>>3650637
> 3 teams research expert system with aki
> 3 teams prepare to launch 1 sattalites with ryan preparing the initiative to double our coverage across the earth and trick our boss into thinking we launched more
>5 teams. Recruiting 2 work teams with us
> 3 covert teams working jobs with Moira
> visit India is if anything cool is there.

>>3650660

(I forgot to update the funds.... funds are at 9 not 19. My apologies)

>>3650660

We have too many people and not enough money. We need to buy supplies. If SHTF as everything suggests, once we secure our own people, they will increase in value and we can use them to trade. Too bad that we can't sell aerospace stuff.

I don't know if the QM gave us the actual timeline since it says "we may be off by 8 weeks" meaning 2 turns, but let's look at

Tentative timeline: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BlMOSEOxSihj1gdagq7yxCjONaRBgcdlRxnc68uWf0A


Tribulation begins 0
WE ARE HERE 14 We added this line.

Tribulation Temple erected 16 Does the crap below this still happen if we blow it up? - Moira
Seal Judgment #2 - World War III 18 Who are the Peacekeepers even going to go to war against? Barnes guesses USA, Egypt, England. Supposed mass deployment of nuclear weapons that are no longer there and wouldn't work even if they were.

Seal Judgment #3 19 Economic sanctions are supposed to cause a plague that would be literally worse than anything that ever came about from a disease, in all of history.
Seal Judgment #4 20 Supposedly, the devil will attack nonbelievers. Yes, it doesn't make any sense to us either.


That means we have 4 months maybe 2 until everything starts blowing up. The problem isn't the nuclear war thing since there are no nukes anymore, it's that after this Carpatescu is going to grip the idiot ball tight and not let it go.

I propose

> 2 teams research expert system with aki
> 2 teams prepare to launch 1 sattalites with ryan
> 2 teams. Recruiting 1 work teams with us using the nomenklator since it's a safe job
> 3 team research preparedness with robertson we will need it
> 1 team build pylons somewhere useful like babylon or US to keep bosses happy or russia to make friends with russian guy
> 3 covert teams working jobs with Moira works for me we just need to make 1 cash if we have any extra cash at the end buy supplies
> visit India is if anything cool is there works for me

>>3650804
Spend the last Bn and take us and 1 covert team to visit Cuba for planes.

Maybe we can buy missiles too.

>>3650841

about time we go on a covert op ourselves. how about this:


> 2 teams research expert system with aki
> 2 teams prepare to launch 1 sattalites with ryan
> 2 teams. Recruiting 1 work teams with us using the nomenklator since it's a safe job
> 3 team research preparedness with robertson we will need it
> 1 team build pylons somewhere useful like babylon or US to keep bosses happy or russia to make friends with russian guy
> 2 covert teams working jobs with Moira works for me we just need to make 1 cash if we have any extra cash at the end buy supplies
> 1 covert team with us go to cuba and steal some airplanes

>>3650804
we are overspending by 1 here

I think we should launch the lantern Initiative this turn along with the email, the boss will be very happy with us and probably give an increase in budget.

In order for us to stay under budge, we probably should not recruit this turn. >>3650660
This i believe is over budget by 2

>>3650864
>>3650864
we have 9 bn for expenditures, you want to overspend by 2 bn here.

I say we drop recruitment this turn and put 1 team on satellite launch, maybe rush it for this month and add two or just risk it as is.

and if we have cash left over we put the other team or some research. Let one team rest or move supplies around or something.

>>3650870

yes we are overspending which is why we have to take at least 1 paying job with Moira. if both jobs pay up, we use the extra BN to buy supplies.

>>3650876
If that somehow works then sure, do it.

>>3650864
Supported. Just to get things moving.

Guys. I can't believe your too stupid to read, but, YOUR UNDERSPENDING OUR WORK TEAMS AGAIN! Ballance the dang team cost!

>>3650660
>>3650804
My plan will still work as long as covert makes 2 cash. Nect turn we can then 6 teams making nomenclatures the rest doing work and the 3 coverts do covert

>>3650929
>UNDERSPENDING
How? We have 9 in cash, and supposedly we can earn money in the same round we deploy our guns for hire.
even tho I think qm said that it comes in next month.

Rolled 21, 85, 99, 93, 20, 65, 32 = 415 (7d100)

>>3650952

This one works if the covert team take home 2 cash, yes.

>>3650864

This one likewise works if the covert team takes home 2 cash.

>>3650929

In general 1 team deployment = 1 BN cost. I'm allowing the covert teams to bring home the bacon in the same month for simplicity's sake and because things like mercenary contracts tend to be paid either in advance or at delivery.

If you underman an effort, you also spend less (the catch is, of course, that you may waste time and money).

It hasn't happened yet, but should you go over budget, either Dimmsdale or Carpatescu would have to cover it, and neither would be very happy.

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>>3650980

Aki Lattinen did say from the start that she does not play well with others, and the sort of stuff you see when you visit your programming team confirms it: people either love her passion for the craft of coding, or hate the fact that she effectively needs a babysitter. "These are not the days of Mel Kaye" one database manager complains "we need a consistent process to deliver consistent results, not someone who has to be talked out of wiring her own brain to the expert system every other morning!"

"If she's doing it every other morning on the dot" you quip "that's a pretty consistent process."

Even with a few bruised egos and an otherwise unexplainable presence of cell phones on tracked chasses wandering your ventilation ducts, he progress is significant: Aki is still wearing her weird "crown" of hers, but now one operator can handle a half dozen Nomenklators. The expert system is tied to a simple three-layer neural net so that it can start learning what the operators do, with the eventual intention of being able to emulate their actions as the users need them. Perhaps most interestingly, a person with two Nomenklator earsets can now be insulated from outside noise to some degree; unfortunately, there's really only one way to test whether it will work against whatever kind of hypnosis Carpatescu uses, and you'd likely have to be the guinea pig. Aki's still wearing that weird "crown" she made for herself, but it's no longer required to obtain the effect; by now the little earbuds are pretty much invisible save for someone looking inside the ear canal. Aki has to, again, be told that she's not allowed to install one inside her skull, since it'd be really difficult to charge it safely.

You direct further development to focus on

# integration of the expert system into your logistics network, to allow it to compensate for interruptions

# further work on noise cancellation and digital signal processing, to provide complete insulation

# making the tech cheaper so that it can be used by multiple work teams.


Ryan Andrews wants to make a big production of the Lantern system, naming it The Planetary Datalinks and doing a TV special about it becoming available.

# Sure.

# No.

You have figured out that the best way to deploy it taking advantage of reconfigurable SDR would be to launch a single satellite and serve the Lantern from there to the ones already in operation. Your aerospace engineers confirm that this will work, but suggest launching the "seed" microsats in a higher orbit than the others, to minimize the need for stationkeeping and increase reliability.

# Good idea (Costs 2 extra aerospace parts)

# No need.

It's been sitting idle for a while, but you finally let your subordinates use the Nomenklator in a squad setting; to minimize the risk of it being revealed to the public out of your control, you give the system to your recruiters. It works incredibly well; your interviewers are able to near-instantly catch people lying on their resume or attempting to cheat, and in a few instances manage to identify a good candidate just by chatting with them at a tech conference or symposium. You're known for running an efficient workplace that pays well and doesn't demand crunch time, which definitely helps matters.

Your new work team is quickly inducted into the organization and should be able to hit the ground running. Happily, one of the new hires is an amateur hypnotist of some skill; you test the Nomenklator in noise-canceling mode, with the operator "reading" back to you what the hypnotist is saying using a TTS keyboard. You can still hear the original voice over the Stephen Hawking impersonation - the good doctor, alas, passed away shortly after the Event, and his will asked that the first drafts of his last book, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, be erased - but the hypnotist notes that you must be one of those people who are hard to hypnotize. Who knows if it'll be sufficient to work with Carpatescu, though...

