you wanted them cheap and effective enough to justify a regional roll-out.
Meanwhile, you begin trying to understand the methodology the TAPP uses, tasking your science team to discreetly begin untangling the mechanisms by which the test functions. The information you get back is confusing: the TAPP is a black-box, one that the DoP and Patriot Party refuse to publicize.
In principle, the test was designed to determine whether a given person was at risk for unamerican tendencies. It wasn't just meant to measure whether or not the taker was a red: the reality was far more insidious, it measured POTENTIAL for communism: those
'At risk' were put under observation, sentenced to preventative re-eduation, or worse. That was layer one. Layer two, the one that got people killed systemically instead of just individually, measured how susceptible a community was to communist propaganda, what communities were more likely to participate in unamerican activities, and what communities were most likely to capitulate to an invasion. It was, according to all available information, near foolproof. All handled by a small but secretive division of the DoP known as American Affairs.
And yet you can't seem to make any headway untangling it: there are several times where you attempt to recreate the test from base principles only to get answers completely different from what TAPP results a person actually scored. You take the time to identify outright communists in hiding, feeding anonymized data to the test- causing the American Affairs to send you at least three Certificates of Loyalty over the course of several months. Meanwhile, at least one person you'd call a human bootlicker for the american dream scores a 'CODE RED'.
Something screwy was going on.
+5 Wrath.
====
Quarantine Procedure [Genetics, Investigation, Disaster]: Sometimes a community might find itself subject to a horrific plague, or biohazardous contamination. When this happens, the correct course of action was to quarantine that community and begin investigating spread. If there are those affected, begin using medicine. DC 100, Community. Enact quarantine procedures on Biohazard related disasters, limiting further spread and tracking down potential breaches. Complete enough times to render that community non-hazardous and remove disaster side effects. 200 - SMASHING SUCCESS!
What a disaster. The good news is, you know how Rotmen reproduce. It turned out that once they broke down sufficiently, they lost mobility, slowly contaminating an area. The contaminated area then spread slowly, frequently using smaller mammals and certain fish as vectors: you have to run extensive culling programs when you learn that. Eventually, once it reached a certain size, a human would become badly injured (whether through the rotmen or misadventure) and sink into the muck, where they will either become extremely ill if they escape or are rescued, or they die from their injury.
Those who die get back up as Rotmen: walking sacks of disease that were slowly breaking down. Thus the cycle begins anew. You still had not identified an animating source, or any rational explanation for how meat that was very obviously necrotic and possessing no processes of metabolism you've observed. Frankly, as much as you were one to believe in the scientific, until you figured out an alternate explanation you were almost content to chalk it up to cursed soil.
Thankfully, curses seem to be weak to fire, as over the course of several months your division and the C-Files coordinate to locate and neutralize or capture rogue Rotmen and sterilize contaminated areas.
Did you locate all sites? Probably not. But that was the C-Files problem now: you had prevented the situation from developing into a full blown health crisis, and now they could do the grueling, additional months work finding, documenting, and eradicating the last remaining rogue plague reservoirs.
+50 to Cryptid Cateloguing Progress of C-004. Chance of Rotmen spread reduced- Sub-Director Phoebus is handling it, though in light of the Rotmen's nature he's requesting additional assistance, either research or general security. Of course, don't underestimate the utility of developing the community in other ways: you might want to try putting a Garden of Eden Sanctuary there…
====
Co-Op Garden [Agriculture, Population]: Anyone who seriously thought co-ops were the herald of socialism were idiots. Despite the stigma, however, they did serve a purpose: the most obvious was reducing food insecurity and self sufficiency for a community, but more important was helping that community start building the institutional knowledge required for rebuilding agriculture should civilization collapse and supply lines disintegrate. 42/100/200, Cambridge. Increases AgriPreservation stat. Modest Suspicion.
NEW BOTANICAL GARDEN!
Good news, Cambridgites! Dean Warris has managed to successfully secure DoP cooperation constructing a brand new botanical garden! Staffed entirely by students, volunteers, and a small collection of Mr. Boudrouxes, the Garden is expected to finish construction sometime next spring, where it will be used for research, preserving several rare food cultivars, and helping supply Cambridge Cafeteria, meaning it's not just the botany students who are going to benefit!
Interested in signing up or volunteering? Visit Dr. Mashita's office in Building B-2! Visiting hours are wednesdays to thursday, nine to one.
=====
AlviCorp Community Development Program [Charity, Education, AlviCorp]: AlviCorp was a proud partner of the US Government, and would be perfectly happy working alongside the DoP to use their wealth to help enrich the public. 0/150, SELECT COMMUNITY. AlviCorp invests in chosen community, raising a random stat. Repeatable. Every two phases, gain +1 [AlviCorp] Dice.
Edgar told me I was to begin developing New Alexandria as I see fit.
I think he is testing me. I don't know what for. Loyalty? Does he want to see me prove my devotion to the cause? No, no, it's something else. Maybe it's use- he's finally chosen to test my utility to RADICAL.
This presents me an opportunity, I think. What is the phrase? Two birds, one stone? Yes, yes, I know what to do. Edgar Wright of Team America needs more educational infrastructure to appease his employers. Edgar Wright of RADICAL needs more and better minions.
And I need to refine my brain scanning technology.
Oh yes, I know what needs to be done.
====
Announcing opening of Arcadia Library, sponsored by Team America!
Tired of trying and failing to understand certain subjects? Fed up with feeling like the biggest rube in the room no matter where you go? Unable to focus in class and needing to get your grades up? Unable to read an entire book without falling asleep?
Then you'll be pleased to hear about the Arcadia Library, built by AlviCorp and our good friends at Wright Technologies! Possessing over 1,000 scholarly volumes on everything from zoology to topology, it has all the resources you need to get a jump on your essay!
But wait, there's more. You see, AlviCorp is a strong believer in the potential of technology used for education: to help develop that field, we've commissioned lectures from some of the most accredited institutions and educators in the nation and recorded them onto a collection of over 200 floppy disks that can be rented out and listened to on the go or when busy with other tasks.
And for those who want to make the most progress educating themselves through our Arcadia Club program, we'd like to introduce Wright Technology Edu-Pods! Designed to use highly advanced and highly proprietary brain-scan technology paired with what we like to call 'knowledge encoding acceleration hypno-lecture' technology, it allows users to learn what would normally take them days to memorize in a few hours! Apply for membership today by mailing an application to the address below.
…
+1 Academics. ENFERR has created the Arcadia Library to help improve local education and recruit Arcadia Sgents.
I never should have came here. I can feel it in my head: the static. I think there's a voice in it. It keeps getting louder and louder but I don't understand what it's saying. Righty keeps telling me we have to get out of here, that the radiation is going to kill me, but whenever I try to leave the static gets louder, it starts screaming.
I don't think I can leave. I think I'm going to die here, once I run out of radaway or food. Righty keeps telling me that if we can shut off the power, the static should go away. The voice on the speakers says he's lying: it's voice keeps sounding like hooks into my brain, warning me that I'll die if I listen to him. I know whose telling the truth, but despite that any time I attempt to do what Righty tells me I'm filled with a horrible, terrible dread.
I never should have come here. Righty warned me, and now everyone is dead, I'm going to die, and he's going to be stuck on the arm of a corpse until his battery eventually runs down.
