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

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[X] Hold the Construct at all costs against the vampires and whatever allies they might have.

It's...hrm. Fighting through a fully prepared Construct is a meatgrinder slog, it's like fighting through a Cantry: the building itself is actively resisting invaders (and considering that this is a Technocratic Construct with Technocratic infrastructure and at least some defenses ideally which was overseen by a singularly paranoid woman it's got to have some fairly hefty bulwarks if the staff had to stay and make a fight over it). And while this isn't a fully prepared Construct by any means, abandoning it, abandoning our infrastructure (which is incredibly important for Technocratic stuff) doesn't strike me as wise. Stripping away all our personnel, who we at least nominally care about even if it's only in the ablative sense, to run into something that's totally not an ambush? With all our juicy targets, all the targets who matter, packed together nice and tight?

And then there's the fact that Clock deliberately plays on your natural impulses so she'll have contingencies for the incredibly obvious aka "follow the standard evacuation plan".

Arcus2611 said:
On the other hand... maybe Ms Clock can't trap the normal escape routes because reasons, and is thus resorting to this? But really, when I think about it, it seems strange that Ms Clock would rely on such an unreliable gambit, instead of just trapping the normal escape options.
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>Implying that she totally wouldn't use the normal escape routes to funnel the interns and support staff into easily set up killzones

Azunth said:
Our construct has some fairly strong contacts among the Traditionalists (The old man of the mountain, Cemal, Elsa's former virtual adepts, Donald's contacts, whatever people Kessler knows in the Dreamspeakers, Alice and thus whatever of Alice's contacts and friends remain, everybody who saw us save moscow), and our methods are probably regarded a lot more fondly than most Technocrats.
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That's...unlikely. We're Jamelia Belltower's Construct. The Woman Who Keeps Stealing All our Initiates and Junior Mages Jesus Fuck as she is sometimes known. The Traditionalists might be willing to work with us but they definitely don't like us and they almost certainly won't be riding in to save the day.

But.

Hrm.

Serafina did get a bump to her Progenitor contacts right? And she is basically a Progenitor Princess.

And if we can somehow get the word out that "high value and reasonably popular Progenitor injured and maybe killed in overt hemophage action" we might be able to hold on long enough for Damage Control to go all Blackwatch on the vamps. I mean...Cross is heading up Damage Control right now. And if I recall he is rather fond of Serafina sooooo. Dunno.
 
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[X] (0.5x) Follow the instructions of the shady voice and attempt to break out to the designated evac point.

Trust in the mysterious voice of our rescuers.

If we're lucky, they're the IBM or some other guys who have an anti-Panopticon agenda, and thus are actually here to rescue us.

If we're unlucky, they're either Panopticon or Friend Computer and thus here to "rescue" us from the sin of being Rogue Technocrats/Reality Deviants/Inferior Meatbags/All of the above.

TenfoldShields said:
>Implying that she totally wouldn't use the normal escape routes to funnel the interns and support staff into easily set up killzones
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Yes, most likely she has rigged up the conventional escape routes to be traps... in which case, it seems like the mysterious voice wouldn't be her, because she would have no need to resort to such a gambit.

Whether we can hold out depends on whether the Construct is well fortified or not, but the update seems to imply that's not really the case. Also, do remember that we did vote for the assets that give Ms Clock lots of unsubtle firepower, like "SPIDERTANK" and "NUKES" and "Avatar of Friend Computer."
 
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Wait, I realised something.

Only 4 out of 5 options have been mentioned in the updates so far. I think that makes the 5th option either the Subjugation Corps, or Mr. Tinker. Probably Mr. Tinker, given how the vote was going.

He's definitely up to something, but what, exactly?
 
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Most probably the mystery transmission since Clocks plan involves capturing the other Enlightened personnel alive to turn and then use on Jamelia if at all possible.


EDIT: metagaming aside, abandoning a Construct with 11 HITMarks 12 Synths and a Company of NWO Heavies based on a crappy message with SUSPICIOUS STATIC is well dumb. And Brakowski may be many things but he aint dumb.
 
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GhostStalker said:
Cross is only heading up a Damage Control team, not the entire Methodology. He's basically at the same level as Jamelia is, organizationally speaking.
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Ah right right. That's...honestly probably even better. It means that he has a fair amount of discretion in how he mobilizes his assets. Assets which are ideally coming to save our glorious asses.

Arcus2611 said:
Yes, most likely she has rigged up the conventional escape routes to be traps... in which case, it seems like the mysterious voice wouldn't be her, because she would have no need to resort to such a gambit.
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She doesn't need to yeah but Ms. Clock is not one to singlemindedly focus on one acceptable outcome. Her plan as stated is pretty much "let vampire SWAT wear away at them, come in at the very last moment to put the vamps in their place and doubletap the survivors". The biggest risk to that plan is that this turns into a slog, which buys more time for another Construct to realize that shit's going down and to come to our aid; ideally, like I said, the Progenitors.

So Clock has to time the deployment of her forces really well. She can't use a lot of the heavy stuff right off the bat, or, rather, she'd prefer not to. For one it's not her style. For another it makes the whole farce sort of pointless and she's not quite at that point yet. And it makes her narrative more vulnerable. So if we give up our home-field advantage, ditch all our non-Enlightened assets and have all our core personnel go stand on the big red x for easy tagging and bagging like @Sarpedon said (Ms. Clock, like Jamelia, seems to be a bit of a collector) that suits her just fine too.

Suspiciously convenient static blotting out crucial information seems more like Mr. Tinker than Cristos you know?

