Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns
Update LXXVIII: Hive
JB LXXVIII: Hive
"You're from a different fucking world than us, Sergeant. So don't try to lecture us from your position of privilege."
Kessler rocks back slightly at the venom in the woman's words, and draws a slow, calming breath in. Then he lets it out in a sigh, and stays quiet a moment.
"... okay," he concedes with a nod. "Okay, I'll give you that. I can't pretend I'm in the same boat as you, and you sure as hell have reason to gripe. At me, and at the whole crapshoot situation you're stuck with." He sees triumph in Grey's eyes at the concession, and holds up a hand to stop her jumping in. "That said, I think you're still missing the point I'm making."
Her eyes narrow. "And what point would that be?"
"That what you're asking ain't gonna happen. Like it or not, the Anomaly raked us over the coals. We ain't got the resources to pump out primium like we used to - and yeah, we could focus on getting as much as possible and squeeze a bit more out that way, but it still wouldn't be enough. Maybe in thirty, forty years we'll be able to mass-produce the stuff, but right now we could drop everything else for primium production and we'd still be too short on it to do things the way we've always done 'em."
He spreads his hands, warming to his topic. "So we've got shortages whichever way we go. How do we deal with that? We find other ways around 'em. We're Iteration X; that's what we do. It's what I did on that dragon-infested rock - hell, it's in our goddamn name. Adapt to survive, optimize to win, iterate towards perfection. We can't cut it with a straight tech advantage anymore - even if we turned around and went back to our old ways and did nothing else, we'd still be too short on money and materials and all that shit to get anything like the effectiveness we had before the Anomaly."
"So we need to change our tactics. I'm not saying you're wrong; a few years ago I'd be bitching right there with you. But bitching won't help, and neither will trying to act like we've still got the powerbase we used to. And these last few months, I've been learning there are other ways to do things. Not exactly my kind of way, but they work. If our old approach ain't possible anymore, we find new ones. We need to use other Conventions like they use us - you think any of 'em don't depend on ItX tech, when they need it? We gotta start taking as much as we give. Primium shortages mean we can't charge in guns blazing and win anymore? Well, I ain't gonna argue that sucks, 'cause it's my favorite part. But it ain't going away 'cause we want it to, so we attack another way instead. My boss might be an NWO spook, but I'll bet you she's working to turn this into less of a straight fight. Stop 'em using those anti-tech RD tricks, pull 'em onto our ground where we can cut 'em apart. Get the other Conventions pulling their weight, but not just by charging in with blunt force alongside us. Have 'em change the game the way they're good at. Sure, it means altering how we fight as well, doing a bit less of the 'storm in and shoot 'em up' and a bit more messing around with set-ups and tactics, but I guarantee you it's worth it when you win. It's how we cleared out the hemophages in Moscow."
He pauses to take a swig from his beer. "I dunno if everything Lovelace is doing is for the best. Pushing Sleeper tech forward? Sure, it's good for the long run - more support for our augs, more drones and shit to call in, all that stuff. But I'll agree, in the short term there might be better ways to go. What I can say is that trying to keep doing things the way we've always done them - the way we used to do them, the way a lot of us are used to doing them - won't work. What we need to change course to is a whole mess of argument I don't know much about. But that we do need to change ain't up for question. Make no mistake, we either learn to fight a different way, or a whole lot of us die because we're trying to use the wrong tool for the job."
The room calms down slightly, but the anger has largely dissipated. "We'll see." Grey says cryptically. "We'll see how well NWO trickery works. Sometimes all they understand is naked force."
"On the other hand," someone else says. "Remember Archimedes? 'Give me a long enough lever and I will move the Earth.' If we leverage our force more efficiently we can defeat the enemy in detail. We may no longer have the numbers-but remember that the enemy's strengths are themselves a weakness."
"Major Clarent!" The room hushes. "We were just-"
Kessler quietly sighs in relief.
"I overheard the discussion. Our temporary guest may be right or wrong about the situation and Lovelace, but Sergeant Kessler does have some experience in having to make do with limited equipment. Right now, even if our complaints were heard, nothing will change quickly enough for the raid. We will just have to leverage our force as efficiently as possible-and we can accomplish that easily." Clarent says. "The NWO didn't accomplish Edinburgh, or Xi'an, or Kandahar." She doesn't mention that they're exceptions to the rule, clever Iteration X statisticians and shock troopers working together instead of the normal routine of telling the grunts 'this is where the enemy is, have some plasma cannons, destroy them all'. "We can play the NWO's game just as well as they can, except the NWO are frails."
It's one of the many, many Iteration X derogatory slang terms for 'baseline humans', sometimes applied to people who aren't quite baseline. It's a lot less common post-1999, not after the religious fervor of Iteration X died out, but everyone still knows it and occasionally uses it. It emphasizes that they're better than human, and it helps. The Iterators, previously moody and volatile, are now rapidly uniting behind the idea that they'll get to show up the NWO and the normal conception of the Shock Corps as psychopathic cyborgs with cyber-biceps the thickness of most people's waists and only slightly more tolerance for 'planning' and 'clever strategy' than your stereotypical werewolf.
"Thanks." Kessler says, as she moves past him. "For the save."
"Don't thank me, this is entirely for mission efficiency. And, Sergeant?" Major Clarent queries.
"Yes?"
"I wouldn't hang up your fatigues to take up a career in public speaking if I were you."
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Jamelia has spent a lot of time in New World Order Operative armories, managed by Q Division, but rarely in Iteration X ones. She's had a preference for subtlety, one which Iteration X has very rarely shared. Yet here she wants to show her face, show that the New World Order is pulling its weight. She also wants to meet the strike team leader. Jamelia has heard good things about Major Clarent-subtle, for an Iterator, anyhow, professional, well-respected. She wonders if the woman lives up to the myth around her.
So Jamelia is in the middle of a busy Iteration X armory, watching cyborgs neatly move through the lines, joking to each other about "Furries" and the shortcomings of shapeshifter reproduction. There's a few jokes about having wolf for dinner, and the rumor mill has been working overtime on talking about shady NWO supersoldier types-the Tyrants have made something of an impression, Jamelia thinks. It could be any military on Earth talking about any operation. It doesn't fit her image of Iteration X, but she's spent most of her time dealing with the machine-cult, the one which believed personality was a flaw and preferred the clarity of cybernetic enhancement.
It could be any military on Earth, except for the troops, except for the weapons and equipment being issued. She steps past a dozen combat synths passing neatly in single file, the post-99 replacement for HITMarks, cheaper in every way, with not a single gram of Primium in their bodies. Their skin is plain gray, a polymer grown by engineered bacteria to protect against light weapons and knives. Their faces are largely armored skull, with no nose. Their eyes are blatantly artificial optics, soulless red lenses that She wonders at their reliability in the hostile environment-but she supposes that they're no more unreliable than a HITMark. Maybe a little less. Each one of them grabs a pulse rifle and heavy body armor, cutting-edge armor that nevertheless is far below the zenith of what Iteration X could be supplying.
A trio of heavy power armors-BASICs-are being loaded with flamethrowers, incendiary grenade launchers, and nanorepair systems to function in the hostile hive environment. A small floating drone is spraying them with silver compounds, poisoning them against attacking shapeshifters. She sees Kessler checking his X-14, pulling a belt of silver-tipped expanding ammunition through the feed mechanism, chatting to one of the Syndicate 'advisors', a swarthy man who looks for all the world like the stereotypical trenchcoated Virtual Adept cyberpunk, except with a heavily customized G11 instead of a katana. She can overhear bits of their conversation.
"Shit man, sorry for shootin' your arm off." Kessler says.
"Not a problem." Pondsmith says. "It was a life-changing experience, and it's war. Things happen."
She passes them and a couple of HITMarks putting on what look like bomb blast suits with absolutely no care about public decency and a few inexperienced Iterators trying to look like they aren't watching, and finds who she wants to talk to, using an Iteration X requisitions console with the other few operatives who have custom loadouts rather than 'as-issue' equipment. "Major Clarent."
"Operative Belltower." She's taller than Jamelia, and tall for a woman period, cutting a striking contrast with brilliant ruby hair and amethyst eyes. Jamelia wonders if there's a scientific explanation for the height thing-most of Iteration X and the Progenitors are taller than average, and she doubts it's entirely due to vanity. "It's a pleasure to meet my support," Clarent says mildly.
"A pleasure to meet you as well, Major." Jamelia looks her over. She's wearing lightweight not-quite power armor, a black primium-mesh laced bodyglove of artificial muscle with a powerpack on it. It's some sort of stealth armor, rather than the full assault gear she's used to Iterators using. "I just wished to check in with my field counterpart. I expected Kiet to be leading the operation."
"He was... indisposed. As a high-level source of experience and HITMark tactical engrams, Garrison wanted his last super-HITMark out of harm's way. We're a little less expensive and a lot more expendable." The previous user of the requisitions console grabs the curved vibroblade and walks off, physique artificially thickened by a powered combat suit. She turns to the automated quartermaster, which dispenses a X-8 assault carbine and an underbarrel incendiary needler. It's caseless, and the console dispenses several disintegrating magazines of caseless ammunition. Silver-core, expanding.
"Is that going to be enough?" Jamelia asks. "Even with silver ammo." She's never considered that she might be wondering if an Iterator was carrying enough firepower.