I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. If someone finds this, if you want to get out, you need to
It's trying to scream at me. Harder to focus, head hurts so bad. Doesn't want me writing this down. If you read this, you need to go below, remove the fusion cores from building power supply, and destroy mainframe.
…I've made it angry now. The voice over the speakers isn't screaming. Head still pounding. It's telling me to…telling me to…
====
Dissolve the Police [Crime, Combat, Chems]: A very simple, very immediate way to handle the increasing militarization of police was to abolish them from life via chemical weaponry. DC 150, Baton Rouge. If DC is successfully passed reduce a communities police militarization by 1. 156, success.
Dissolve the Police [Crime, Combat, Chems]: A very simple, very immediate way to handle the increasing militarization of police was to abolish them from life via chemical weaponry. DC 150, New Orleans. If DC is successfully passed reduce a communities police militarization by 1. 240, SMASHING SUCCESS.
Raiding the Warchest [Crime, Finance]: If you need funding, why not target a rival organizations financing? Via fraud or robbery, targetting another organizations coffers specifically would be less profitable than just going after banks, but there was something to be said for precision. DC 150, Pinkertons. Reduces factions Funding, lowering a finance related stat. If the organization has no finance related stats, increases financial unstability. 161, Success.
In two cities, a plan almost a year in the making began.
In one, an old man sat in front of a gently crackling fireplace, in a chair that was a little to comfortable. Outside, the rain pitter pattered against the glass, and occasionally the crack of gunshots and thunder intruded on the silence: below him was the lights of a city, dimmed though it was from the devastation that had reigned.
Next to the old man was a device: a microphone, connected to the antenna of the hotel he was in. He was waiting for the signal, patiently. Then he would begin. Until then, he sat and waited, occasionally closing his eyes and thinking back to older times, the people and places he had lost over the years. Both out of his own hubris, the consequences of a system he had once worked as a shepard for, and in an increasingly common occurrence, the reality of time.
Briefly, he wondered how long he had, in the end. Five years? Ten? There wasn't enough time. There was too much time. As always, discontent settled into his own bones, and Wilbur sat surrounded by his ghosts.
Many more ghosts would be made tonight.
…
In another city, a woman looked through the scope of a rifle, watching the ongoing demonstration. In New Orleans downtown they had assembled: the workers of the city, marching in front of the headquarters and corporate offices of their employers. The factories were still being repaired, so the strikers instead brought the fight to the administrative centers of their exploiters. "This is Agent AFTER, I'm in position." She said, carefully scanning the scene, seated at her window, using the gloom, rain, and her cloaking device to avoid detection. Today, they were bringing in an out of towner: an organizer from Baton Rouge, who was giving a speech in solidarity- and a donation to some local soup kitchens that had popped up.
"Good," Came the accented voice of the missions handler, Mindstrom. "Silver Phantom is still getting into position among the enforcers. Remember, your mission is to provide cover for him and Devil Dragon during extraction."
"Mmm." She responded, frowning. "Why are we doing this, exactly? Aren't we on the Strikers side here?"
"Pat Reapman was approached and rejected NEXT assistance. MOTHER believes strikes are more likely to succeed if the workers accept our assistance. Besides, a good martyr works wonders for elevating a cause," Her handler responded boredly.
AFTER frowned, not liking that brand of logic. "Your concerns are noted," Her handler responded dryly. "You don't have to like it, AFTER, but the mission sometimes requires having to make the hard choices."
This felt less like a hard choice and more the choice that helped NEXT the most. "I heard that thought. I do not particularly like this either: it is a lot of risk for not much payout other than theatricality compared to a car bomb. But this mission was assigned by MOTHER: if you don't like it, put in overtime for a few volunteer missions, put a letter in the complaint box, have the other agents sign a petition, but above all else, do your job."
"Fine. But when we're done here, I'm calling in the train job favor," AFTER conceded, ignoring Minstrom's cursing, watching as Pat Reapman walked onto a surprisingly quickly built stage, stepping onto a podium underneath a tarp and pole canopy.
The man below opened his mouth, giving a speech about how the workers spirits would not be broken, not by man or storm or ill weather. From where she was located, AFTER couldn't hear the details, having to make out the words he was saying from lipreading hampered from the same weather that helped hide her.
A distance away, past the edges of the demonstration, the police line sat, watching, glaring, reinforced by a large number of them: the corporate legbreakers, dressed in plainclothes. Occasionally, a patrol would emerge, walking through the crowd of protestors, horse mounted officers glaring down as if looking for an excuse to retaliate, K-9 units snapping and snarling at strikers.
Nobody was stupid, usually: it didn't exactly take a genius to realize that provoking the cops was a bad idea when they had attack dogs and you didn't: the Strikers were relying on strength of numbers to keep themself safe, something that could only work as a deterrent for so long. At some point today, things would almost certainly escalate to beatings, bitings, and arrests, which would be bad- but once the man she was watching got shot, things would probably devolve into an outright riot.
She didn't like it. But she had a job to do.
====
"Heya, my name is Dr. Feelgood! Listen, that sensation? That's the series of endorphins and receptors in your brain that correlate to pure friendship firing in your brain. You're welcome. Could you do me a favor and let me see the Pinkerton Account? Yeah, you mind if I take all that? Thanks, man, you're awesome!"
"Hey hey hey, Doctor Feelgood, gonna make you feel alright! Everyone in the house, can I get a T! H! C! You are feeling the effects of my own personal formula distributed through aerosol! I call it 'Hippy Hypnosis'! Now that you're feeling nice and fun, why don't you all tell me about these accounts! Edmundsun! Grover and Grover! Lukas! Watson! Can I get a RAH! I SAY, CAN I GET A R! A! H!"
"Here you go, this should help cure it- and look, you don't have to help us, I know how much you'd be risking- alright. Thank you. For both our sake, we never met."
"HELLO! I'm Doctor Feelgood, and I'm here to make you feel BAD! For your GREEDY WAYS~ What you feel is a concoction I call the Ebenezer Scrooge blend, because my associate in christ, you are about to meet three ghosts, and by the time you wake up from this, it's gonna be either christmas day or you've repented by giving me the money you were gonna pay the pinkertons, whichever comes first, and lemme tell you it's gonna get real weird around august and we hit the present. To cure it: I WANT! FOUR MONTHS PAYCHECK!"
"Sticks in the air, this is a hand up!"
====
"AFTER, this is Devil Dragon," Came the deep baritone rasp of the Delta Agent. "I am in position below." And there he was, in the midst of the protestors, hidden in the shadows by the darkening sky and the haze of the Nightgaunt stealth field atop a roof of a shorter, three story building below, prepared to drop below and perform some targeted carnage if their handler called for it.
"Silver Phantom, in position," Came another voice, and AFTER shifted her scope below, spotting the Ghost Class operative in the crowd of police. NEXT Scopes could penetrate most disguises, allowing AFTER to see the agent hidden, his hiding spot a patrol being sent to intimidate the strikers. The target was now within eyeshot- and thus laser sights- of AFTER's fellow Gamma. "Taking shot." He raised his rifle, aiming it at the unsuspecting Reapman. Through her scope, she watched as he took the shot, the bullet piercing through the air…and hitting an invisible barrier in front of the surprised Tillman.
