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Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns

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Ahem.
MJ12 Commando said:
Choose three fat lutes to get with your horrible murder spree. MMO Economics is the best kind of economics! You can choose one category multiple times, but in that case you need to choose a subcategory.
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It's not an either/or. We can get Clarent and the PE. And something else, even.
 
I gotta ask here what you mean by "Belltower Ideology". If you're talking about Sneaky Mind Tricks because Mind Sphere Is Awesome, well, Serafina has the same level of correspondence, and Mind 5. If you're talking about anythign else about the way that Jamelia works, it's kind of not the same. Clarent's specialty seems to be "manipulate your foes into position so that you can crush them with military force." Jamelia is far more of an "undermine, influence, and convert" sort of operative. Please explain what it is awesome about Jamelia that Clarent makes non-unique.

Oh, hey - we have, *right in front of us* a situation where Serafina is at the point of mental breakdown, and Jamelia is preparing to put her back together again psychologically. If the answer to "why not Serafina" is "because she doesn't approach things in the right way", then the current situation is very nearly gift-wrapped as a way to fix that deficiency. Spend a write-in, save a loot pick.
 
Serafina's Paradigm focus with Mind lies in an entirely different area, mostly in high-tech laboratories and well away from field work, whereas both Major Clarent and Jamelia excel at Battlefield Bullshit Bingo ("Confusion to the enemy!" "Which enemy?!" "All of them!").

It's not just a matter of spheres with the Union, it's a matter of Paradigm, and Sera's Progenitor Researcher mindset is far, far from the quicksilver deathtrap of Jamelia.
 
Right, and Serafina is just as squishy as Jamelia if not more so. Clarent gives us someone who has the Mind and the Paradigm to pull off Jamelia's shit, who can do it in combat situations. She allows us to multitask effectively without having to micromanage - if she had been around in Moscow, she could have handled oversight and Serafina wouldn't be having a suicidal breakdown over firing those nukes right now. And I seriously doubt we can change Serafina's entire Paradigm with a write-in, because that would be a fundamental change in her entire methodology that would probably exclude what she can do currently in the process. Changing Serafina's Paradigm would effectively be getting her to stop being a Progenitor and start being an NWO agent - that is not something that just trivially happens, and frankly it would probably make her less useful in a lot of ways.
 
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Just something I want to point out, on a purely OOC basis? Having more characters in our construct means smaller shares of screentime for everyone.

We already have a number of people doing different things at once, and we aren't even following Rose. I have a certain measure of concern for overdoing it.

(Not to say Clarent wouldn't be handy. Frankly, Clarent, Syndicate Lawfare, vehicles, cybernetics, and the node are my top five picks.)
 
Heroes of Iteration X:
[ ] None of the above (write-in).

Don't like any of the current options here, I'll probably edit in a vote later once there's been more discussion.

I'm partial to the "unified military" idea, but I'm not sure we've the ability to sell it; also, there's the issue of how the VEs will react to that. In any case we'd have to be careful not to unify the military of the Union under Threat Null control, which is still a concern.

Fat Lutes:
[x] New Hires! Go headhunt someone like:
[] Major Clarent. Edit, because the Convention Balance point is a very good one:
[x] Elsa (at some point in the undefined future).​
[x] Influence!
[x] In the form of favors.
[x] In the form of a share in the Node you've just captured and are going to be milking for Prime Energy.​

There's a definite point that we'd like to shift Jamelia back to the support lineup where she won't get squished (probably) but her skillset is just too useful for the stuff we pull in fights, so I'm willing to back recruiting a tougher Jamelia.

But I think our priority still needs to be trying to keep the Union together, and for that favors not only are more likely to be useful than all that other equipment, it means that other parts of the Union actually have that equipment we'd otherwise have taken. Given that shortages are explicitly a problem many parts of the Union are facing, let's not make things worse.

Meanwhile, Prime Energy is pretty much guaranteed to be useful whatever we do, and there's advantages to having permanent, official investments when it comes to diplomacy and negotiations.
 
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Aleph said:
Right, and Serafina is just as squishy as Jamelia if not more so. Clarent gives us someone who has the Mind and the Paradigm to pull off Jamelia's shit, who can do it in combat situations. She allows us to multitask effectively without having to micromanage - if she had been around in Moscow, she could have handled oversight and Serafina wouldn't be having a suicidal breakdown over firing those nukes right now. And I seriously doubt we can change Serafina's entire Paradigm with a write-in, because that would be a fundamental change in her entire methodology that would probably exclude what she can do currently in the process. Changing Serafina's Paradigm would effectively be getting her to stop being a Progenitor and start being an NWO agent - that is not something that just trivially happens, and frankly it would probably make her less useful in a lot of ways.
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On changing paradigm: There are three ways you can do it.

