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>>3584110

You have somewhat nebulous memories of that meeting.

Nicolae Carpathia stepped out from his place at the table and went to each person individually. He greeted each by name, asking him to stand, shaking his hand, and kissing him on both cheeks.

“Mr. Todd-Cothran,” he said, “you shall be introduced as the ambassador of the Great States of Britain. I welcome you to the team and confer upon you all the rights and privileges that go with your new station. May you display to me and to those in your charge the consistency and wisdom that have brought you to this position.”

“Thank you, sir,” Todd-Cothran said, and sat down as Carpathia moved on. Todd-Cothran appeared shocked, as did several others, when Nicolae repeated the same sentiment, including precisely the same title ambassador of the Great States of Britain—to the British financier next to him. Todd-Cothran smiled tolerantly.

Obviously, Carpathia had merely misspoken and should have referred to the man as one of his financial advisers.

All around the four-sided table configuration Carpathia went, one by one, saying exactly the same words to every ambassador, but customizing the litany to include the appropriate name and title. The recitation changed only slightly for his personal aides and advisers. You came in last.

Pointing at you, he said, “I welcome you to the team and confer upon you all the rights and privileges that go with your station.”

For some reason it was so affirming, so flattering.

“May you display to me and to those in your charge the consistency and wisdom that have brought you to this position.”

Carpathia went through the ceremony with others, who gushed with pride. Nicolae eventually covered everyone in the room except the security guard, his secretary Hattie, and his former mentor, Jonathan Stonagal. He returned to his place and turned first to Hattie.

Then, your memory is a little hazy. Stonagal had apparently tried to shoot Nicolae, there was a brief scuffle, and he and Mr. Todd-Cothran ended up dead.

Either way, you didn't much care: there was too much work to do. Carpathia has tried to keep you and your mandate out of the spotlight. Of the recent increases in earthquakes and tsunamis, Carpathia has issued the following press release:

"Fortunately, the timing of my most ambitious project could not have been more propitious. The Global Community recently secured sole ownership of all international satellite and cellular communications companies. We will have in place in a few months the first truly global communications network. It is cellular, and it is solar powered. I call it Cellular-Solar. Once the cellular towers have been re-erected and satellites are maneuvered to geosynchronous orbit, anyone will be able to communicate with anyone else anywhere at any time. I have top men working on it right now."

"Who?"

"Top. Men."

>>3584127

To be fair, after only two weeks on the job, you have noticed that for some reason or other most of the competent people in the Global Community organization have ended up under your management; Carpathia really must be wanting to gain and keep control of the telecommunication infrastructure. The man himself is erratic, while he is normally brilliant, he definitely has episodes of, for lack of a better term, melodramatic villainy. To a lesser degree, you have noticed this of the subpotentates, as well. You suspect that there is a pattern.

Your official title is Foreman of the Custodial Arrangement of Telecommunication Systems - it's not a cabinet level position specifically so you can fulfill your global mandate without stepping on the subpotentates' toes, and while you report directly to Carpathia, he specifically told you that you may do as you wish as long as you stay within the budget and get results.

CATS is strictly a civilian agency: your workers can eminent-domain land for installing antennas and the like, within reason, but do not have authority to make arrests or carry weapons any more than, say, the driver of a bank truck might. They will usually get cooperation from local police and defense forces, but this is by no means guaranteed.

After the initial mess of transfering deeds, getting lawyers to deal with lawyers, and realizing that the only two electrical standards common around the globe are a data cable and a hack upon a cigarette lighter, you start settling into what passes for routine. It's been fourteen months since the initial announcement, and Switzerland has just joined the Global Community - only Israel is holding out. Save for you, the boardroom is empty this morning, which will not be the case for long. You have a moment to contemplate.

>>3584141
Most people, except policy wonks and government workers, probably don't know that you exist; your job is to keep the phones and TVs running, and maybe this new-ish thing called the internet, if you can get around to it. You have a relevant background in both logistics and computer engineering, which made you the obvious pick for the position. Apart from that, who are you?

# A young person, full of energy and able to go in the field.
EFFECTS: You will be able to defend yourself effectively. People will underestimate you slightly, which can be good or bad. You have extra stamina, and can deploy with two teams unless they are acting at the same time, giving them a small performance bonus. You can deploy yourself for overt AND covert operations.

# A middle aged person, experienced and still able to do fieldwork.
EFFECTS: You will be able to defend yourself, but less effectively than if you were younger. People will overestimate you slightly, which can be good or bad. You grant an average performance bonus to your team. You can deploy yourself for overt AND covert operations.

# An old person, with wisdom and reputation, but too old to go in the field.
EFFECTS: You cannot defend yourself effectively. You cannot deploy yourself for covert operations. People will respect your experience and long civil service career, which is almost invariably good. You can assign yourself to a team doing anything other than covert operations, for a large performance bonus.

# A legal fiction: the position of Foreman is fictitious, the real work being done by a small group of sysadmins supported by one of the world's first data driven expert systems. "The Foreman" is essentially a voice actor, and is regularly replaced in "by-elections".
EFFECTS: Short of CATS' HQ being destroyed, you cannot be assassinated (any successful attempt will simply lose you a figurehead). You cannot deploy yourself for operations: instead, you can send the figurehead with a team for a small performance bonus. If they die, another figurehead is elected or appointed, and work is not disrupted.

>>3584144
># A legal fiction
I am drawn to this option but I think I am going to support

># A young person

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Note: I'm going to wait a bit, but if there's only one reply, I will go with it. Unless it's obvious that there are a lot of people in the thread, in general once an answer gets two aye's, it sticks.

Pictured: Two aye's.

Also, before I forget to post it: Intro movie!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn7KTOLbyfQ&t=0s

>>3584158
Don't lose heart man, just have to get the Quest rolling and people will come.

>>3584164

(The other one took a bit to get going, too. I hope the audio editing for the intro is decent! )

Your first job was setting up a HQ. In addition to the obligatory nondescript office building, it features a warehouse, a R&D facility (you will contract out most R&D, but having a prototyping lab in-house is never a bad thing), a training center run by your HR department, and the like. Your main building has a helipad, and you have easy access to the city airport so that you can send workers out into the world quickly. You've been assured that the new unified world will be peaceful, but you have doubts about that... so, at the end of the day, your HQ is

- centralized, sort of its own campus/compound. (Think Google or Apple)
EFFECTS: It will be defensible in case of a siege. It will be very visible/noticeable. It can be taken out in one hit. Efficiency increases.

- spread out among several anonymous buildings within the city. (Think a university spread out across a major city)
EFFECTS: In case of a siege, you will have to spread your forces or abandon facilities. It will be less visible. It cannot be taken out in one hit. Efficiency decreases.

>>3584174
>spread out among several anonymous buildings within the city.

Secrecy will be our greatest strength

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>>3584197

There was a bit of a bidding war among the subpotentates for where this agency would be located; you're not influential outside of the areas of your purview, so a few places were declared out of the running earlier, and your choice was limited.

