The ALL THE PRIMIUM thing is more related to "what's available to build" with as opposed to what he was just bitching them out about. That being "But I wanna use my Railguns!" The only thing that's really all that special about a Primium railgun compared to a regular one, is that it's harder for a Mage to turn it into a duck in your hands.
Which, when you're the hunter-killer teams being sent up against mages, is what is technically known as a vital design feature.
(especially when Matter 2, and "You know those superconductive magnets you rely on so your railgun doesn't explode in your hands from heating effects? Sorry, there's impurities in them. Not working any more" is a far more pressing concern than duck transformations because someone eating the 'Dox to turn your gun into a duck can be a net win for you, but that kind of covert sabotage is just a win for them)
Point of order: there are other things Primium does that are important, such as also being good armor material, providing the ability to deal aggravated damage against supernatural foes, and making excellent ammunition due to high density, hardness, and durability.
It also provides protection against all supernatural abilities, not just blatant ones.
Be Henriette:
The HITMark just asked you whether or not you wanted to get some revengeance for the werewolf attack. Henriette's answer is...
[X] Write-in: "I'd like to, but I'll have to ask my Director. I'm almost certain I can get permission for providing support, and I'll see if I can bring more."
It says things that we'd probably rather not about our Construct if Henriette can just wander off and do whatever. That said, we also want to demonstrate to ItX that they do have influence with Jamelia. They'll be more amenable to influence if they (think they) have influence on us in turn.
Be Jamelia:
What exactly has Jamelia been doing while Henriette's been dealing with Iteration X soldierboys?
[X] Write in: Start liaising with the Project TYRANT folks. They're here in Hereford, and they've got contact with the Iterators. It's just NWO fellowship to warn them that the Iterators are likely planning something heavy against the werewolves, isn't it? Feel them out, and perhaps do that patented Jamelia quiet operating to maybe lean them towards "proving themselves" by showing that they can pull their weight with the Iterators.
I'd certainly be interested in checking out Project TYRANT, but until I have a better idea of what's going on with them I'd rather not commit to bringing any of them into the conspiracy. EarthScorpion's write-in seems like a good compromise.
Be Reina:
Give your homunculus-sister... well, okay, more like homunculus-daughter... well okay it's complicated some advice.
[X] "I can't tell you the right thing to do. I sort of made a mess of my personal life."
-> [X] Go kill some vampires to make yourself feel better. It works. Really.
Be Serafina:
Serafina has been...
[X] Trying to work up the courage to apologize to Rose.
-> [X] Failing
--> [X] Working a lot to keep her mind off of things. With the Void Engineers.
Which, when you're the hunter-killer teams being sent up against mages, is what is technically known as a vital design feature.
(especially when Matter 2, and "You know those superconductive magnets you rely on so your railgun doesn't explode in your hands from heating effects? Sorry, there's impurities in them. Not working any more" is a far more pressing concern than duck transformations because someone eating the 'Dox to turn your gun into a duck can be a net win for you, but that kind of covert sabotage is just a win for them)
I acknowledge that Primium is very necessary against Mages. (We are going to go hunt Werewolves though.) It was a bad example for use against the Pogrom faction.
My point was that Kessler was telling them to stop bitchin' and use what they have, because it could be a hell of a lot worse. The duck thing was just me being silly.
Point of order: there are other things Primium does that are important, such as also being good armor material, providing the ability to deal aggravated damage against supernatural foes, and making excellent ammunition due to high density, hardness, and durability.
It also provides protection against all supernatural abilities, not just blatant ones.
What about, instead of kicking in doors and immediately going hardcore "back in my day", we instead use him to booze & schmooze? He's a decorated combat veteran with balls of steel and iron in his gut etc. There's a world of difference between "y'all are all spoiled pansies" and "You've got this shortage? Well, here's how we made do in my day." That way, instead of being directly confrontational it's wisdom being passed down from the elders to the neophites. Maybe rope Not-Arnold-Schwartzenagger-Honest into swapping bullshit stories of "you remember back in Vietganistan where there were all those kung fu vampire commies?"