"I don't plan on missing, and shapeshifter eyes aren't proof against 8mm caseless." Clarent responds. "And this way, if I'm firing in close quarters I don't have to worry about fratricide." She grabs several fragmentation grenades with silver shrapnel, clips them onto the softsuit. "Ideally we're going to hit with enough shock and tactical surprise that they can't organize a response. NWO MANAR scans show that it's going to be heavily forested, so it's not a cave and we'll have some long sight lines. Ideally. Do you need anything?"
"I already have what I need."
"Efficient. I like that." she says. She grabs a handful of primium knives, balanced for throwing and close combat, a trauma kit, and a few emergency trauma nanoinjectors. "Sorry, but I've got to calibrate the smartlink on these. If you'll excuse me..."
Jamelia still hasn't managed to make a read of her personality and politics except "confident" as the Iterator leaves. She wonders if she could pull some strings to poach Miss Clarent for her own Construct. Maybe later, after this has blown over. Maybe.
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Loaded in the passenger compartment of a SHEDU in the middle of a rainstorm, Antoinette Sylia sulks. Not loudly, but she wonders if it was the last chance she had to get back into Iteration X's good graces. No, she tells herself. She's smart, she's talented, she knows what she's doing-she just needs a chance to prove herself.
"Five minutes to LZ."
She's heading into a dark forest with a chopper full of NWO combat agents and combat synths, with only rough estimates of the number of hostiles available to clear the perimeter. Her suit's charged to full and its systems respond one by one to diagnostics with yellow status. It's the most exciting thing she's done in her life, at least. Well, it could have been far more exciting, but Operative Belltower decided that no, she shouldn't go into the hive, something about her familial ties being too significant and the risk of injury or death being too great.
She hates it. She wants to be useful, being there on the front lines, showing everyone that they have all they need to accomplish their goals and that Lovelace isn't wrong.
"Be advised that the enemy has EDE sentries. They will likely be alerted to your presence soon. Expect a hot LZ." Jamelia's voice says. Soon after, howls break the silence of the SHEDU's acoustic stealth system, loud enough to cut through the limited noise of the rotor. The SHEDU shudders and the rumble of its fuel cell engine dies.
"We've lost engine power! Systems are rebooting!" the pilot yells. "Trying to get it under contro-yes take that you fuckers. We're going to have to peel off. Anyone who can deploy, jump! Go! Go! Go!" The composite doors slide open as wild rifle fire lights up the night sky. One of the NWO agents gets onto the doorgun, and a laser-like line of high-caliber fire tracks through the forest, chewing through foliage. Antoinette knows that Angel is rated for a lot more than a hundred-meter drop, and jumps, along with the combat synths. One of them is unlucky, takes a rifle shot to the eye, hits the ground like a ragdoll. Another suffers from a manufacturing flaw in its hip and breaks its leg on impact. The rest land deliberately in the mud, splashing everywhere, pulse rifles up and ready. They're dumb, but Victor-dumb, perfectly manageable by Iteration X or NWO commanders.
"Report." Jamelia says. "Status?"
"Well, one of the synths is bricked, and another's broken its hip. The rest are fine. The NWO ops are going to join us after they find a place to set down." Sylia manages. She knows she doesn't sound professional while doing it but she is who she is.
"Chalk two is feet on the ground." Clarent says. "Moving towards phase space gateway. No contact."
"Chalk three is feet down." Jaron says. "Tyrants are engaging-" there's a crackle-hiss of a sniper shot, and another one. "-enemy sympathizers. No shapeshifters detected yet."
"Chalk four is Oscar Mike." Pondsmith says, obviously mocking serious military jargon. "Wasted a noob with a RPG and his ammo-carrying buddy, but haven't taken any fire."
"The VGV and heavy ground support are securing the perimeter." Henriette mentions. "Scanning for hostiles, but this place makes sensor sweeps very spotty."
"Understood." Jamelia says. "Stay safe out there."
Sylia cuts the line, moments before she is bowled over by several werewolves. Sloppy, she chides herself. They're biting and clawing at her armor, and she notices one of the surge protectors for her kinetic shielding fail. Unfortunate, she thinks. She tries to get the plasma cannon up, but the weight of bodies makes it difficult. She sees one of the combat synths get mauled by another pack of wolfborn, spraying white synthetic plasma everywhere, but then its attackers are perforated by 10mm HE/silver rounds. Another pack pops up on top of a synth and the NWO takes care of it with a brace of anti-tank missiles. Synths, after all, are relatively expendable and that one had no chance.
She alters her field to overload, sends them flying. The plasma cannon forms around her arm, and she sweeps it on wide-beam across all of the warform werewolves. One of them survives to run away. Angel's internal nanorepair system shows 75% capacity. It's punishing using this in this environment, full of mud and other things to muck up sensitive systems. Nevertheless, she needs to continue clearing the perimeter. She's not going to let anyone down. She needs to prove herself.
She listens to the comm chatter, everyone has been engaged by a veritable tsunami of fur and claws, one NWO agent heavily injured but recoverable, a few MiB lost, combat synths being inactivated at 3% below expected rate. She decides to head to the NWO elements and help them with their problems, figuring that the heavy cyborgs and powersuits who are planning to penetrate the hive proper can take care of themselves.
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Smoke-Before-Thunder has expected the weaver-worshipping scum to attack her after that stunt. She knows their ways well enough from consulting with the spirits. They dare to attack her in a sacred place, where she is strongest. The arrogance of man is infinite, she thinks.
And perhaps they might even have succeeded. But the spirits of Gaia's vengeance will have something to say about that. She thinks it's fitting that she learned this from their corrupt ways. Pentex's banes taught her that spirit could live in flesh-and although Pentex had to prepare theirs, which seemed like a insurmountable hurdle. But then-one of her shamans gave her a suggestion after consulting with the spirits. There are so many humans who are willing to seek to become 'closer to nature'. Even though they still sabotage it by living in a technological society, even though their lies ring hollow-their bodies are prepared to be worn by these powerful beings.
The reason she harassed the Weaverscum, so they'd assume that they were being killed, not kidnapped. They plead. They scream.
"I'll give you anything if you return me to my family!"
"Do you know who I am? I am a consor of the witch-"
"Please don't do this! I have a family!"
"SILENCE!" she snarls, shifting into Crinos form. Their pleas are replaced with incoherent blubbering and struggling. She smells the awful odor of human waste as she does so. "Your sacrifice is necessary for humanity to return to balance with Gaia!" she growls. Of course, they are too far gone to understand what she's saying at this point, fully in the thrall of Delirium. "Shaman! Prepare the ritual's final steps!"
"Yes, warlord. As you will, warlord."
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Tradwiki/TraditionsPages/Euthanatos/Sects/KnightsOfRadymanthys/BountyBoard/Discussion
JaniceBecquerel: on of my cnsors mssng thnk Garou took her will pay in tass for rescue
MichaelOscar: Is this some sort of NWO prank? How stupid do you think we are?
JaniceBecquerel: its my real name
MichaelOscar: Nobody uses their real names on the wiki holy shit noob.
JaggedAlliance: You know there are people who kind of avoid computers until they have to do things like 'call the A-Team', right? Lots of oldtimers around who don't know their way on the internet but also can turn you into a newt over IP.
JaniceBecquerel: new to this computer thing friend told me u could help
KeymasterMatrix: Too obvious for a NWO plot. Backtrace checks out, 95 CI. The NWO would make it slightly believable.
MichaelOscar: Shit, sorry Janice.
JaggedAlliance: Called it.
SoldierOfMisfortune: Location?
JaniceBecquerel: uk near london
WhoDaresWins: I have a team who are willing to do this job. 50 tass, 20 up front. State what form.
JaniceBecquerel: will u accept magic mushrooms
WhoDaresWins: Acceptable. We will make contact with you for more information in a more client-friendly fashion.
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Pentex Internal Memo
Operation Synergistic Leverage
To whom it may concern,
One of our corporate rivals, the [Get of Fenris], has been sighted in a [Forest in England]. As members of our [Compliance Division] you must approach them and seek [Restitution for destruction of property, including personnel]. You are authorized to use [lethal force], with the exceptions of [none] and the inclusion of [anti-Garou munitions].
The damages you are intended to recover are in the form of [werewolf pelts].
Report to your supervisor(s), [Captain Burke] and [Skin-Crawling-Wounds] immediately for this operation.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
True Fact: The official Order of Hermes entry for werewolves in their almanac of knowledge is 'Had it coming' and 'deserve whatever they get'. Some people in the Traditions dispute this entry. Very few of them have actually met werewolves.
Truer Fact: The official Order of Hermes entry for Threat Null is 'Threat to everyone, including themselves'. Sadly this one isn't actually in the almanac due to the issue of 'may cause enemy to implode in a way that leads Earth to being eaten by cyborgs'. Truly tragic.
The situation is basically: "Ninja Euthanatos SUV about to sneak into the place, one of them probably posting on TradWiki 'what the fuck why are there a bazillion Technos here', your allies currently being swarmed by Kinfolk with RPGs and wolfborn cannonfodder, situation nominal."
Combat Plan:
[ ] Discuss and write in something. Remember this is about to turn into a three-way clusterfuck, because :threatnull:. Well, it'd be four-way but Pentex's OODA loops are not nearly as fast as Euthanatos mercs or the Union's.
The Euthanatos are approaching in a SUV full of hardcore magical commandos mainlining a combination of technothriller gear and being Just That Good/awesome magical tattoos. Imagine five Jamelias inside a black SUV.
Jane/Kessler:
[ ] (2.0x) Stealth approach. Activate camouflage systems (Kessler better find a way to sneak) and do a targeted assassination.