It took a bit of finagling, but you were able to set up your HQ in

- Chicago. The local culture promotes small government and a right to bear arms. American society was noticeably disrupted by the Rapture, so you will have more leeway in your actions. You will have an easy time procuring what would be considered military equipment elsewhere, and there are plenty of gumshoes to be hired.
EFFECTS: You can deploy covert teams from the start. Procuring automatic weapons isn't a covert action. Free tech level in landline and satellite comms.

- Milan, Italy. The local culture promotes excellence n artisanship: your advanced technology will be more reliable. Italian society was somewhat disrupted by the Rapture.
EFFECTS: You will get a reroll on failed production attempts, and your systems will be more resistant to supernatural interference.

- Tokyo, United Asian States (Formerly Japan). The local culture promotes efficiency. Japan is a particularly safe environment, the current world hub of high-tech industry, and its society was not disrupted much by the Rapture.
EFFECTS: You will get a reroll on failed R&D attempts, and start with a free tech level in all trees.

- Mumbai. The local culture promotes variety. There is plenty of affordable skilled labor. Indian society was not disrupted much by the Rapture.
EFFECTS: You will get a reroll on failed production attempts, and start with a free extra team.

- New Babylon. The local culture promotes opulence. You will have access to Carpathia's seat of power directly, which naturally means a larger budget. The city was built from scratch after the Rapture, and goods from all over the world can be called there, so there is no infrastructural damage. However, should you displease Carpathia personally while doing a good job officially, he will be able to get rid of you very easily...
EFFECTS: Your budget will be higher, you will be able to carry over budget across trimesters, and logistics will be easier. Carpathia can launch an assassination attempt without warning (this overrides the "legal fiction" identity!)

>>3584237
>- Chicago. The local culture promotes small government and a right to bear arms. American society was noticeably disrupted by the Rapture, so you will have more leeway in your actions. You will have an easy time procuring what would be considered military equipment elsewhere, and there are plenty of gumshoes to be hired.

This is the clear choice.

>>3584237
>Tokyo

>>3584237
Chicago, love for the windy City.

Chicago it is, by the look of it!

>>3584296
>>3584303

Do you have any input on protagonist age and on centralization of HQ?

>>3584387
White, Male, mid-twenties and I think that having it so that even if one facility is compromised I can compromise the others, so decentralized.

>>3584303
>>3584253

The Midwest of the United States was disrupted pretty severely by the Rapture, with a number of airliner and train crashes and a large number of car accidents. Some fires have marred the downtown area. Ironically, the heavily white Christian suburbs were left largely untouched, since the people living there just disappeared.

The looting died down fairly quickly, and other than the obvious (closure of all elementary and middle schools, for example) people seem to have embraced Nicolae's promise of a return to normality with their whole heart, to the point that if you were to look out of a window, you'd be hard pressed to find any difference between now and the pre-Rapture world.

Six billion people lived on this planet at the time of the Event. In the blink of an eye, almost a third disappeared - 1750 million children under 13, and another 150 million Christians, of various denominations but mostly Protestants. The only reason why there hasn't been a housing-price crisis is that the lawyers are still sorting out what belonged to whom during the disappearances.

This is a grey morning. The sky above the port is the color of television, tuned to a dead channel; the local networks are transmitting, but that's not a big surprise here - it'd take the literal apocalypse for TV to stop working in America. You've been tasked with creating a unified telecommunication infrastructure, which in most of the world means bringing things on par with

# the American standard: dialup internet and cable TV available to those who can afford it, and local TV available to all.

# the French/Italian standard: Minitel/dialup and local TV available universally, and satellite TV available to those who can afford it.

# the Japanese standard: vast availability of local TV channels with secondary satellite feeds, and private intranets and BBSes.

(Can I get a second on age and centralization?)

>>3584415
># the American standard: dialup internet and cable TV available to those who can afford it, and local TV available to all.

The USA all the way.

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>>3584415

You report directly to Global Potentate Nicolae Carpathia, but you're pretty low on the totem pole, everything considered. Here are the people you should be aware of to start with, if nothing else because they can override your directives.

Nicolae Carpathia: Your boss. According to Christians, he is the Antichrist.. Extremely intelligent and charismatic, but not technically inclined. He's agreed to make a bit of time for you once a month, enough to ask one question or make a request. Favor: 3/5

Peter Mathews: Pontifex Maximus Peter Cardinal Mathews II was the former archbishop of the diocese of Cincinnati, Ohio who became the pope of Enigma Babylon One World Faith.

Rayford Steele: Carpathia's personal pilot. A fairly unremarkable (if competent) individual whose claim to fame is having landed a damaged airliner in a river with no loss of life.

Cameron Williams: Carpathia's press secretary. He has a fairly hands off style of management and is more concerned with enjoying the perks of his job than with doing it.

Douglas Dimmsdale: A former United States senator from Texas. Wears a ten-gallon hat and embroidered cowboy suit. Rumor has it that he's actually from Connecticut, but you wouldn't be able to tell from the accent. He has accepted the Global Community because he believes it will be easier to push for local autonomy than it would be the US federal government. Current subpotentate of the United North American States and your landlord. He can make your life difficult, but technically you can overrule him on technical issues.

You have two work crews available, and no covert crews; each work crew can handle anything from organizing a satellite launch to procuring enough land via eminent domain to cover a city in transmitters to setting up or continuing a research program. Your organization's internal bureaucracy can handle most of the personnel details, although you will be notified if you come across anybody exceptional who you want to have under your direct orders.

Your budget for the trimester is 20 billion Nicks (the newly introduced global currency - old bills are still redeemable, in order to ease the transition), two more than normally allotted. Budgeting in the GC is by trimester, and as with every government organization, well, use it or lose it.

Do you have any questions so far, Foreman?

>>3584455

Other subpotentates:

Rehoboth: Rehoboth is one of the ten subpotentates chosen by Nicolae Carpathia to be put in charge of the United African States. He is a tyrant who pillaged his own country of Sudan and made multi-millionaires of his wives and children, and thus is greatly hated by his own people. He was given the subpotentate position as an insult to Mwangati Ngumo, who had stepped down from his role as the Secretary-General of the United Nations expecting to be given both the subpotentate role and licensed use of the synthetic fertilizer formula created by Chaim Rosenzweig to help his own country, Botswana.

Od Gustav: The subpotentate of the United European States. His command of languages rivals that of Carpathia. Formerly a hospital administrator.

Pravin Lal: The subpotentate of the United Indian States. A fervent advocate of the United Nations' peacekeeping mission, he was one of the first people to sign up with Carpathia. He was an accomplished neurosurgeon before entering politics, after an accident left him with a hand tremor.

Prokhor Zakharov: The subpotentate of the United Russian States. A technocrat's technocrat and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, he supports CATS' mission and was disappointed when Carpathia vetoed installing CATS'HQ in Russia.

Sheng-ji Yang: The subpotentate of the United Asian States. Chinese father, Japanese mother. Master of the Five Excellences: calligraphy, poetry, painting, traditional medicine, and martial arts (including martial tai-chi, wushu, and others). Studied Military History at Beijing University, later acquired a PhD in Psychology from same.