1. If you gain significantly in mystical knowledge (i.e. jump an Enlightenment rating). Henriette's paradigm has become significantly more NWO-like after gaining an Enlightenment dot after Moscow under Jamelia's tutelage, for example. A lot of the things she's doing now are things she'd have difficulty thinking of before.
2. If you drastically fail (i.e. botch a Enlightened Science roll that is important).
3. If you go through a drastic change in personal circumstance. If you want to make Serafina incredibly bitter and angry and defect to the Verbena or something you can have her totally reinvent her paradigm, sure!

The fourth way involves massive amounts of cognitive alteration via Mind 5 and is paradoxical and often prone to failure.
 
There's another reason I support Clarent, and this is going to sound a bit strange, but here goes;

It means we have better verisimilitude for the active mage cap, and that works when we're not using her. See, the active mage cap is 4. However, we have the current standing issue that Jamelia is currently our only real strategic field team lead - Kessler can do tactical team leads, but he is sort of crazy and stuck in the eighties, and our other field agents are Rose and Henriette. 'Nuff said there.

However, with another field team lead who can actually run ops in full - especially considering how the difficulty is ramping up so we need people on site, because Corr jamming means a support team lead can be cut off from the mission team - we have a legitimate reason why, for example, Donald might be out of use. That is, he's working flat out to support the active other field team. Clarent can command and control our interns and their squads just as Jamelia can, and that means that we can have our non-active mages carry out notable missions and we can be fairly sure that they'll go as planned.

Basically, having someone who Jamelia can legitimately say "Get it done, Number Two" [1] to and have the entire mission happen offscreen without having to have it be mostly a support mission (which risks the issue that if it's just a support thing, we're tempted to call up the support mages and get them to help us out in the main mission) helps with immersion and generally makes it more playable.

Plus, it would be nice to have one member of the senior command team who's mostly sane and only has some minor issues from "Am I really human? Or am I something new?".

[1] Or possibly "Get it done, Number 10", because she is an Iterator, after all.
 
Soundtrack

"I'm pinned!" John Kessler yells.

"Weapons hold!" Jane Clarent yells.

"WHARGLEBLAAAARG!" the werewolf yells.

John suspects that the werewolf might have been trying to insinuate something about his parentage, or perhaps just to yell "Weaverscum!" again. (werewolves didn't seem to be all that big on rhetorical originality) Its intended discourse on the nature of humans and the intended balance of nature is slightly muffled, however, by a Model 1982 Primium Combat Arm wedged in its mouth. Flexing his arm to drive his fist into the softer roof of the monster's mouth, John pivots to avoid the beast's scything claws and scrabbles desperately for his sword.

"You know," he remarks conversationally as the creature's massive jaw muscles bulge like whipcord, "I'm really beginning to doubt the sustainability of your current modus operandi." The werewolf's jaws inch fractionally closer together, and John's motorized arm screams in protest while his right arm scrabbles in the dirt. He abandons the search for the discarded sword, grabs a holdout knife from his pocket, and settles instead for trying to stab the wolf in its nearest eye. "Like - ow - this whole operation - ow - seems rather strange given the nature - ow fuck my fucking arm - of the modern world." He twists sideways and scores a shallow gash across the monster's cheek, but the creature manages to avoid blindness for now. The werewolf eyes him balefully and begins to shake violently, throwing the massive man around like a ragdoll.

"Really, it does seem rather counterproductive - oof," John says, his diatribe punctuated by the wolf slamming him repeatedly into a nearby rock, "that you would continue - ow - such outmoded methods of attack - ow McShittles fucking ouch - given what's happened within the past hundred years."

"Juth die, Weaverthscum," the beast growls, its mouth busy chewing Kessler's arm off. Kessler frowns as the creature glares down at him, and raises a questioning finger. "I'd like to point out that you're forgetting - ow fuck! - a rather important detail here."

"Whath?" the creature barks.

"I'm still wearing my trenchcoat," John replies cheerily. He slides underneath the towering wolf and unlimbers a sawed-off shotgun, pressing both barrels into the creature's neck. "Wolfie, I've got two friends who're eager ta meetcha!" he yells, and pulls the trigger.

The monster howls with rage, and John uses the opportunity to extricate his maligned left hand while rolling backwards from the enemy champion. He's probably broken some code of furry dueling, but John gives slightly less than zero craps about their idea of 'honor,' and the idea of taking a metaphorical dump on their concept of 'fair' is fairly appealing.

"Fucking Weaverscum," the gigantic wolf chokes out through shattered teeth. "I'm gonna piss in your skull when I'm done with you." Its slurred speech is already improving, and as his optics zoom closer, John can see the thing's teeth already regenerating.

"That is just so unfair," he whines, as the beast leaps at him.


------------------------


Jane assesses her options.

Option 1: Provide fire support to SSgt Kessler. She discards this immediately, categorizing the threat of milling Garou on the far side of the field as too dangerous to ignore. Reinforcements were inbound, the mopping-up operations elsewhere nearly complete, but until she had a squad of HITMarks backing her up, antagonizing the last stronghold of enemy resistance was unwise.