Dr. Robertson has learned quite a bit about disaster preparedness, although he wasn't out to do so: going between SNO, Effincold and the Atacama Desert has made it a simple necessity of survival, just on safety grounds. Lately, he's been obsessed with redundancy, to the point where almost all instruments in Atacama save for the primary lens array itself are doubled. The team under his supervision note that the diffusion of MP3 players and netbooks with drop-safe hard drives have made accelerometers and other sensors extremely cheap; it is now cost-effective to install inertial measurement units and environmental monitoring units in things like railroad interchanges, water pumps, and natural gas pressure relief tanks. In case of an earthquake or a flash flood, simple electronics will allow a near-instant shutdown of electrical current or gas flow. "We still can't predict an earthquake, and we probably never will, but what we can do is ensure that it's not followed by the fires that historically have done much of the actual damage. Ditto for flash floods: the affected area will lose power, of course, but it will not drag down the surrounding areas due to shorting." Robertson seems distracted, even as he delivers the results. "Well... this is useful, to be sure, but I'm concerned about our Atacama findings." You ask for more information, but he says "I'm still checking the numbers. Extraordinary claims must come with extraordinary proof."

(Where are you constructing an additional Cellular-Solar pylon, if Moira's goons come up with the cash for it?)


Your covert ops teams find that Carpatescu's promises of world peace are starting to come true; the pickings are slim this month.

# Hassan has resurfaced! Your low-level monitoring of Rehoboth's domain indicates that he is being dispatched to South Africa... to aid a cluster of white farmers that have barricaded themselves. Looks like Rehoboth is playing both ends against the middle. Reward: 1BN and a chance to be able to track Hassan.
* Side with the landowners.
* Side with the peasants.

# The OPFOR job against Dimmsdale's Peacekeeper division is still open. Reward: 1BN with the risk of being recognized during future operations in North America.

# Risto Shipping has nothing for you this month, but a rival company wants experienced escorts to complete a delivery of Eden fertilizer ingredients to Botswana.

# A Chinese manufacturing company is hiring people to spy on.... you! This should be amusing. Reward: 2BN for letting them know your current plans, 1BN for giving them accurate but old information.

# A man named Ernesto Sandoval wants to hire a small cargo ship to transport iron ingots between Cuba and Puerto Rico. Given that the Garibaldi is in the region, she can be used for this relatively short trip without jeopardizing her capabilities. However, Sandoval insists that the ship have an armed escort. Reward: 1BN

# Od Gustav is having problems with Northern Italian independentists: they have stolen a ferry, occupied a disused oil rig from the 1960s, renamed it the Republic of the Roses, and started selling stamps and collectible coins. Since using the Peacekeepers for something this small would cause more problems than it would solve, he's asked for outside help - if none is available, he will send carabinieri and hope it's sufficient.
* Side with the irredentists.
* Side with the subpotentate.

(Which team will Moira go with?)

>>3651317
> side with peasants against hassan. Put moira on this one and 2 teams make sure they get a solid beating

> cargo ship of iron

Put it in south america where the observitory is. They can have better internet i guess

(dice roll post mostly)

Tracking update:

* Rebohoth has deployed Hassan again, and you even know where - it's up to you if you want to intercept. He seems to be wanting to play black and white farmers in South Africa against each other.

* Hassan is likely to be vulnerable to tracking if you go against him or even fight alongside him; even if he's smart enough to use burner phones, they can be tracked by simple proximity and a little but of heuristics, which the expert system in your server room can do by now.

* Hattie Durham spent most of the month in New Babylon, but accompanied Carpatescu to Washington D.C. for a brief ceremony with the remnants of the US government. Their pilot was Rayford Steele.

* Bruce Barnes has been talking with David Hassid and one of your procurement specialists, Donny Moore. Looks like Moore made off with the fancy laptops, and Hassid knew about it. Your call on what to do about it; Hassid was installed to his post by Carpatescu, while Moore was hired through the normal process.

As an aside, this month the long-awaited Star Wars prequel came out. It was an unabashed flop, largely due to the uncanny-valley CGI kid that's supposed to grow up into Darth Vader. Reviews note that "the bipedal frog he made friends with looked more realistic" and George Lucas indicates that he is going to put further prequels on hold, and focus on the possibility of making a Thrawn Trilogy series instead.

Rolled 22, 48, 15 = 85 (3d100)

>>3651359

(ok why can't I into dice anymore for some reason?)

>>3651364
Bad dice try again

>>3651157
# Sure.
Fine but we get to be there and take half credit or something, being the tech guy that explains some of the details.

# Good idea (Costs 2 extra aerospace parts)

* Side with the landowners.
Angry Peasants make Hassan depressed and dies with two shotgun hits to the back of the head while slipping in a mobile field shower that drives off the cliff. Accidentally..... And spontaneously combusts.

What if we made everyone wear masks or balaclavas during the opfor the entire time?


# A Chinese manufacturing company is hiring people to spy on.... you! This should be amusing. Reward: 2BN for letting them know your current plans, 1BN for giving them accurate but old information.
HAHAHA, lets troll them! But maybe do this next month

We do the escort mission, moira goes to africa, again.

>>3651359
Yeah, Investigate david a little more and then confront him by calling him into our office with a security team present.

Rolled 21, 53, 37 = 111 (3d100)

>>3651370

(lol)


>>3651382

Andrews figures that this is a pretty big event, and takes time this month to arrange his calendar - and help you arrange yours - so that next month, when the launch happens, you'll both be able to presentiate at a formal announcement in New Babylon. Carpatescu catches wind of the preparations - within New Babylon the man might as well be omniscient, although you speculate that he is using informants and not SIGINT because if he was using SIGINT you'd have at least mainteanance access to some of it - and gives his blessing, although he notes that he might or might not make the presentation, and if he doesn't, he'll send a few words by video.

The Lantern microsatellite cluster will deploy in an orbital with a 18 hour period, which isn't used much by any other type of satellite, and live with a bit of extra latency in exchange for being safe from pretty much any sort of space junk for the next five hundred years, give or take. You figure that after that it'll be someone else's problem. The launch will use a Semyorka ICBM stack, rather than an Antares rocket.

>>3651382
>>3651356

The Garibaldi completes the delivery without any issue; before leaving port, Mr. Sandoval handed what looks like a rock with early writings to the XO, supposedly for safekeeping. After carrying nuclear fuel a few times, the XO -- who, he reminds you, would like to look into retirement and asks you to find an official captain for the ship -- has figured that it'd be a good idea to buy a few handheld Geiger counters. He's happy to report that the cargo this time is so non-radioactive that the counters actually click less than they do normally, when scanning it.

The odd news is that after the delivery is complete, Sandoval is found to be missing. The good news is that his former gofer, Tayla, pays you what had been agreed upon. She did not, however, ask for the artifact back.

>>3651382
>>3651356

Moira figures that the smart thing to do is put someone who can speak the local language in charge; fortunately, you have such a person in your squad. Donning the "Tiger Mafia" flag and armbands again, your soldiers take a page from WW2 Russian tank-desant tactics, and let the peasants pile on top of your vehicles for most of the trek to the fortified farm, so as to not tire themselves out.

# Frontal attack. Casualties are likely but it will be unexpected.

# Come in from the bush. Hassan may have predicted this, of course.

# Make the most of your field gun and bombard the farm. Hassan will know it's you, but softening a target up with artillery is never a bad idea

>>3651535
We have 2 teams comon
>one attack from the front distracting them trying not to get to many casualties.
>one attack from the brush once they are distracted.

>>3651556

(So you're aborting scouting Cuba with a covert team in order to acquire some airplanes?)

>>3651565
Where was that voted for? I guess we can just take one if we get airplanes. Sure ill switch to artillery then.

>>3651535
Drop the peasants off in the bush to make the predicable attack, and we push for the frontal after they are distracted. Remember, the main goal is the elimination of Hassan!

I'm tryin to do 3 jobs.... I guess we can hold off on that till next turn.

Also I would like to look for some people out of work like former FBI or CIA type of guy to do counter Int el for us.

And recruit a new Ship captain.