Do we isolate the hardliners, or moderate them? (maybe I'm just talking out my ass here) but if it looks like Belltowers' crew is siding wholeheartedly with the eggheads it's not going to do loads to bridge the divide.
Actually, I thought we were going too invade a Werewolf Cairn, which is almost as tough a nut to crack as a sanctum. Besides, the complaint isn't exactly happening in a vacuum.
My point was that Kessler was telling them to stop bitchin' and use what they have, because it could be a hell of a lot worse. The duck thing was just me being silly.
Then I think it might be a bad point. Regardless of the fairness of the circumstances or even the necessity of the situation, I don't think it's particularly wrong to 'bitch' about going into a situation with a high risk of death and inadequate equipment, when you know there's better equipment available that you were passed up to have. I mean, too give a example, I'm pretty sure if I was told too assault position with a Lee-Enfield rifle when I knew the Armory had AK-47's and bulletproof vests I would be somewhat disgruntled even if I knew there was a very good reason for it. Because, you know, the ability too better lay down suppressive fire and a limited ability to soften kinetic impacts could literally mean life and death for me or my comrades, and that somethings arguably forgivable too worry over even when it's not strictly rational.
There probably is a time and place for someone, say, a superior officer too shut down complaining if it gets out of hand depending on the situation, but I doubt that it's appropriate here when Kessler and the rest are ostensibly talking off the record as peers. Especially when it comes off as so hypocritical for him to do so, and there are political concerns to worry about.
Be Henriette:
[x] Write-in: "I'd like to, but I'll have to ask my Director. I'm almost certain I can get permission for providing support, and I'll see if I can bring more."
The idea that Henriette could run off without at least asking Jamelia seems a little to hard to believe. Also, if she can bring additional support, that always looks good.
Be Jamelia:
[x] Henriette's got the respect needed, but not quite the skills. Start digging into personnel details here because your endgoal here is still trying to ensure that Iteration X doesn't go axe-crazy in the near future.
Not to say the other ideas presented aren't good ones as well. However, with Mind 2 she probably can do more than one at the same time.
Be Reina:
[x] Go kill some werewolves to make yourself feel better. It works. Really.
Don't split the party. Besides, vampires require a series of social encounters to find and isolate first. As for fae, while tempting, the best way to deal with them is to watch as Serafina troll casts them into Pixie: The Delusion LARPers, but that's currently not an option for Rose right now. Further, (continuing the discussion from before) with Dimension Science 3/Life 3 I'm pretty sure she can see werewolves when they are hiding in the umbra and possibly stab them for agg.
Be Serafina:
Serafina has been...
[x] Working a lot to keep her mind off of things. With the Void Engineers.
->[x] mostly failing.
Because I enjoy the void engineer scenes we've had so far, but I don't think Serafina is going to be able to suppress how she feels.
Kessler, in many ways, felt somewhat like the odd cyborg out in ItX these days. Part of that was probably due in large part to missing out on fifteen years of slow, gradual change in social attitudes that the others took for granted, like the proverbial dragon-toad getting tossed into a boiling pot instead of leaving it in there as you stoked the fire. He knew he'd changed from the man that he was back in '94, and the changes he'd went through weren't the same changes that his fellow Iteration Xers had undergone.
Some things, though, hadn't changed much since the days of Hittite warriors in their barracks casting lots to pass the time. Entering the base mess John Kessler was greeted with the sounds of men eating, socializing, and bitching about everything from their boss to the weather and everything in between. He sidled up to the chow line-yes to the potatoes, yes to the salsbury steak, yes to the nutrient slurry, hell no to the vegitable medley- and found a group of NCOs near one end of the mess to sit down near.