It was at that moment, her communications crackled to life. "Ah ah ah," Came a mocking voice. "Bad piggies, no donut. Testing, testing. Can everyone hear me? Don't bother changing the channel: I'm on all of them."
"Greetings ladies, gentlemen, and the germs I'm about to disinfect from this world. I'm sure you're wondering who I am," The voice said, exuding a chilling confidence. "To all the knights of capitalism across the city thinking they could get away with starting a riot to justify a massacre by killing our dear friend from out of town Reapman, to all the workers out there sick and tired of getting stomped on by the enforcers of the bourgeois, to all the rich yutzes out there I'm going to beat like a goddamn pinata until the money falls out to make them pay for their years and years and fucking YEARS of parasitizing the proletariat, I'm Mr. Midnight, and I'll be tonight's host. Welcome to Knightfall."
====
In the other city, the man in the chair in the living room of the executive suite of the hotel felt a buzzing: his watch. The city. Turning to crane his head in the direction of the window, the former billionaire picked up the receiver to the antennae, pressing down the button to activate it, in that moment using the antennae to connect to the DoP broadcast tower- which had been modified beforehand to seize control of the airwaves. "Testing, testing. Baton Rouge. I have intercepted all available frequencies: as we speak, my colleague in another city has done the same. You will know the details soon, no doubt. My real name is irrelevant: you can call me Radioman. Across the city, a plan is being enacted: The Knightfall Contingency."
The moment he said the words and they echoed through the city, several things began to happen. Dozens upon dozens of people froze, before mumbling, making an excuse, and leaving to do something specific. Dozens of Reznikov's flew through the sky upon jetpacks, landing on roofs to tamper with water reservoirs and tanks.
The mechanism had begun to turn. "It's time we had a talk, you and I. An introduction almost as overdue as what we're going to do tonight."
====
Sgt. Knocker was confused at the voice coming through the radio: all the radios: around him, people were screaming, and the Pinkertons with less trigger discipline had already started firing, only stopping when they realized someone had rigged the place with forcefields. "Who the hell is this?" He said, holding the button to yell at whoever was messing with their communications.
"Sergent Knocker!" The voice responded from every single working speaker the Sergent could see, and on the roofs and sides of several buildings, spotlights powered on, pointing at Knocker, illuminating him sharply and causing the man to look around confused. "Do I have a file for you!"
"Listen, if you're NEXT-" He snarled, puffing up as he drew his weapon, attempting to find cover behind a parked vehicles, the rest of the patrol doing similar. .
"Not NEXT, no, you think too small my friend!"
====
"He isn't one of ours. This is a disaster, without a martyr, the strikers aren't going to radicalize fast enough to fight the Pinkertons-"
"Where did he COME from?"
"I don't KNOW, Dragon- Wait, wait, hold on- What do you mean people are MELTING in Baton Rouge?"
"People are what?!"
=====
"This goes out especially to those who sit in their palaces of power, ignoring the suffering of the people your indulgence causes, and the apathy you exhibit towards the sins your wealth was bought by." The sound of gunfire increased in tempo, and Wilbur frowned, doing his best to tune it out. He had looked at the plan: casualties outside of what they had collectively agreed were valid targets would be highly minimized, but there was only so much one could realistically do.
Water reservoirs on top of buildings were tampered with even as- certain- residents were carefully removed. Police precincts. Pinkerton offices. Certain stockpiles. "You have used many mechanisms to enforce your rule and drain the wealth from the public. You lie. You cheat. You steal from the public trust and call it charity. But when all else fails, and you have no other means by which to placate the people from your robbery, you turn to violence, and justify it by the law of property and the strength of arms you maintain by enmiserating the public further of resources and funding. You define theft so that when you steal it is legal and you define murder so that when you kill people it's at worst negligence instead of homicide." A small bit of heat entered Wilbur's voice as he gripped the receiver tight.
Once all non-targets were evacuated, removed from their cells by slightly puzzled officers and evicted from buildings by people dressed as health inspectors, all it took was an alarm being pulled. "No more. Right now, the tools by which you maintain the boot of oppression are being reduced to a chemical sludge."
It was time for wrongs to be righted.
====
"NEXT find themselves content to merely be the lesser evil: 'my opponent is bad, so I only have to barely try!'" The voice over the radio said. "It's a philosophy I despise! Frankly, the world deserves a better class of supervillain: ones with standards. Principles. And more importantly, the spine to take the fight to the rich and powerful."
"This is Sergent Knocker calling all units, we have a disturbance downtown near the RobCo Office Building-"
"Ah ah ah, naughty naughty!" Mr. Midnight said, cutting Knocker off, and in the distance, the detective could hear laserfire and screaming, and the sound of…. "No using my show like that. So, time to get to the point, I suppose: you see, dear Sergeant, you my friend are going to die today. Not just for this, for the record: no, for your entire occupational career. And wow, with over 37 shootings in your jacket, you REALLY have it coming!"
A cold pit formed in the pit of his stomach as he realized that he didn't have as much visibility as he thought. "Fuck you," He said, voice playing on the demented maniacs insane show, looking around, noting the lights shining on him made it harder to see.
"Now now, there's no need for foul language friend. Can't we be civil?" Midnight mocked over the radio. "Now, of course, those are just the deaths in your jacket, ones officially recorded. There are more, aren't there? Why don't we talk about the man near the creek, officer. Do tell all."
Some part of Knocker went cold at the words, which triggered something in him, a dread, a certainty that he needed to talk. "How…"
"Tell me, did it feel good, standing above him, staring into his eyes as he pleaded for his life? And for such a paltry sum." The voice said.
"...No, no, you're, you're fucking with me, that's bullshit," Knocker respond, only to be overtaken by a wave of terror.
"Oh no no no, Knocker, I said be honest!" Midnight said, making a tsking noise. "I already know what you did, but you really should share with the rest of the class."
"HHHhhhhe had it coming. The rat was going to tattle to the…." Knocker breathed in and out, as another trigger-phrase further put his mind under thrall. "He pissed off the wrong p- p- p-" He shook, devolving into mouth foaming sputtering, attempting to resist the mental conditioning.
"And why did you do it?"
"I needed the money!" Knocker roared, a vein twitching in his head as his vision swam, hyperventillated. "He disrespected me! He was a punk! You, you can't do this!" He pleaded.
"Mmm, and thus we see the true nature of the police officer, paid to murder a man in cold blood then and now, reduced to a squealing pig when on the other end of the knife." The voice said, contempt dripping from Midnights words like acid running down flesh. "You disgust me, Knocker. And yet you are surprisingly not the worst person in your immediate vicinity. Those of you joining us on television, I present the Pinkertons." Another series of floodlights came on, illuminating the pinkerton agents who had been part of the patrol, freezing in alarm, each of them scanning the horizons. "Each of them don't know it, but our guests tonight are all carrying Wright Brand Communicators! They also have snipers waiting to blow their brains out if they try to duck out."
"What the fuck," Knocker said, tears streaming down his face, unable to move. One of the agents tried to make a run for it, darting for cover out of the spotlight, only for their head to explode into a bloom of blood.