>>3651571
Why can't we drop the peasants off in the bush, and we swing around to hit the front?

>>3651579
>>3651574
There isnt a reason we shouldnt. Thats a good idea lets do this

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>>3651580
>>3651579

The locals don't seem to realize that coming in from the bush is in fact the predictable thing to do, and seem content to let your men go for a frontal assault while they creep through. The drop happens without incident, after which your IFVs drive off to take the road going to the compound.

Five minutes later, the shooting begins: Hassan had in fact deployed sentries facing the bush, and the locals have started taking fire. That's all Moira needs to hear: her preferred approach is going in loud and fast, and that's exactly what she does, with the IFV's turrets firing with little attempt to aim as the vehicles make their way up the road.

For a crucial two minutes, Hassan's forces are confused: they expected to get surrounded by a thin line of infantry and having to hold out by dint of having more ammo and supplies than the besiegers, not a reasonably well-coordinated attack with heavy fire support.

Hassan orders his men on the trucks and retreats; from the cameras on the IFVs you see one of the farmers try to shoot out a tire off the last technical while her comrades scream betrayal.

Your IFVs carry a miniature cell phone tower, to allow using consumer phones as walkie-talkies even if there is no reception and to passively gather data from any phones that the enemy may have left on. Unfortunately, Hassan gave the retreat order too early, and he's out of range.

# Chase Hassan, at least long enough to ensure that you can track him from now on.

# Stay at the farm and make sure that there is no further violence, letting Hassan go.

# Split your forces and try to do both - Moira gives chase.

# Split your forces and try to do both - Moira stays.

>>3651634
# Chase Hassan, at least long enough to ensure that you can track him from now on.
We end it this time, today.

>>3651634
>Chase hassan he is why we are here after all

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>>3651691
>>3651662

The rearview camera on the second IFVs shows a few of the farmers being forced on their knees by their former sharecroppers; you got paid, so you figure it's none of your business.

"This mess isn't going to stop by itself, Boss" Moira comments "they never do."

Your IFVs give chase; this is a losing proposition for Hassan's forces, which consist of light vehicles and a couple of Vietnam-style gun trucks, which would have done an excellent job against a peasant militia with no vehicles and no body armor."

As it is, Moira gives chase; your vehicles can keep up with Hassan's and can shrug off most of the backward-facing firepower directed at you.

# Break off as soon as the miniature cell phone tower on the IFV picks up Hassan's phone, ensuring you will be able to track him from now on.

# Hassan's armored car is in your field gun's sights. Blow him up!

>>3651756
>blow him up!

>>3651756
Fuck. Make sure to record the massacre.

We will need it for propaganda.

Kill Hassan, make sure hes dead.

>>3651784
Yeah this just make that fuckers life hell. What he gets for trying to kill us

>>3651784
>>3651776

Moira is having a little bit too much fun: she aims the 57mm gun at Hassan's armored car, and fires an armor piercing shell right through it. There is no Hollywood-style explosion; the car simply flips forward and careens off the road, breaking through the underbrush and felling a couple of trees before stopping. A salvo of 30mm high explosive bullets from the other IFV finally sets the fuel tanks aflame.

Hassan's other forces scatter; they reckoned you would go after the gun trucks, but Moira decided to go for a decapitation strike. Clearly Hassan's men aren't being paid enough for this.

# Good enough. Get out of here - let's at least get video of what happens at the farm.

# We need to see the body. Risk checking on the wreck on foot.

>>3651812
# We need to see the body. Risk checking on the wreck on foot.

No half measures.

Make sure everyone is wearing masks or something when they are outside.

>>3651812
>good enough. Get out of here - lets at leasylt get video of what happens at the farm

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>>3651831
>>3651840
(Let me do the other action in the meantime, pick one!)

You've trained with your covert teams, but this is the first time you head out on an actual deployment. Your time with Santiago has ensured that you won't be dead weight, but some of your men are uneasy about having to cover you.

You get to Varadero to find a thriving tourist resort: with Carpatescu's ascent to power, the Cuban embargo has been made moot, and the island is experiencing a renaissance of sorts -- ironically, the influx of tourists wanting to see the formerly isolated communist republic is doing a great job of integrating it into the wider world. The airport there is a former armed forces airfield, and maintains some of the older infrastructure, latgely because there hasn't been much in the way of budget to remove it - Dimmsdale doesn't much care for Cuba.

Carpatescu's global defense initiative protocol calls for the Peacekeepers to be a small force, emphasizing quality over quantity; clearly the people guarding the Varadero airport didn't get the memo. Most are still in old Cuban Revolutionary Air and Air Defense Force uniforms.

You turn the Nomenklator on at full bandwidth, and within minutes people within the airport start complaining about slow wi-fi. The moment some Yanqui tourist complains a bit too much and has to be calmed down, you and your men move to the airport's maintenance area. Your Spanish is approximate, but that works in your favor as your men show the few guards there reasonably convincing requisition papers and the Nomenklator helps you provide any missing details.

You get three pilots and three copilots on the least-crummy looking Antonov AN-2s they can find, argue with the base personnel who wanted you to take hangar queens instead, and in less than an hour, it's time to land on the Garibaldi. You put on your parachute, just in case, and watch as the carrier turns and begins moving against the wind at full power; safety nets are deployed at the end of the ski-jump ramp.

The three best things in life are a good landing, a good orgasm, and a good bowel movement. The night carrier landing is one of the few times in life where you get to experience these at the same time - but such is not your fate today, as it's a sunny day and you wouldn't have your men try a night carrier landing for aircraft that aren't designed for it, especially if you're on board.

The landing is rough, but passable,and none of the aircraft end up against the safety nets; the three huge biplanes are secured to the deck and drained of fuel.

Well, it's not Harrier jumjpet, but they'll do for your purposes: the three AN-2s can land anywhere, don't stall, can fly home on three wings, and can be quickly reconfigured for paratrooper transport, long-line loitering for cargo pickup or drop, and even a light gunship role if you can find some heavy machine guns for them (Unfortunately, getting armaments from the airfield was too risky). Just don't get in any dogfights!

>>3651899
Ill switch to needing to see the body as it dosnt seem like we are getting anymore votes anytime soon

>>3652116
>>3651831
>>3651840

One IFV empties out, with the other guarding the road - the enemy was geared up to fight infantry after all.

The armored car is still burning; two of your men quickly chop down a tree branch and use the green wood to safely poke at the wreck. Eventually, one of them figures that there's no more danger, and drags out a badly burned figure in an ornate black-and-red uniform. There's no mistaking the chrome dome; Hassan is dead. Just to be safe, the other soldier puts two bullets through the brain.

"Yeah, fuck zombies" the other says.

Your men mount up and head back to the farm, which they reach right after sundown and which they find eerily silent - no lights, no sounds, no data on the bandwidth monitors.

"What happened?"

"Let's go home. Whatever happened here, we prevented twenty more of it by getting rid of that warlord."

"Okay, but what happened?"

"I don't want to know the details and trust me, neither do you."

The team comes home with Hassan's signet ring; the few refugees that you had hired earlier on are jubilant that their tormentor is very dead, and the throwaway email addresses you had used in previous operations get congratulatory emails from elsewhere in South Africa and Sicily, but a few of the men, including Moira, are left with a pensive attitude.

"I suppose we did the right thing, long term."

None of your men got hurt, and casualties among the peasants were well below the threshold of what you'd call acceptable.

Hassan is no more; Rehoboth will have to find another patsy if he wants to false-flag his own territory.

The only thing left to do for the month is your quarterly meeting with Carpatescu; he has generally been happy with your work, and hasn't seen fit to summon you, although you're important enough that you can book an appointment - therefore, you

# send a brief report, emphasizing next month's Lantern launch.

# go with a video call, which by now can be done in glorious 360p

# show up in person, if at all possible

# show up in person and wear the twin Nomenklator earphones with the experimental active noise suppression feature enabled.