Corazon Santiago: The subpotentate of the United South American States. Argentinian by birth, she survived the purges in her childhood by taking up arms early. Very much a fan of the right to bear arms. Known for her incorruptibility and Spartan lifestyle.

Abdurrahman Wahid: The subpotentate of the United Pacific States and briefly President of Indonesia. He is a competent administrator, but he is disliked by non-Indonesians and especially Australians for privileging development of his home territory over other lands under his jurisdiction.

Terry April: The subpotentate of the United Great Britian States, also responsible for keeping the British royal family nominally on the throne as "People's Representatives". Mostly busy dealing with ending the Troubles in a way that isn't too heavy handed.

>>3584443

Carpathia's mandate was clear: he wants a modern, standardized communications system to project his message. You decide to prioritize one-way communication over two-way. The first order of business in that case is launching or "repossessing" enough geostationary satellites to cover the globe, and ensuring that people can access the signal.

# Set up a subsidy program for people to be able to afford signal converters with the existing TVs. (This was done IRL about ten years ago: https://www.justanswer.com/tv-repair/1mz0l-does-analog-tv-government-subsidized-digital.html ), this will let you use existing satellites for the time being.

# Focus on the orbital assets first - existing infrastructure will do for now, and it's better to get a solid foundation in place. Fortunately, with the fall of the Soviet Union ten years ago and the fact that Carpathia has decreed that the Global Community will free itself of nuclear weapons, there are plenty of intercontinental ballistic missiles that can be repurposed into orbital rockets.

# Act on your gut feeling that you can expect governmental corruption to take hold very quickly once Carpathia's honeymoon with the people is over: you'll need a group of people who doesn't mind getting their hands dirty.

# Your people are filing into the conference room: ask for information on any assets and research programs currently ongoing.


>>3584402
>>3584151

(Confirm this?)

>>3584485
># Your people are filing into the conference room: ask for information on any assets and research programs currently ongoing.
>>3584402
>>3584151

(Confirm)

>>3584493

>>3584493

Most of the people coming in are older than you; it took a bit of time for you to earn their respect in the early days, but you did, both by virtue of being far more conversant with the newest technologies than most of them and by the simple fact that you've known when to listen.

"We've finally managed to quiet down the lawyers about who belongs to what, without having to go ask The Boss too often; can't say we own the airwaves, but we might as well, for most practical purposes."

"Most everyone in the world who wants to is within walking distance of a TV, of course, but only about half the population can get GNN with the current setup."

"I hear reports out of Indonesia. Their technology rivals that of any nation... in fact, lately there's been a push in FidoNet nodes over there. Should we offer them a deal?"

"I almost hate to say it, but after the Event, we were expecting a significant load reduction on the landlines, but... well, it hasn't really happened."

"The Boss is still raging about those two preachers in Israel. They're getting close to closing the annexation deal, and he doesn't want any interference. We have cameras on them 24/7; should we censor them, or add a laugh track, or what?"

"The Cellular-Solar project has begun, and we're hoping to roll out the first test units soon. The problem is that their range is limited: they'll do well in Europe, Asia, the North American coasts, but we'll need something else to cross the oceans or for that matter the Andes or Rockies, and..."

People are generally in good spirits, albeit they lack some direction. Most importantly, neither your boss nor your landlord have significant complaints.

# Any local news?

# This can be a rough town. Any trouble spots I should know about?

# We're all on the same team here. Anyone have any ideas on how to take some of our budget for, let's say, longer term investment? All above board of course...

# We need to focus on (territory), call up the subpotentate for that region.

CURRENT GOALS:

You've picked a broadcast focus. Each territory must be covered by 2 satellites and have 1 surface network node. Satellites are primarily used for broadcast, network nodes for data.

CURRENT RESEARCH PROGRAMS:

Satellites oxxxx
CellSol oxxxx
Logistics xxxxx
Defense xxxxx
Robustness xxxxx

You have a psychologist on staff, Miriam, whose job is to keep an eye on the morale of your people and, as she can, of the people who can ruin your day.

POTENTATE FAVOR
5 Carpathia is impressed with your progress. Your budget increases significantly, although being on his radar so prominently may not be a good thing. Of course, he'll raise his expectations...
4 You are doing a good job! Since you can be trusted, your budget increases slightly.
3* You're doing an unremarkable job, as far as Carpathia is concerned. Your budget will remain the same, and the other member organizations of the Global Community will pay less attention to you, since things "just work".
2 Your performance is spotty. Your budget is increased slightly so that you may compensate for these deficiencies, but that comes with the price of additional scrutiny.
1 Given your abysmal performance, your budget has been decreased. You risk being demoted or fired.
0 Nicolae Carpathia has decided to replace CATS with a differently organized agency. Since it would not do to simply fire you, you will be targeted for assassination. The man is known for his twisted sense of humor: he just might let you keep the job if you survive that.

SUBPOTENTATE FAVOR
5 Your landlord often uses your work as proof of his territory's economic efficiency. You can expect cooperation from the legslature in your overt operations, although since you have to keep a high public profile your covert operations suffer.
4 Your actions have brought some extra prosperity to your landlord's territory. You can expect the legislature to let you work with reduced red tape, since what you are doing is working well.
3* Your landlord tolerates you, more or less... let's go with more. No effect.
2 Your landlord tolerates you, more or less... let's go with less. No effect.
1 Your landlord thinks that CATS is a drain to either his economy or his prestige. Expect hostility from the legislature. However, your covert operators will find it easier to work with resistance groups and so on.
0 You have embarassed or humiliated your landlord, who will likely launch an assassination attempt against you, either out of pique or to avoid appearing weak.

>>3584551
># We're all on the same team here. Anyone have any ideas on how to take some of our budget for, let's say, longer term investment? All above board of course...

#This can be a rough town. Any trouble spots I should know about?

>>3584580
>>3584596

After a few polite coughs - everyone suspects this room is bugged; it is, but you are the only one who can access the recording -- one of the people whose job it is to smooth things over with the local authorities when it comes to securing land for cell phone towers and coaxial cable lines pipes up. "My cousin Vincenzo tells me that there's some Christian Remnant pastor in Mount Prospect, a bit a ways down south, spending a lot of money renting earthmovers and doing a terrible job of being sneaky about it. Apparently they're building a bunker. Fun thing is, he's not the only one; if we were to hand over two big Nicks to Vincenzo, we'd... well, not so much make a profit, but get them back in the next budget cycle. And we'd get good deals on construction crews for, you know, after hours things, should they become necessary. And it'd actually start making us some dough if we kept it up across multiple trimesters, I reckon."

Another cough. "Of course, all in the service of the good cause, all above board, we'd just put a construction company on retainer, you know what I mean."

# Sounds like a good idea. (-2 budget this trimester, secure availability of a goon squad, +2 budget net trimester, possible net gains if you keep doing this)

# No thanks, but we'll keep it in mind. (No change)

# I was testing your loyalty to the Global Community, and you failed. Please wait for the cops. (Increase subpotentate favor)

>>3584613
># Sounds like a good idea. (-2 budget this trimester, secure availability of a goon squad, +2 budget net trimester, possible net gains if you keep doing this)

Its good to start building our connects early.