This caused the rest of the police to begin firing, both those in the patrol and, in the distance, at the police line, into the crowd, onto the stage, into the sky: and yet, all hit barriers. "Ah ah ah, no cheating: you know those handy dandy force fields they've been using in Baton Rouge?" Midnight said over radio cheerfully, the crowd nonetheless retreating, many of the civilians panicking and trying to evacuate, screams of alarm rising into the air. "You aren't the only one who can use them. Now, as a cop you've been a real bad person, but these people are so much worse." They froze, looking around, terrified, even as the officers around them began to drop, slain by unknown assailants, presumably the same sniper that had reduced the poor pinkerton detectives head to a chunky mist.
"The Knights of Capitalism." It was here that Knocker heard it: actual hatred. Everything else: anger, contempt, disgust, but it hadn't been hatred. This was hatred.
Those people weren't getting out of here. Not alive. "I name you worse than murderers. I name you worse than bandits," Midnight growled. "You are the boot by which the worker is kept stomped. You are the knife by which the proletariat is butchered, weilded by your sovereigns. Time and time again you have smothered the seeds of resistance and crushed the will of the people, protected from justice by your patronage and your fraternity of cruelty. Each of you came here to act assassins and butchers: you would have helped slay an innocent man to provoke a massacre. Another iteration of a common story. No. No more." In the distance, he could see the police line, fighting: he thought he saw…were those robots?
The spotlights shut off, all but one, a bearded man. "Lionel McTavish: RADICAL finds you guilty for assault, for theft, for destruction, and murder. Any last words?" The man was terrified, looking around desperately.
"Please, I'll do anything-" He pleaded, only to be cut off.
"Then die," Midnight responded coldly, as a different spotlight came on, McTavish's going dark. "Christine Whitewater," He said, the woman in question under the spotlight snarling in defiance. "RADICAL finds you guilty of assault, of theft, of destruction, and murder. Any last words?"
"Fuck you, I'm not a murderer," she snarled, unbowed.
"Fiesty! Also sadly a liar," Midnight tut tut tutted. "Oh sure, you've never directly killed anyone, but you've evicted families without any place to go, assaulted people who had no meant to pay for a doctor, and have helped deny people the wages that they need to live- why, according to my research, you're responsible for at least twelve deaths, and complicit in so MANY more. But we don't have time for that, so you're out of time. Robert Miligram!" Another light coming on.
On and on the circle went, until every last Pinkerton in the patrol had had their turn under the spotlight: some, Midnight argued with, like those who protested their innocence. A few he laid specific crimes out, things that chilled even Knocker, like when one of the other agents admitted to having used his position to brutalize a woman, or when another was confronted with their history of setting the tents of strikers on fire with the striker still in it. Others he mocked, like those who pleaded for mercy, all of them kept hostage by the snipers above them, the doomed patrol helpless but to watch as in the distance their compatriots were being annihilated in the distance. "And there we go. As you can see, New Orleans, each and every one of these people have, directly, indirectly, or flagrantly contributed to the enmiseration of the public. I'm not going to call it abuse of power," Their tormentor said, a soft edge creeping into their voice. "Because that implies that what they did was in violation of the role they have taken. No, dear audience, these people perform abusive acts because the purpose of their position IS abuse. Which is why I'm going to dissolve not only the Pinkertons and the police, but the very positions of power they occupy. Now…"
"Knocker?" Midnight said, and the sergeant realized he was probably about to die as well: the protestors had all evacuated. Even their fellow cops down the street were starting to falter, unable to withstand a full on assault. "Simon Says Start firing." Knockers arm moved, pointing at one of the pinkerton agents, who drew their gun, only to be interrupted, face exploding from the force of the bullet. The next one dived out of the way, only for the snipers to explode her skull. Another one fired, the bullet pierced through Knockers flesh and causing him to grunt in pain even as the pinkerton detective who wounded him exploded, slain by an approaching securitrons grenade launcher. Things devolved rapidly from there, Knocker taking more and more bullet fire as he continued turning and firing, his aim and coordination getting worse and worse as his injuries mounted. "To those of you Pinkertons watching, but not participating: none of you are safe."
====
"We are not part of NEXT," Wilbur explained as the screams and fights rose in volume below across the city. Right now, the places that couldn't be flushed were being assaulted. The officials that normally couldn't be touched were being targetted: the chief of police, all his immediate successors, District Attorney, a variety of small f fascists who were competent enough to provide a stumbling block.
They were being shot. Blown up. Poisoned, in some cases. "No, we are a movement that has decided that NEXT lacks vision. Ambition. They're content to be the lesser evil, mistaking not being in last place with being a net good," Wilbur explained. "We aim higher: to be the villain this country needs, not the one it deserves."
====
"I do not act alone. As I destroy you, your compatriots are being destroyed elsewhere, and your assets are being seized by my allies. This is a declaration of war, Pinkertons, and I just vaporized most of your foot soldiers. And I'm not. Going. To stop."
Knocker lie in a pool of his own blood, breathing shallowly. All around him were bodies. Humans. Dogs. "And this goes to everyone else out there: we aren't going to stop at the Pinkertons. Our war isn't just with them, and this war isn't just against us."
"We are RADICAL."
"And we declare war against the entire rotten edifice of America."
He gurgled, watching as some officers retreated past him, the pair not even noticing Knocker. His vision began to go dark.
====
"We declare war on the military for being the tool of American jingoism and oppression."
Silver Phantom ran, doing his best to stay in cover as he looked all around him, activated his goggles: heat-signatures above him, twelve snipers in the windows. Thirty securitrons- he recognized them as the modified ones used in the RobCo attack, rolling their way down the street, ignoring everyone not wearing a uniform or Pinkerton badge, and brutally murdering those in either. Corpses on the street: dozens of officers and Pinkertons, dozens of dozens, butchered like animals. "Mindstrom you bastard, I thought we made those!" He growled.
"We thought they were some member of Rho's pet project!" Mindstrom defended as the agent hid behind a column to avoid a passing patrol of men in black suits, the group of highly armed men seeming to shoot at every cop or Pinkerton it saw, the same as their colleagues. "How were we supposed to know this state had Rogues!"
"You're a goddamn psychic," Phantom growled, giving a sigh of relief as his stealth harness kicked back on. Silently, he crept out.
"It doesn't work like that," The handler responded coolly. "I do not choose what fate tells me, only use the insights it's provided. That said, you are in extreme danger: I keep doing a tarot drawing and you've drawn the tower twice in both positions and the wheel in the reverse position."
"Which means?"
"I only have one tower in this deck. It's bad."
"Point taken," Phantom murmured as he crept through the streets, which were an all out firefight at this point, one which most concerningly of all seemed to have several of the cops firing on themselves.
"We declare war on the police, who are only marginally less reprehensible than the Pinkertons, and only from lack of talent rather than lack of malice."
There was a roar spreading across the city now. "Any clue who this person is?" Phantom asked as he continued down the street. This wasn't going as expected. "Or this organization? There's no way MOTHER didn't know."
"There have been some irregularities in the region, but I don't think MOTHER predicted this," AFTER said over comms, one of the gun toting men in nondescript suits marching through the streets having his head explode. "Not exactly an unwelcome development."
"Matter of perspective," Devil Dragon mused. "The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. There is reason NEXT does not work with Chinese."
"We declare war on the Patriot Party for the crime of fascism. We declare war on the Liberty Party for the crime of capitalism."