>>3652170
>show.up in person wear the twin Nomenklator earphones

>>3651899
Perhaps we can visit a old tank or aircraft museum?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdL9uuvDRls

>>3652116
We really don't want him to pull a zombie jebus on us.

>>3652170
# show up in person and wear the twin Nomenklator earphones with the experimental active noise suppression feature enabled.
Kind of want to experience glorious 360p but we can do that another time I guess.

Make sure to ask about the press secretary...

>>3652205
or maybe ask at the end of the conversation.

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>>3652205

Dimmsdale is unlikely to want to part with any military legacy, but there's one in Germany and one in Russia that you can survey - Gustav and Zakharov are a lot less concerned with what happens to relics from that particular part of history.

>>3652205
>>3652185
>>3652280

On the plane, you find that Carpatescu has given William Cameron a sort of side-promotion from press secretary to trustee of the Global Community Weekly. That puts you a little closer to your territory, which is mildly irritating, but you figure that it makes some sense. Which reminds you, you've got to deal with David Hassid after this....

New Babylon has changed relatively little; the city's growth was carefully planned, and major construction operations have ended. It looks less of a theme park and more of a city now that everything has a little bit of wear and tear, it's less artificial of a place, which makes it more welcoming, if anything - streets that were empty and pristine now have a carefully regulated amounts of street vendors at the corner, there are a couple of skid marks on the pavement, there is some art on the walls that have been marked with blue corners to indicate that tasteful graffiti is welcome.

This time, you meet nobody in the antechamber of the Potentate's office - you must be the first visitor after one of his lightning naps.

You see Hattie Durham leave at a gesture from Carpatescu; the two look at each other for a moment, and you see a hint of a smile on Mrs. Durham's face.

"Good evening, Foreman. What brings you here? I must admit, I was expecting to see more activity from you this past quarter. Are you losing your technological Midas' touch perhaps?"

He doesn't look annoyed, but then again, he never does unless he wants to.

# Ask about Mr. Cameron.

# Brag about the Lantern system being ready to go at the end of next month.

# Politely give your report, minus the covert stuff of course.

# Mention the prophecy timeline that you've derived.

The Nomenklator operator lets you know that the audio filter is ready and will be activated should Carpatescu say the hypnotic trigger words you heard last time.

>>3652306
>brag about the lantern system.
Be our same self assured sleves we cant let anything seem off.

>>3652306
# Ask about Mr. Cameron.

# Brag about the Lantern system being ready to go at the end of next month.

>>3652346
What about asking about mr Cameron?

>>3652482
Sure why not
>>3652386
Support

>>3652569
I just want to make sure our boss subtlety knows it was us, and that he will reward us or we gain more favor with him. But also to not be direct or outright say it.

Unless we drop all pretense and directly ask, he may act all (falsely) indignant or claim ignorance or shift it to be us who gets blamed for any possible blow back on something he
clearly stated" we not do. He seems to be the guy who likes playing that type of "game".

>>3652386
>>3652569

"Ah, yes. I saw Mr. Andrews' promotional campaign.... I would have been hard-pressed not to, really. I did not expect such an announcement so soon, and thought for a moment that there had been a miscommunication between the two of you. I approve of your relationship: his presence ensures that the private sector move harmoniously with your directives. Only... be sure you do not become beholden to him. We serve humanity as a whole; in that service, every one human is replaceable."

There's just enough of a hint of a threat in the last sentence to make you shiver a little. Carpatescu smiles amiably.

"I expect results - the Global Community expects results. You, through Mr. Andrews, have made a committment, and now you must deliver. Do so, and reap the rewards. Do not, and you will, regrettably, have to take the fall for any embarassment that you cause this administration - accountability is one of the core principles of it."

You assure Carpatescu that everything is in place.

"We are not promised tomorrow, Foreman.You have given me no reason to doubt you, but yet, you keep upping the ante. I will increase your budget this month - on trust, or on faith if you wish. But this grand presentation of yours had better go off without a hitch. Just to show you how crucial this project is for me, I will be present at the activation ceremony. This will imply some extra security measures, regrettably, so therefore, redeem the time to make allowance for them in your schedule."

Your HQ team confirms through the Nomenklator that between that and regular work, you will only be available for one operation next month, if you want to show up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the unveiling.

You ask about Cameron.

"Ah, yes, William Cameron. As we say in the old country, Lup în piele de oaie - I believe the English equivalent would be wolf in sheep's skin. Cameron believes that I am evil, but lacks the courage to do anything about it. I keep him around because I welcome the accountability - in fact, after you leave, I will make a gift of the Global Community Weekly to him, no strings attached. He is not a man of vision, and focuses on the trees over the forest; he will see it as a promotion, and think that more editorial control will help him spread his old-world ideas; you and I however, know that in the order of things that sort of print media is doomed - a week in the continuous news cycle your efforts has made possible might as well be an eternity. Thus the wolf in sheep's skin is neutralized, by hiding a bone in the feed."

# Give a brief report of your other activities and leave.

# Risk asking for enough details on something that Carpatescu will want to hypnotize you into leaving, to see if the new Nomenklator works.

"Oh, and Foreman... should you come through as you have in the past, I bid you take a vacation, see some of the world you are helping me reshape. Not immediately, but let's say, in the summer?"

>>3653780
# Risk asking for enough details on something that Carpatescu will want to hypnotize you into leaving, to see if the new Nomenklator works.
Ask about food concerns, primarily the rise of mono-cultures and nutritional/food deserts and how some of our natural disaster staff wanted to bring this concern to higher ups and what his stance is regarding it.

This sounds like some boring bs that he will use the hypo stuff on us.

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>>3654037

"I cannot very well ask you to build a global computer network, and then not read the nonsense that people post on it, can I. The Earth is more prosperous than it has ever been - you have the data, and so does everyone else; why should I censor something that promotes my vision? Yes, there was a legitimate concern about a food price crash when Eden became available to all. I dealt with it by the power of the purse. Foreman, you grew up in the free world; I was privileged, but still grew up behind the Iron Curtain. I know what it feels like, I know what people feel like, when they have to stand in line for bread, even if the bread is in fact available. That is why I am having the surplus turned into rations rather than destroyed. Being wasteful in times of plenty is a sin, not against any gods who do not have to care, but against the memory of those who spent their whole life in cold and hunger. I commend your concern, Foreman, but rest assured: I have the situation under control. You are a competent man: have faith in me when I say that I have many more competent men in my employ, each with his own specialization."

You are about to start to ask further about the nutritional value of Eden-fertilized foodstuffs, but Carpatescu gives you a look and looks at you straight in the eye; there is a trace of annoyance, but it's that of a loving father having to explain to a child why he can't eat chocolate cereal for dinner.

“I would like to tell you what you are about to do."

That's the key phrase; the Nomenklator operator triggers the active silencing in your ears, and superimposes her own voice to Carpatescu's, in a whisper to avoid adding any identifying features to it and in case Carpatescu can somehow hear the Nomenklator's tiny speakers.

"You are going to walk down to the empty conference room, and use one of the terminals to do an internet search about food security projections. Then, you will select the second-most optimistic you find, do some vague mental math to see that it more or less checks out, and assure yourself that this is the case. Then, you will remember me showing you the data. I cannot just tell you what to believe, Foreman - I need your mind intact for you to do your job. It saddens me that I can only nudge you towards inner peace, rather than grant it. You are dismissed."

For whatever reason, the combination of the operator's whisper in your ear and Carpatescu's mesmerizing stare causes you to feel a tingling sensation on the skin, beginning on the scalp and moving down the back of the neck and upper spine. It's actually quite pleasant, and you shudder a little bit. Did Carpatescu notice?

# Obey to the letter: wordlessly turn around and walk away, presumably towards the conf room.

# Acknowledge the order, say something like "By your leave, Potentate", as would be polite, and exit the room.

# "Your Jedi mind tricks won't work on me, Boss."

>>3654112
# Obey to the letter: wordlessly turn around and walk away, presumably towards the conf room.

When people say "you are dismissed." They mean to leave and stop talking.