Hm. Bunkers could be interesting. Not entirely sure what we'd use them for YET, but possibly secure secondary comm sites.

If we're gonna be neighbours with the mob we should probably be good neighbours.

># Sounds like a good idea. (-2 budget this trimester, secure availability of a goon squad, +2 budget net trimester, possible net gains if you keep doing this)

theres all sorts of fun things you can do with a goon squad wielding construction equipment.

>>3584613
># Sounds like a good idea. (-2 budget this trimester, secure availability of a goon squad, +2 budget net trimester, possible net gains if you keep doing this)

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>>3584682
>>3584687
>>3584726
>>3584731


You write a note to the guy, and he runs off. A goon squad can't really be deployed out there in the wider world, but it's good to have local muscle with plausible deniability, in case someone does something stupid in your neighborhood. Later on in the day, you're told that you have secured the services of the Ghilotti Brothers for any sort of nonurgent or very urgent construction or demolition work you may need done in the city. They've been fairly busy trying to get reclamation contracts after all the airliner crashes, and the cash infusion will help them greatly in competing with bigger, less agile outfits, so they are quite grateful.

The next person requesting your attention is

# your satellite expert, William Kerman. You've got to decide who and what to work with.

# David Hassid, your internet guy. He's been given some instructions from the big boss, which is somewhat unusual since Carpathia so far has been keen on the chain of command, and wants to know your take on it.

# a disaster preparedness expert from San Francisco with some warnings.

# Some Canadian weirdo from London, ON that has been calling at all hours raving about apocalyptic predictions.

# The logistics coordinator, who'll probably need a general direction on managing travel and transport of goods.

# Your personnel manager, wanting to know where you want the work crews (Starts the turn-based-strategy proper and ends the prologue with current direction).

>>3584744
># Carpathia wants satellites and he wants them now. Let's see what Bill has to say, if he can get words out through that ridiculous over-the-top grin.

# your satellite expert, William Kerman. You've got to decide who and what to work with.

Agreed
># William Kerman.
let's see what our resources are.

>>3584744
># your satellite expert, William Kerman. You've got to decide who and what to work with.

>>3584744
># your satellite expert, William Kerman. You've got to decide who and what to work with.

Eyes in the sky boys

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>>3584747
>>3584752
>>3584753
>>3584762
>>3584765

"Ah, yes yes yes, hello, boss! So I've got some possible strategies...."

Five seconds later the boardroom table is covered in blueprints, diagrams, and one crayon drawing that features your satellite expert in a spacesuit and, for some reason, with green skin. The last one has been laminated and flopped out of a folder where it was by itself; it's probably one of the last things Bill's kid drew before disappearing. He apologizes and puts it away.

Fortunately for you, you had no immediate family that disappeared; the mood in the room becomes somber for a few seconds and then, to your consternation, goes back to where it was almost as soon as Bill puts the drawing away.

"Basically, we can go with the known quantity - EchoStar satellites in a geostationary orbit. These will do an excellent job covering our broadcast needs, especially if we find the money for subsidized receivers. These have been around for ten to fifteen years and the technology is pretty mature. Definitely the safest option for us. And... well, what with spy satellites being decommissioned as part of the Peace Initiative, should we want camera on them, there should be room for it. Since the tech's already there and we already have a lot of friends in the formerly American telecom industry thanks to your choices, we should expect to spend very little on R&D."

"Lately there's been a lot of buzz about microsatellites. These are very cheap to launch, since we can get several up on one rocket, but we'll have to keep launching them since they're designed for low orbit. However it should eventually be possible to use them with radio-modems! Imagine that, everyone online anywhere. Can't put cameras on them yet, but any data that goes through, we'd be able to monitor it. We'd have to pretty much jump start the industry, though - lots of R&D spending."

"Finally there's the deep space network option. A handful of big sats made out of repurposed Russian space satellites, in a supra-geostationary orbit. The good thing is that they should pretty much be fire and forget, and short of the moon deciding to jump orbits, they'll stay there for a thousand years. The bad thing is that they're not very good: high latency, we'll never get a good picture, and you can forget about using them for any realtime two-ways. The.... interesting... thing is that it's Soviet tech: I honestly have no idea what snooping capability it has, we haven't finished translating the blueprints yet, but it will definitely have some. We will have to do some research on this."

# Stick with the tried and true.

# Start a microsatellite research program.

# Go with the high-reliability deep space option.

# Is that a fourth option you haven't told me about, Bill?

>>3584793
># Is that a fourth option you haven't told me about, Bill?

If not then
># Stick with the tried and true.

>>3584793
#Can we make the deep-space stuff talk to the tried-and-true as a high-reliability redundancy channel for extra backbone?

>>3584793
># fourth option cough it up kerman

I'd probably go with the tried and true satellites if we cant do something fun with missiles.

>>3584793
"Lately there's been a lot of buzz about microsatellites. These are very cheap to launch, since we can get several up on one rocket, but we'll have to keep launching them since they're designed for low orbit. However it should eventually be possible to use them with radio-modems! Imagine that, everyone online anywhere. Can't put cameras on them yet, but any data that goes through, we'd be able to monitor it. We'd have to pretty much jump start the industry, though - lots of R&D spending."

Global Overseer incoming

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>>3584802
>>3584796
>>3584807


"Ah, funny you should mention that, Boss. That's sort of my pet project..."

What the balls is that?

"Well, that's just it. Highly reflective aluminum-foil balloons, inflated with argon. Cheap, simple, what isn't there can't break. If we put them in an intermediate orbit, they'll act as a low bandwidth backup for any of the other choices. I'd need a bit of extra money to resurrect the tech, though, it's nineteen-sixties stuff at its core, and then since it's all passive reflection we'd need some decent antennas on the ground. The bad thing is that everyone can use it whether we want them to or not. The good thing is that, well, it just reflects radio waves, it's intrinsically unjammable."

# A backup option sounds good, especially one that can't be jammed. (-1 budget immediately, which Bill will pocket. You have 18 left for this trimester.)

# Let's stick to doing one thing well, no thanks. (No change)

# We can't allow subversives to have satellite access, no thanks. (No change)

Using old Soviet space capsules seems like a bad idea, so you figure you'll go with

# standard comm sats, possibly with cameras. Known-good option.

# microsats, possibly with dataloggers. Riskier, but will afford more flexibility later, if it works.

"A nice thing about microsats is that you'll get to set the standard, it's all small companies doing it, so you can call the shots. On the converse, the nice thing, I guess, about going with what's already out there is that we'll have to do less work on that front.

Bill is obviously nervous from the way he's glancing around in all directions.

>>3584832
># A backup option sounds good, especially one that can't be jammed. (-1 budget immediately, which Bill will pocket. You have 18 left for this trimester.)
and
# standard comm sats, possibly with cameras. Known-good option.

>>3584832
># We can't allow subversives to have satellite access, no thanks. (No change)
># microsats, possibly with dataloggers. Riskier, but will afford more flexibility later, if it works.