Option 2: Personally intervene. She looks across the field, eyeing her counterpart, and notices the many battle-scars adorning the flanks of the enemy commander. The beast gives her a contemptuous glance, likely thinking the same thoughts as her, and the Major shelves the idea for later.

Option 3: "When in trouble, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout." Although Option 3 was becoming distinctly more appealing, Jane instead looks at the werewolf currently attempting to give her armored backup a new waste-excretion port. The beast was at least four meters long, probably closer to five, and her augments estimated that it massed as much as a small truck. It was leaping at Kessler, ignoring all conventional laws of physics, and Jane's lip involuntarily curls as it bounds forwards on legs far too small to exert sufficient traction against the ground.

Option 4: "Learn some damn physics already!" she mutters under her breath.

[Clarent: Forces 3 - "This is the Physics Police. We're taking away your right to run around freely without slipping like crazy on the wet grass underneath you. Don't like it? Too bad! Next time stay a reasonable size, or get some bigger feet instead of mincing around on those tiny little things you call 'paws.'"]

(exerted against the ground and not the werewolf itself, to avoid its countermagic defenses. Purpose is to make said ground behave normally when a long ton-and-a-half of shapeshifter tries to stop itself with legs suited for normal-sized wolves, i.e. "Slip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah")


--------------------


John ducks as the werewolf flies over his head. The creature extends its legs to stop itself, but goes flying across the grass instead, snarling as it tries to find purchase on the soil. John takes the momentary pause to run for his discarded sword, snatching up the weapon as the werewolf bounds back towards him. The creature tries to slow as Kessler strikes forward with the blade, but its paws scrabble against the grass again and John's sword bites deeply into its shoulder as it tries to retreat. The werewolf howls in pain, batting his sword away again, and John barely holds onto the klaive.

"Really, why attack humans at random?" the Iteration X shocktrooper asks conversationally as he and the wounded beast circle each other, the werewolf's flank still oozing bright-red blood. "It seems strange to keep trying ta purge us all, is what I'm gettin' at."

"It's wrong," the beast growls. "Your crimes against Gaia can't be forgiven, Weaverscum. We're going to scourge you and your kind from the Earth, until things are the way they should be."

John cocks his head. "Really? 'Cause us squishy 'Weaverscum' have got a thing or two ta say about all that scourging of yours." He feels an instinctual fear, some inbuilt terror of the beast in front of him, and John knows somehow that this "scourging" is more than just idle EDE fantasy. Some part of him is still human, and that part is terrified of werewolves.

That fear just pisses Kessler right the hell off.

Then the wolf charges again, John swings his sword, and there is nothing but blood and steel.


--------------------------------------


Major Clarent doesn't know what to think of John Kessler. He's an old-model cyborg, a relic from a bygone age, and one she can't make heads or tails of. How did a cyborg dependent on a logistical tail survive for decades out in the hostile Void? Why would he return to Earth, and how? What is he hiding? Major Clarent knows her own men, all their little secrets and lies, and she trusts them with her life precisely because of that. John Kessler is an enigma to her, and she hates enigmas.

Yet he followed her into hostile territory without hesitation, and took orders without complaint. When ordered to publicly show humility towards her or to battle to the death, he didn't even flinch. Major Clarent could justify her decision by pointing out the presence of friendly reinforcements moments from reinforcing her decision, along with the justifiable fear of losing a valuable combat asset to enemy action, but it was more than cold-blooded logic that made her act.

She stutter-steps into position, her underbarrel grenade launcher loaded and ready. The stubby weapon belches smoke as it fails to ignite properly, but at this range, it barely matters. Still reeling from another aborted charge against Kessler, the werewolf is sent tumbling by the silver flechettes, and rolls back towards the exojock and his lethal blade. John aims for a lethal blow, but the wolf twists at the last moment, and he 'merely' inflicts a near-mortal wound on the beast.

Combat augments scream in her mind, and Jane barely ducks as three hundred kilos of teeth, claws, and murder sail over her head. The smaller female werewolf is on her feet a moment later, snarling and sending spit flying, and Jane can barely ready her rifle before the enemy pack leader is charging again.

It's an avalanche of claws and teeth, a storm of deadly intent, and even the finest combat reflexes Iteration X has ever built are barely enough to keep up with it. Jane is sent backwards step by step, her body reacting with mechanical precision to block or deflect the enemy's strikes, and she has a moment of existential terror as the enemy female pulls a knife from apparently nowhere and slashes forwards. The weapon impacts with a hiss of EDE power, and Jane's rifle is cut clean in half. She dances backwards, drawing a holdout baton, but even a primium-plated weapon is barely enough to keep the enemy's "ensorcelled" weapon from slicing through her hands.

Jane can hear howls of pain and rage, both human and inhuman, yet she cannot spare a glance to see who's won the final duel of champions. She presses the attack against the enemy commander, her own soldiers subtly aiding her with the occasional silver dart, but the enemy is just as fast as she is, not to mention much stronger. The monster dodges through a storm of silenced bullets, a disciplined fire-pattern which would have ripped a junior Garou to shreds, and snarls at the Major. "I'll have your head for this insult," she growls.