The topic, unsurprisingly, was about the cairn assault coming up. "...least we've got some backup this time. The Fuzz're nice and all, but it's good to have some proper Iteration reinforcements for this op."
"Fuckin' right. Hear anything about whether we'll get enough primium rounds for the Mk. XVII's?" The cyborg in fatigues had some scars around his eye that disappeared abruptly into his scalp, where the natural skin seemed to give way to synthskin. Kessler could hear a faint whine when the man moved his arm, servomotors lacking in maintenance to be heard that well. Or maybe the arm wasn't supposed to be silent in the first place, for all John knew these days.
The other cyborg was wearing PT attire, and while he appeared to be mostly fleshy there were some sort of matte black ports at his joints evenly spaced around his exposed skin. "Not near fuckin' enough. Cunt in supply said that we'd only be getting 200 rounds. I ask her 'we got six Mk. XVIIs, that's barely enough for one', but the bint just shrugs and says that's all we're gettin'."
John didn't need much of an invitation to work his way into the conversation. Social niceties were not one of the skills he'd practiced on the dragon planet. "There a problem with silver?"
"Who the feck are you?" The workout cyborg asked, looking irritable. He had a look of someone trying to gaze into the middle distance at John Kessler for a moment before blinking and frowning.
"Looking for this?" He smoothed out the nametag on his shirt (name sewn in actual honest-to-god black thread). "Still haven't gotten the hang of those AR-thingies yet."
His partner seemed to be a bit quicker on the uptake. "Sergeant Kessler, sir!" He rose, seeming to snap to attention.
Mama Kessler's boy grinned. "Sit your ass down, son. I work for a living, don't go 'sir'ing me like that." He chugged a bit of nutrient slurry right out of the little cup rather than with a spoon like you're probably supposed to. Table manners were another skill he wasn't entirely in the habit of again, and the taste and consistency were close enough to applesauce that it didn't bother him much anyhow. "Now, answer the question."
"Sergeant, silver slugs for railguns...they're too soft. The friction of the air liquifies them, and they're not effective past about ten meters."
"So?" The exojock seemed particularly unconcerned. "Doesn't mean you need Primium. That shit's hard as balls to make as it is, and digging it out of the landscape to reuse it's a pain I only wish on FNGs on shit detail." The salsbary steak was tough and cardboard-y, but was rated to last for ten years in hostile environments if not removed from its package. Kessler would contend that after two years the nutritional value in question was far outweighed by the morale-raising possibilities of other food stuffs you could scavenge from the territory you found yourself in. Like dirt.
"But if there's no ammo for the railguns..." the rude one tried to explain.
"Who said there wasn't ammo for your guns? Staff Sergeant Tallesy here just said it was effective under ten meters when you use silver, right? Besides, how much range you expect the furries to give you anyway?" They were gathering a crowd of onlookers. People didn't need to crowd around him when they could dial up their audio pickup feeds and network what they were hearing with their buddies. Still, the general decrease in side conversations was indicator enough for Kessler. "Trust me, I got my Ph.D in ass-kicking before going on a extra long sabbatical learning me up on how to Make Due. Yeah, the Primium rounds would be nice, but you're not going to get enough to matter. What are you going to do about it?" John looks around at the assembled ItX crowd before singling one out.
"Corporal Jennings!"
"Sir!" She almost leaps up, facing the far wall rather than towards Kessler.
"What is your assessment of the werewolf threat?"
"Sir?"
"What can the doggies do? How do they act? What do you do to keep 'em down, and what just pisses them off a bit?"
"Sir, the shapeshifters are capable of morphing between human and canine forms! This includes a halfway state, sir! They regenerate, but regeneration is suppressed by silver and primium rounds, as well as select RD artifacts! Tactics usually are a combination of ambush from across the Gauntlet and human waves of bestial underlings backed up by one or two senior, intelligent shapeshifters directing them! Support from RNEs or other noetic entities has been documented in the past! Effective deterrents and suppressant equipment includes but is not limited to Primium rounds, silver, ARGIVE-pattern nanite swarms, vibrational blades with Proginator-approved neurotoxins, Boombox rounds, napalm if covering sufficient surface area..."