>>3584856
Remember our long term goal is to stop the apocalypse. that means we want to have options to fuck over the antichrist.

>>3584870
>>3584856
>>3584840

(I do need a tiebreaker on this one...)

The fancy LCD television in a corner of the conference room is showing GNN, with a bit of reporting. Now that Switzerland has signed onto the Global Community, the only holdout is Israel. For some reason, that country has decided against licensing the new kind of fertilizer invented by the reclusive botanist Chaim Rozenweig, and has refactored its economy around agricultural exports while otherwise maintaining its isolationist policy. Reports of an abortive attack by Russian airborne and Ethiopian pirates in order to secure the formula last year were quickly eclipsed by the Event. Quantum chemist Ignatio Mobius has recently gone into seclusion after claiming that to have reverse-engineered the fertilizer and having found out that it will cause a dust bowl after a few years of bumper crops, since it works by leeching minerals off the soil. The automated subtitles aren't very good: according to them, Mobius claims that "Steven Magnet" is tying to silence him. The newsanchor notes that Mobius has been known for making outlandish claims before and that Potentate Carpathia will fly to Israel in the next few days to try to work out a deal, the centerpiece of which is offering perpetual peace to the embattled country due to his denuclearization initiative. The next piece is about youth culture, and titled "Party like it's 1999?"

>>3584840
This, we need a reliable option first, no harm in also getting alternatives

>>3584916
>>3584856
>>3584840

You see Bill's eyes light up - he's likely going to put a lot of passion into this project. The sizeable check you just signed probably helped, too.

# Go with microsatellites.

# Go with standard sats.

# Let it be for now, and move onto the next strategic decision.

# Ask for information on a topic.

>>3584832
# microsats, possibly with dataloggers. Riskier, but will afford more flexibility later, if it works.

>>3584930

"Yessir! We've got a lot of Soviet Kuznetsov NK-33 engines from the 1960s and early 1970s sitting around. They'll make for great first stages for microsatellite clusters! We can use the Aerojet avionics, modify the engines for gimballing... bet we can get 3200 kilonewtons out of these babies! Plenty to launch a microsat constellation each!"

Er, that's nice, Bill. Can you wait until you leave the room to do thrust calculations? You're writing on other people's documents.

The aerospace engineer does a perfect Arnold Rimmer salute and ambles off.

Now it's time to pay attention to

# David Hassid, your internet guy. He's been given some instructions from the big boss, which is somewhat unusual since Carpathia so far has been keen on the chain of command, and wants to know your take on it.

# a disaster preparedness expert from San Francisco with some warnings. She's worried about the latest upsurge in earthquakes.

# The logistics coordinator, who'll probably need a general direction on managing travel and transport of goods.

# Your personnel manager, wanting to know where you want the work crews. Time to begin in earnest! (Starts the turn-based-strategy proper, and ends the prologue with current strategic direction).

>>3584943
># David Hassid, your internet guy. He's been given some instructions from the big boss, which is somewhat unusual since Carpathia so far has been keen on the chain of command, and wants to know your take on it.

Not happy about the micro sat but whats done is done.

>>3584948

"Well..." Hassid fidgets a little. "He said that under no circumstances we are to censor nationalist rebels or Christian Remnant subversives. He wants to, direct quote, "win the debate fairly". He also said that it'll make it easier for his intelligence agency to collect dirt for later use.

# We're focusing on TV first, let's leave it alone since the status quo is already matching what he wants.

# If that's his direct order, so be it.

# I want it in writing that it's his wishes, to cover our asses.

# He doesn't understand new media, it's a bad idea, we should have some sort of control over who sees what.

"The other thing is, there's a request from his personal pilot and his press secretary. They want, and I again quote, laptops that can make video calls from anywhere on Earth. That would require a dedicated satellite link."

# That's wasteful, and these two people aren't supposed to give us orders. They can use regular phones until we upgrade the infrastructure for everyone.

# We'll rig something up, and bug them, just in case.

# We'll rig something up.

Other than that, you're told that roughly one eight of the world's population can get online one way or the other; the three most popular networks are the Internet, which is US-centric, Minitel, which is France-centric, and a homegrown BBS internetwork which is Taiwan-centric.

"Are we leaving that alone, or should we encourage compatibility? I suspect that eventually the Big Boss will want to have a footprint there."

# Not now.

# Everyone should use the system we standardize on.

# Divide and conquer may be better for our purposes.

Interestingly, Mr. Hassid was more interested in getting the two underlings' request through to you than anything else, given his body language.

(OOC note: If you have suspicion that any one named character may be a mole for another faction, say so and I will track said suspicion on the map picture. Other known factions so far include:

* Spy for Dimmsdale.
* Spy for Carpathia.
* Agent for American nationalists opposed to the one-world order.
* Agent for Christian Remnant.

>>3584983
># I want it in writing that it's his wishes, to cover our asses.

># We'll rig something up, and bug them, just in case.
># Divide and conquer may be better for our purposes.

can't let global gov get control to quickly.

>>3585008

Mr. Hassid is clearly flustered, but Carpathia isn't normally the sort of person to throw a tantrum... and if he does, hey, not your problem. As for the "special" laptop, they'll make good test beds.

You figure that leaving Minitel and the like alone is good policy: you'll get to arbitrate later, and for now, they work as they are.

That didn't take long, although you suspect that the internet will become a battleground later. For now, it's time to pay attention to

# a disaster preparedness expert from San Francisco with some warnings. She's worried about the latest upsurge in earthquakes.

# The logistics coordinator, who'll probably need a general direction on managing travel and transport of goods.

>>3585055
># a disaster preparedness expert from San Francisco with some warnings. She's worried about the latest upsurge in earthquakes.

File: depositphotos_164942858-s(...).jpg (131 KB, 1184x1700)

131 KB JPG

>>3585058

"Hello, Foreman! I'm Carla. I have been looking at the Cellular-Solar files, such as they are, and they are the only part of our program that features any sort of disaster preparedness options.... what worries me is that they feature quite a lot of them, has this stuff been written by a, how do you say, "prepper" type person? Either way, you should know that there has been an uptick in deep-crust movement since the Event. We suspect a correlation, although we cannot verify it. Since we'll be broadcasting globally pretty soon, would you consider my proposal for some public service announcements?"

# The PSAs will focus on desenranscanco, teaching people how to improvise.

# The PSAs will focus on order and discipline in order to make the first responders' job easier.

# This is outside your portfolio; if you are told to run PSAs, you will.

"As for what we are doing right here and right now, well... not much, to be honest. A bit of seed money to ingrain disaster preparedness into our projects might be a good idea."

# That's sensible. -2 budget.

# The bare minimum you recommend. -1 budget.

# We'll get emergency funding if we need it. No change.

"As an aside, would you consider setting up an office in San Francisco? It'll make it easier to keep an eye on all the internet startups over there."

# Yes. Of course it will need to be staffed. (Start with 1 work crew)

# There's no need for that. (Start with 2 work crews)

# I have a better idea, let's recruit some tech-savvy kids from that area. (-1 budget, start with 3 work crews).

Before your logistics person can come to you to end the meeting, the phone rings. You pick it up. It's someone named Chloe, who claims to have had the wrong number. You don't hear a click at the other end, thogh.