"Not if she takes yours first," a mechanical voice booms. John Kessler bodyslams the female Garou into a nearby rock, grappling her arms with his own. He's wounded and bleeding from several deep gashes, but his arms bulge with mechanical power even as the enemy werewolf struggles to break free. The female werewolf is far faster than him, but she's vulnerable in a contest of raw strength, and Kessler seizes the opportunity to immobilize her. "Finish it," he rasps through a damaged voicebox, and Clarent realizes that he's talking to her.

Jane grabs Kessler's discarded blade, barely managing to haul the massive weapon upwards. Drops of blood run down its length as she holds it in a guard stance, staining her gloved hands. Her augmented arms groan at the unexpected weight, and more warning lights blink in her vision, but she ignores them and steps forward to the struggling pair. Kessler has the female Garou in an armbar, his legs pinning her scything claws while he keeps his body just barely out of reach of her scything jaws, and the Major holds the klaive above the Garou's head.

The Garou notices the executioner's blade coming for it, and howls in protest as she sees Major Clarent coming. The werewolf's shrieks stir ancient instincts in the human's mind, echoes of teeth and blood from eons ago, and she can sense the 'Delirium' that werewolves inspire in Sleepers just by their very presence.

"Never again," she whispers, and lets the blade fall.

Kessler slowly levers himself upright as the Garou's struggles finally cease. He's bleeding from the throat, and she can see ropy tendons and artificial muscle exposed to the oxygen-rich air, but the old exojock is still standing. Jane's augments are acting up, but she's still mobile, and she reaches down to pick up the severed head of the female Garou. Holding it high above her, Jane watches as the remaining Garou howl in panic at the sight. It's time to finish the act - if it really is an act by now.

"WHO'S NEXT?" she yells. "WHO'S FUCKING NEXT?"
 
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[ ] Insinuate to General Garrison that he doesn't need more equipment, just closer working relationships with the other Conventions, which this operation has built.
[ ] Go to Ada personally to ask that she increase military funding.
[ ] Some of the above.
Choose 2 of the 3.

I rather like the idea of doing these two. It shows moderation, doesn't make the troops feel even more put upon, and a slight increase in funding from Ada will seem amazing for Garrison if he gets it after Heroes of the Technocracy told him to suck it up.

Meanwhile I think that the "increase military funding" would be better if amended to include something along the lines of "for cross convention cooperation initiatives and training exercises" and possibly a frank assessment that Jamelia is trying to keep Ada's Convention from falling apart
 
To be honest, I'm not very enthusiastic about Clarent. Okay yeah, Kusanagi-expy, certain people will squee. But she's... boring. Very dull. Having someone who is literally a second Jamelia around may be very useful for a lot of things, but not I think for the narrative. Also politically speaking we're already a little unbalanced in favor of the Utopian conventions against the Humanist conventions and adding another Iterator would just make that even more obvious. Especially when someone like Clarent is probably more than qualified to command her own Construct and has no black marks against her.

So I'm going to suggest drawing on some of the past choices instead, if that option is open. A lot of people wanted Winston and his delicious Entropy 4, and it seems to me as though he can fill the same niche as Clarent. While being a very distinct character, with an existing relationship to Jamelia of a sort that hasn't been explored as much. Yeah it means breaking up his sideline grouping if that was ever even canon, but a Syndicate Enforcer does bring more balance to the group than another Iterator and it means his cross-Convention people are being freed up to spread his perspective around.

Or maybe we could pick up Kyril because man did I feel bad about passing him over after that view of his perspective.
 
On Hemmed-In Ground, Resort to Stratagem
(Honour is gained from defending humanity, not adhering to the rituals of monsters.)

The Iteration X strike team watches the 'Trads exfiltrate the heart of the shapeshifter nest under heavy fire, and had she the mental energy to spare, Jane Clarent would grin at the looks of impotent, frustrated rage the RD commandos shoot her.

Ahead of her, at the tip of the spear, SSgt Kessler pauses from unloading an automatic shotgun - where by the Computer did he get that from?! - into the mouth of a shapeshifter he's got pinned down on the Klaive he looted earlier, like a giant furry - and now dead - butterfly.

And then her ADEI starts throwing up an alert on her HUD. A message, from .... Kessler? What? What sort of format is that, she wonders for a moment, trying to make sense of the strange tinny noises she hears/sees/feels. And then it literally clicks, and she feels like smacking her forehead. Ye gods, the man doesn't even have an ADEI! He's got a honest-to-Computer, mid-eighties Digital Enhancement Implant.