Compared to say, your boss telling you to go and arrest the Senator for crimes against the republic, in which case one would respond, Ave Imperator or something.

>>3654129

You do exactly as you are told, to the letter. The next person in line for a talk with the Potentate, some New Babylon local grandee who you don't know, looks mildly scandalized that you would leave so informally. You walk past him, and walk past a Peacekeeper, and get to the empty conference room. You sit down at a terminal.

# Follow through with the rest of Carpatescu's order.

# Look up something else, but still look up something.

# Leave without using the terminal, just to prove to yourself that you can.

The people in the Nomenklator room are silent, but you hear one operator asking the other "Can we get his heart rate or EEG or something?" and being answered "It's already half a miracle we fit as many components as we did into these things!", with Aki commenting that there's plenty of room UNDER people's skulls, you know, and being told "No, that's dangerous and unsanitary" by just about everyone else.

>>3654155
# Follow through with the rest of Carpatescu's order.
But do one or two thing in between like go to the washroom and use the 1st link or 3rd link we find.

>>3654155
When we reviewed the recording of him "commanding us" did we say anything? I thought we just did what he commanded right after.

Also make sure no one is watching us including cameras.

Also make sure to click the 2nd link and briefly read it.

>>3654176

Last time, you said nothing. This time, same. Probably a good idea!

>>3654160

You find yourself sort of moving on autopilot to do what you were told, in the same way one wakes up, goes to the restroom, and takes care of business in the morning. You catch yourself, and click on the third link rather than the second. then feel a small shiver down your spine when you do so. You quickly parse it, then do the same with the second link - Carla has, of course, given you more accurate projections than the ones you'd grab off Altavista, but the gist of the data checks out; to deal with the huge surpluses caused by the Eden fertilizer the Global Community has, in fact, being the primary purchaser of agricultural products for a year or so, which no doubt has blunted the average American farmer's anti-government streak some.

After you break from Carpatescu's script, you find yourself more or less free of it; now that you've tested this, you complete the simple orders - it's not like you were told to stand in a broom closet for ninety minutes again! - and leave the building.

You mark this down as a very encouraging partial success. On the flight back, you review the recording made by the Nomenklator team; when using mesmerism, Carpatescu speaks in a monotone, a very impersonal staccato delivery. Half an hour later, clown at HQ has taken the time to cut up his phonemes to make it say "Luke, I am your father".

Looks like the Nomenklator has paid for itself. You direct further development for your programmers to focus on

# integration of the expert system into your logistics network, to allow it to compensate for interruptions: the Nomenklator system doesn't have to be hidden, it can be a regular headset if used by CATS rank and file workers, and it would help them coordinate. Maybe give it to the whole organization?

# further work on noise cancellation and digital signal processing, to provide complete insulation.... and maybe eventually replicate the effect?

# making this tech cheaper so that it can be used by multiple work teams. Maybe Aki is onto something when she says to implant it?

(Calling it a night if thats OK)

>>3654189
# integration of the expert system into your logistics network, to allow it to compensate for interruptions: the Nomenklator system doesn't have to be hidden, it can be a regular headset if used by CATS rank and file workers, and it would help them coordinate. Maybe give it to the whole organization?
I don't want them to fall of in the field so develop ones that stay on the head and make it next to impossible to fall off and still be comfy to wear.

Then we work on stuff like replicating the effect....

>>3654189
Sure, I was thinking of sleeping and shutting down the computer but I wanted to do one last check before hand so I booted it back up.

See you in 6-7 hours?

If i said it wasn't OK would you continue posting all night? :p

(Where to take expert system tech now that it's hit 5/10 is an important decision so I'd like to see 2 or 3 votes on it. It can have far-reaching consequences.)

>>3654189

https://youtu.be/XTgfYSgh2FU

01110111 01100101 00100000 01100001 01100100 01100101 01110000 01110100 01110101 01110011 00100000 01101101 01100101 01100011 01101000 01100001 01101110 01101001 01100011 01110101 01110011 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110111 00001101 00001010

>>3654189
>intergrate into logistics

>>3654189
# integration of the expert system into your logistics network, to allow it to compensate for interruptions: the Nomenklator system doesn't have to be hidden, it can be a regular headset if used by CATS rank and file workers, and it would help them coordinate. Maybe give it to the whole organization?

>>3654204
>expert system tech
English please?

>>3654843
The nomenclature
The expert system is another word for it we have been using since thread 1.

>>3654843
>>3654852
It's a bit more than just the Nomenclature. its like an automated self reliant information processor and deseminator. Think of it as almost an ai.

>>3654852
I do not remember. then again I tried to find new names for it to sell to market.

>>3654858
So does it encompass the entire setup including support staff and servers and programming etc?

And the physical EarNmommy is just a part of that whole system?

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>>3654220
Does this count as a vote?

>>3654200
>>3654694
>>3654801

The Nomenklator system has proven itself; whether you do decide to sell it to the public or not, it's time to roll it out on a wider scale to your rank and file workers. Since it's fairly normal to see phone repairmen or cable installers wearing a headset, the next version is going to be a simple headset like that used by a phone bank operator, using the expert system to figure out who to connect to whom during a job. By now global connectivity is strong enough that there's no reason why a CATS employee should operate detached from HQ; eventually, as bandwidth increases, the system will include a camera, so that engineers back at base can help remote workers diagnose problems.

You worry that the idea may have leaked out, because a week or so later, someone points you to a piece of fiction about it. http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Aki points out that a similar system can be used to control the little cellphone based robots that she's been making. "Or the other way round!"


>>3654865
>>3654858
That's correct. The front end is, effectively, a headset - it can be a high tech stealth headset, or something that you would see used in a phone bank. The back end is a team of experts. The "middleman" is an expert system that knows which expert needs to be consulted or, in some cases, can handle the request independently by taking the output of an Altavista or Yahoo web search and reading it aloud to the end user. It sounds like Stephen Hawking, but it doesn't have to sound realistic in order to be effective. The consumer version is intended to integrate with the Lantern online encyclopedia.

You can look forward to maintenance and deployment tasks to be a lot cheaper, if you are able to keep investing in this technology.

Since if stealth isn't required, the headsets can be something one buys at Radio Shack, you are planning to focus on developing the software, the client part of which is going to live on cell phones. By now, "smart" cell phones are beginning to be affordable; old DOS or Linux kernels are surprisingly effective to operate what is effectively an early-nineties-era computer shrunk to pocket size and given an antenna.

On that note, earlier this month a Chinese manufacturing company was attempting to spy on your research, and almost ended up hiring one of your covert teams to do it!

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You are planning out CATS' operation for the month.

Rules: http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.Quest2Rules.html

Datalinks: http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.Quest2Datalinks.html

Tentative timeline: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BlMOSEOxSihj1gdagq7yxCjONaRBgcdlRxnc68uWf0A

Agents:

You can deploy yourself on ONE action this month for a small bonus to all rolls. Your Nomenklator system can be issued to ONE team per turn, for a small bonus to all rolls.

Dr. Robertson can be deployed on ONE action for a large bonus to R&D rolls or a small bonus to any non-covert rolls.

Ryan Andrews can be deployed on ONE action for a large bonus to construction rolls or a small bonus to any non-covert rolls.

Moira McSingh can be deployed on ONE action per turn, for a medium bonus to covert rolls or a small bonus to all rolls. She can give basic combat capability to a work crew.

Aki Lattinen can be deployed on TWO actions per turn, for a medium bonus to R&D or construction rolls. She will hack into things if bored.

Performing an action outside of your home territory will also require the availability of (complexity) fleet assets, OR renting fleet assets out at the cost of 1/asset.

Buy equipment on the open market:
Power generation 1
Small arms 1
Network equipment 2
Fleet assets 2
Aerospace part 3
Supplies (food, fuel etc) 0.25

Move the Garibaldi (Mediterranean, Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, Pacific).