# Trace the call.

# Ignore and proceed with the logistician.

(Almost done with the setup!)

>>3585073
># The PSAs will focus on desenranscanco, teaching people how to improvise.

># The bare minimum you recommend. -1 budget.

># I have a better idea, let's recruit some tech-savvy kids from that area. (-1 budget, start with 3 work crews).

># Trace the call.

>>3585073
>>>3585078
Votes seconded.

>>3585078
>>3585073
Thirded!

I'm here to roll nat 1's in the final battle!

>>3585129
Don't you dare call that down on us

>>3585078
Fourth'd

>>3585078
fifth'd

(Sorry, fell asleep!)

>>3585282
>>3585237
>>3585141
>>3585129
>>3585083
>>3585078

(Your budget is now 16)

Carla is surprised to be asked to send you a bunch of resumes, but appreciates the trust.

You pick up the phone; as you suspected, there's no dial tone - an old trick, only possible because Chicago's landlines still work with mechanical switching. If someone is trying to listen in. they are being professional about it, and not breathing into the mic.

# Pretend to have a juicy conversation with a random underling to feed misinformation. (Pick a topic).

# Get a technical team to amplify the signal on the other end so that YOU can listen in on THEM.

# Fake a conversation relating to a regular business and just trace the call, this will hopefully make it so your would-be eavesdropper thinks they got the wrong number.

Tracing the call isn't hard: you effectively ARE the phone company, so it's just a matter of sending a request out. In seconds, you learn that the call is coming from a house in Mount Prospect, close by, which is why the old "don't hang up to keep the circuit tied" trick works at all.

>>3585282
>>3585237
>>3585141
>>3585129
>1
>>3585083

(Welcome! This is still the setup thread; the strategy proper starts as soon as it's finished. Let's see what the dice rolls do this time around....)

>>3585078


Desenrascanço (loosely translatable as "disentanglement") is a Portuguese word used, in common language, to express an ability to solve a problem without having the knowledge or the adequate tools to do so, by use of imaginative resources or by applying knowledge to new situations. Achieved when resulting in a hypothetical good-enough solution. When that good solution doesn't occur we got a failure (enrascanço - entanglement). It is taught, more or less, informally in some Portuguese institutions, such as universities, navy or army. Portuguese people, strongly believe it to be one of the their most valued virtues and a living part of their culture. Desenrascanço, in fact, is the opposite of planning, but managing for the problem not becoming completely out of control and without solution.

"It doesn't make us look very good if we recommend that people just McGyver stuff in an emergency."

"It's realistic, though. You know, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away!"

"We're supposed to foster trust in the government."

"We're supposed to make sure people watch TV, let's give them something good while we are at it."

A call to some TV executives later, you use

# a bit of your budget (-2, you have 16)

# a bit of your influence (No budget change; subpotentate relations worsen by1)

to make sure that among the TV programs that are cheap or free to license globally are, among others, McGyver reruns, highlights about how to live off the grid, and this one show made by special effects people who feel they will soon be replaced by CGI, that focuses on using practical effects to prove or bust urban myths. Given that after the disappearance people burst into tears whenever Mr Rogers or Sesame Street is on the air, there's plenty of room in the morning lineup.

The last person you need to talk to today before ostensibly starting real work is your logistics expert, a heavyset man sent to you from the FedUps conglomerate. He's wearing a headset

# which you make him take off.

# which can stay.

>>3585407
># Get a technical team to amplify the signal on the other end so that YOU can listen in on THEM.

>>3585423
># a bit of your budget (-2, you have 16)
># which can stay.

> # A bit of our budget. - Let's spend some money on this. I don't really want to kick our rep at all this early.

> # Hey dude, can you hold that call? If it's urgent let's meet in 30.

>>3585589
>>3585592

You've signed a lot of checks today, but you figure that an early investment will pay off. Encouraging self-reliance is likely to embolden nationalists at first, and you are warned about it, but you counter that it will get people to at least understand that they have to hold on until first responders show up. Clara thanks you.

# What to do with the would-be snooper, if anything? Try to listen in on them instead, let them think they got the wrong number by discussing unrelated business, or feed them misinformation. If you are bold, you can try to talk to them....

File: Global_Community_Map_turn1a.png (95 KB, 1600x937)

95 KB PNG

Looks like this is the starting situation for the next thread when the strat game starts.

>>3585423
># a bit of your budget (-2, you have 16)

> # which can stay.

Can we STINGER the transmissions and listen in?

>>3585603
> feed them misinformation.

Always the best choice, since that way we can see if they fall for it. If they don't, that means they have ears elsewhere.

Can we mention moving some contraband that would be valuable regardless of who is listening in, make it sound like a low security high risk operation and then see who goes for it?

>>3585944

You certainly can!

>>3585938

Yes, you can have a repair team bring up an amplifier and listen in.

You can only do one or the other, though!

I like the idea of

> # Feed them misinformation.

In the "make it look like we're doing something poorly secured and illegal" and they look like idiots.

>>3586129
>>3585944

You write a note on a whiteboard explaining what's going on to the other people in the boardroom, and your underlings quickly put on their best fake Sicilian accents, discussing a delivery of

# weapons, to entice nationalist holdouts

# religious literature, to entice Christian Remnant

# drugs, to entice "regular" organized criminals

at your warehouse to happen overnight. Fortunately, you have an actual goon squad that you can deploy if the job is local, and it is, so let's see if you can entrap someone!

# Use the goon squad. People will probably get hurt but you have a chance at a live capture.

# Just make sure the cameras are on so that you can identify some opposing players. They'll think they missed a bust, and you'll know who they are.

# Use the goon squad, AND go with them! You have a handgun and a CCW, as befits a Global Community cabinet level dignitary... although apparently you don't rate a bodyguard unless you hire one yourself.

>>3586145
># weapons, to entice nationalist holdouts
># Just make sure the cameras are on so that you can identify some opposing players. They'll think they missed a bust, and you'll know who they are.

File: church-and-weaponsjpg.jpg (90 KB, 600x432)

90 KB JPG

>>3586145
> # weapons, to entice nationalist holdouts

Say that we're going to try getting them blessed with a captured fallen Priest who's repented, to draw out the Christian Remnant as well!

># Just make sure the cameras are on so that you can identify some opposing players. They'll think they missed a bust, and you'll know who they are.

>>3586387
do keep in mind we are trying to covertly lay the groundwork to overthrow the antichrist and prevent the apocalypse

>>3586186
>>3586387

Your people find it encouraging that you're going to set up a stakeout using cameras and proximity sensors - you're not willing to put people in danger.

Since the American heartland under Mr. Dimmsdale is quite permissive on issues like concealed carry (Carpathia is not pushing the issue, for now) your guys make up a delivery of mortars and bazookas, with the hope that whoever's listening will want to intercept it.

For now, the only person you have to talk to is your logistician, who seems to be taking instructions from his headset when you ask him questions.