[ ] Move through quietly, but don't be afraid to engage targets of opportunity.
[ ] (0.5x) Go loud.
Perimeter RoEs:
[ ] (2.5x) Free fire.
[ ] Return fire.
[ ] (0.5x) Hold fire until confirmed hostile.
Rotes:
[ ] Rotes. Rotes are important! Tell me some.
"You're from a different fucking world than us, Sergeant. So don't try to lecture us from your position of privilege."
Kessler rocks back slightly at the venom in the woman's words, and draws a slow, calming breath in. Then he lets it out in a sigh, and stays quiet a moment.
"... okay," he concedes with a nod. "Okay, I'll give you that. I can't pretend I'm in the same boat as you, and you sure as hell have reason to gripe. At me, and at the whole crapshoot situation you're stuck with." He sees triumph in Grey's eyes at the concession, and holds up a hand to stop her jumping in. "That said, I think you're still missing the point I'm making."
Her eyes narrow. "And what point would that be?"
"That what you're asking ain't gonna happen. Like it or not, the Anomaly raked us over the coals. We ain't got the resources to pump out primium like we used to - and yeah, we could focus on getting as much as possible and squeeze a bit more out that way, but it still wouldn't be enough. Maybe in thirty, forty years we'll be able to mass-produce the stuff, but right now we could drop everything else for primium production and we'd still be too short on it to do things the way we've always done 'em."
He spreads his hands, warming to his topic. "So we've got shortages whichever way we go. How do we deal with that? We find other ways around 'em. We're Iteration X; that's what we do. It's what I did on that dragon-infested rock - hell, it's in our goddamn name. Adapt to survive, optimize to win, iterate towards perfection. We can't cut it with a straight tech advantage anymore - even if we turned around and went back to our old ways and did nothing else, we'd still be too short on money and materials and all that shit to get anything like the effectiveness we had before the Anomaly."
"So we need to change our tactics. I'm not saying you're wrong; a few years ago I'd be bitching right there with you. But bitching won't help, and neither will trying to act like we've still got the powerbase we used to. And these last few months, I've been learning there are other ways to do things. Not exactly my kind of way, but they work. If our old approach ain't possible anymore, we find new ones. We need to use other Conventions like they use us - you think any of 'em don't depend on ItX tech, when they need it? We gotta start taking as much as we give. Primium shortages mean we can't charge in guns blazing and win anymore? Well, I ain't gonna argue that sucks, 'cause it's my favorite part. But it ain't going away 'cause we want it to, so we attack another way instead. My boss might be an NWO spook, but I'll bet you she's working to turn this into less of a straight fight. Stop 'em using those anti-tech RD tricks, pull 'em onto our ground where we can cut 'em apart. Get the other Conventions pulling their weight, but not just by charging in with blunt force alongside us. Have 'em change the game the way they're good at. Sure, it means altering how we fight as well, doing a bit less of the 'storm in and shoot 'em up' and a bit more messing around with set-ups and tactics, but I guarantee you it's worth it when you win. It's how we cleared out the hemophages in Moscow."
He pauses to take a swig from his beer. "I dunno if everything Lovelace is doing is for the best. Pushing Sleeper tech forward? Sure, it's good for the long run - more support for our augs, more drones and shit to call in, all that stuff. But I'll agree, in the short term there might be better ways to go. What I can say is that trying to keep doing things the way we've always done them - the way we used to do them, the way a lot of us are used to doing them - won't work. What we need to change course to is a whole mess of argument I don't know much about. But that we do need to change ain't up for question. Make no mistake, we either learn to fight a different way, or a whole lot of us die because we're trying to use the wrong tool for the job."
The room calms down slightly, but the anger has largely dissipated. "We'll see." Grey says cryptically. "We'll see how well NWO trickery works. Sometimes all they understand is naked force."
"On the other hand," someone else says. "Remember Archimedes? 'Give me a long enough lever and I will move the Earth.' If we leverage our force more efficiently we can defeat the enemy in detail. We may no longer have the numbers-but remember that the enemy's strengths are themselves a weakness."
"Major Clarent!" The room hushes. "We were just-"
Kessler quietly sighs in relief.
"I overheard the discussion. Our temporary guest may be right or wrong about the situation and Lovelace, but Sergeant Kessler does have some experience in having to make do with limited equipment. Right now, even if our complaints were heard, nothing will change quickly enough for the raid. We will just have to leverage our force as efficiently as possible-and we can accomplish that easily." Clarent says. "The NWO didn't accomplish Edinburgh, or Xi'an, or Kandahar." She doesn't mention that they're exceptions to the rule, clever Iteration X statisticians and shock troopers working together instead of the normal routine of telling the grunts 'this is where the enemy is, have some plasma cannons, destroy them all'. "We can play the NWO's game just as well as they can, except the NWO are frails."
It's one of the many, many Iteration X derogatory slang terms for 'baseline humans', sometimes applied to people who aren't quite baseline. It's a lot less common post-1999, not after the religious fervor of Iteration X died out, but everyone still knows it and occasionally uses it. It emphasizes that they're better than human, and it helps. The Iterators, previously moody and volatile, are now rapidly uniting behind the idea that they'll get to show up the NWO and the normal conception of the Shock Corps as psychopathic cyborgs with cyber-biceps the thickness of most people's waists and only slightly more tolerance for 'planning' and 'clever strategy' than your stereotypical werewolf.
"Thanks." Kessler says, as she moves past him. "For the save."
"Don't thank me, this is entirely for mission efficiency. And, Sergeant?" Major Clarent queries.
"Yes?"
"I wouldn't hang up your fatigues to take up a career in public speaking if I were you."
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Jamelia has spent a lot of time in New World Order Operative armories, managed by Q Division, but rarely in Iteration X ones. She's had a preference for subtlety, one which Iteration X has very rarely shared. Yet here she wants to show her face, show that the New World Order is pulling its weight. She also wants to meet the strike team leader. Jamelia has heard good things about Major Clarent-subtle, for an Iterator, anyhow, professional, well-respected. She wonders if the woman lives up to the myth around her.
So Jamelia is in the middle of a busy Iteration X armory, watching cyborgs neatly move through the lines, joking to each other about "Furries" and the shortcomings of shapeshifter reproduction. There's a few jokes about having wolf for dinner, and the rumor mill has been working overtime on talking about shady NWO supersoldier types-the Tyrants have made something of an impression, Jamelia thinks. It could be any military on Earth talking about any operation. It doesn't fit her image of Iteration X, but she's spent most of her time dealing with the machine-cult, the one which believed personality was a flaw and preferred the clarity of cybernetic enhancement.
It could be any military on Earth, except for the troops, except for the weapons and equipment being issued. She steps past a dozen combat synths passing neatly in single file, the post-99 replacement for HITMarks, cheaper in every way, with not a single gram of Primium in their bodies. Their skin is plain gray, a polymer grown by engineered bacteria to protect against light weapons and knives. Their faces are largely armored skull, with no nose. Their eyes are blatantly artificial optics, soulless red lenses that She wonders at their reliability in the hostile environment-but she supposes that they're no more unreliable than a HITMark. Maybe a little less. Each one of them grabs a pulse rifle and heavy body armor, cutting-edge armor that nevertheless is far below the zenith of what Iteration X could be supplying.
A trio of heavy power armors-BASICs-are being loaded with flamethrowers, incendiary grenade launchers, and nanorepair systems to function in the hostile hive environment. A small floating drone is spraying them with silver compounds, poisoning them against attacking shapeshifters. She sees Kessler checking his X-14, pulling a belt of silver-tipped expanding ammunition through the feed mechanism, chatting to one of the Syndicate 'advisors', a swarthy man who looks for all the world like the stereotypical trenchcoated Virtual Adept cyberpunk, except with a heavily customized G11 instead of a katana. She can overhear bits of their conversation.
"Shit man, sorry for shootin' your arm off." Kessler says.
"Not a problem." Pondsmith says. "It was a life-changing experience, and it's war. Things happen."
She passes them and a couple of HITMarks putting on what look like bomb blast suits with absolutely no care about public decency and a few inexperienced Iterators trying to look like they aren't watching, and finds who she wants to talk to, using an Iteration X requisitions console with the other few operatives who have custom loadouts rather than 'as-issue' equipment. "Major Clarent."
"Operative Belltower." She's taller than Jamelia, and tall for a woman period, cutting a striking contrast with brilliant ruby hair and amethyst eyes. Jamelia wonders if there's a scientific explanation for the height thing-most of Iteration X and the Progenitors are taller than average, and she doubts it's entirely due to vanity. "It's a pleasure to meet my support," Clarent says mildly.
"A pleasure to meet you as well, Major." Jamelia looks her over. She's wearing lightweight not-quite power armor, a black primium-mesh laced bodyglove of artificial muscle with a powerpack on it. It's some sort of stealth armor, rather than the full assault gear she's used to Iterators using. "I just wished to check in with my field counterpart. I expected Kiet to be leading the operation."
"He was... indisposed. As a high-level source of experience and HITMark tactical engrams, Garrison wanted his last super-HITMark out of harm's way. We're a little less expensive and a lot more expendable." The previous user of the requisitions console grabs the curved vibroblade and walks off, physique artificially thickened by a powered combat suit. She turns to the automated quartermaster, which dispenses a X-8 assault carbine and an underbarrel incendiary needler. It's caseless, and the console dispenses several disintegrating magazines of caseless ammunition. Silver-core, expanding.
"Is that going to be enough?" Jamelia asks. "Even with silver ammo." She's never considered that she might be wondering if an Iterator was carrying enough firepower.