Code: 
.-- .-.. .-.. / -.-. .... .-.. .-.. -. --. / .-- .-- .-.. ..-. / .-.. -.. .-. / ... - --- .--. / .-- .-.. .-.. / --. ...- . / ... --. -. / ..--- / ... .... -

He's messaging her in morse code. Morse Code. For a moment, she feels like laughing and weeping at the same time, strange emotions that have been all-too-rare in her line of duty, but given the way the shapeshifter warlord is currently rallying the battle-pack around her and her Personality Profiling Module giving Kessler's idea a better than eighty-five percent of initial success - the Shapeshifters are, after all, notoriously easy to goad into abandoning victory over honour - she subvocalizes to Kessler's commbead.

Go for it.

And he does. Ripping the blood-wet klaive from his latest victim, SSgt. Kessler points it straight at the shapeshifter leader.

"I tire of these mewling incompetents you throw at me! I am John Kessler, Staff Sergeant, Dragon-Slayer, and if pathetic weaklings like this one," he empathically grinds his bootheel into the ruined throat of the dead werewolf at his feet, "are all you have, come, throw yourself at our feet and we'll end it quickly."

Jane's mental gestalt frowns as the battle winds down by the heartbeat, the other members of her team having gotten her ADEI info-exload. They, too, share her grim humor at the situation and carefully disengage from the werewolves, who all look at their leader. Such an obvious challenge...

"Nothing? Come now, little werewolf, I've fought scarier things than you." The mockery in Kessler's voice is thick enough to cut with the sword in his hand. "But maybe you're better than them, eh? Got your position fair, square and honourable in a duel, mano-a-mano."

The shapeshifter surges forward, fury red in her eyes. "Yyyessss. Every last fool who thought to taunt me, weaver-scum, dead by my blade. You think you're hard enough to take me, little man?" Few things in this world could call John Kessler little, but the Shapeshifters have a good claim to it.

"I don't think I'm hard enough to take you, I know it."

Jane Clarent has made a career out of sizing people up before a fight, and everything from Kessler's voice to the way he stands, relaxed with the Klaive in a simple low guard speaks volumes of how certain he is of that claim.

The werewolves ripple forward a half-step at the audacity of that, pausing only when their leader snarls at them. "So. A duel."

The shapeshifter stalks forward, her own blade in an enormous hand. "You lose, weaver-scum, and all of you die. So, what say your friends to that, weaverscum?"

Kessler snorts. "You ain't gonna find an Iterator who's not willing to die for the cause, missy. You and me, right here, and if I win, you lot are going down. Are your puppies good with that?"

For all his backwards manners, Sergeant Forstenberg pings through the strike team's ADEI circuit, the man does know how to infuriate shapeshifters.

Barely dignifying that with an answer -"They are mine" - the massive werewolf warleader steps forward. "I am Smoke-Before-Thunder, weaverscum, and I will kill you. You and me, no weapons other than our blades."

Kessler frowns. "No other weapons?" Smoke-Before-Thunder immediately growls back. "You deaf as well as suicidal, weaver-scum? No other weapons. And you limp-wrist weaverscum always carry extras."

With a shit-eating grin wide enough to spike anyone's blood pressure from rage by another ten percent, John reaches into his coat. "Oy. Major Clarent? An' the others? Go take a few steps back. You heard the lady."

-

Murmurs echo through the center of the Hive, interrupted every few seconds by a thud or clink of metal on earth or metal.

'Two miniguns?'
'That's a dozen RPGs I counted!'
'Spirits, look at that pile of shotguns!'
'ATGMs, he's got bloody ATGMs in his coat. What. Why. How.'
'We could build a palisade out of all these rifles'.
'Is that a Kalashnikov Lightning AR? Three of them?!'
'A flamethrower. Who the hell carries a flamethrower with them. Why. Just why.'
'I thought I had a thing for grenade launchers. Wow. I feel inadequate.'

The combined sensors - whatever still functions, at least - of the ItX strike team weighs the steadily growing pile of weapons between them and Sergeant Kessler at about 500 kilos of gun. Even Smoke-Before-Thunder looks on with some sort of curious, if horrified, fascination.

And then he starts unpacking all the ammunition. Crate after crate of rifle rounds, lightning charge packs, RPG reloads, and confusion turns into earnest crogglement.

-

The last weapon to come out of his coat, put atop the man-sized pile of rifles, is a Derringer. A strangled laugh escapes the lips of one of the many onlookers, though Jane isn't even sure who it was. The tiny pistol looks ridiculous in Kessler's ham-sized hands.

"A'ight, I'm done. No weapons other than this." Kessler swings his Klaive about in a quick loop. "So, puppy, you ready to die?"

With a drawn-out lupine howl of fury, Smoke-Before-Thunder throws herself at John Kessler of Earth, unleashing a storm of slashes and thrusts at the burly cyborg.

Wishing that her ADEI had access to Garrison right now, just to check where the hell the man learned how to fight with giant, oversized melee weapons, Jane Clarent settles in to watch.

--

John is having a jolly good time. Stupid werewolf, so easy to taunt, so easy to grab by the fuzzy balls of honour. Can't let a challenge like that go unanswered, not if you don't want to look weak.