Phantom had to drop, using a car for cover as his emitter ran out of power, forcing him to quickly crawl beneath the vehicle to avoid notice. "Look, right now, ignoring the long term ramifications," He whispered seeing several wheels pass him by. "We have an unknown player, at least two cities on fire, and an army of gun toting minions backed up by robots and who knows what else hunting the police like dogs while some maniac rants on the radio. Our operation was just shattered- alongside who knows how many other operations in the region, short and long term."
"Let me be clear: we are not terrorists. We are not content to merely light fires and hope that solves the problem. RADICAL is revolution: we will stop at nothing to tear down every single rotten system, we will not settle for merely disrupting the machine or altering it's mechanisms. The machine of oppression is going to broken and replaced: every tyrant given their due, and every single injustice inflicted on the proletariat repaid. Today is only the beginning."
"Hmm. I can almost smell the anger," Mindstrom noted, sounding very ill at ease. "This Midnight- his name is apt. Every word he speaks makes me feel more and more unsettled: it's like each syllable hides a vast reservoir of an almost…inhuman rage." Silver rolled out from the car, cloaking again as he began moving at a very brisk pace to the extraction point.
"Still, I think we could probably work with this guy- he does seem to be vaguely on our side," AFTER noted. "Phantom, three o'clock: that building, at the top is a cloaked hoverbike."
"And that, dear listeners, is time. This has been Mr. Midnight, and you have been watching or listening to Knightfall. We are approaching goodbye and good night. But before I sign off, a little message to NEXT, because I KNOW," Midnight said, "That you're doing something or other in this city. Listen close," He said.
====
AFTER shivered, feeling his words worming their way into her brain. "Do you feel that? That's the sensation of the sub-hypnotic tones in my voice. I can't do much with it: the technology is still being refined. But I wanted to make a point and get your attention," The voice on the radio said, each syllable triggering a horrific shiver. "I remember what you did at DC. That river will never be drinkable again in our lifetime. There are hundreds of thousands of people dying of radiation poisoning. The soil is going to be contaminated FOREVER unless the government embarks on an expensive clean up project we all know they aren't going to do willingly. Every week, every day, peoples lives there get worse and worse. You wanted to make a statement that day, and you did. You made the statement you didn't actually give a rats ass about the people."
"So let me make this clear, my dearest friends at NEXT. You're next, pun intended! You have one year to get out of Louisiana. Then I start coming for you. And once I get going, you'll find I build up steam quite efficiently."
"With that, our time comes to an end. New Orleans, it's been great hanging out with you tonight, tune in some time in the future to hear about our future shows," Dr. Midnight said with a false jovial tone. "And to my dear audience, we at RADICAL sign off. Message of the Day: Workers of the World unite! The only thing you have to lose is your chains."
"...Damn."
====
"To Baton Rouge. Our time is beginning to run out: we are beginning to approach goodnight and goodbye. This final message goes out to all of you who suffer under the yoke of oppression. Those who lack the means to fight back. RADICAL stands with you."
"The days ahead may look hopeless. You may feel the need to give up. Just remember this: Our oppressors are strong, but they are not invincible, nor all they all knowing. And every day, with every act of resistance, they lose a little more control. "
"Do what you can to survive. Help is coming. Victory is possible."
====
"Oh, good, a news crew. Eh hem. Hello! I'm Dr. Feelgood! I'd like to have an interview! Alright, to all you viewers out there watching the weather channel in New Alexandria, I'd like to say that every last one of the thefts committed against the Pinkertons both today and in the following days nationwide is because of RADICAL! My name is Dr. Feelgood, and I belong to an independent agency of far-out revolutionary supervillains that fight for the people against our oppressors!"
"Tonight me and my colleagues are doing a lot to hit them- them and the police. This operation was only triggered in response to them trying to murder an innocent protestor- don't trust what the news tells you, those people ONLY want fair compensation for their hard work."
"The people in power don't care. They ain't never cared, not unless they were made to, and even then, their first response is to harass, bully, and murder. The man in Washington don't give a shit, so RADICAL has decided to get even."
"The operation has been extremely well planned to have minimal collateral outside the damn Pinkertons. The enforcers have been removed, liquidated. And I'm making sure that the Pinkertons finally pay: they owe the working man. They owe him for decades, almost centuries of blood, pain, and suffering, and for generations of workers who have had to settle for barely liveable- if that- wages and conditions. While much of the money is going to go towards financing expansion of our organization to build self sufficiency, I am personally donating my share of these thefts to strike-funds across the nation, as well as several charities vetted by the RADICAL ethics board."
"Stay groovy, New Alexandria, and good night. Don't worry about these two, it wears off in fifteen minutes: tell them when they wake up that they can't have grapefruit for awhile."
====
Hunting RADICAL: NEXT was taking credit, but King Tut didn't believe them. Right now, House wanted answers, and Dripper was trying to sus them out. 155/100
"Okay boss, I got really fucking bad news. I looked into that channel, and I swear to god, it's straight up communist propaganda, and like I'm talking the manifesto for babies. I had to call in some favors, meet a few reds in hiding in dark alleys, this is way more red than anything NEXT ever did: thing quotes shit you won't have any familiarity unless you were already knee deep in fucking Marx himself."
"Hmm. Well, I suppose we were due for a genuine red supervillain, though it is rather anomalous how…prolific they seem to have been for their first major outing."
"No, no, you don't GET it House, this is more serious than you think: I showed my niece these shows, and even the recordings seem to do something to kids who watch them. Those kids at the orphanage: NONE of them wanna rat! And-"
"What? What, spit it out, man?"
"Look, I've notice some people acting weird. Really weird. On the night of the attack, they say some people just went berzerk, or did weird things like drag people out of buildings before the insides of the places got liquidated. And sometimes when I'm in New Alexandria, especially around that Arcadia Computer Club, people start acting…sketchy. Whole attitude changed, like I had flipped a switch in them."
"...I think I understand. You think RADICAL has access to…"
"Mind control. Or…I dunno, maybe it's like the invasion of the pod people- Christ!"
"What? Dripper? Ron, are you there?"
"I'm here, I'm here, I had to duck out of sight, ever since I started asking questions I keep seeing men in black suits following me. It's crazy, like something out of a conspiracy rag. Rob, you have to listen to me: whoever these people are, they mean business. As your friend, I have to advise you to pull out of Louisiana, at least until we can prepare and re-evaluate."
"....No. I will not be cowed. Not by ridiculous men going by ridiculous personas playacting as juvenile grade school comic-book fantasies parroting the communist manifesto. We are not changing course, Ron. We are going to fight. Tell me what you need."
"Okay. Okay, we're going to need to improve security. Can't be on the back foot. I'm going to need to figure out how far their mind control technology goes, what it's weaknesses are. Got any ideas, boss?"
"Hmm. Well, what about a psychiatric hospital? We'll need to construct it somewhere out of the way so that no one comes snooping…"
"...And use it to study the people who have been affected. I think I know just the spot. A little rock an hour out from New Orleans: called Stryker Island. All we have there is a defunct chemical weapons lab we closed down a few years ago."
Hunting RADICAL Complete. Dripper has gained a Brain Rank- and a new perk.