You already have disaster preparedness plans in place, but you don't want to depend on commercial carriers, so you tell him to focus his fleet-building efforts on

# efficient movement of personnel, largely by air.

# efficient movement of equipment by land and sea.

# making sure that said commercial carriers remain dependable by giving them privileged access to the new network (-2 budget, reliability bonus later on)

# building a coordinated middle-of-the-road effort.

Looks like your logistics guy is a rail fan, from all the various pictures of trains in his folders. He's also obviously not very happy about the prospect of talking to a human being, by his body language.

# What's with the headset?

# He's not having problems talking to you, so let him live about it.

>>3586433

# efficient movement of equipment by land and sea.

At some point we're going to need to put a secret project in the Holy Land or something. Let's make sure we have the means.

Or similarly:

# building a coordinated middle-of-the-road effort.

Also.

# What's with the headset? If you're on a call let's sync up later.

Rolled 71 (1d100)

>>3586475

test

Rolled 68 (1d100)

>>3586433
> You already have disaster preparedness plans in place, but you don't want to depend on commercial carriers, so you tell him to focus his fleet-building efforts on

# making sure that said commercial carriers remain dependable by giving them privileged access to the new network (-2 budget, reliability bonus later on)

# efficient movement of personnel, largely by air.

Middle of the road, making sure we can transport SF and black-ops quickly by air while making commercial carriers safe long term. Mobility is king of the battlefield, it's worth the money.

> Looks like your logistics guy is a rail fan, from all the various pictures of trains in his folders. He's also obviously not very happy about the prospect of talking to a human being, by his body language.

> # What's with the headset?

Ask him to outline what he views as an efficient and effective communication system that you can fit to your operational needs.

>>3586509
>>3586475

(Sounds like you want to do middle of the road)

"Oh, this? I'm just talking to the guys in the basement all the time. That way if I need information, they can look it up in the database and quickly tell me it. We call it the Nomenklator system, because Kay is a classical-lit nerd. We'd like to automate this some day, but that's not really a priority, I suppose...

# You want one, possibly one that can be hidden under hair or inside the ears. Looks like you're cutting another check before the stakeout this evening.

# Interesting, you're welcome to keep using it if it makes your job easier.

# I see, but I don't want others to wear a wire when they talk to me, take it off from now on.

>>3586535
># You want one, possibly one that can be hidden under hair or inside the ears. Looks like you're cutting another check before the stakeout this evening.

There will always be hidden listeners
to every conversation, some should be ours.

>>3586535
> # You want one, possibly one that can be hidden under hair or inside the ears. Looks like you're cutting another check before the stakeout this evening.

What's the security risk on that?

>>3586535
># You want one, possibly one that can be hidden under hair or inside the ears. Looks like you're cutting another check before the stakeout this evening.

>>3586567
>>3586546
>>3586684

"Well, the security risk is that until we get some decent crypto going, it'll be interceptable. There was some TV preacher about ten years back who used something like this to pretend he had telepathy powers, and then that old magician guy who looks like Santy Claus busted him... I wonder if he got raptured. Doubt it though. Anyway, just... you can use this to show off, but only up to a point. Also, you're my boss and wanted one when you saw it, won't YOUR boss do the same? Except then we'll have to do maintenance on it."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Popoff#Investigation_by_James_Randi

# Still worth it. Here's a bag of Nicks, guy! Hook me up with an expert system on call.

# Yeah, let's hold off.

Most everyone got their marching orders. (Confirm middle of the road strategy for logistics, btw?)

# We're done with the prologue!

# Wait, one more thing....

>>3586707
Time to learn Archi language, I guess. Or can we make code-words based on blasphemy to prevent Babel language hacking? Or end to end crypto translation so that all that gets transmitted is encrypted into a digital key?

> # Still worth it. Here's a bag of Nicks, guy! Hook me up with an expert system on call.

We'll just accept that it's not secure for now and work on crypto.

> Also, you're my boss and wanted one when you saw it, won't YOUR boss do the same? Except then we'll have to do maintenance on it."

Not if we don't let him see it.

> # We're done with the prologue!


> (Confirm middle of the road strategy for logistics, btw?)

Is that blanket middle of the road, or rapid reaction forces + investment in commercial carriers? Because I would love to do ALL THE THINGS but money.

But force projection.

>>3586724

Your choices for a logistics strategy are:

# Focus on rapid movement of personnel. (large bonus for air travel)

# Focus on rapid movement of equipment. (large bonus for land/sea travel)

# Focus on neither (no bonus or penalties)

# Spend another two bags of Nicks, and discreetly buy stakes in commercial carriers: focus on neither, get a small bonus on both.

>>3586724
>>3586684
>>3586567

The logistician makes a series of odd expressions, and you think you can almost hear "Woo! We got funded!" from his earpiece. Once your earpiece is ready, you'll be able to get additional information on just about any situation if you briefly describe it. (Effectively, being as this is 1998, you're one of the five people on Earth who have Siri or similar).

"We'll need extra effort if we want to expand the system, of course..."

You warn the guy to not push his luck, to which he also does an Arnold Rimmer salute and answers with a crisp yessir. Is that something the basement guys have standardized on? Uniforms and the like may be something to look into one day...

# Done with the intro!

# Let's zoom in on the automated stakeout, first.

>>3586753
> # Done with the intro!

Oh god what a smeghead.

>>3586802
>>3586753
Wait no stakeout first. And

> # Spend another two bags of Nicks, and discreetly buy stakes in commercial carriers:

Sorry I been drinking synthol condensed out of the fusion drive.

Rolled 34 (1d100)

>>3586809

(So that's one BN for the Nomenklator and two for the buyout?)

>>3584110
>Left Beyond is back
Niiiiice

>>3586753
> # Spend another two bags of Nicks, and discreetly buy stakes in commercial carriers:

>>3586821
Yessiree

Rolled 63 (1d100)

>>3586821

YOUR ORLLS AINT' SHIT

File: latest[1].jpg (41 KB, 600x450)

41 KB JPG

>>3586935
>>3586942
>>3586809

You'll have to tighten your belt a little bit for the first trimester, but you hope that your strategy of spending money strategically will pay off in the long run. Everyone's got their initial marching orders! A few minutes later, one of the sysadmins downstairs brings in a copy of the headset you just saw. "We need a sample of your hair to provide one that can be hidden above the ear, it'll be ready in a couple of days."

# Are you guys making a voodoo doll?

# Sure, here you go.

That evening, it's stakeout time, finally! You have a small bedroom adjacent to your office, with a few monitors that can get security footage piped in from your warehouse, lab, and training center (Your HQ, happily, looks suitably anonymous).

You wait... and wait... and wait. Nothing.

Oh wait, someone's coming in!

It's... a cop? Looks like it; the Chicago cop uniform has been hastily refurbished with Global Community headbands. The lone officer parks his cruiser over a low section of fence, pulls out a gun, and starts snooping around - he's not very good at it. Eventually, he comes to the guard station, and orders the security guy to get out of the little cabin, then starts interrogating him.

