As to Sonic's reaction to GUN, I will confirm that there are ways to start on his good side and bad side. However, while generally Sonic should be seen as an Ally, he really isn't going to be proactively coordinating with GUN, even if you start with a healthy relationship. As some have surmised, the Sonic Crew are essentially going to be off the table to join GUN for one reason or another.
Maybe, if we keep our relationship with the Mobians as friendly I can think of three ways of interacting with her, the first two are dependent on Cheese.
1- if she arrived with Cheese, we could try and ask her (and the other Mobians, but her especially) about how the Chao could exist in both worlds and ask (nicely) to examine Cheese to see if there's a difference between Earth Chao and Mobius Chao.
2- if she doesn't have Cheese yet, we could be the ones to introduce Cheese into her life as a sign of good faith, and we could interact with her via doctors visits every few days to check on Cheese.
3- have Topaz and Madonna babysit her and watch the chaos unfold.
Progress continued on bringing the Prison Island Factory complex to full functionality.
Adding onto the progress from the previous month, initial focus was made on installing the delicate systems required for the automatic installation of spare Chaos Drives. While placing the Chaos Drive into the core of the system isn't difficult, calibrating the system to the individual idiosyncrasies of the drive in question is more precise work that took substantial time to complete.
Time that is now essentially completely automated with the installation of a low level Mother Brain to calculate and complete calibration in real time. The only task that remains is automated installation of the onboard Virtual Intelligence and final batch testing, which is expected to be completed once additional resources can be committed.
In theory, capturing any remote controlled drone, regardless of how passive it may initially appear, is a dangerous task.
So when a drone manifested and was captured without any issue, it was initially considered a win for the team involved. The robot, collected intact, was quickly shipped off to GUN's main robotics facility to be carefully dismantled and examined. That would hopefully provide the key information for determining the drone's origin so the culprits could be captured.
Then it, like every other robot that was under surveillance, became active during the first visible activity of Dr. Ivo Robotnik. (See incident, "The March on Station Square")
While the bird-shaped drone didn't appear to have any ranged firearms, that mattered little when its apparent design was to use itself as a high velocity projectile to destroy its target. It had wreaked havoc in the lab before one of the researchers chose to activate the updated Beetle prototype.
While the armaments on the Beetle were sufficient to incapacitate the drone, it came at the cost of the prototype's structural integrity, as the last target of the drone's rampage. While the design can be replicated, it has final testing of the upgrade package by a month. Due to its success, however, it is a promising start to close the gap between GUN's robotic fleet and Dr. Robotnik's Badnik forces.
Building off of initial tests that Faraday Cages had some limited effect on preventing the destruction of sensor equipment, the initial focus of the project was optimizing the shape of the Faraday Cage around the sensor equipment. As the signal remained detectable even within the shield, it was believed that the signal was composed of a strong electromagnetic component, that caused the damage to equipment, and the separate detectable signal that would need to be tracked.
Progress was stymied when it was determined that some fraction of the interference signal that wasn't blocked by the Faraday Cage was still gradually damaging the equipment. While the failure rate is negligible enough at the moment, the growth of the signal's intensity is likely a sign that extra tolerance will have to be built into the detectors before they can be deployed.
Bar the precise discovery on the nature of the interference signal, it is the best our research staff can do.
Progress was made on tracking down the culprit behind a string of jewelry store robberies in Station Square. After collating the data obtained by several field agents, several key pieces of information immediately became apparent.
The stolen goods almost exclusively consisted of items with large carat gemstones, those with few carats or made entirely of metal were usually left behind.
Several location's ground cameras failed to detect any sign of forced entry
Given the reputation that the burglar only struck once per building, select stores began to substitute fake merchandise to reduce losses, the fake pieces were found discarded on site, while authentic merchandise was taken as usual. These sites were burgled a second time once the authentic merchandise was returned.
Given this pattern, it should only be a matter of time before a successful sting operation can be executed to capture the thief.
Incident Report: "The March on Station Square"
Roger Devine, Agent of GUN, had dove into a building. The alternative, that his partner, Agent Cheung was facing, was being confronted with a multitude of the drones that they had been sent to investigate, all of which began to reveal the copious weapons that they had apparently had always been armed with.
Yesterday, a team had managed to collect one of the robots before it had disappeared into the wilderness around the city. At the time, they reported that not only did it appear to be unarmed, but other robots sighted in the area were completely apathetic.
Now, as far as Roger could tell, all the drones near this section of Station Square almost seemed to be responding to the assault, with them revealing small firearms or ramming into vehicles and buildings.
The first instinct he and Cheung had was to pull his pistol out and protect civilians in the area. For all the pain and misery tracking them down had been the past month, getting some catharsis and shutting down their attack.
"Devine, our bullets are having no effect on them! We need to find something harder to hit it with or-"
Devine was cut off from the ending as more drones, apparently responding to their attacks, swarmed to their position. While he was able to quickly duck into the nearby diner, Cheung was forced to take cover next to a truck with no visible way to get out.
Their only hope was to get some sort of aid from GUN command. Pulling out his phone, he immediately dialed the emergency line.
"This is Agent Devine, currently me and Agent Cheung are under fire from multiple unregistered drones, with property damage confirmed. Small Arms fire is ineffective, we need a special forces team armed with heavier weapons here as soon as possible."
At the far end of the street, explosions rang out. Looking through the closest window, a robot, larger than all the rest, walked through the streets, supported by a flying pod with a.. fat man?