"Sounds like you've got quite the collection to choose from. You want my advice, kiddos? Drop the railgun. Drop the missiles, the plasma casters, the bomb-pumped lasers...pick up a regular Sleeper gun, and go to a live fire range. It'll work just as well, maybe better, you'll be able to get enough ammo for everyone for it. Remember this; we're Iteration X. It's not the latest, shinest gizmos that made us who we are. It's not the sleek chrome that makes you a badass...it's you that does that. Yeah, I'm right there with y'all in geeking out over the latest do-dads and what's got the most bells and whistles, but in the end it's a means to an end. The enemy hasn't adapted all that much, while we've marched on. It doesn't matter if you get 'em with a micro-missile or a silver bullet in the back of the head so long as they die."
--
I'm sure there's a lot I could do to improve this, but...eh. Maybe later.
I acknowledge that Primium is very necessary against Mages. (We are going to go hunt Werewolves though.) It was a bad example for use against the Pogrom faction.
Primium is even more important against other supernaturals because countermagic is particularly effective against static effects, making a Primium-equipped hardsuit or cyborg effectively immune to the many, many "are you a mortal? Yes? Fuck off and die" effects supernaturals have.
Werewolves have a fairly low-level Gift that can stop any technology from working. Like knives. Vampires have Dominate and Majesty, both of which can literally allow you to have attackers commit suicide in front of you in combat time. There are specific counters to these effects (well okay the werewolf anti-tech Gift's counter is "outnumber the casters so that they can't disable enough of you", which Pentex does) but Primium lets you power through it.
Primium, the "emperor of materials", is an alloy famed for its resistance to Reality Deviant attack, both direct and subtle. Produced almost exclusively by Iteration X but used by all Conventions to a large degree, Primium is one of the major advantages of Technocratic Union military units, providing passive resistance to Reality Deviant psionics, EDE weapons, and a wide variety of other effects. Specific dopings of Primium can also take on many other functions, including NBC filtration systems (providing exceptional protection against RD-engineered phages), psionic dampeners (to allow the safe handling of captured RDs), superconducting circuitry (often used in plasma weapons or UV/X-Ray lasers), as well as the old standard of armor plate.
...
Although the Dimensional Anomaly greatly reduced the availability of Primium, there are still no less than five production facilities still-functional: One in Chengdu, China, another in the London Geofront, a third underneath Detroit in the US, a fourth underwater facility in the Pacific Ocean, and the Void Engineers have launched an orbital factory-satellite in 2008 to produce the material in zero-G, where it is significantly easier to generate.
...
The most well-known form of Primium is Common Primium (Matter 5, Prime 3). An alloy of gold and silver with a classified and complex mix of minor additions, Common Primium is a dense metal with a strength to weight ratio an order of magnitude above even high-grade aircraft titanium. Primium production is an extremely expensive, convoluted affair, with even minor impurities ruining a batch of the material. Most primium construction facilities were orbital, and thus lost in the Dimensional Anomaly, because zero-G smelting of Primium was known to be significantly easier and more reliable than doing so in terrestrial conditions.
True Primium (Matter 5, Prime 5) uses the unique structure of primium to allow for molecular reinforcement and bonding. True Primium's primary advantage over common Primium is that True Primium macromolecules are nigh-indestructible by even mundane means, providing protection against even high-energy weapons. Furthermore, the metastable internal structure makes it particularly resistant to overstress or failure, making it extremely valuable for high-risk systems which suffer constant malfunction.