He deflects Smoke-Before-Thunder's thrust, and it carves a gash into his coat. Inwardly he grins as the contents of that pocket start tumbling out, and he carefully remains in place, treading the packets into the ground as the werewolf circles around him.

She's good. Not the best he's ever had to fight in close combat, but good. A thrust slips under his guard across his chest, cutting the skin and scraping off the layered plates of his ribcage. He hisses, feigns a deeper wound, deliberately slows his next parry enough for the 'wuff to cut into another of his pockets - he'll have to get some proper smarthread later, none of that newfangled FixIT spray-on stuff - and more innocous inch-thick bars tumble to the floor, quickly trod into ground readily muddying with the blood dripping down his left leg where his enemy slashed into his leg.

She tries to bite his face off - "Are those fangs supposed to be scary? They ain't even as long as my arms!" - and he headbutts her in return, trading an irrelevant gash on his cheek for a quickly-healing broken nose.

Their dance in this duel-circle continues. Stab. Thrust. Rip. Tear. Kick. Throw. Slash. Thrust. And slowly, his coat gets roughed up with him.

Finally, he feels exhaustion starting to set in, the triumphant glimmer of incipient victory in Smoke-Before-Thunder's eyes as her healing slowly but surely starts carrying the day for her.

Excellent. He loves it when monsters think that they've got humanity on its knees, ready to be slaughtered, because they never stop to think why the cyborg shock trooper would engage an elder werewolf in mortal blade-combat.

Heh.

He staggers, catches her next blow on his shoulder, his reinforced clavicle holding - barely - under the force, and then, with a sudden smoothness that puts the lie of his exhaustion to truth, rams his Klaive through Smoke-Before-Thunder's left foot. She howls in pain, jerks her leg, but she's pinned. He takes another blow across the chest, a finger-deep wound with gold-silver primium laid bare on his heaving chest, his shirt long-since tattered.

"Y'know what the difference between you wyldscum and me is, puppy?" he quips as he strains his legs to leap backwards, "I'm not dumb enough to be playing with FIRE."

-

Jane Clarent and her team unload a full fusillade, partially aimed at Smoke-Before-Thunder, partially aimed at the other werewolves, who are watching the circle of equals with rapt attention, and the scatter-shot turbo-plasma from her heavy weapons specialist sets off the CharU-Composite Eight incendiary explosive bars Kessler had dropped from his coat, which in turn set off some sort of crazy eighties improvised explosive device that's in equal parts silver shrapnel and plastique.

The last she clearly sees before the charred corpse of the enemy leader tumbles to the ground and her followers charge at her troops in berserk fury is Kessler using the force of the explosion to leap towards where his X-14 is.

The rest is pest control, mercy-killing beasts who have lost all reason. She likes these parts.
 
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Hm. I actually like elements of Nuts! part 1 post, and parts of Cornuthaum's -- especially the way he did the "and now, the suckerpunch" part.

((Less sure about the disarming-and-has-too-many-weapons part; while I personally thought it was hilarious, I worry that a bigger-on-the-inside coat might not be acceptable Technocrat stuff?))
 
[X] Start grassroots canvassing of the rank-and-file, using the Heroes of The Technocracy as your faces to show what the current military assets of Iteration X can do.
[X] Some of the above.
[X] None of the above (write-in).
We prime Sylia as an emmisary to Lovelace, to make our case as our St Paul. I'll take a stab at the write-in if it wins.

Fat Lutes:
Choose three fat lutes to get with your horrible murder spree. MMO Economics is the best kind of economics! You can choose one category multiple times, but in that case you need to choose a subcategory.
[X] New Hires! Go headhunt someone like:
[O] Antoinette Sylia.
I really, really want to vote for her. She's a very interesting character to write, especially against Henriette. But she's not quite what we need right now....but if we can't get her later, I'd say take her now. Otherwise, a NWO or Syndicate type is more of what we really do need.

[X] In the form of favors.
This is a multiplier we can spread around, and will the the most vital means for effecting real, broad change in the Union. Let's grab it while we can.

[X] In the form of a share in the Node you've just captured and are going to be milking for Prime Energy.
This gives Donald so much POWAH.
 
Heroes of Iteration X:
[x] None of the above (write-in).
->[x] Arrange a talk with Lovelace to address the issues her convention has
-->[x] Mention the two options we see:
  1. Move back towards being the Union military arm, which means she needs to increase there funding
  2. Move towards being a Science Convention, which means she should begin shifting her military arm to Ragnarok Command
-->[x] Be open to other options she might present.
-->[x] Use our influence to help move her organization in that direction.