On Guard: Dripper is aware and on guard for Radical activity targeting his organization. +5 to the DC of actions targeting RobCo for each failed Suspicion roll while this hero unit is active. [2]
====
Hey man, it's Feelgood. Gonna take over for a bit. Now, I got some news. Our operation went off without a hitch man: mainstream media is being predictable about this and downplaying the fact that this was a response to the Pinkertons trying to off a guy, but underground news outlets are a LOT more positive. The operation was loud enough, clean enough, and effective enough to buy us fans with those are already sick of the people in charge, Edgar. Me donating my part to a bunch of strike funds probably helped, admittedly.
I think Wilbur predicted this. I dunno what his end goal is, but it's paying dividends my man. Pinkertons are having to cut their yearly bonuses nationwide and suffering paycuts across the board, and that's before we get into insurance payouts. They're gonna try and hit back from this, but I think we can update their faction card a bit. Oh, and I'll go ahead and mark down +2 funding: we made out like bandits, man.
Pinkerton National Detective Agency [Corporate, Security] An organization you loathed, the Pinkertons are the Knights of Capitalism. Hired thugs whose history stretches back to the 1800's, they work for the lowest bidder busting up unions, hunting down bounties on socialists or famous dissidents at large, putting down unruly workers, and acting as cops for hire. Recent attacks by RADICAL had caused many of their personnel in Louisiana to perish, causing their insurance payouts to skyrocket. Combined with an incredibly successful series of thefts, many of the financial benefits their employees enjoyed had just been rescinded, causing morale to begin dipping. Stats:
Power Armor Proliferation: +
Yearly Bonuses: ++ (Formerly four)
Agent Pay: + (Formerly two)
Insurance Premiums: (- - -)
And of course, here's the card you wanted. Like I said, we got a lot of fans, which means we have a pretty big foot in the door here. I wouldn't suggest sleeping on these people: RADICAL needs all the help it can get dude.
Workers of Louisiana [Industry, Population, Mischief]: This faction card represents no one individual faction, but rather the mass of unions, strikers, and labour organizations across Louisiana. RADICAL had made one hell of a showing, and bought itself a lot of goodwill: enough to start brokering deals, both above and below the table. Stats:
Wright Technology Goodwill:+
This also means going forward, every time you hit back against the cops, people are gonna take more and more notice. Expect the difficulty on that one to jump up, but it's getting a few upgrades too now.
Now, let's cut to the chase. You chose to throw down the gauntlet. And for the record? I approve: we need to hit NEXT loud and we need to hit them proud, and help distinguish ourselves as principled god damned communists, better and more principled than those assholes.
If we're going to pull this off we're gonna need to show them we mean business. We're a team of equals, so I'm using my say in RADICAL to say we NEED to attack NEXT by the end of Q3 next year. Mark that down as a VILLAINOUS MANDATE my man! And hey, to sweeten the deal: unlike normal mandates, this one has a reward.
Dr. Feelgoods Villainous Mandate: Before next national convention, gain a NEXT faction card and perform at least 1 hostile action. Reward: All successful hostile actions targeting NEXT before time limit grant bonus 1D6 influence.
In the meantime, we need to keep expanding and fighting the good fight. Here are the new schemes: we're escalating here, Edgar, so these are gonna be pretty tricky. They all conclude upon taking a hostile action against the organization whose requirements you fulfill.
[ ] Attack of the Mascots [Weird]: Feelgood had an idea. He wanted to figure out how the Strange Divers work- and adapt the method to work with mascot suits, like those worn at NukaWorld, in order to create minions that could be used to menace an organization. Document Cryptid 005. Then construct C-Files Private Lab at Sunken Parish to phase two. Unlock Cryptid 00X - Strange Mascot [Radical, ???,???]. Private Labs upgraded to grant community/faction Tales of the Uncanny and +1 Dice for the faction. Must target faction with private lab using Louisiana Axe Slasher.
[ ] Syndicate Troopers [Crime]: Sophy's suggestion: building a coalition with the criminals of Louisiana, working with them to develop the Doomsday Retreat into a training camp to help create a new generation of criminal soldier. You'd need to supply them with sufficient gear, and you could turn a bunch of rag tag criminals into an army capable of taking on the toughest foes. Complete the Bootlegger Brigade and complete a Phase One Garage and Safehouse and a Phase Two Reznivok Private Lab. Reznikov Safe-Houses upgraded to gain additional phase that grants [Combat] dice. Must target faction using [Combat] project.
[ ] Wright Robotics [Robotics]: ENFERR's proposal: all out assault. To do this, he wanted to begin constructing a facility: a research and manufacturing compound that RADICAL could use to begin producing an army of robots to be used as footsoldiers. Complete RADICAL Private Lab Phase Two, Landgrab, and Wright Toy Outlet in a community: unlock Wright Toy Lab [Mischief, Robotics] Community Card, which cannot be used for mandates: instead, stats provide progress towards new [Robotics] or [Combat] technologies to upgrade RADICAL and Wright Technologies. Unlocks All Out Assault [Combat, Security, Robotics, Mischief] DC 300 - use it on a [Military] or [Government] faction to complete scheme.
And we also need to expand in other ways: we all have ideas for how to expand the organization. Keep in mind that you can- and should- invest in the place outside these plans: this is just our major organizational focus. Go ahead and pick two: but, uh, small thing, don't double up on both of the same persons proposals: you'll wanna try and keep things balanced.
[ ] Supreme Dankage: Dr. Feelgood believed that RADICAL must expand! A full science division! And to help supplement that science division, he also wanted to develop something special: the ultimate weed. It was an ambitious plan, but he wanted to try and engineer a strain of super-cannabis that could mimic the intellect stimulating properties of numerous other chems without the side effect- not only would it benefit the scientists at RADICAL, it could be distributed to communities to help encourage them to first liberate their minds- and then help them advance the cause! Construct Private Research Lab for RADICAL and a Co-Op Garden at the Doomsday Retreat, complete GigaGro Gardener Kit. Co-Op Gardens are upgraded with the SUPREME DANK technology, increasing Villainous Unrest by 2 and Research Value by 1 on phase one and Hippie Faction Penetration and [Chems] dice on Rank Two. Finishing this scheme also gives Co-Op Gardens the [Chems] and [Mischief] tags.
[ ] Cloning Division: ENFERR's suggestion was to establish a cloning division: one that could be used to simplify genetics projects. Once the basic infrastructure was in place, expanding it would be trivial, making it far easier for RADICAL to pursue cloning labs across the region- useful for practical and ethical reasons. Complete AlviCorp Cloning Sponsor, Hover-Brain Insurance, and complete a clone lab at the doomsday retreat: unlock Evil Brain Template and Cryptid ([Genetics, Radical, Mischief]), halving Clone Lab progress cost and upgrading them to give +1 to genetics.
[ ] Tortuga: Sophy wanted- simply put, to invest in the black market trade: if a factory was built to manufacture surplus DoP items, perhaps a plantation built, along with some docks for transportation- Well, what was it communists always talked about? Mutual aid? Complete DoP Factory, Docks, and Power Peanut Plantation at Doomsday Retreat. Under the Table Dealings and Reznikov Surplus gain additional phase: each phase also grants another point of Black Market Connections and potential funding.
[ ] Psychic Broadcasts: ENFERR's other suggestion, they wanted to accelerate psychic development in the region in order to sow discontent. You'd need a lot of data, but they believed they might be able to modify the broadcast towers to- very subtly- stimulate the brainwaves of the public. Complete three phase one Broadcast Towers and the Psychic Identification Program. Then, complete AlviCorp Drug Trial in a community. Broadcast Towers upgraded, gaining the [Weird] and [Mischief] tags- and increasing Tales of the Uncanny.