The Sons of Ether are rumored to still have the formulae and capability of constructing both Common and True Primium in small amounts, but due to lack of industry cannot apply it nearly as commonly. Instead, they use Fool's Primium (Matter 2, Prime 2, any or all of Correspondence 1, Entropy 1, Forces 1, Life 1, Mind 1, Spirit 1, Time 1), which uses a much simpler production process. However, Fool's Primium is only moderately tougher than most jewelry (which is also made of a blend of gold and silver) and cannot be used in the same method as regular Primium, providing only dedicated shielding against exotic effects and no standard protection against weapons fire.
The second major problem with Fool's Primium, and the reason why the Technocracy does not make use of it, is that its manufacturing process is, although much less resource-intensive, also extremely costly to do effectively and easily botched. Because of its nature, it is extremely difficult to do quality-control on Fool's Primium, as its fragility makes testing most batches non-destructively difficult, and destructive testing runs into the issue that batches of Fool's Primium are rarely alike even when made by the same machinery and overseen by the same Enlightened Scientist. Most batches of Fool's Primium are prone to failure in inconvenient situations, examples being entropic weapons (caster lacked Entropy), spatial distortions (Correspondence), high-energy events (Forces), ionizing radiation (Life), or psionic attack (Mind).
Wait. Pentex was caught as demon money sponsors, right? So why are they still alive? There is no way that the Union would let RDs control a major corporation.
Wait. Pentex was caught as demon money sponsors, right? So why are they still alive? There is no way that the Union would let RDs control a major corporation.
Hard to gauge, but a part of it probably just sheer size and inertia. Pentax is huge, running everything from fast food chains to pharmaceuticals to computer parts, in addition to their mainline thing as an oil company. Basically, if there's horrible exploitative practices, Pentax does it in some form(their often described as Captain Planet villains for a reason). Add in several decades of mage help (hell, they still have mages) EDEs and reality deviants of all stripes, and the Syndicate perhaps not caring about what their money was doing as much as they should, and it seems the Technocracy is only just starting to clue into exactly how deep rooted the problem they now have to deal with is. There's also the fact Pentax is militarily powerful in its own right. Not like Technocracy powerful, but enough so that rooting them out involves things like 'massive horde of monster fights' or 'Incarnate summoning levels major city'.
As for how they got that powerful... I think they kinda snuck in, and then the Syndicate/Malfean Nerphandi saw an opportunity for money/power. Add in the pre-1999 Technocracy being more focused with obvious RD (Pentax mostly stays in normal consensual bounds, with the odd 'medicine turns you into a mutant monster' thing). And those damn werewolves kept attacking them, and everyone knows those furry barbarians try and destroy everything properly advanced. So their own in biases and forces commitments (plus some traitors) kept their attention off them till they were a multinational conglomerate, and with all the issues of dismantling those that entails + lots of forms of magic. As for why the Technocracy hasn't just killed all the leadership... remember these are the guys that every single shifter alive that isn't onside with them wants dead and then more people want them dead on top of that. Their leadership is hard to kill, and succession lines are well setup at this point.
All in all, Pentax is probably one of those things the Union wants to devote resources to stomping out, but its a big, complicated project and there are fires that need putting out right now, and Pentax doesn't want the world gone. So they make do (though I imagine a lot of resources are heading that way, because this is one of those 'guilt free things the Traditions and the Technocracy actually agree on the end goal for').
Be Henriette:
The HITMark just asked you whether or not you wanted to get some revengeance for the werewolf attack. Henriette's answer is...
[X] Write-in: "I'd like to, but I'll have to ask my Director. I'm almost certain I can get permission for providing support, and I'll see if I can bring more."
Be Jamelia:
What exactly has Jamelia been doing while Henriette's been dealing with Iteration X soldierboys?
[X] Jamelia's pretty sure that there's going to be an attack on the shapeshifter hive, and hives generally have several murders of werewolves (like crows, werewolves come in murders) in them. So she's going to be running her requisitions to get some gear to prepare for that.
Be Reina:
Give your homunculus-sister... well, okay, more like homunculus-daughter... well okay it's complicated some advice.
[X] "I can't tell you the right thing to do. I sort of made a mess of my personal life."