Listening in, you discover the cop's name is Kruno Fulcire, and he sounds like the typical fourth-generation Italian-American who'd get his ass kicked if he were to interact with actual Italian people in the old country. He's basically interrogating your security guy, and lets it slip that he got an anonymous tip from a concerned citizen about an attempt to smuggle in bazookas across Lake Michigan.

# Let the guy give a hard time to your security person, he'll live.

Interrupt, using the audiovisual link, and act...

# concerned. Illegal weapons? In your facility? Inconceivable!

# angry. Who does this martinet think he is? Time to pull rank on him, you ARE a cabinet level officer after all.

# sleepy, pretending he woke you up.

Rolled 78 (1d100)

>>3586972
> # Are you guys making a voodoo doll?

They have to tell us if they're practicing witchcraft. Because if so we want in.

> Interrupt, using the audiovisual link, and act...

# sleepy, pretending he woke you up.

Pull the cop in, rope him in to our conspiracy. Also pull the records to see if/who contacted him with classified information.

Go full bad cop on him, accuse him of being a collaborator and a spy and a Christian trying to doom the world. Tell him that we can make him disappear, make his family disappear, so he better tell us who he's working for! Now!

I gotta head out so no more terrible write ons and rants but I'm glad you're back.

>>3586993

(Thanks for coming!)

(can I get a second on what to do with Mr Fulcire?)

"Er, no, it's just so we can match your hair color with the headpiece. WItchcraft... uh.... I... No sir! Maybe Stefi but... er.... I can ask? No sir, no witchcraft here, we're just electrical engineers."

> # You want one, possibly one that can be hidden under hair or inside the ears. Looks like you're cutting another check before the stakeout this evening.

I assume this will open up another tech tree at some point, so its probably worth looking in too.

>>3587164
ignore me forgot to refresh my page.

>>3587168

(No worries! What do you propse to do with Mr. Fulcire? I'm hoping to wrap up the intro thread)

>>3586993
Support

>>3586993
>>3587252

The cop listens to your tirade, and clearly looks scared. He loudly pronounces his loyalty to the Potentate, and says that of course he's going to follow a lead if it looks promising!

"So that's how it's going to be, is it? I promise you sir, this isn't the last time you hear of me! I'll make something of myself and then you'll be sorry for accusing me!"

... Your security guy gets a bit of satisfaction from telling a "real" cop to buzz off after that outburst, and Kruno Fulcire does so.

The Nomenklator system got its first test: you immediately learn that Fulcire did indeed get an anonymous tip, and that it came from a local call. Whoever you baited into thinking there'd be an arms shipment must have balked and called the regular cops... guess things are getting back to normal after the Event.

Gotta wonder how long THAT will last...

(And this was it for the intro thread! Next we start the proper strategy stuff. You've spent quite a bit of your initial budget, but most of that is likely to pay off! Any OOC questions or complaints? I'll make a new thread for ease of archiving, probably tomorrow)

>>3587285
Only issue i had was that we had all these opportunities to spend without knowing how much we should save or what our other options are. So we could have potentially ruined oursleves without knowing.

Otherwise im loving this quest loving that you are back ans i hope we get a better roll in the finals this time. Even dispite the 1 i liked it.

>>3587303

You started with 20 bags of Nicks; so far you have 11 left. Your budget, as far as you know, is 18 every trimester.

Carpathia decides your budget: the subpotentate of the region your HQ is in can make your life a bit easier or a bit (a lot?) harder by clearing or introducing red tape for you, but has no say in how much money you get.

You are the Foreman of the Custodial Arrangement of Telecommunication Systems, tasked by global Potentate Nicolae Carpathia to maintain and improve telecom infrastructure across the Global Community.

You have enlisted the direct help of the best engineers, logisticians and managers that the end of the second millennium has to offer, and handle their actions directly on a month by month basis. Your underlings do most of the detail work and let you know who to assign, and how many workgroups to assign, to a job for it to be completed with certainty (barring obstacles or foreign intervention, which is always a possibility). Undermanning a job gives it a chance of failure. For example, a complexity 3 job can be assigned two workgroups for a 66.6% chance of success.

As you proceed, you will identify some exceptional individuals, who may be assigned to an operation to improve its chance.

Each agent or workgroup will require money and resources to deploy.

Actions are listed by complexity. Each crew costs 1 bag of Nicks to deploy for incidental expenses, subcontractors and so on. Additional costs will be marked as needed.

Thanks to your youthful energy, you can deploy yourself on TWO actions in most cases. You can even risk your own life on a covert action, if you so choose!

Performing an action outside of your home territory will also require the availability of some fleet assets, OR increase complexity by the missing assets. For construction, you need as many fleet assets as the complexity of the action. For covert actions, you generally only need one fleet asset. And so on.

Rules for allocating personnel and assets: http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.Quest2Rules.html


SAMPLE BELOW


C0:

Survey a territory for opportunity using a trusted agent.

Buy equipment on the open market:
Power generation 1
Small arms 1
Network equipment 2
Fleet assets 2
Aerospace part 3

C1:

Survey a territory for opportunity using a work or covert team.

Build network equipment.

Install a Cellular-Solar pylon. (+1 cellular or internet at your preference).

C2:

Do research (1~3).

Build an aerospace part.

Build a secondary base.

C3:

Recruit a work team.

Prepare a satellite launch, which will happen next month. Requires an aerospace part.

Do research (4~6).

C4:

Recruit a covert team. Requires small arms to equip them with.

Do research (7~9).
Construct a network node (Secondary base: unifies cell and net in the region) (Not researched yet).

C5:

Rush a satellite launch, which will happen at the end of this month. Requires an aerospace part.

Do research (10).

Any rumor to the fact that Carpathia is the Antichrist and the world will end in 7 years (84 months) is clearly seditious and should be disregarded.

(I think that was it for the intro! We are now ready to begin the strategy game. Note that since the Foreman is flesh and blood, he can deploy himself. At this time, he has no trusted Agents yet, so he may have to. Don't get shot!)

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>>3587365

This is the initial status of things, as far as you reckon.

>>3587285
I like this cop. He has the balls to stand up to authority and start digging.

We should toss some leads his way towards people we're suspicious of. Give him some rope and see where he goes. Then when he gets in too deep we can recruit him and bam! Mole inside the police department.

>>3587503
He may be a useful contact in time.

>>3587506
Imma cal him Roy.

I know he has a name of Kruno Fulcire but Roy is way easier to remember.

Roy Rogers.

Like the drink.

>>3587506
>>3587595
It's a name with a moustache.

>>3587365
So that would be 18 every 4 turns?

I vote
> 2 on recruiting a work team
>1 on install a cellular solar pylon in mexio so it looks like we are getting work done

We need to spam work teams guys the more we have the more we can do.

>>3587817
This

I CANT BELIEVE ITS FUCKING BACK!

>>3587983
>>3587817
>>3587597
>>3587506

Welcome back!

This was the intro thread: the next thread is at

>>3587990

mostly so suptg archives properly.

(Also, I got the dates slightly wrong internally, so the Rapture happened in 1996, not in 1998. The game starts in 1998.)