[ ] Electric City!: Feelgood's other suggestion, the scientist wanted energy: as much of it as possible, some place other than Baton Rouge. He wanted to use that energy to research highly experimental technology- like the world had never seen before! Shrink rays, teleportation, and groovier! Increase a non-Baton Rouge Community Card's energy related stats by 5: unlock Electric City [Weird][Science] community card, which cannot be used for mandates: instead, stats provide progress towards unlocking new [Energy] and [Weird] related technologies.
[ ] Arms Trade: Sophy's other proposal: she had seen something the Arsenal Printer Prototype in the files. Using this technology, someone could theoretically equip an army: if you helped refine it and smooth over some of the logistical problems, she could help make that happen. Complete the Rogue Arsenal in a city with Reznikov Penetration and Villainous Unrest. Gain second Rogue Arsenal slot and phase, and Rogue Arsenal is upgraded with [Crime] tag and to increase Reznikov Penetration and Villainous Unrest by three.
Alright man, chew it over for awhile. Meantime, got some news: during that whole event, you saw a massive cognitive jump man. You're probably noticing the effects: according to your bioscans, it looks like a more dramatic, fundamental change compared to what happens when you raise Wrath.
In other words Edgar, you just increased your BRAIN Rank. Not sure what happened, but I think you had some kind of breakthrough.
Mastermind- +5 to Mischief bonus. You now add your Mischief bonus to your personal dice and the [Mastermind] brain category- allowing you to use your personal dice on [Crime, Media, and Outreach].
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Australia [Investigation, Ecology, Combat]: Australia. Many, many decades ago, the continent had, during the resource wars, been the site of some unknown catastrophe that resulted in the country being vaporized and the land covered in a permanent cloud of radiation. The DoP had secured a ship, had haggled an agreement with the military to provide them a safe corridor to the continent, and were preparing to embark on a three week expedition to study the long term effects of nuclear fallout and investigate what the hell had caused an entire country to destroy itself. DC ???. Begins three turn mini-event. Rewards variable. 143, success.
To be continued in Australia Pt 1…
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And there we go. You've taken the plunge into genuine supervillainy. Word of advice: don't let up the tempo. With that, I'm gonna go relax a bit. My phone is dead and I have no replacement charger so don't expect frequent responses. Also?
Ok, so, I think we definitely waht Cloning Division, cause it makes an important piece of infra (Cloning labs) viable to build. Since that fills out Enferr spot, that leaves Feelgood and Sofia spots. Since we are already building a Co-op garden, I think we want that, which leaves Syndicate troops as our scheme option. Either way, we need to do our Hobbologists' sponsorship.
[ ] Syndicate Troopers [Crime]: Sophy's suggestion: building a coalition with the criminals of Louisiana, working with them to develop the Doomsday Retreat into a training camp to help create a new generation of criminal soldier. You'd need to supply them with sufficient gear, and you could turn a bunch of rag tag criminals into an army capable of taking on the toughest foes. Complete the Bootlegger Brigade and complete a Phase One Garage and Safehouse and a Phase Two Reznivok Private Lab. Reznikov Safe-Houses upgraded to gain additional phase that grants [Combat] dice. Must target faction using [Combat] project.
[ ] Tortuga: Sophy wanted- simply put, to invest in the black market trade: if a factory was built to manufacture surplus DoP items, perhaps a plantation built, along with some docks for transportation- Well, what was it communists always talked about? Mutual aid? Complete DoP Factory, Docks, and Power Peanut Plantation at Doomsday Retreat. Under the Table Dealings and Reznikov Surplus gain additional phase: each phase also grants another point of Black Market Connections and potential funding.
Quite like these two, not only we will start to hire minions but train them as well, they are not going to be that good and the army will be deployed in Louisiana sooner or later.
Also Tortuga will allow us Black Market Connections, that is probably very powerful since it would allow us to get supplues we will not be able to get by normal means. Sprcially now that the goverment and NEXT look for us.
Ut sounds like we botched Edgar's sister operation.
[ ] Syndicate Troopers [Crime]: Sophy's suggestion: building a coalition with the criminals of Louisiana, working with them to develop the Doomsday Retreat into a training camp to help create a new generation of criminal soldier. You'd need to supply them with sufficient gear, and you could turn a bunch of rag tag criminals into an army capable of taking on the toughest foes. Complete the Bootlegger Brigade and complete a Phase One Garage and Safehouse and a Phase Two Reznivok Private Lab. Reznikov Safe-Houses upgraded to gain additional phase that grants [Combat] dice. Must target faction using [Combat] project.
[ ] Supreme Dankage: Dr. Feelgood believed that RADICAL must expand! A full science division! And to help supplement that science division, he also wanted to develop something special: the ultimate weed. It was an ambitious plan, but he wanted to try and engineer a strain of super-cannabis that could mimic the intellect stimulating properties of numerous other chems without the side effect- not only would it benefit the scientists at RADICAL, it could be distributed to communities to help encourage them to first liberate their minds- and then help them advance the cause! Construct Private Research Lab for RADICAL and a Co-Op Garden at the Doomsday Retreat, complete GigaGro Gardener Kit. Co-Op Gardens are upgraded with the SUPREME DANK technology, increasing Villainous Unrest by 2 and Research Value by 1 on phase one and Hippie Faction Penetration and [Chems] dice on Rank Two. Finishing this scheme also gives Co-Op Gardens the [Chems] and [Mischief] tags.
[ ] Cloning Division: ENFERR's suggestion was to establish a cloning division: one that could be used to simplify genetics projects. One the basic infrastructure was in place, expanding it would be trivial, making it far easier for RADICAL to pursue cloning labs across the region- useful for practical and ethical reasons. Complete AlviCorp Cloning Sponsor, Hover-Brain Insurance, and complete a clone lab at the doomsday retreat: unlock Evil Brain Template and Cryptid ([Genetics, Radical, Mischief]), halving Clone Lab progress cost and upgrading them to give +1 to genetics.
These three are my preferred picks. Ironically, listed in least to most important in my view.
Cloning Division's reward of halving the progress cost will be essential for us to actually be able to build multiple of them across the state, allowing for us to finally be able to use all these genetic templates we've been unlocking as well as letting us diversify what's being produced at each location rather than having to put them all out from a central lab.
Supreme Dankage upgrades the Co-Op Gardens to increase Villainous Unrest (which benefits the Reznikovs) and "Hippie Faction Penetration". The latter I think will be incredibly helpful in making more people "live with/alongside nature", allowing for more people post-bombs to survive as they more reliably use the biological solutions we've been cooking up.
Syndicate Troopers may seem basic as a combat scheme compared to the other ones, but it will help our "mundane" forces within RADICAL stay competitive with our more easily upgradable sections, and is composed of actions that we generally had planned to do anyway.
I think I'm fine with any of the major schemes, but I'm definitely leaning towards Psychic Broadcasts and Tortuga for RADICAL expansions. The former gives us an excuse to make more Broadcast Towers (and also making them significantly easier to build with the [MISCHIEF] tag and upgrading them to create psychics), and the latter gets the Doomsday Retreat in a state to supply dissidents all throughout the state.