"I don't plan on missing, and shapeshifter eyes aren't proof against 8mm caseless." Clarent responds. "And this way, if I'm firing in close quarters I don't have to worry about fratricide." She grabs several fragmentation grenades with silver shrapnel, clips them onto the softsuit. "Ideally we're going to hit with enough shock and tactical surprise that they can't organize a response. NWO MANAR scans show that it's going to be heavily forested, so it's not a cave and we'll have some long sight lines. Ideally. Do you need anything?"
"I already have what I need."
"Efficient. I like that." she says. She grabs a handful of primium knives, balanced for throwing and close combat, a trauma kit, and a few emergency trauma nanoinjectors. "Sorry, but I've got to calibrate the smartlink on these. If you'll excuse me..."
Jamelia still hasn't managed to make a read of her personality and politics except "confident" as the Iterator leaves. She wonders if she could pull some strings to poach Miss Clarent for her own Construct. Maybe later, after this has blown over. Maybe.
*********************************************************************************************************************
Loaded in the passenger compartment of a SHEDU in the middle of a rainstorm, Antoinette Sylia sulks. Not loudly, but she wonders if it was the last chance she had to get back into Iteration X's good graces. No, she tells herself. She's smart, she's talented, she knows what she's doing-she just needs a chance to prove herself.
"Five minutes to LZ."
She's heading into a dark forest with a chopper full of NWO combat agents and combat synths, with only rough estimates of the number of hostiles available to clear the perimeter. Her suit's charged to full and its systems respond one by one to diagnostics with yellow status. It's the most exciting thing she's done in her life, at least. Well, it could have been far more exciting, but Operative Belltower decided that no, she shouldn't go into the hive, something about her familial ties being too significant and the risk of injury or death being too great.
She hates it. She wants to be useful, being there on the front lines, showing everyone that they have all they need to accomplish their goals and that Lovelace isn't wrong.
"Be advised that the enemy has EDE sentries. They will likely be alerted to your presence soon. Expect a hot LZ." Jamelia's voice says. Soon after, howls break the silence of the SHEDU's acoustic stealth system, loud enough to cut through the limited noise of the rotor. The SHEDU shudders and the rumble of its fuel cell engine dies.
"We've lost engine power! Systems are rebooting!" the pilot yells. "Trying to get it under contro-yes take that you fuckers. We're going to have to peel off. Anyone who can deploy, jump! Go! Go! Go!" The composite doors slide open as wild rifle fire lights up the night sky. One of the NWO agents gets onto the doorgun, and a laser-like line of high-caliber fire tracks through the forest, chewing through foliage. Antoinette knows that Angel is rated for a lot more than a hundred-meter drop, and jumps, along with the combat synths. One of them is unlucky, takes a rifle shot to the eye, hits the ground like a ragdoll. Another suffers from a manufacturing flaw in its hip and breaks its leg on impact. The rest land deliberately in the mud, splashing everywhere, pulse rifles up and ready. They're dumb, but Victor-dumb, perfectly manageable by Iteration X or NWO commanders.
"Report." Jamelia says. "Status?"
"Well, one of the synths is bricked, and another's broken its hip. The rest are fine. The NWO ops are going to join us after they find a place to set down." Sylia manages. She knows she doesn't sound professional while doing it but she is who she is.
"Chalk two is feet on the ground." Clarent says. "Moving towards phase space gateway. No contact."
"Chalk three is feet down." Jaron says. "Tyrants are engaging-" there's a crackle-hiss of a sniper shot, and another one. "-enemy sympathizers. No shapeshifters detected yet."
"Chalk four is Oscar Mike." Pondsmith says, obviously mocking serious military jargon. "Wasted a noob with a RPG and his ammo-carrying buddy, but haven't taken any fire."
"The VGV and heavy ground support are securing the perimeter." Henriette mentions. "Scanning for hostiles, but this place makes sensor sweeps very spotty."
"Understood." Jamelia says. "Stay safe out there."
Sylia cuts the line, moments before she is bowled over by several werewolves. Sloppy, she chides herself. They're biting and clawing at her armor, and she notices one of the surge protectors for her kinetic shielding fail. Unfortunate, she thinks. She tries to get the plasma cannon up, but the weight of bodies makes it difficult. She sees one of the combat synths get mauled by another pack of wolfborn, spraying white synthetic plasma everywhere, but then its attackers are perforated by 10mm HE/silver rounds. Another pack pops up on top of a synth and the NWO takes care of it with a brace of anti-tank missiles. Synths, after all, are relatively expendable and that one had no chance.
She alters her field to overload, sends them flying. The plasma cannon forms around her arm, and she sweeps it on wide-beam across all of the warform werewolves. One of them survives to run away. Angel's internal nanorepair system shows 75% capacity. It's punishing using this in this environment, full of mud and other things to muck up sensitive systems. Nevertheless, she needs to continue clearing the perimeter. She's not going to let anyone down. She needs to prove herself.
She listens to the comm chatter, everyone has been engaged by a veritable tsunami of fur and claws, one NWO agent heavily injured but recoverable, a few MiB lost, combat synths being inactivated at 3% below expected rate. She decides to head to the NWO elements and help them with their problems, figuring that the heavy cyborgs and powersuits who are planning to penetrate the hive proper can take care of themselves.
**********************************************************************************************************************
Smoke-Before-Thunder has expected the weaver-worshipping scum to attack her after that stunt. She knows their ways well enough from consulting with the spirits. They dare to attack her in a sacred place, where she is strongest. The arrogance of man is infinite, she thinks.
And perhaps they might even have succeeded. But the spirits of Gaia's vengeance will have something to say about that. She thinks it's fitting that she learned this from their corrupt ways. Pentex's banes taught her that spirit could live in flesh-and although Pentex had to prepare theirs, which seemed like a insurmountable hurdle. But then-one of her shamans gave her a suggestion after consulting with the spirits. There are so many humans who are willing to seek to become 'closer to nature'. Even though they still sabotage it by living in a technological society, even though their lies ring hollow-their bodies are prepared to be worn by these powerful beings.
The reason she harassed the Weaverscum, so they'd assume that they were being killed, not kidnapped. They plead. They scream.
"I'll give you anything if you return me to my family!"
"Do you know who I am? I am a consor of the witch-"
"Please don't do this! I have a family!"
"SILENCE!" she snarls, shifting into Crinos form. Their pleas are replaced with incoherent blubbering and struggling. She smells the awful odor of human waste as she does so. "Your sacrifice is necessary for humanity to return to balance with Gaia!" she growls. Of course, they are too far gone to understand what she's saying at this point, fully in the thrall of Delirium. "Shaman! Prepare the ritual's final steps!"
"Yes, warlord. As you will, warlord."
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Tradwiki/TraditionsPages/Euthanatos/Sects/KnightsOfRadymanthys/BountyBoard/Discussion
JaniceBecquerel: on of my cnsors mssng thnk Garou took her will pay in tass for rescue
MichaelOscar: Is this some sort of NWO prank? How stupid do you think we are?
JaniceBecquerel: its my real name
MichaelOscar: Nobody uses their real names on the wiki holy shit noob.
JaggedAlliance: You know there are people who kind of avoid computers until they have to do things like 'call the A-Team', right? Lots of oldtimers around who don't know their way on the internet but also can turn you into a newt over IP.
JaniceBecquerel: new to this computer thing friend told me u could help
KeymasterMatrix: Too obvious for a NWO plot. Backtrace checks out, 95 CI. The NWO would make it slightly believable.
MichaelOscar: Shit, sorry Janice.
JaggedAlliance: Called it.
SoldierOfMisfortune: Location?
JaniceBecquerel: uk near london
WhoDaresWins: I have a team who are willing to do this job. 50 tass, 20 up front. State what form.
JaniceBecquerel: will u accept magic mushrooms
WhoDaresWins: Acceptable. We will make contact with you for more information in a more client-friendly fashion.
**********************************************************************************************************************
Pentex Internal Memo
Operation Synergistic Leverage
To whom it may concern,
One of our corporate rivals, the [Get of Fenris], has been sighted in a [Forest in England]. As members of our [Compliance Division] you must approach them and seek [Restitution for destruction of property, including personnel]. You are authorized to use [lethal force], with the exceptions of [none] and the inclusion of [anti-Garou munitions].
The damages you are intended to recover are in the form of [werewolf pelts].
Report to your supervisor(s), [Captain Burke] and [Skin-Crawling-Wounds] immediately for this operation.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
True Fact: The official Order of Hermes entry for werewolves in their almanac of knowledge is 'Had it coming' and 'deserve whatever they get'. Some people in the Traditions dispute this entry. Very few of them have actually met werewolves.
Truer Fact: The official Order of Hermes entry for Threat Null is 'Threat to everyone, including themselves'. Sadly this one isn't actually in the almanac due to the issue of 'may cause enemy to implode in a way that leads Earth to being eaten by cyborgs'. Truly tragic.
The situation is basically: "Ninja Euthanatos SUV about to sneak into the place, one of them probably posting on TradWiki 'what the fuck why are there a bazillion Technos here', your allies currently being swarmed by Kinfolk with RPGs and wolfborn cannonfodder, situation nominal."
Combat Plan:
[ ] Discuss and write in something. Remember this is about to turn into a three-way clusterfuck, because :threatnull:. Well, it'd be four-way but Pentex's OODA loops are not nearly as fast as Euthanatos mercs or the Union's.