C0:

Survey a territory for opportunity using an agent. Not surveyed: Caribbean, Northern Europe, Western Europe, China, India, Greenland, Japan, Indochina, Pacific Islands,

Afghanistan, Madagascar, Sahara, Central Africa, South Africa, Israel, Middle East, Western Russia

Undergo combat training (Max 1 per month)

Tail someone using an agent.

Buy equipment on the black market:
Small arms 1
Squad weapons 2
Stimulants 1

C1:

Reconfigure the Garibaldi (generic, cargo, hospital, strike, orbital)

Tail someone using a team.

Survey a territory for opportunity using a team.

Hire out a covert operations team for a situational reward.

Construct network equipment.

Construct a Cellular-Solar pylon. (+1 cellular or internet; requires 1 network part)

Make and sell consumer-grade Nomenklators (Net gain 1BN). Reveals it.

C2:

Do research (1~3).

Construct an aerospace part.

Construct a logistics hub (cap 1 fleet requirement for that territory; can deploy covert teams there with no advance notice; costs 1 power; stores supplies)

C3:

Recruit a work team.

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

Do research (4~6).

C4:

Recruit a covert team.

Do research (7~9).

Construct a network node. (unifies cell and net in that territory; costs 1 power, 1 network)

C5:

Rush a satellite launch, which will happen at the end of this month. Requires 1 aerospace part.

Construct a base and a network node at the same time (2 power, 1 network)

Do research (10).

What are your orders?

THE C551 GARIBALDI

Formerly the flagship of the Italian Navy, the aircraft-carrying cruiser Garibaldi externally resembles a USN amphibious assault ship, or a 1950s-era carrier. She is the first through-deck ship ever completed by an Italian shipyard. Due to the small budget afforded to the Italian navy, she is designed to be quickly reconfigured for a multitude of roles ranging from amphibious assault to anti-submarine warfare to hospital ship. Ryan Andrews rescued her from being scrapped as part of Carpatescu's demilitarization initiative, and had her sold to CATS for scrap metal value, upon which she was re-registered as a fast cargo vessel.

In order to reconfigure the Garibaldi, she will need a captain. The current XO is operating in a caretaker role. Reconfiguring the Garibaldi is a complexity-one action, but due to the modular design of the ship, the Garibaldi is available for the new role either immediately or at the beginning of next month, at the Foreman's discretion.

AVAILABLE CONFIGURATIONS:

Generic: Provides 2 fleet assets and supports 1 covert team with vehicles and aircraft.

Cargo: Provides 3 fleet assets.

Strike: Provides 1 fleet asset and supports up to 3 covert teams with vehicles, aircraft, and long-range sensors.

Hospital: Provides 1 fleet asset, supports 1 covert team with aircraft, and provides emergency services to a population nearby.

Orbital: Provides 1 fleet asset, allows for the quick launch of satellites, and acts as a temporary Network Node for a territory nearby.

This information has been added to the Datalinks.

>>3654926
So ia the sattalite launch finishing at the end of this month bringing all to 2? And does deadline mean quarter or this month?

>>3654926
>leave 1 crew in atacama
>6 crew create 2 network nodes south east/south west asia woth Ryan
> 3 crew with aki researching expert. Those bonuses sound tasty

1 crew and 2 covert getting another covert team with us

Let Robertson do his thing. Akican dltake her second turn to do more indipendant research

Moira and 1 covert crew work.

Rolled 50 (1d100)

>>3654975

You and Ryan bragged about the Lantern system being deployed at the end of this month, and Carpatescu took you at your word, so, it'll have to be done by the end of this month

You've already taken steps to ensure that the Lantern launch works flawlessly, adding redundancy to the payload, employing a larger rocket (it's a R-7 Semyorka, which the Soviet Union has flown hundreds of time), and making time to attend the unveiling and personally supervising the launch. Everything should go fine.... right? The launch was scheduled last month.

>>3654926
Also how many teams can we put on making nomenclatures before we stop getting a profit. Can we recruit some normal manufacturing crews to do this rather then our work teams as well?

>>3654992
So yeah no extra actions we can take then?

>>3654926
Can we add more teams to the lantern launch?

Just to make absolutely certainty its %100?

>>3654926

Deploy all 3 covert teams for work
Lead by either us or Moira.

Have Aki with do more research in and cellular

Dr. Robertson research in nuclear wit two teams

Andrews leads 6 teams making 3 Cellular-Solar pylons.

>>3654967
Strike: Provides 1 fleet asset and supports up to 3 covert teams with vehicles, aircraft, and long-range sensors.
Lets wrap up Africa by the end of month 24.

If there are no teams assigned to the launch I want the plan Vetoed. You don't disappoint our boss when there's been investment.

>>3654204
I think we should see some divergence in the tech, like having one split off for organizational and communiactions use, and a branching off for more consumer us.

Maybe with the last part we develop .... inserted brain chips for control..... Mark of the beast anyone?

>>3655007
Wasn't the lantern launch already planned from last month? Unless you want to do multiple rushed launches at the same time in the background so not only does our lantern system go up, but a ton of infrastructure alongside it making the effect of satellite coverage and stuff that much greater?

The tracking team at HQ sends a snarky apology email to your office, indicating that they have been unable to track Hassan with the exception of a brief obituary.

>>3654995
>>3654996

Everything looks good from a systems perspective: you're certainly welcome to take a covert team and station them at the launch site to provide extra security. The launch will happen from Wallops Field, Virginia. You are already taking one of your actions this month to supervise the launch personally and attend the unveiling.

Carpatescu has let you know that the unveiling will happen in Jerusalem, rather than New Babylon, because he had another ceremony to attend there anyway - previous committments - and, frankly, he would rather you take attention away from it; the Orthodox Jewish community has finally cleared the last bureaucratic and theological (something about finding a red heifer) hurdles when it comes to rebuilding the Temple, and he has been invited for the opening. He doesn't want people to dwell on religion, so he calculates that the Lantern unveiling will take the wind out of their sails. You and Ryan have politely asked to highlights the contributions that modern, secular Israel has given to the aeronautical industry - which isn't hard, since they are in fact significant. You look forward to the possibility of buying some unmanned aerial vehicles there, although the technology is in its infancy.

>>3654994

If you want to mass-manufacture consumer grade EarNommies, you'd probably have to set up a licensing deal; the admin overhead for making millions of units in-house would just about double the size of your organization.

You don't know what the market demand for the technology will be, and would have to launch the product to find out; all you know is that by now it works damn well.

>>3655009

Aki has been trying to push for an implantable version of the technology the whole time, and by "push", your HQ team means "we keep having to make sure she doesn't drill a hole in her own head". The main technical obstacle to an implantable system is recharging the thing's battery and replacing the battery when it stops taking a charge.

>>3655014

Everything has been planned out, yes. You can schedule a new launch for next month, or even this month if you rush it, but there isn't a particular need for it. If you wish to have complete redundancy, you can rush a launch at the end of this month and launch two Lantern clusters rather than one; the launches will happen from two different facilities, so any would-be terrorist interruption would have to succeed twice to thwart you.

>>3655006
Fuck no to your plan
>>3654991
No to this plan

A promise was made, fucking keep it for once you autist.

>Rush a satellite launch, which will happen at the end of this month. Requires 1 aerospace part.
Five teams, non-negotiable.
>Defense research
2 teams.
>Covert teams
1 must be there to ensure the launch isn't messed with.
The rest do whatever.

>>3655019
Wait we already have the launch scheduled? It doesn't need a team does it?

>>3655021

(This plan will give you complete, not-even-an-act-of-God redundancy, but as a polite reminder, you already spent 3 teams last month to schedule a launch this month, and even spent 2 extra aerospace parts to launch extra microsatellites on a Semyorka rocket rather than the usual single cluster on an Antares rocket).

>>3655028

Correct. However you can, if you wish, send a covert team to secure the launch site, for extra protection.

>>3655021
Why not 10 teams?
On top of the lantern launch we also launch two more satellites on the same month with three massive rockets taking off on the same field at the same time? Our boss and media will be there.
Go big or go home?