Re-reading, I realised doubling up is bad for the expansion choices, so we can double up on the scheme. In which case, I really like the upgrade Mascot Attack gives.
I think I'm fine with any of the major schemes, but I'm definitely leaning towards Psychic Broadcasts and Tortuga for RADICAL expansions. The former gives us an excuse to make more Broadcast Towers (and also making them significantly easier to build with the [MISCHIEF] tag and upgrading them to create psychics), and the latter gets the Doomsday Retreat in a state to supply dissidents all throughout the state.
I don't know man ENFERR wants to burn the world and give him too much power before making his BRAIN quest is not a good idea, specially since in one of the FATES he manage to survive in that library if going by the survivor's description.
I've tho8ght aboit it more, and I think we actually really want Mascot attack for veey simple reason: it gives us synergy with our current sponsorship: we want to attack a target with a research lab, not!scientology will have a research lab, easy-peasy.
I've tho8ght aboit it more, and I think we actually really want Mascot attack for veey simple reason: it gives us synergy with our current sponsorship: we want to attack a target with a research lab, not!scientology will have a research lab, easy-peasy.
Not really we have to two build to private labs one in the Hubology compound and another into Sunken Pariah.
[ ] Syndicate Troopers [Crime]: Sophy's suggestion: building a coalition with the criminals of Louisiana, working with them to develop the Doomsday Retreat into a training camp to help create a new generation of criminal soldier. You'd need to supply them with sufficient gear, and you could turn a bunch of rag tag criminals into an army capable of taking on the toughest foes. Complete the Bootlegger Brigade and complete a Phase One Garage and Safehouse and a Phase Two Reznivok Private Lab. Reznikov Safe-Houses upgraded to gain additional phase that grants [Combat] dice. Must target faction using [Combat] project.
One of the advantage of this project is that Phase One Garage is already completed while Brigade and Safehouse can be easily done thanks to the high numbet of Mischief Dices without needing to get in the way of the projects of another categories.
Also Combat Dice could be good to complete some projects such ad the Self Defense and Gun Club.
The dice seem to hate everything that isn't crime, which is frustrating for my plans- the original set of schemes had you targeting NEXT and I had to rewrite them all- but fascinating from a story and character perspective.
Not really we have to two build to private labs one in the Hubology compound and another into Sunken Pariah.
[ ] Syndicate Troopers [Crime]: Sophy's suggestion: building a coalition with the criminals of Louisiana, working with them to develop the Doomsday Retreat into a training camp to help create a new generation of criminal soldier. You'd need to supply them with sufficient gear, and you could turn a bunch of rag tag criminals into an army capable of taking on the toughest foes. Complete the Bootlegger Brigade and complete a Phase One Garage and Safehouse and a Phase Two Reznivok Private Lab. Reznikov Safe-Houses upgraded to gain additional phase that grants [Combat] dice. Must target faction using [Combat] project.
One of the advantage of this project is that Phase One Garage is already completed while Brigade and Safehouse can be easily done thanks to the high numbet of Mischief Dices without needing to get in the way of the projects of another categories.
Also Combat Dice could be good to complete some projects such ad the Self Defense and Gun Club.
You're mixing up the motor pool, a region affecting project, with the garage, which is a community specific upgrade. You currently do not have any active garages outside New Orleans.
Also, to be clear, while using the combat dice to complete useful infrastructure is valid- the intended use? Is doing violent super-crime to your enemies.
Also, to be clear- from here on out, you should think of schemes as being a frame-work, ones that can be augmented or improved depending on what you're willing to invest both in terms of preparation, effort, and other forms of set up. For instance, if you want any of these schemes to result in less negative press, maybe increase your targets public distrust a few notches: if you want to get outright positive press, start spreading propaganda and raising Wright Technology goodwill too.
Try thinking outside the box: you have a lot of tools at this point, and that means a lot of ways to get creative.
[ ] Electric City!: Feelgood's other suggestion, the scientist wanted energy: as much of it as possible, some place other than Baton Rouge. He wanted to use that energy to research highly experimental technology- like the world had never seen before! Shrink rays, teleportation, and groovier! Increase a non-Baton Rouge Community Card's energy related stats by 5: unlock Electric City [Weird][Science] community card, which cannot be used for mandates: instead, stats provide progress towards unlocking new [Energy] and [Weird] related technologies.
I think this is a project that ought to be getting a whole lot more love. Electricity is the one resource that the state sorely lacks at the moment and if we want to become self-sufficient in the face of FUSA's collapse we're going to have to start seriously investing into building up some infrastructure. It's doable as well, if we can increase a power peanut plantation to phase 2, build an expanded cererium and do a bit of extra power peanut research we should be there. Besides a lot of the technology that we get as a side effect from this project sounds very cool, RADICAL should be all about strange science and this is our avenue into it.
I think this is a project that ought to be getting a whole lot more love. Electricity is the one resource that the state sorely lacks at the moment and if we want to become self-sufficient in the face of FUSA's collapse we're going to have to start seriously investing into building up some infrastructure. It's doable as well, if we can increase a power peanut plantation to phase 2, build an expanded cererium and do a bit of extra power peanut research we should be there. Besides a lot of the technology that we get as a side effect from this project sounds very cool, RADICAL should be all about strange science and this is our avenue into it.
Something to consider is that it and other community card granting projects provides a pretty easy synergy with several of the minor schemes, like supreme dankage or psychic broadcast towers.
Ait so I have about one hour free before I watch godzilla x kong new empire, so if anyone has any questions or things they want input on like ideas for how to improve the schemes, nows the time to ask.
I think this is a project that ought to be getting a whole lot more love. Electricity is the one resource that the state sorely lacks at the moment and if we want to become self-sufficient in the face of FUSA's collapse we're going to have to start seriously investing into building up some infrastructure. It's doable as well, if we can increase a power peanut plantation to phase 2, build an expanded cererium and do a bit of extra power peanut research we should be there. Besides a lot of the technology that we get as a side effect from this project sounds very cool, RADICAL should be all about strange science and this is our avenue into it.
Electric City! had also caught my attention because we can pair it with the HoverTech Sponsorship, but that reasoning depends on us getting that Sponsorship, and it's the only RADICAL expansion option where we don't actually know how we'll finish it (a Power Peanut Plantation at phase 2 will get 2/5, but other than the AlviCorp Reactor (which would require another Sponsorship), we don't currently have any other energy/power projects to do it).
Electric City! had also caught my attention because we can pair it with the HoverTech Sponsorship, but that reasoning depends on us getting that Sponsorship, and it's the only RADICAL expansion option where we don't actually know how we'll finish it (a Power Peanut Plantation at phase 2 will get 2/5, but other than the AlviCorp Reactor (which would require another Sponsorship), we don't currently have any other energy/power projects to do it).
We could gamble on Power Peanuts Genetic Template buffing the Power Peanut Plantation, but we'd almost certainly need to do a followup project, unless we got some insane overflow and Bird was feeling generous.
I think we should go for the cloning division. One of the main issues with the cloning labs is that they take way too much progress Halving said project makes them way more practical and able to spread them out before the state. Besides the cloning sponsorship does also give quite a lot of genetics dice IIRC, so we have more incentive to take it. Also let's us do a RADICAL project for ENNFER.
Also think we might want to consider at least taking one Feelsgood project since we already took two for Wilbur.