The Euthanatos are approaching in a SUV full of hardcore magical commandos mainlining a combination of technothriller gear and being Just That Good/awesome magical tattoos. Imagine five Jamelias inside a black SUV.
Jane/Kessler:
[ ] (2.0x) Stealth approach. Activate camouflage systems (Kessler better find a way to sneak) and do a targeted assassination.
[ ] Move through quietly, but don't be afraid to engage targets of opportunity.
[ ] (0.5x) Go loud.
Perimeter RoEs:
[ ] (2.5x) Free fire.
[ ] Return fire.
[ ] (0.5x) Hold fire until confirmed hostile.
Rotes:
[ ] Rotes. Rotes are important! Tell me some.
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This is just classic "low level MMO quest" as fuck.
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ROTE: All the Artillery
Do not forget your dogs of war, your big guns, which are the most-to- be respected arguments of the rights of kings.
Frederick the Great
The 7th Paratroop Artillery currently on field maneuvers weren't too terribly happy when Yuuki Sajaki and a rather forgettable NWO Intern attached to Tyrant had shown up at their field HQ in a generic SUV and a large cargo truck behind them. It hadn't taken much at all to see frustration mount as they got waved into camp, no doubt expecting that the maneuvers were to be canceled, somebody no doubt making complaints about either the expense of proper training or in horror at the training for combat.
This lasted all of two minutes it took the Colonel to read the orders the Intern, Jock Bak whose Scottish accent was still shining through his NWO vocal training had passed on. Entirely legal orders that helped expedite the 7th into supporting the assault on the shape-changers hive.
Colonel Aldridge carefully folded the orders up and slide them into his chest pocket a quiet smile on his face, someone was playing at silly buggers tonight and they wanted on call fire-support. "Lieutenant Mercer, move sharply and get the cargo truck unloaded. We've gotten even more rounds to practice with tonight."
"Well over three hundred rounds. Do mind the color coding for alternate warheads," Yuuki stated confidently.
Rote:
Yuuki Sajaki is preparing to drop on-call artillery rounds including Phase Space using Correspondence, Force and Dimensional Science.
Matter 4 ensures Yuuki Sajaki can keep the guns firing all night long alongside specialty rounds including silver nano rounds to truly wreck havoc on the shapeshifters.
Don't ask about the Pheromone Rounds that completely mess with the shapeshifters sense of smell along with other things.
If someone say Jamelia decides to work with Yuuki to drop rounds on a shapeshifter why Correspondence 3, Entropy 3 and Time 2 will no doubt ensure that it gets there quicker, more accurately and faster.
Do not forget your dogs of war, your big guns, which are the most-to- be respected arguments of the rights of kings.
Frederick the Great
The 7th Paratroop Artillery currently on field maneuvers weren't too terribly happy when Yuuki Sajaki and a rather forgettable NWO Intern attached to Tyrant had shown up at their field HQ in a generic SUV and a large cargo truck behind them. It hadn't taken much at all to see frustration mount as they got waved into camp, no doubt expecting that the maneuvers were to be canceled, somebody no doubt making complaints about either the expense of proper training or in horror at the training for combat.
This lasted all of two minutes it took the Colonel to read the orders the Intern, Jock Bak whose Scottish accent was still shining through his NWO vocal training had passed on. Entirely legal orders that helped expedite the 7th into supporting the assault on the shape-changers hive.
Colonel Aldridge carefully folded the orders up and slide them into his chest pocket a quiet smile on his face, someone was playing at silly buggers tonight and they wanted on call fire-support. "Lieutenant Mercer, move sharply and get the cargo truck unloaded. We've gotten even more rounds to practice with tonight."
"Well over three hundred rounds. Do mind the color coding for alternate warheads," Yuuki stated confidently.
Rote:
Yuuki Sajaki is preparing to drop on-call artillery rounds including Phase Space using Correspondence, Force and Dimensional Science.
Matter 4 ensures Yuuki Sajaki can keep the guns firing all night long alongside specialty rounds including silver nano rounds to truly wreck havoc on the shapeshifters.
Don't ask about the Pheromone Rounds that completely mess with the shapeshifters sense of smell along with other things.
If someone say Jamelia decides to work with Yuuki to drop rounds on a shapeshifter why Correspondence 3, Entropy 3 and Time 2 will no doubt ensure that it gets there quicker, more accurately and faster.
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- Location
- in the trash
Could Kessler and Jane detect the EDE summoning, pinpoint its location, and then proceed to fuck up the ritual before they summon a demon or some other horrible thing?
Given that they're in a realm where spirits can manifest normally, either they're going to manage this in the course of their actions because said horrible ecoterrorism spirits are going to be fully manifest or they're going to be dead and it's going to be rather irrelevant.
Excuse my ignorance of the setting.
But do you really want to drop 105 mm howitzer shells in a Danger Close situation?
And if you were going to do so, wouldn't you want to ensure that at least some of the shells contained a silver nanoparticle aerosol?
By writing the Rote so that Yuuki shows up with a load of special ammo?
Adjusted for color coded "special rounds".
Yes for 105 mm howizter in Danger Close given the Enlighted Scientists are going to be the ones calling it in. Jamelia is going to be practically capable of teleporting rounds in given her Cor 3, Entropy 3 Time 2
Rote Idea: By Proclamation of Henry VII: Wolves Exterminated in England
Not sure how to write this up but essentially I want to write up an Order of Reason Ban on wolves applying to the UK, upgraded and maintained by the TU, resting in part on the Crown ordering the extermination of wolves.
Not sure how to write this up but essentially I want to write up an Order of Reason Ban on wolves applying to the UK, upgraded and maintained by the TU, resting in part on the Crown ordering the extermination of wolves.
Bursting Eagerness Soul
Threadwalking Rating Machine
- Location
- Wisconsin
We would likely need massive amounts of successes for that to work. Not to mention the right combination of Correspondence, DiSci/Spirit, and likely Life.
Cornuthaum
Be kind to each other.
- Location
- Austria
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Henriette Langley & Antoinette Sylia - Queens Take Rooks
Swerving the VGV to a halt and transforming it back into car mode, Henriette inloads the TACSAT feed into her ADEI. Spotty, breaking up in places - eighty point one two eight percent chance of secondary EDE interference - but it's a TACSAT feed, and if Moscow taught her anything, having an eye in the sky really helps for coordinating defense.
And that, after all, is her duty today. Even if the chances are slim that anyone would be dumb enough to try to attack an Union cross-convention assault team, the rearguard exists for a reason. And if she remembers what Director Belltower told her about shapeshifters, there's a good chance that either Pentex - bloody Syndicate! - or disparate shapeshifter battlegroups will try to break through for their own reasons, like 'oh no, they're stealing our kills' or 'oh no, they're wiping out our equally genocidal shapeshifter buddies!'.
There'll be nothing of that, not while she's here.
She sends a wide-area ready check to all ItX forces, followed by a readiness report to the local commanding officer.
Zero point zero zero one seconds later, her ready-check pings inside her own head.
"Was zum-" Henriette curses. How'd she end up as the most experienced Enlightened Operative on hand? Her stomach falls a little when she realizes that's because the only other Enlightened is Iterator Sylia. Great. A prissy princess who thinks that all you need is super fancy tech instead of fancy tech and a good idea what your foes are thinking. (A small part of her mind wails something like 'Oh no, Director Belltower is infecting me! Help! Help! I'm being oppressed by the NWO!', but she tunes it out.)
Okay. Okay. I can deal with this. Securing the outside of a Shapeshifter nest against forced entry can't be harder than a one-on-nine giant robot fight. Right?
Henriette, her eyes still closed inside the VGV, goes through the ready-checks of her assets.
Combat synthetics... 73% operational. Ground-mobility issues due to soggy terrain. 37% report scanner black-/white-outs due to unknown interference. TACSAT uplinks inoperable due to damage or interference, 49%. Cover: Negligible. Status: Unacceptable.
At the speed of thought, the light Iteration X forces outside start to organize.
"Director Belltower." Her voice is flat, almost robotic from the strain as the combat synths start piling shapeshifter bodies away from the entrance to the nest. "Requesting permission for fire mission for area-denial munitions, antipersonnel/anti-armor FASCAM, along following coordinates linked to my ADEI targeter."
(Henriette: Matter/Corr/Forces FASCAM deployment - primarily antipersonnel, with anti-vehicle mines along the least soggy areas)
Not waiting for an answer - she'll see whether or not the things arrive soon enough - Henriette tunes her comms to be in line with Iterator Sylia.
"Yes?" The young woman's voice carries a slight tinge of resentment, as if she's unhappy about Henriette having field command for some reason (again, that small voice at the back of her head: she's older than Henriette, and in good standing with Comptroller Lovelace at that, but what does the little princess know of fights? She wasn't in Autochthonia, she wasn't in Moscow.)
"Your suit has a portable N-fab, correct?"
Antoinette blinks in the AR window projected onto Henriette's eyes through their ADEIs. "Er... yes? Assymetric nanoforge layer in the arms, extruder ports at the palms and fingers for field-repair and maintenance with optional flash fab capacity for emer--"
Henriette cuts her off. Good gods, does she sound like that when she's talking about tech with Director Belltower? Gah! "Good. Slave synth groups One, two, five and ten to your suit and get them to move shapeshifter bodies out of the way -"
Antoinette frowns. "I assume you need Angel's nanofab to field-armor the Synths and improve the field defenses?" To her credit, Iterator Sylia stops hauling plascrete plates out of the supply drops that thunder to the ground to set up fortifications.