Fat Lutes:
[x] New Hires! Go headhunt someone like:
[x] I'm always in favor of more enlightened personnel, since they seem to be the most powerful asset we can get. While I was tempted to double down on this, I wouldn't mind heavy equipment and a share in a node is useful. My preference on which person is currently: (ranked most desired to least desired)​
A Syndicate Enforcer Associate because LAW.​
This quest has been deficient in LAW since Seadart defected, this seems like a safe way to get it back.​
Major Clarent.​
EarthScorpion has a good argument for her that I must respectively agree with.​
Most of the character we got offered last time, especially the Syndicate and NWO members.​
Curious if that hitmark option could be used in addition to 4 enlighted personnel in a battle?​
Yuuki Sajaki and her Pet Drones.​
Drones are useful, but we are likely to get enough soon without her.​
Antoinette Sylia.​
She can join us, but only on her own initiative. We shouldn't specifically recruit her.​

[x] Equipment!
More stuff is always useful.​
[x] Influence!
[x] In the form of a share in the Node you've just captured and are going to be milking for Prime Energy.​
More prime is always useful.​
 
Fun fact: Originally Kessler had an ADEI, but I sacrificed it for extra points to get a fully kitted out black Helo, the primium plating of which saved the party from an ignoble end at the claws of an angry crinos that jumped onto it from the ground. The lack of an ADEI actually prevented the paranoia signal that infected the rest of the party (Sans Kiril, whose death nearly killed Jodi Blake- she was a dragon at the time). Kesser went down after being swallowed whole my a Mokole, at which point the black helo fired its entire complement of missiles and turned the valley into a fiery hellhole.

In the later continuity that Panopticon Kessler is derived from, he crawled out of the steaming Mokole corpse which barely protected him from the missiles, and spent the next twenty years fighting and killing dragons.


While in Panopticon there's been numerous mentions of him not having wireless, there's also been numerous mentions of him having an ADEI.

In practice, the original DEI's had a shitload of negative issues associated with them, like loss of ability to feel emotions- so chances are this Kessler does have an ADEI- if an early one. Any squad level communication is probably done purely through radio, or by secure laser comms. Kessler lacks modern wireless, and that's a benefit and a downside- but he's not totally cut off.


For our loot, honestly I'm thinking the following:

[X]New Hires
-[X]Major Jane Clarent
-[X]Syndicate Law Brigade
[X]A share in the Node we just captured and are going to be milking for Primal Energy.


Now, for the explanations, first off, the Syndicate Law Brigade is a great force multiplier for Donald- whom bear in mind is a Financier, not a lawyer. This gives us greater breadth of talents, and also lets us put Donald's skills to work knowing his back is covered. Moreover, we'll have someone else to direct the interns, getting us better performance than Donald can manage alone.



Secondly, Jane Clarent for all the reasons that have gone above- and also because events are heating up and I think we're getting to the point where we need to be able to support two active field teams- and Clarent is the woman for the job on that front. While obviously from an OOC gaming perspective, none of us have the writing resources or time to fully play through two full field teams, in universe we're right around the point where we need to start looking at putting those resources together.

Having Clarent works, again, as a force multiplier because her presence gives us so much more field presence- we can send her and a team out and have a reasonable expectation that they will comport themselves as well as are alpha team would, and thus have a solid chance at accomplishing the stated goals of that mission.


Taking her and not Sylia also gives us points with the Iterators- I think that after this mission, and what we can do to help insinuate Sylia with the ItX hardliners as someone both on their side and with a potential in with Ada- would be better than just grabbing her because of 'ooh shiny'. And I don't think Donald could stand prolonged Tsun-on-Tsun combat. While Henriette hitching up with Sylia eventually might be amusing, I don't think that it puts us in a very good position politically. We already have enough white elephants in the room, so to speak.


For the post mission stuff, I'm definitely putting down:

Heroes of Iteration X
[X]Insinuate to General Garrison that he doens't need more equipment, just a closer working relationship with the other conventions, which this operation has built.
[X]Send Sylia to Ada personally to ask that she increase military funding- after proper coaching from Jamelia on the matter for optimal results.


We want to help Iteration X to help itself. Moreover, for the long term fix, splitting the Shock Corps into Ragnarok Command, as has been suggested by MJ, is a pretty damn good solution. But this is the first part to getting there- getting the hardliners to really realize that the old solo days are gone. Working together with support on all sides, with everyone stepping up to contribute really makes mountains move, and it's far past time Garrison learn that.

Moreover, by sending Sylia to Ada, we are solving a R&D side issue using R&D resources. With the right coaching, and her personal experiences at what the front liners are experiencing, Sylia can use her influence with the R&D side of things to put more weight on them and encourage better support of the military assets. By doing so this should help mitigate her status as a pariah, and ingratiate her at least somewhat with the hardliners.

That she's a portable primium factory should also be something to help smooth things over- I could definitely see her volunteering for detachment to Garrison's forces and working the long logistics pretzel into something more realistic. Even if her dream of ultimate powersuit future isn't totally viable, she can do a lot of good there, far more than we could ever accomplish poaching her for our own amalgam.
 