-> [X] Go kill some vampires to make yourself feel better. It works. Really.
Be Serafina:
Serafina has been...
[X] Trying to work up the courage to apologize to Rose.
-> [X] Failing
--> [X] Working a lot to keep her mind off of things. With the Void Engineers.
"The Forms and Economics of Primium" is a pretty standard Union briefing text. It is factual within the reference frame of the Technocratic paradigm. It is incomplete - it is unclear whether missing information or a lack of detail would be expanded in the absent sections. It is written from the Technocratic viewpoint, and thus mostly details how you might use it, rather than how you might deal with it being used against you. It's quite interesting because it does raise the issue of the relative shortages of Primium the modern Union is having.
All in all, we can basically use it in the way that it was intended, amusingly enough - that is, a basic primer on how the Union uses primium. We're trying to get the full text, and this commentary will be updated when we have it.
Article:
Primium, the "emperor of materials", is an alloy famed for its resistance to Reality Deviant attack, both direct and subtle [1]. Produced almost exclusively by Iteration X but used by all Conventions to a large degree [2], Primium is one of the major advantages of Technocratic Union military units, providing passive resistance to Reality Deviant psionics, EDE weapons, and a wide variety of other effects. Specific dopings of Primium can also take on many other functions, including NBC filtration systems (providing exceptional protection against RD-engineered phages), psionic dampeners (to allow the safe handling of captured RDs), superconducting circuitry (often used in plasma weapons or UV/X-Ray lasers), as well as the old standard of armor plate.
...
Although the Dimensional Anomaly greatly reduced the availability of Primium, there are still no less than five production facilities still-functional: One in Chengdu, China, another in the London Geofront, a third underneath Detroit in the US, a fourth underwater facility in the Pacific Ocean, and the Void Engineers have launched an orbital factory-satellite in 2008 to produce the material in zero-G, where it is significantly easier to generate [3].
...
The most well-known form of Primium is Common Primium (Matter 5, Prime 3) [4]. An alloy of gold and silver with a classified and complex mix of minor additions, Common Primium is a dense metal with a strength to weight ratio an order of magnitude above even high-grade aircraft titanium. Primium production is an extremely expensive, convoluted affair, with even minor impurities ruining a batch of the material. Most primium construction facilities were orbital, and thus lost in the Dimensional Anomaly, because zero-G smelting of Primium was known to be significantly easier and more reliable than doing so in terrestrial conditions. [5]
True Primium (Matter 5, Prime 5) uses the unique structure of primium to allow for molecular reinforcement and bonding. True Primium's primary advantage over common Primium is that True Primium macromolecules are nigh-indestructible by even mundane means, providing protection against even high-energy weapons. Furthermore, the metastable internal structure makes it particularly resistant to overstress or failure, making it extremely valuable for high-risk systems which suffer constant malfunction. [6]
The Sons of Ether are rumored to still have the formulae and capability of constructing both Common and True Primium in small amounts [7], but due to lack of industry cannot apply it nearly as commonly. Instead, they use Fool's Primium (Matter 2, Prime 2, any or all of Correspondence 1, Entropy 1, Forces 1, Life 1, Mind 1, Spirit 1, Time 1), which uses a much simpler production process. However, Fool's Primium is only moderately tougher than most jewelry (which is also made of a blend of gold and silver) and cannot be used in the same method as regular Primium, providing only dedicated shielding against exotic effects and no standard protection against weapons fire. [8]
The second major problem with Fool's Primium, and the reason why the Technocracy does not make use of it, is that its manufacturing process is, although much less resource-intensive, also extremely costly to do effectively and easily botched. Because of its nature, it is extremely difficult to do quality-control on Fool's Primium, as its fragility makes testing most batches non-destructively difficult, and destructive testing runs into the issue that batches of Fool's Primium are rarely alike even when made by the same machinery and overseen by the same Enlightened Scientist. Most batches of Fool's Primium are prone to failure in inconvenient situations, examples being entropic weapons, spatial distortions, high-energy events, ionizing radiation, or psionic attack. [9]
[1] Thig4Life: Primium actually has a long and well-recorded history - it's very much a product of the shared alchemist roots which the Order of Reason inherited from the Hermetics it split from. Seriously, look at that shit. It's an alloy of silver, noted for being soft, and gold, noted for being really soft. Somehow this is meant to become an ultra-hard substance when the two are alloyed. Under the Technocratic paradigm, it's almost kind of an embarrassment as legacy code. But! When you look at it from a proper Hermetic point of view, its properties make perfect sense. It is gold - perfect, untarnishable, purified, eternal - and it is silver - bane of monsters, repeller of mysticism. It is the union of the Sun and the Moon, and it takes a master of the arts of alchemy to blend these two separate forces into an inseparable whole. There's actually a superior version to even "True Primium", which blends mercury into the mix - this is thaumium, the Metal of Wonders. Of course it's better; it has Mercury, metal of Hermes, in it. And that automatically makes it the best.