>>3655021
Lets put all three teams in the field to secure the launch.

Two lead by Moira, one lead by us.

>>3655036
Now that's too much. Going for two satalite launches would be good enough. But we'll need that covert team protecting it.

>>3655040
Oh comon it will be the highlight of our career, and impress everyone including our boss, if we have to put so much manpower into this, we may as well make it really epic!

If we want to secure the place, lets really make it secure. Maybe even ask our boss to send a few extra teams to handle outer perimeter security.

>>3655038

Way overkill. I support sending security to the launch site but 1 team is sufficient.

We managed to actually plan in advance for once, let's take advantage of it and get our dudes busy making money or doing research or buying supplies to plan ahead.

Also this month we maybe get to buy drones which are still a rare high tech thing in this world so let's make sure we can afford it.

>>3655036

The boss is in Jerusalem so we're going to do a jumbotron thing, the last thing we want near a launch site is VIPs anyway, that's a giant sign saying BLOW THIS ALL UP to terrorists or whatever. I'd make the launch site hidden if I could.

>>3655021
>>3655036


Guys its fine lets just put the one covert team on
>>3654991
To cover the launch and it should be fineee

>>3655051
I'll agree with this apologies for my frustration.

>>3655015
>The tracking team at HQ sends a snarky apology email to your office
Why the snarky tone?

Can we recruit some more guys for leading both covert and research teams?

I want a guy to help us handle internal spies and help us with proper OPSEC when it comes to possible leakers or snitchs in our workforce.

>>3655051
So are we doing an extra launch or not this month?

>>3655009

You can certainly split the program if you like.

(OOC note: You still haven't found one of the tech trees).

(OOC note: geistklempner autocorrects to "giant explosion" and I am tempted to keep it)

You get an email from Dr. Robertson. He understands that the world already has two big announcements scheduled for the end of this month, but he feels that adding a third is warranted.

"We are still completing our analysis, but given the result of my six-month study of SN1987A, I believe that this warrants going to the popular press in addition to the scientific journals.... especially given how slow the peer review process has been. We were able to cross-correlate the radioactive decay rate of cobalt isotopes in the spectra of several nearby stars, with that of the same decay rate here on Earth, with the expansion of the SN1987A nebula. The results are, well, disturbing."

# Might as well: Carpatescu did say that he would appreciate things taking away public attention from the Jerusalem Temple rebuild.

# No, give me a full report first.

>>3655057

The snarky tone is due to the fact that Hassan is very, very dead, so he cannot be tracked except perhaps to pinpoint the location of his grave (which they have done, by the way).

You had Moira shoot at him with a field gun, crash his car into several trees, set it on fire, and put two bullets in the head of his charred corpse for good measure.

>>3655057
Nah we dont need the redundancy and if we were gonna we should have planned it last month so it would also launch this month..

If we want to recruit more guys we need to explore the rest of the world. We can take our two personal actions next turn doing that.

>>3655062
Might as well Carpatescu did say that he would appricate things taking away fron public attention.

Okay so the revised plan is 1 covert team watching the launch site.

Other two teams will be sent to do jobs.

We will make one or two cellular solar pylons.

We will have Dr Robertson and Aki take maybe like 3 teams each to do research.

Last two team can go with Andrews doing recruitment?


Sound good?

>>3655067
God I love overkill

>>3655062
>(OOC note: geistklempner autocorrects to "giant explosion" and I am tempted to keep it)
Do it when we roll a nat 1 or 100, depending on the event its rolled on.

>>3655067
So we forgot to tell them to stop tracking a corpse?

I guess if we lost track of a dead guy only to find the guy was killed on orders by our boss and everyone forgot to tell us, I'd be a bit irritated too when I found that out.

>>3655073
They forgot to decapitate him and then stack a bunch of c4 and a artillery shell on the corpse and set it off before burning the entire area around it down in a bush fire.

>>3655062
# Might as well: Carpatescu did say that he would appreciate things taking away public attention from the Jerusalem Temple rebuild.

>3655071
>3655062


Nah I would say lets do
>leave 1 crew in atacama
>6 crew create 2 network nodes south east/south west asia woth Ryan
> 3 crew with aki researching expert. Those bonuses sound tasty
>1 crew start production of nomenclature with us
>Let Robertson do his thing. Aki can take her second turn to do more indipendant research
>Moira and 1 covert crew cover the lantern launch
> 2 covert team work

Rolled 33 (1d100)

>>3655075
okay!

>>3655088
I don't think we need to specify leaving one crew at the observatory, since its automatic, unless we put 11 crews to work somewhere they stay there doing work?

I think we should survey more territories.

We survey one, while another surveys the other.

Also I think Aki can't do independent research, so one team needs to be with her at all times?

>>3655062
# No, give me a full report first.

Gotta know what he wants to publish first.

>>3655093
I remeber it mentioned she does her own thing if we dont take bith actions.

We could set roberson and aki to explore i want us on nomenclature production its important.

I counted the observitory in my list as i wanted to count work teams easily and not leave anything out.

I do thing we need to survay more but this is honestly not the best month for it.

>>3655095
>>3655062
Yeah your right im switching to give me full report first

>>3655093

The observatory crew comes home sometime this month and can be reassigned, but you're certainly welcome to give them a couple of weeks off!

>>3655099
>aki to explore
NO!

I think it was specifically stated that she couldn't even go out to buy groceries alone....

>>3655103
I mean yeahhh..... its bad idea

>>3655099
Well given what we know about our boss and hes actions towards nuclear stuff, I think this could get Robertson really depressed and commit suicide by falling down the stairs on the subway and rolling onto the train tracks.

>>3655107
Yeah lets keep roberson safe

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>>3655099

Unlike Dr. Robertson and Ryan Andrews, who collaborate with you as contractors, Aki and Moira have no day jobs, and ended up working for you in unofficial capacity (largely because it beats being in jail). Moira figures that she'd rather do one job well than two poorly, so she's available for one action per month - off deployment she also trains and helps organize training, and various background activities. Uniquely, Aki is pretty much underfoot all the time, and sleeps less than anyone you know except for Carpatescu (it's probably all the Mountain Dew), so she effectively counts as two people when it comes to research and prototyping. She's also a bit odd, if it wasn't clear.

Okay, so we have one guy who wants some research done in defense, another wants Ear Buddies beginning to reach the market, and anther to do surveying.

We all agree on using all three teams, two for hire, one for security.

So what will the new post look like?

>>3655091
That's not a crit.

>>3655102
You're scaring me with the securing rocket launch site and naming yourself giant explosion.

I think we should put two teams on the lantern launch.

>>3655111
Picture for ants. Or fairies

>>3655115
Not against 2 teams but i also dont want to draw too much attention

>>3655122
We could do this >>3655019

Do two launch sites, one with lantern, another for a regular satellite.

Make sure no one but us knows which is going where.

Two launch sites, one team each, two separate locations a bit of a distance away from each other.

>>3655134
My issue with that is we will have issue with the network nodes. And we are gonna have to put a fully 4 on south america with covert teams to make sure they dont fuck it up. We have untill the end of the term.

>>3655122

Deploying your security teams hasn't really drawn a whole lot of attention: the Centauro IFV is somewhat uncommon, but doesn't look that recognizable to the general public. You have been able to draw attention to them when it suit your purposes, such as with the anti-piracy operations.

>>3655099

If left alone, Aki is likely to tinker with your IT infrastructure. She's smart enough to not deploy an untested patch on the production machines, so the worst thing that can happen barring a catastrophe is that she'll waste the action. At best, she'll improve your systems (which has in fact happened once).

>>3655134

Wallops Field is being used for the official launch: if you wish to have two launches at the end of this month, it's a complexity 5 job to guarantee success. The second launch can happen at Vanderberg, Cape Canaveral, Cannon AFB, or any of those places - the satellites are going to high orbit, so they don't need to be launched from anywhere specific.