And we can make a decent fight out of it. Pound for pound our guys are probably deadlier than ghouled SWAT troopers and we have some reasonably talented Mages (who would do even better with their infrastructure hint, hint) to hold the line.
 
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I'm assuming that at least one of the options here has to be a non-trap choice. The question is which one it is. But running for the Mat Trans/escape route seems far too likely to be a trap.

Hmm... if the mysterious voice is really here to help us out, they'll probably try to do something else to help if we ignore them and hole out in the Construct.
 
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Doesn't Ms. Clock have access to the Construct's security codes via vengeful ghost-informant?

If she does, then the Mat-Trans is certainly a trap. Also, the mysterious voice may have been trying to communicate this, hence it's request for just Enlightened Personnel to head to the rendezvous.

And hey, if Mr. Tinker is involved then Virtual Adept assistance would be more genre appropriate, right? :V
Poor Interns are all gonna die!
 
Voidwalker Zelt said:
Doesn't Ms. Clock have access to the Construct's security codes via vengeful ghost-informant?

If she does, then the Mat-Trans is certainly a trap. Also, the mysterious voice may have been trying to communicate this, hence it's request for just Enlightened Personnel to head to the rendezvous.
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Oh yeah, she probably does. It was either that or she knows Donald does Reality Deviance. EDIT: Security codes won out by a few votes, so yeah.

And hey, if Mr. Tinker is involved then Virtual Adept assistance would be more genre appropriate, right? :V
Poor Interns are all gonna die!
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*cough*
 
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[X] Hold the Construct at all costsagainst the vampires and whatever allies they might have.

In death's ground. Fight.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
The security codes to a construct just let her disarm or remotely activate the internal security systems which are generally stuff that's intended to aggravate Reality Deviants (who, in a Construct, are always casting vulgar spells) than kill everyone inside. The Construct still has its staff of like, 40 exoskeleton and body-armor equipped commandos, a bunch of plainclothes security in nanofiber vests with concealed SMGs, and about a half-dozen HITMarks.

Oh, and Rose. Who has more fight in her than most of that group put together.
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Relevant.

Unfortunately, we are dealing with Sleeper SWAT teams, vampires and Panopticon, so the defences that make Reality Deviance vulgar are useless anyway.
 
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Sarpedon said:
"Director Belltower" was on the lab level, checking on the security for "her" body(residual paranoia and navel gazing present in the beta level for some reason), and is currently crash starting ALL THE SECURITY UNITS and putting on ALL THE SECURITY SYSTEMS/ALARMS/moving up to coordinate with Brakowski.

EDIT: unfortunately Sera is dead or else we could have like COMBAT DRUGS COMING OUT OF THE VENTS

Also what security procedures can the beta level activate without spheres and just codes?
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The fairly standard ones-blast doors, autocannon turrets, laser triggered mines. There's also lighting, fire suppression, and other environmental control. She can't activate any of the exciting ones like bottomless pit traps, wall spikes, laser traps, and hidden guns everywhere.

Also I might have a decent idea for where Jamelia Bot is that supercedes the writein but you can get Hughes a plasma cannon anyhow. I realize there's a massive shortage of said and I want to give you a chance to plasmagun peeps.
 
Ms. Clock has the security codes, so the pre-arranged evac plans are almost certainly not safe. The Mat-Trans is jammed or worse redirected. There are probably forces waiting in ambush at the staging area. Brakowski knows that things have gone very wrong and that they are way beyond standard procedure, but that doesn't make the correct course of action clear.

This doesn't mean that trusting the voice is a good idea. It could be genuine, who is it from? The directive to only bring Enlightened personnel is particularly suspicious. Really, it sounds like Ms. Clock is trying to make things easier for herself. Is there a justifiable reason for leaving the others behind? Or is it simply that there is no way to feasibly save them?

Are the interns really saving the day if they run away, leaving everyone else to die?
 
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[X] Hold the Construct at all costs against the vampires and whatever allies they might have.

Urgh. At least, the Construct's defences should be enough to hold off the SWAT teams and stuff. So we should last until spidertank interrupt and Anathema.
 
Ah I should finish the thought I had.


Of course, there's always the possibility she has all of the bases covered and that everything we're doing here is just triage buuuuuuuuuut going that far down the NWO paranoia rabbit hole is pointless.

So then...
Possibly-subverted Mat-Trans, with standard-yet-predictable evacuation routes?
Mysterious unknown voice we have no reason to trust that promises aid for only our Enlightened Interns?
Or standing our ground against SWAT-ghoul teams who are really just patsies-of-patsies(of-patsies, if you count Panopticon as a patsy) and later a Panopticon kill-crew the Interns won't even realize is hostile right away?
Arcus2611 said:
*cough*
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Shhhhhhhh. ;) Hora~
 
[X] Hold the Construct at all costs against the vampires and whatever allies they might have.

They aren't deploying the superheavies YET, which means this screws us later instead of now.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
The fairly standard ones-blast doors, autocannon turrets, laser triggered mines. There's also lighting, fire suppression, and other environmental control. She can't activate any of the exciting ones like bottomless pit traps, wall spikes, laser traps, and hidden guns everywhere.
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Can we do things like make rocket launchers pop out from the vending machines, or detonate bombs that were concealed in potted plants?
 
So, I was looking at the front page and I noticed something; the first page lists Elsa as having Prime 2*, but looking at the XP vote again, the CAD/CAM vote also had a +Prime 3 (lab sphere) attached.
 
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