Kerrus, Aleph, EarthScorpion and others have made a good case for Clarent, so I'm going to second Kerrus' vote of

[X]New Hires
-[X]Major Jane Clarent
-[X]Syndicate Law Brigade
[X]A share in the Node we just captured and are going to be milking for Primal Energy.

Since, of my three original picks, I think that favors are the least quantifiable in what they bring to the table. Getting a Syndicate lawyer on board also preemptively helps protects us on the legal front, should that ever be an issue.
 
[X] Syndicate Enforcer Associate because LAW.
[X]A share in the Node we just captured and are going to be milking for Prime Energy

Quibbling on the third option atm.

One question though, who will this associate be if we hire them?
 
[JOKE][J] Lawrence Wong[/JOKE]


[X] In the form of a share in the Node you've just captured and are going to be milking for Prime Energy.
[X] Dosh!
[X] Dosh!
 
Actually, I just had a thought which might count against Major Clarent.

Elsa is very much in the same combat niche, in that she's a heavy enhancile agility-focussed cyborg with at least some known leadership experience (as a VA, admittedly, but that doesn't count against you among the modern Iterators) and surviving in the vampire dominant hellhole of Moscow (which means at least some social expertise) and she is already a known associate of our party. If we wanted a Void Engineer, she's likely the prime candidate (unless we wanted Baptysme, who's very much a support character and so would serve a completely different role).

If we wanted to consider picking her up instead later, having Major Clarent around would count that out. So depending on how things go, we might want to put the "cyborg combat ninja" niche with a "CONNECTING" icon, and pick other things now and either leave a gap from these choices (with the understanding that we're about to get a spy/monitor from the VEs), or pick our next DOING STUFF choice in a way which has the meta-arrangement that she'd be an option.

Just something to consider, if people don't like her character but would quite like a combat ninja with field powers.
 
... huh. Hmm. Good point. And Elsa does come with pre-formed ties to Serafina, and has cooperated with Jamelia before. And (I believe) knows about Threat Null, since she was there in Moscow.

Hmm.

Yeah, that last point is a really big one in her favour. A second-in-command who's in on the conspiracy is really useful, especially if she's a Void Engineer who can potentially open up ties to them for us. On the down side, she's Euthanatos-bound to keep the whole "Threat Null" thing secret, but hey, Jamelia is a Euthanatos too! More to the point, if her oath is specifically to keep it secret, then once/if she realises Jamelia already knows, she may be able to open up to her.

Hmm. Yeah, okay then. With that in mind, my vote will be...

Heroes of Iteration X:
[X] None of the above (write-in).
->[X] Arrange a talk with Lovelace to address the issues her convention has
-->[X] Mention the two options we see:
  1. Move back towards being the Union military arm, which means she needs to increase there funding
  2. Move towards being a Science Convention, which means she should begin shifting her military arm to Ragnarok Command
--->[X] Be open to other options she might present.
---->[X] Use our influence to help move her organization in that direction.

Fat Lutes:
[X] New Hires! Go headhunt someone like:
[ ] Elsa (at some point in the undefined future). Changed to ROBOTS (that can be traded for Elsa at some point in the undefined future)​
[X] Influence!
[X] In the form of favours.
[X] In the form of a share in the Node you've just captured and are going to be milking for Prime Energy.​
 
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sebsmith said:
Heroes of Iteration X:
[x] None of the above (write-in).
->[x] Arrange a talk with Lovelace to address the issues her convention has
-->[x] Mention the two options we see:
  1. Move back towards being the Union military arm, which means she needs to increase there funding
  2. Move towards being a Science Convention, which means she should begin shifting her military arm to Ragnarok Command
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
These are ... things we don't want. We want more cross-convention cooperation. We do NOT want to increase Ragnarok Command (which is heavily infiltrated by Threat Null)
 
Amusingly enough I thought of exactly the same thing. It'd be more or less the same result, except replacing 'cold professionalism' with 'homosexual flirting'.

Anyways, as an OOC note, I think the final expansion of your amalgam is going to end up being 8-10 people so you can have one A-team and one bunch of people doing background things you only get brief mentions of and/or results (which people can totally write-in). Keep this in mind.

Right now you're at 6: Jamelia, Rose, Serafina, Henriette, Kessler, and Donald. Four of them can participate in-field, and four of them are capable of doing support. Elsa would get you to 7, with 5 field-capables and 5 support-capables (and also another person with Dimensional Science 1). Also, jokes about doing examinations on her hardware.

Also, as far as Modern Lawfare goes-do note that Alice Simmons is a Senior Partner, not an associate, who has a massive level of infrastructural aid in the Syndicate Legal Compliance Division's main branch office that whoever you hire as an associate will lack. We're talking a bunch of mook associates who add automatic successes to more complex effects and get to roll a bunch of dice for less complex ones, paralegals and secretaries who act as a "Cult" (giving automatic successes), and a Sanctum that lowers her difficulties, and more.

Also, I'm not going to be giving you quite the same amount of help on those rotes.
 
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