Henriette flashes the other Iterator a grin, despite herself. Well, she might be a princess but she's thinking quickly enough. "Yes." An alert beeps on her ADEI AR. "We've got - mark - twenty-five minutes until the first FASCAMs start dropping, and probably not much longer until any sort of interference arrives." Their ADEIs start a synced countdown.
(Antoinette : Use the NWO Shepard-Fenix Fast-Deployment Plascrete Field Fortification kit to set up a network of Chest High Walls in a V around the entrance to the nest - Matter/Forces for the quick-hardening, semi-intelligent concrete)
(Henriette: Slave the synthetics to the taccomp of the VGV (and through it the actual command vehicles) to improve their performance and networking. Corr/Forces)
(Not sure what abilities to enhance with, though
)
Swerving the VGV to a halt and transforming it back into car mode, Henriette inloads the TACSAT feed into her ADEI. Spotty, breaking up in places - eighty point one two eight percent chance of secondary EDE interference - but it's a TACSAT feed, and if Moscow taught her anything, having an eye in the sky really helps for coordinating defense.
And that, after all, is her duty today. Even if the chances are slim that anyone would be dumb enough to try to attack an Union cross-convention assault team, the rearguard exists for a reason. And if she remembers what Director Belltower told her about shapeshifters, there's a good chance that either Pentex - bloody Syndicate! - or disparate shapeshifter battlegroups will try to break through for their own reasons, like 'oh no, they're stealing our kills' or 'oh no, they're wiping out our equally genocidal shapeshifter buddies!'.
There'll be nothing of that, not while she's here.
She sends a wide-area ready check to all ItX forces, followed by a readiness report to the local commanding officer.
Zero point zero zero one seconds later, her ready-check pings inside her own head.
"Was zum-" Henriette curses. How'd she end up as the most experienced Enlightened Operative on hand? Her stomach falls a little when she realizes that's because the only other Enlightened is Iterator Sylia. Great. A prissy princess who thinks that all you need is super fancy tech instead of fancy tech and a good idea what your foes are thinking. (A small part of her mind wails something like 'Oh no, Director Belltower is infecting me! Help! Help! I'm being oppressed by the NWO!', but she tunes it out.)
Okay. Okay. I can deal with this. Securing the outside of a Shapeshifter nest against forced entry can't be harder than a one-on-nine giant robot fight. Right?
Henriette, her eyes still closed inside the VGV, goes through the ready-checks of her assets.
Combat synthetics... 73% operational. Ground-mobility issues due to soggy terrain. 37% report scanner black-/white-outs due to unknown interference. TACSAT uplinks inoperable due to damage or interference, 49%. Cover: Negligible. Status: Unacceptable.
At the speed of thought, the light Iteration X forces outside start to organize.
"Director Belltower." Her voice is flat, almost robotic from the strain as the combat synths start piling shapeshifter bodies away from the entrance to the nest. "Requesting permission for fire mission for area-denial munitions, antipersonnel/anti-armor FASCAM, along following coordinates linked to my ADEI targeter."
(Henriette: Matter/Corr/Forces FASCAM deployment - primarily antipersonnel, with anti-vehicle mines along the least soggy areas)
Not waiting for an answer - she'll see whether or not the things arrive soon enough - Henriette tunes her comms to be in line with Iterator Sylia.
"Yes?" The young woman's voice carries a slight tinge of resentment, as if she's unhappy about Henriette having field command for some reason (again, that small voice at the back of her head: she's older than Henriette, and in good standing with Comptroller Lovelace at that, but what does the little princess know of fights? She wasn't in Autochthonia, she wasn't in Moscow.)
"Your suit has a portable N-fab, correct?"
Antoinette blinks in the AR window projected onto Henriette's eyes through their ADEIs. "Er... yes? Assymetric nanoforge layer in the arms, extruder ports at the palms and fingers for field-repair and maintenance with optional flash fab capacity for emer--"
Henriette cuts her off. Good gods, does she sound like that when she's talking about tech with Director Belltower? Gah! "Good. Slave synth groups One, two, five and ten to your suit and get them to move shapeshifter bodies out of the way -"
Antoinette frowns. "I assume you need Angel's nanofab to field-armor the Synths and improve the field defenses?" To her credit, Iterator Sylia stops hauling plascrete plates out of the supply drops that thunder to the ground to set up fortifications.
Henriette flashes the other Iterator a grin, despite herself. Well, she might be a princess but she's thinking quickly enough. "Yes." An alert beeps on her ADEI AR. "We've got - mark - twenty-five minutes until the first FASCAMs start dropping, and probably not much longer until any sort of interference arrives." Their ADEIs start a synced countdown.
(Antoinette : Use the NWO Shepard-Fenix Fast-Deployment Plascrete Field Fortification kit to set up a network of Chest High Walls in a V around the entrance to the nest - Matter/Forces for the quick-hardening, semi-intelligent concrete)
(Henriette: Slave the synthetics to the taccomp of the VGV (and through it the actual command vehicles) to improve their performance and networking. Corr/Forces)
(Not sure what abilities to enhance with, though
)
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My thought process was that it was more calling upon an old but still maintained Order of Reason / TU general Anti Werewolf field, a representation that we are part of a very big, powerful and old organization.
Jamelia rooooooooootes
Okay, as a general operational principle for these rotes, it's Jamelia's job in support to make things easier for everyone else and make it so they have more free spell slots for their own personal specialities. And given her spheres and her natural inclinations, she's going to focus on doing what she does very, very well, which is being a tricksy information-handling goddess.
[Jamelia - Corr 3, Life 1, DSci 1, Matter 1, Forces 1 - It's standard procedures to have sensor coverage for an operation like this. A wide array of sensor equipment is pointed at the node and the surrounding area (to catch intruders or attempts to escape), from ground-based thermal sensors to satellite bio/EDE sensors to planes circling outside the danger region with ground penetrating radar. This information is being handled and distributed by the supporting team, allowing the ground units access to comprehensive tactical information on the positioning of enemy forces and the structure of the territory, in both physical and aphysical regions of space. This is enhanced by Intelligence + Command, and has support from (quite a few) support crew from the Time Motion Managers and the NWO to help get the area factors and duration factors required to cover the entire combat zone
And Jamelia is really thanking her NWO training for letting her cram manuals on the operation of DSci sensor equipment when normal people would be sleeping. She's watching herself to make sure she doesn't 'see' things in the data which the sensors aren't picking up, too.]
[Jamelia - Entropy 1, Time 2 - Most people would expect an ItX/NWO raid on a location to be a thing which you could set your watch by, every move drilled out. However, Jamelia's been working with the team leads to develop an operational plan which works in compliance with modern New World Order "Just Ahead Of Time" planning and preparation operational design, rather than following the inflexible operational structure of former years. Back then, things might have been timed to a tee, but the end result had a tendency to be inflexible and bad with surprise. Modern operational planning sacrifices some of the former incredible precision for a more flexible design which can act to attack enemy weakspots and preempt one's own weaknesses before they've even finished forming, and is aware of its own flaws.
It wouldn't have worked so well in the old Union, where senior operational figures had a tendency to meddle and micromanage (and Iteration X was very bad with the intuition and flexibility it requires), but in the new, leaner, looser Union, it's really found its niche.
Cast targeting all the squad leaders, granting them an Entropy + Time effect which shows them tactical weak points ahead of time on both sides, and detects entropic manipulation which would create or alter these points. Ritual cast beforehand, targeting all the team leaders and high value assets involved in the planning. Enhanced by Wits + Command.
Henriette: "Wait, what? 'Just Ahead Of Time' planning? Oh, don't tell me the NWO has formalised 'making it up as you go along and pretending you knew all along'?"
Jamelia: "I won't tell you, then."]
[Jamelia - Corr 3, Entropy 3 - Everyone on this base knows well that the forces are going to be deployed to a tech-unfriendly location filled with contaminants and possible extradimensional influences. As a result, the technicians following Jamelia's orders have made sure everything is in the best possible operation beforehand. This'll give a buffer of protection before the gear starts breaking down in the tech-unfriendly environment, at the very least meaning it'll be operating in top condition right until it fails.
All equipment in the area of operations working by the Technocratic paradigm which has been maintained by the Iteration X technicians based here and had the proper operational checks carried out on it will work at peak capacity until it fails and will take longer to fail. Note - this only helps against the low-level 'paradigm damage' from being in a tech-unfriendly area which manifests as damage and machine failure, and won't do anything at all to help against direct sources of 'dox like vulgar magic - it's an Entropy 3 blessing which makes things less likely to break down, and can't actually mitigate 'dox.
Enhanced by Charisma + Technology. Ritual cast, all the technicians count as assistants.]
Okay, as a general operational principle for these rotes, it's Jamelia's job in support to make things easier for everyone else and make it so they have more free spell slots for their own personal specialities. And given her spheres and her natural inclinations, she's going to focus on doing what she does very, very well, which is being a tricksy information-handling goddess.
[Jamelia - Corr 3, Life 1, DSci 1, Matter 1, Forces 1 - It's standard procedures to have sensor coverage for an operation like this. A wide array of sensor equipment is pointed at the node and the surrounding area (to catch intruders or attempts to escape), from ground-based thermal sensors to satellite bio/EDE sensors to planes circling outside the danger region with ground penetrating radar. This information is being handled and distributed by the supporting team, allowing the ground units access to comprehensive tactical information on the positioning of enemy forces and the structure of the territory, in both physical and aphysical regions of space. This is enhanced by Intelligence + Command, and has support from (quite a few) support crew from the Time Motion Managers and the NWO to help get the area factors and duration factors required to cover the entire combat zone
And Jamelia is really thanking her NWO training for letting her cram manuals on the operation of DSci sensor equipment when normal people would be sleeping. She's watching herself to make sure she doesn't 'see' things in the data which the sensors aren't picking up, too.]