DrQueenOfFrance: Ignore the Hermetic. Even if he happens to be right about how great thaumium is.
[2] Li9001: It's the sig of the Union. It's also hax bullshit. It exists so they can go 'lol, screw you' against most things you try against them.
Wingz: There were a bunch of attempts back in the Ascension War for the Traditions to start up something similar. None of them worked out, apart from a few Primium foundries done as VA/SoE/Hermetic cooperative works. It's just too hard to get different Traditions to agree on the form of antimagic things like this. Verbena, for example, usually don't believe that unliving things like metal can really hold power. Most protections we tend to make are Wonders, rather than this standardised protection. I strongly recommend stealing all the Primium you can get your hands on.
Li9001: Yeah, really seconded. HITMarks, for example, usually have an alloy coating even if they're a shitty security model. If you can kill them and get away with the wreckage, you can use the alloy yourself. Or sell it. Lots of techomages will pay in tass for primium.
[3] Thig4Life: Oh, poor Technocracy, down to five facilities which can make the product of really advanced alchemy - and one of them is a new one, so they still have the capacity to build new ones.
[4] Wingz: This is the most common type you'll see. The 'Crats plaster it on everything they can afford. Most of the stuff you see nowadays isn't pure by any means; it'll be a coating, or low-grade waste material (which is what they make ammo from). There are still a lot of old pre-1999 HITMarks running around, though, and not only are they usually made of the pure stuff, they're also smarter than ones just off the production line. The things learn.
[5] Li9001: It's one of those hilarious things, actually. Like, somehow the Union hasn't ever managed to get Primium in-Consensus, so making it can only be done in areas of Technoparadigm or out in the Umbra.
[6] DrQueenOfFrance: Oh God, this stuff is amazing. It's really really rare, but if you can get your hands on it... wowzers. I have a tiny amount of it from a raid on a Construct, and I had to trade so much other pickings to get my hands on it. It's pulling duty as part of a superconducting coil in one of my electromagnets, and it has anti-'dox properties. It's great. And mine! Precious...
[7] DrQueenOfFrance: Yep! We do! Problem is... it generally costs more to make it than taking it from the 'Crats. Most of our stuff ends up being used for things whose etheric resonance can't be tainted by 'Crat influence.
[8] Li9001: It's known as Prymite as a nickname. Like, as a parallel to "pyrite". It has its weaknesses, but it's better than nothing. Also, watch for asshole Etherites who'll try to sell you it and tell you it's real Primium and "demonstrate" its countermagic against a raygun or something.