As the assault continued, the city intercoms rang out.
"Hello Denizens of this Fair City! My name is Dr. Ivo Robotnik, and I have some excellent news for you all. Well, it is excellent news for me, I suspect for many of you it will be quite terrible news. Having suddenly found myself in this world, I've decided to add it to my Eggman Empire! As new subjects, please excuse the unpleasantness of my Badniks, but they are looking to remove anyone foolish enough to oppose my generous offer."
Devine tuned out the speech as another robot charged Cheung from a blind spot. Before Devine had a chance to try and draw its attention, something intervened.
"I wouldn't be so sure of that, Dr. Eggman! I'm pretty sure that I was beating you back on Mobius just as easily as I'm going to beat you now."
A blue blur quickly raced into vision, striking the charging drone before it reached Cheung and knocking it to the ground. In the wreckage, a large, blue, humanoid hedgehog stood up and smirked at the flying pod.
The man in the pod responded almost immediately.
"Ah, Sonic, so bad for you to have joined us. Fortunately for me, the E-23 will be more than your match. Missile Wrist, deal with Sonic, we can manage the public later."
The large robot, responding to the command, struck out, launching both missiles and extendable claws at the Hedgehog, which chose to race forward at super speeds at the same time, jumping from claw to missile to quickly reach the main robot itself.
The final impact, done when the Hedgehog was apparently once again curled up into a ball, shattered the entire structure of the robot. The man in the pod, surprised at the quick destruction, was caught up in the resulting blast.
Unfortunately, it appeared that the pod itself was unharmed, as it began to fly away from the scene. Looking around, it was clear that most of the robots in the area were retreating, some alone, and others carrying the wreckage of other robots that had been destroyed from one event or another.
"Grrr, this isn't over, blue bozo! Once I get the Chaos Emeralds you won't be as lucky!"
The hedgehog, on the other hand, seemed intent to move on. Given the exertion he had just done, Devine suspected that he may be amenable for a quick discussion.
Devine had the initiative to make a choice.
—
The Attack from Dr. Ivo Robotnik has been repelled, but public trust in GUN's capability to defend it has been challenged.
Has Happened:
Public Trust -5
Unlocked Project - Badnik Wreckage Examination (0/100)
From the incident a few opportunities have arisen.
The Hedgehog doesn't seem to be likely to stay in the area for long. Making contact with someone who has clear knowledge about Dr. Robotnik may be critical for determining his next moves. Learning more about the doctor, along with working to turn his enemies into allies, may be the best solution to the threat.
On the other hand, given the ineffectiveness of small arms fire against the Badniks, it may be more important to arrange for viable wreckage samples to be recovered for long term analysis. Given that some Badniks are already working to recover the remains of the largest robot fielded by Dr. Robotnik, it may be prudent to secure as many intact wrecks as possible.
Choose 1:
[] Contact. As important as the wreckage was, a thorough examination on the field was less important than meeting with their impromptu savior. Even establishing a quick rapport with the Hedgehog could be invaluable for starting to get answers on the origins of… everything that was happening. (Contact with Sonic the Hedgehog, Bypass Capture Large Animal)
[] Wreckage Recovery. This is a unique opportunity to get ahold of destroyed hulls of the different drones that were destroyed by the hedgehog. The unique details on what kind of damage actually works against them will be invaluable for developing countermeasures. Given the lack of wreckage found beforehand, and the recovery efforts of some of the drones now, we may have limited time to secure a solid foundation of wrecks for a full examination. (+100 Progress Badnik Wreckage Examination)
Alright all, so quick rules update separate from the actual update, since I kind of noticed an oopsy that was always going to feel bad.
From now on, if at least 90% of a project is complete AND only 10 progress points or less remain, it will autocomplete the following turn, just because wasting a die on 2 progress I knew was going to feel bad.
While a few more rules are "unlocking", they are more going to be relevant to Eggman deciding to roll hot and show up where he did rather than any other oopsies.
[X] Wreckage Recovery. This is a unique opportunity to get ahold of destroyed hulls of the different drones that were destroyed by the hedgehog. The unique details on what kind of damage actually works against them will be invaluable for developing countermeasures. Given the lack of wreckage found beforehand, and the recovery efforts of some of the drones now, we may have limited time to secure a solid foundation of wrecks for a full examination. (+100 Progress Badnik Wreckage Examination)
Will be time later. Advancements to be able to fight back are arguably more important.
It reads as if they've already written off small arms or are doubting their efficacy when the only example they have is two field agents and cops with handguns having a hard time?
[X] Contact. As important as the wreckage was, a thorough examination on the field was less important than meeting with their impromptu savior. Even establishing a quick rapport with the Hedgehog could be invaluable for starting to get answers on the origins of… everything that was happening. (Contact with Sonic the Hedgehog, Bypass Capture Large Animal)
It reads as if they've already written off small arms or are doubting their efficacy when the only example they have is two field agents and cops with handguns having a hard time?
I was going after their depiction in Sonic X, Badniks are absurdly resilient to weapons, are are unscratched by handguns, rifles, and even the once mentioned police flamethrower. GUN's actual miliary is presently better equipped to deal with them, but in this instance all Eggman had to face was just local police and FBI agent equivalents in Devine and Cheung.
I just mean right now we wouldn't really know that in character but the way the projects are written suggests we saw all that sort of stuff. I'm nitpicking of course, sorry.