[Jamelia - Entropy 1, Time 2 - Most people would expect an ItX/NWO raid on a location to be a thing which you could set your watch by, every move drilled out. However, Jamelia's been working with the team leads to develop an operational plan which works in compliance with modern New World Order "Just Ahead Of Time" planning and preparation operational design, rather than following the inflexible operational structure of former years. Back then, things might have been timed to a tee, but the end result had a tendency to be inflexible and bad with surprise. Modern operational planning sacrifices some of the former incredible precision for a more flexible design which can act to attack enemy weakspots and preempt one's own weaknesses before they've even finished forming, and is aware of its own flaws.
It wouldn't have worked so well in the old Union, where senior operational figures had a tendency to meddle and micromanage (and Iteration X was very bad with the intuition and flexibility it requires), but in the new, leaner, looser Union, it's really found its niche.
Cast targeting all the squad leaders, granting them an Entropy + Time effect which shows them tactical weak points ahead of time on both sides, and detects entropic manipulation which would create or alter these points. Ritual cast beforehand, targeting all the team leaders and high value assets involved in the planning. Enhanced by Wits + Command.
Henriette: "Wait, what? 'Just Ahead Of Time' planning? Oh, don't tell me the NWO has formalised 'making it up as you go along and pretending you knew all along'?"
Jamelia: "I won't tell you, then."]
All equipment in the area of operations working by the Technocratic paradigm which has been maintained by the Iteration X technicians based here and had the proper operational checks carried out on it will work at peak capacity until it fails and will take longer to fail. Note - this only helps against the low-level 'paradigm damage' from being in a tech-unfriendly area which manifests as damage and machine failure, and won't do anything at all to help against direct sources of 'dox like vulgar magic - it's an Entropy 3 blessing which makes things less likely to break down, and can't actually mitigate 'dox.
Enhanced by Charisma + Technology. Ritual cast, all the technicians count as assistants.]
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- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
[X] Move through quietly, but don't be afraid to engage targets of opportunity.
We don't need to borrow trouble.
Perimeter RoEs:
[X] (0.5x) Hold fire until confirmed hostile.
Let's not start any crossfires we don't need to. Anyone shooting at the Garou is fine if they're not shooting at us. Except Pentex, fuck them.
@Cornuthaum I wish I had more likes to give for that write-in. Henriette is maturing, and is self-aware enough to be both proud and annoyed about it.
I can't wait to see more of our two ItX Princesses banging against each other.
We don't need to borrow trouble.
Perimeter RoEs:
[X] (0.5x) Hold fire until confirmed hostile.
Let's not start any crossfires we don't need to. Anyone shooting at the Garou is fine if they're not shooting at us. Except Pentex, fuck them.
@Cornuthaum I wish I had more likes to give for that write-in. Henriette is maturing, and is self-aware enough to be both proud and annoyed about it.
I can't wait to see more of our two ItX Princesses banging against each other.
Cornuthaum
Be kind to each other.
- Location
- Austria
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Jane/Kessler:
[x] (2.0x) Stealth approach. Activate camouflage systems (Kessler better find a way to sneak) and do a targeted assassination.
I wonder if we can skin a werewolf quickly enough for Kessler to wear its skin like a cloak, do some totally not spirit magic and fool the guardian spirits of this place into thinking he's allowed in here
Also, murder is the best solution. Kill one man, and intimidate a hundred.
Perimeter RoEs:
[x] Return Fire.
Look, anyone coming here is not with the Union. Which means they are either civilian observers (very unlikely given the remote nature of the nest) or hostiles en-route to fuck with the assault team (infinitely more likely). Everyone who belongs here - i.e. anyone with the Union - knows to call in with local command, i.e. Jamelia.
Still, confusion to the enemy: If we can get any interlopers to shoot each other - like Pentex and werewolf reinforcements - hooray, it's a win/win for the Union. So hold until fired on, THEN it's railgun time.
[x] (2.0x) Stealth approach. Activate camouflage systems (Kessler better find a way to sneak) and do a targeted assassination.
I wonder if we can skin a werewolf quickly enough for Kessler to wear its skin like a cloak, do some totally not spirit magic and fool the guardian spirits of this place into thinking he's allowed in here
Also, murder is the best solution. Kill one man, and intimidate a hundred.
Perimeter RoEs:
[x] Return Fire.
Look, anyone coming here is not with the Union. Which means they are either civilian observers (very unlikely given the remote nature of the nest) or hostiles en-route to fuck with the assault team (infinitely more likely). Everyone who belongs here - i.e. anyone with the Union - knows to call in with local command, i.e. Jamelia.
Still, confusion to the enemy: If we can get any interlopers to shoot each other - like Pentex and werewolf reinforcements - hooray, it's a win/win for the Union. So hold until fired on, THEN it's railgun time.
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Huh, I would have thought stuff that helped out versus Paradox and unfriendly-paradigm-ness would take Prime or Prime and Entropy. But this sounds like it's using that Corr 3 "Ban" with Entropy 3 to do something.
Would this rote have been even better if Jamelia had some Prime on top of Correspondence and Entropy?
Cornuthaum
Be kind to each other.
- Location
- Austria
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I was aiming for a certain amount of irony there, yes, especially since Henriette has been marinating in NWO Brain Juice secreted by the insidious Jamelia brain slug for a while now, whereas Antoinette Sylia, despite having the amazing NWO Toolkit ready-made for her, chose to shun it wholesale.@Cornuthaum I wish I had more likes to give for that write-in. Henriette is maturing, and is self-aware enough to be both proud and annoyed about it.
Kerrus
Fractal Insanity
You know how Kessler survived for 20 years inside a hostile paradigm forested shard realm, sneaking around, ambushing and killing dragons and their servants? Yeah, I'm thinking that experience is going to apply here.
I'm thinking some sort of Forces 2/Life 2/Matter 2/Spirit 2 anti-detection rote- sensor masking mode, or something like that, coupled with actual survival training, camouflage, and being really damn good at this sort of thing.
I'm thinking some sort of Forces 2/Life 2/Matter 2/Spirit 2 anti-detection rote- sensor masking mode, or something like that, coupled with actual survival training, camouflage, and being really damn good at this sort of thing.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Also Henriette is literally a Iterator X Princess who was all about brute force and looking down on thinking things through, too
Life was really hard as a Syndicate executive sometimes, Donald muses.
The Progenitors might go on about the hazards of natural selection in their work, but did a psychic betentacled monstrosity ever spill their whiskey? Not too damn likely, he thinks. This was mostly probably because why drink booze when you can make hyperbiological-enhanced LSD and get in a fistfight with Cthulhu that might not actually be in your dreams, but shtill. 'Still.' Whatever.
The salient point was, he'd spilled his whiskey and this was capital-B Bad. Donald peers across his desk, hunting for the bag of (regular stupid boring Sleeper) cocaine he was sure he'd left there, but his eye is caught on the holoprojector in the corner. Normally he sets it to por...stock readouts from London damnit, but it's showing a blinking 3-D map, which was one of the alerts he'd planned for himself for when the team started deploying.
Huh. Maybe he should cut back on the whiskey a little.
Snorting a line to keep him awake, Donald ambles over and gazes at the glowing facsimile of southern English woodland. The caern is showing up as a series of projected points, the projecter unable to fully map the interior of the trans-dimensional space, but Donald's memories are tugging at him and he has a bad feeling about what might come next.
"Where there's werewolves..." he mutters to himself, opening up one of the less-than-legal inroads to the Pentex internal security market. Officially, the Syndicate had disavowed all ties with Pentex. Officially, the two gigantic organizations had no contact whatsoever beyond such official communiques as "bullets" and "hypervelocity plasma rounds." Such was the story, at least.
In reality, neither the Technocratic nor the Pentex internal markets were entirely self-contained. The Nephandi-allied corporation could use its own private servers, could have its own entirely different handshake protocols, and could do its damndest to quarantine Pentex's internal environment from the outside world. (no one was really eager to venture into Nephandi territory like that, after all) Yet in the end, it didn't make a difference.
Pentex was still immersed in the global economy - and that was Syndicate territory.
Hyperstatistical-sampling Devices had picked up ominous trends in the England market. Donald skims over the readouts, his mind processing the reams of data with practiced efficiency, and he pauses to run a few algorithms on his laptop before settling back in his chair and sighing. The algorithms' responses weren't pretty: approximately a 65% chance of Pentex response to Technocratic action. They were going to come in to sweep whatever werewolf kills they could, and any contact with Nephandi and their allies was something to be avoided.
"Williams, Vega," he croaks into the transmitter on his desk. "Situation room. Five minutes. Bring the team. Full-court press." He stabs the transmitter's power button, watching as the tiny LED light on the machine dims and dies. Holding his head in his arms, Donald sighs softly.
"Fuck Pentex. Fuck Nephandi."
Chasing the mental ghosts away and whistling a particular tune to summon a particular swarm of data-daemon contacts, Donald tries to make himself presentable. As the little creatures take up residence in the holoprojector in the corner, the lightshow turning into a riotous kaleidoscope of colors as the different spirits compete and bicker with each other, Donald reaches over and soothes the data-daemons with a minor application of Primal Energy. His clothes straightened and the evidence of his two-day bender wiped away, Donald looks every inch the image of a well-dressed Syndicate executive.