[9] DrQueenOfFrance: Have to say, I'm not a fan of it. It generally works okay if you know what you're going up against ahead of time, but... well. It really shows its relative weakness compared to proper Primium if you get blindsided. I used to use it more, and then... well, we were going to take down a Void Engineer spaceship before it launched. Next thing I knew, the metal-eating spiders one of the Etherites who was working with us was growing had all escaped because one of the VAs had "coincidentally" unplugged the containment field because he needed a cable, and then the spiders were everywhere and they completely wrecked my mutagenic ants! And my prymite did nothing to stop the spiders! Almost certainly the fault of the Operatives, in my opinion. The poor girl whose spiders they were looked crushed the last time I saw her, like she was barely stopping herself from breaking into tears. Damned Operatives!
Be Henriette:
[X] (1.2x) "Fuck yes. I'm almost certain I can get permission for providing support from my Director, and I'll see if I can bring more.'"
Pissing in the Cheerios of other splats is what we do, so let's go do it. And Henriette seems to be the type of person who would still jump into something like this all guns blazing, even learning from JB and Sera.
Be Jamelia:
[X] Jamelia's pretty sure that there's going to be an attack on the shapeshifter hive, and hives generally have several murders of werewolves (like crows, werewolves come in murders) in them. So she's going to be running her requisitions to get some gear to prepare for that.
More stuff is always good, says the Syndic in me. And if we continue to build our rep as professional asskickers, that'll get us brownie points with ItX/the Union.
Be Reina:
[X] Reconcile with your mother. If emotions are still raw, in the interim, go kill some vampires to make yourself feel better. It works. Really.
Killing things won't fix their relationship, but the stuff we can get when we kill things can be used to smooth over the rough spots. Also you've gotta fuck up vampires as a general rule. They know why.
Be Serafina:
Serafina has been...
[X] Trying to work up the courage to apologize to Rose.
-> [X] Failing
--> [X] Been "working late nights in the lab"
Because what better way to assuage parental guilt than by spending long hours getting intimately acquainted with the finer points of biology?
There's a joke here, but I'm not sure I want to touch on it.
Anyway, I'm really torn on the Jamela vote. I want to both support the raid on the cairn and network effectively. I don't suppose there's a way to get human-sized colocation equipment to let us choose more than one, is there?
Anyway, delegation time. Hmmm...what about "Donald, do this paperwork for me and I'll sign what I need to sign, I need to go talk to [groups]." Something akin to that, perhaps?
Primium is even more important against other supernaturals because countermagic is particularly effective against static effects, making a Primium-equipped hardsuit or cyborg effectively immune to the many, many "are you a mortal? Yes? Fuck off and die" effects supernaturals have.
Werewolves have a fairly low-level Gift that can stop any technology from working. Like knives. Vampires have Dominate and Majesty, both of which can literally allow you to have attackers commit suicide in front of you in combat time. There are specific counters to these effects (well okay the werewolf anti-tech Gift's counter is "outnumber the casters so that they can't disable enough of you", which Pentex does) but Primium lets you power through it.
I was unaware of this. I thought that it mostly stopped Magery. This is likely because my exposure to oWod is this quest and reading through the oMage books for this quest.
Wait. Pentex was caught as demon money sponsors, right? So why are they still alive? There is no way that the Union would let RDs control a major corporation.
I had this same thought. According to Syndicate Revised, they know that something is going on with their SPD and Pentex, but gave up trying to figure out what it is. This is mainly due to every agent that they throw at them coming back in pieces, and the fact that both places are still "paying into the system". They've basically just decided to cover up the fact that they lost an entire Methodology.
I was given to understand that every person in the SPD disappeared and was not heard from again. Presumed dead.
They've got a special groups of agents covering up the fact that the entire SPD is just gone. Who is fighting (Project Invictus) another technocratic conspiracy that was formed to fight Pentex.
One of the Branches of the Syndicate, along with the Financiers, Disbursements, Enforcers, and Media Control. Heavily influenced by the megacorporation Pentex, which is secretly ran by the Wyrm(The antagonist, and force of Entropy and Destruction) from Werewolf: The Apocalypse. Everything made by Pentex typically has a little bit of pure evil worked into it.