It's time for Pentex to get a little reminder, he thinks to himself, of who's really calling the shots around here.
Donald: Entropy 1, Time 2, Spirit 2, Primal Utility 3, Correspondence 2 (Ritual: Williams/Vega + Sleeper legal team + Syndicate tools)
"Everything's touched by the global market. Even Pentex's own internal security market changes and is changed by the global economy - and we own that. I'm going to turn any Pentex contracts against the team into an unprofitable, lose-win scenario that any hit team would be an idiot to take."
The Entropy is for sensing the weak parts of the contract itself, (the wording, the objectives, etc.) the Time is obviously for making it happen at the right time, the Spirit is for calling in some minor pre-arranged Virtual Web daemons on a good mutual contract to act as eyes-and-ears and to manipulate things a little more directly as needed, and the PU and Correspondence are pretty self-explanatory. The idea is to make said Pentex MMORPG contract a horrible lose-win scenario for any team on it, scaring away any other Pentex teams who might want to do some kill-stealing and making the assault team really hesitant.
Hopefully (dunno the specifics of this, someone let me know if I've got it wrong) they should have to re-roll a check to keep attacking every time the enemy forces turn out to be heavier than expected, or any time they start taking losses of some sort. With enough rolls, that should make them likely to bug out the moment things start to turn ugly, rather than staying to fight and causing us boatloads of casualties.
The Progenitors might go on about the hazards of natural selection in their work, but did a psychic betentacled monstrosity ever spill their whiskey? Not too damn likely, he thinks. This was mostly probably because why drink booze when you can make hyperbiological-enhanced LSD and get in a fistfight with Cthulhu that might not actually be in your dreams, but shtill. 'Still.' Whatever.
The salient point was, he'd spilled his whiskey and this was capital-B Bad. Donald peers across his desk, hunting for the bag of (regular stupid boring Sleeper) cocaine he was sure he'd left there, but his eye is caught on the holoprojector in the corner. Normally he sets it to por...stock readouts from London damnit, but it's showing a blinking 3-D map, which was one of the alerts he'd planned for himself for when the team started deploying.
Huh. Maybe he should cut back on the whiskey a little.
Snorting a line to keep him awake, Donald ambles over and gazes at the glowing facsimile of southern English woodland. The caern is showing up as a series of projected points, the projecter unable to fully map the interior of the trans-dimensional space, but Donald's memories are tugging at him and he has a bad feeling about what might come next.
"Where there's werewolves..." he mutters to himself, opening up one of the less-than-legal inroads to the Pentex internal security market. Officially, the Syndicate had disavowed all ties with Pentex. Officially, the two gigantic organizations had no contact whatsoever beyond such official communiques as "bullets" and "hypervelocity plasma rounds." Such was the story, at least.
In reality, neither the Technocratic nor the Pentex internal markets were entirely self-contained. The Nephandi-allied corporation could use its own private servers, could have its own entirely different handshake protocols, and could do its damndest to quarantine Pentex's internal environment from the outside world. (no one was really eager to venture into Nephandi territory like that, after all) Yet in the end, it didn't make a difference.
Pentex was still immersed in the global economy - and that was Syndicate territory.
Hyperstatistical-sampling Devices had picked up ominous trends in the England market. Donald skims over the readouts, his mind processing the reams of data with practiced efficiency, and he pauses to run a few algorithms on his laptop before settling back in his chair and sighing. The algorithms' responses weren't pretty: approximately a 65% chance of Pentex response to Technocratic action. They were going to come in to sweep whatever werewolf kills they could, and any contact with Nephandi and their allies was something to be avoided.
"Williams, Vega," he croaks into the transmitter on his desk. "Situation room. Five minutes. Bring the team. Full-court press." He stabs the transmitter's power button, watching as the tiny LED light on the machine dims and dies. Holding his head in his arms, Donald sighs softly.
"Fuck Pentex. Fuck Nephandi."
Chasing the mental ghosts away and whistling a particular tune to summon a particular swarm of data-daemon contacts, Donald tries to make himself presentable. As the little creatures take up residence in the holoprojector in the corner, the lightshow turning into a riotous kaleidoscope of colors as the different spirits compete and bicker with each other, Donald reaches over and soothes the data-daemons with a minor application of Primal Energy. His clothes straightened and the evidence of his two-day bender wiped away, Donald looks every inch the image of a well-dressed Syndicate executive.
It's time for Pentex to get a little reminder, he thinks to himself, of who's really calling the shots around here.
Donald: Entropy 1, Time 2, Spirit 2, Primal Utility 3, Correspondence 2 (Ritual: Williams/Vega + Sleeper legal team + Syndicate tools)
"Everything's touched by the global market. Even Pentex's own internal security market changes and is changed by the global economy - and we own that. I'm going to turn any Pentex contracts against the team into an unprofitable, lose-win scenario that any hit team would be an idiot to take."
The Entropy is for sensing the weak parts of the contract itself, (the wording, the objectives, etc.) the Time is obviously for making it happen at the right time, the Spirit is for calling in some minor pre-arranged Virtual Web daemons on a good mutual contract to act as eyes-and-ears and to manipulate things a little more directly as needed, and the PU and Correspondence are pretty self-explanatory. The idea is to make said Pentex MMORPG contract a horrible lose-win scenario for any team on it, scaring away any other Pentex teams who might want to do some kill-stealing and making the assault team really hesitant.
Hopefully (dunno the specifics of this, someone let me know if I've got it wrong) they should have to re-roll a check to keep attacking every time the enemy forces turn out to be heavier than expected, or any time they start taking losses of some sort. With enough rolls, that should make them likely to bug out the moment things start to turn ugly, rather than staying to fight and causing us boatloads of casualties.
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It's not a Ban, per se. It's using Corr 3 [1] to define an area where everything which fits an Entropy-defined criterion gets a benefit. And it's not strictly going against the local paradigm. The local paradigm says "technology is unreliable and a trick of the Weaver". Jamelia is going "Ah, but because this is well-maintained technology and everyone checked up on it beforehand, it won't break down immediately - even though it could break down, it'll take a while for it to happen". It's not like spending Prime to stop Paradox from happening. It's basically using Entropy to go "Okay, we're at risk of our stuff breaking down, but since we're prepared we're not going to be hit by bad luck straight away".
(in the local paradigm, her effect is saying "The slaves of the Weaver work ceaselessly to lock the world down in stasis, and so the tools of the Weaverscum keep working due to the rote dogma and faith put into maintaining them, because the Weaver seeks to destroy the Wyrm and Wyld both".)
[1] Okay, I admit, I might be automatically using nMage rules here, where if you have Space 3 you can use the Advanced Area Factors table for the area affected by a spell.
[Kessler - Matter 3, Forces 2, Life - Kessler grabs a pair of smart colour-changing BDUs from the shelves, and grins. They're still using those things. He can remember how some people were all over the thermoptic camo and lensing fields back in the early nineties. They always were a bit unreliable. Not like a good pair of vBDUs. Not least because the fail state for a vBDU was only something like 'it gets stuck in the wrong colour. Dressing himself, he adds a tub of the smart paste which covers up skin and links up to the BDUs, and then heads out into the gardens of the HQ. He spends the next while mixing the smart paste up with earth and mud and bits of leaves, and then heads into the labs to politely ask for some werewolf blood.
By the end of that, he's mixed the smart paste up with earth and the blood of the foes he's hunting. His hand-made modifications to the smart paste formula will be slightly slower to change colour, but the earth and mud'll cover up his scent, and the werewolf blood will make him blend in to the scent-orientated fuckers - because there'll certainly not be a shortage of werewolf blood around there.
And if the thing he's made, from the blood of the prey he hunts and the bare earth upon which he'll leave them dying... well, if that happens to match the hunting war paint he covered himself with in that hellhole he survived in for years and used to cover himself from cyberdragons, that's just a happy coincidence, isn't it? No one has to know that it's the war paint worn by the cruel Gra'kon dragon kings when they went on the hunt, that he stole and turned against the kings of the dragons themselves.
Matter + Life + Forces so he changes colour to match his background, Matter to remove his scent. Enhanced with Intelligence + Science or Occult]
...
You know, Kessler's paradigm is... interesting, because it's an Iteration X heresy, but it's a very Iteration X heresy. At heart, it's "Stuff you treat well and maintain and care for will serve you well, and if you've put your heart into getting something working and bled for it and patched it up yourself, it'll handle better than some brand new bit of hardware you've got off the shelf".
It's something Iterators officially deny, but a lot of them feel right down there in their guts. It's kind of the quiet certain faith compared to the dogma of the Machine Cult. That if you build a plasma cannon yourself and know how it works and all its little quirks, it'll be a better weapon than a technically superior off-the-shelf model.
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Why not include Time 2 for slightly predictive modelling, analysis, and distribution?
Also, with Correspondence 3, Primal Utility 3, and Spirit 4 (Contracts), couldn't Donald send over an App that maps Essence/Primal Energy and fits in both the Technocratic paradigm and the Cairn paradigm? After all, it can be pretty useful (and very Syndicate-like) to know who has resources to burn ... no wait ...
Spirit 2: "The mage could also cause an area of the spirit world to suffer chaotic storms of spirit energy ". I'll get writing that.
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It's a Pentex form letter. They are even more evil than the rest of Pentex.
Also, I would dispute the idea that hunting werewolf pelts is low level.