Once you find a captain for the Garibaldi, you can configure her as a mobile Antares launch pad, which removes the "wait a turn" limitation on C3 satellite launches - but then you can't use her for other stuff.

>>3655142

Your mandate on network nodes technically has no deadline; network nodes help you by reducing the number of additional pylons you have to construct in a territory from then on. In addition, you can build a network node and a logistics post at the same time for a C1 discount.

>>3654926
>>3655148
Is network nodes to 10 not the one with the deadline?

>>3655150

You have a mandate to install a Network Node in one territory per subotentate region, but it has no deadline. Doing so in Africa may be a challenge.

>>3655157
So the deadline on the map us for sattalites?

>>3655161

Yes.

>>3655103

At this point, Aki has enough projects in progress at your HQ that she is likely to come back if she ever wanders off. Maybe. Her homemade Nomenklator does have a GPS, so you can track her location, although it's not very precise (a few city blocks, or a highrise building - notably, you cannot track her inside HQ other than knowing she's in it or not).

GPS receivers are starting to be standard in cell phones, but what's left of the US Navy command structure has not yet given the go-ahead to stop intentionally degrading the civilian signal (IRL this happened in late 2000), so while GPS is a great tool for ships and airplanes, they're famously imprecise when it comes to street directions. Private companies have been working on it; you, unfortunately, cannot order this to be fixed as long as the US government still exists in some capacity.

>>3655071
>>3655088
>>3655082

(Should I summarize the options so people can pick?)

>>3655188
Sure.

Would help cut down on back and forth.

>>3655088


When it comes to the Atacama observatory, you direct Robertson to

# Make his report during this month's big event.

# Make it to you a few days earlier.

The work team will

# come home on schedule.

# Stick around until the end of the month in case Robertson needs them.

The big Lantern launch is already scheduled to happen. You figure that

# all should be well and all you have to do is show up for the unveiling.

# 1 security team can go to the launch site, just in case.

# A second launch will happen concurrently, just to be extra safe.

# Both.


Things everyone seems to agree about:

-sending 2 covert teams to do work
-constructing at least one CS pylon (where?)
-Dr. Robertson and Aki do research

>>3655226
# Stick around until the end of the month in case Robertson needs them.

#make his report after the launch and during the temple construction.

# Both.

>>3655226
# Make it to you a few days earlier.

# Stick around until the end of the month in case Robertson needs them.

# Both.

Build the Pylon inRussia?

>>3655226
>>3655278
>>3655235

>>3655171
Ahhh that clears a lot of confusion for me i thought it was for


Ok new plan
>leave 1 crew in atacama in case robertson needs them
>3 crew create 1 network nodes south east asia
>1 crew start production of nomenclature with us
> 5 crew with ryan launch a lantern sattalite. Backup
>Let Robertson do his thing. Aki can take her second turn to do more indipendant research
>Moira and 1 covert crew cover the lantern launch
> 1 covert team cover the sudden launch
> 1 covert team and 1 work team recruit cover team.


How does that sound for everyone?

>>3655278
>>3655235

The work crew will stick with Dr. Robertson. Your people report that Bruce Barnes has been flitting around the globe late last month and this month, including a visit to the good doctor as part of a mission trip.

The two had a very animated disagreement about young earth creationism, which seems to have rattled Dr. Robertson to some degree.

# Tell the work crew to kick Barnes out of the observatory, precision instruments don't like people shouting and gesticulating around them.

# Gently lead Barnes away.

# Break out the popcorn: Barnes is arguing YEC with a nuclear physicist surrounded by a team of astronomers!

As for Barnes in general, you decide to

# let him scream his heart out, he's irrelevant.

# This is the second time he tries to poach your people. Have the goon squad pay him a visit when he's back in Chicago, maybe wreck some stuff.

# This is the second time he tries to poach your people. Flat out put a hit on him: finding some evidence of him being a terrorist should be easy, whether he is or not, and the fact that he's gone through the trouble of building a secret hideout under his church will make that even easier.

>>3655226
>Make it to you a few days earlier.

>>3655307
# Tell the work crew to kick Barnes out of the observatory, precision instruments don't like people shouting and gesticulating around them.

# Break out the popcorn: Barnes is arguing YEC with a nuclear physicist surrounded by a team of astronomers!

# This is the second time he tries to poach your people. Start letting everyone in his former U.S. State, with a news crew receive proof and anonymous sources that Barnes has a bunker under his church and it only has room for a few people. Don't forget to mention how it was paid for.

>>3655308
>>3655278

The Global Community Weekly, under the new direction of William Cameron, has taken an unusual editorial tack. It mentions, as if it's a good thing, that "millions and millions" have joined the Christian Remnant, but that also, as faith had grown, crime and mayhem had increased as well - the seasonal summer uptick is being bandied about as a crime wave.

It doesn't help with mounting tensions that the first session of the Ecumenical Council went full political correctness. "To say arbitrarily, Pontifex Maximus Peter Mathews wrote in an official EC declaration, that the Jewish and Protestant Bible, containing only the Old and New Testaments, is the final authority for faith and practice, represents the height of intolerance and disunity. It flies in the face of all we have accomplished, and adherents to that false doctrine are hereby considered heretics." Pontifex Maximus Peter had lumped the Orthodox Jews and the new Christian believers together. He had as much problem with the newly rebuilt temple and its return to the system of sacrifices as he did with the millions and millions of converts to Christ. And ironically, the supreme pontiff had strange bedfellows in opposing the new temple. Eli and Moishe, the now world-famous witnesses whom no one dared oppose, often spoke out against the temple being constructed in Jerusalem.

Given that traditionally this is where campaigning for the next US elections would start, Carpatescu has mentioned in a policy letter that he intends to sway public opinion and get the populace behind the idea that the North American ambassador to the Global Community should supplant the sitting president, as part of an orderly devolution of powers: Douglas Dimmsdale therefore finds himself candidated for the next presidential elections.

>>3655339

While Barnes is away, you ensure that the pastor's clandestine shenanigans make the rounds in the nascent blogosphere, to the point that the Chicago press ends up looking somewhat foolish for not following the lead.

>>3655306

(Can I get a second on that?)

>>3655339

To everyone's surprise, Pastor Barnes holds his own in the heated argument that ensues: Dr. Robertson starts answering back, but becomes hesitant once it becomes clear that he'd have to discuss his most recent work on SN1987A spectroscopy. Eventually, Barnes gives the standard convert-or-burn-in-hell warning, at which point Robertson icily replies that a research facility is no place for threats and Barnes is welcome to take advantage of South American dueling law to back up his words, or be escorted out the building - the Reverend takes the second approach.

Carpatescu sounded unusually nervous in his policy letters this month; you're glad that the Lantern launch has redundant backups.

We're literally going to have to keep him alive or his body held aren't we?

>>3655306
1 crew is unused.

As for nommies, I'd rather we not make them to sell just yet, but build em for team use.

>>3655307
What about hiring more people, such as intelligence officers, Journalists connections, more scientists like Dr. Robertson, and more covert operatives like Moira?

Have we dealt with Hassin our IT guy yet?

Can we set up our version of paypal and other e-transactions?

>>3655472
We need more covert teams to do that, probably need to put 3 teams on that guy, 1 to follow him, another for back up, and a work crew for support.

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>>3655278
>>3655308

The report itself barely fits in a DVD, largely because it contains a lot of raw timelapse video from the telescope.

https://www.veoh.com/videos/v856995GxApbE9K

"Fortunately, radioactive cobalt has a very brief half-life, approximately five and a half years. Our teams were able to determine that the natural radioactive decay process in the SN1987A residual nebula is unaffected. While waiting for the telescope to go half an orbit around the Sun so we could take parallax measurements, we also performed spectroscopy on nearby star systems. Here is an executive summary of our conclusions:"

"Isotropy seems to be holding for most of the Universe; the laws of physics are, as far as we can tell, unaffected as far out as SN1987A and as close as Proxima Centauri."

"As a byproduct of our research, we were able to confirm with high probability that there are rocky planets in the Alpha Centauri system, with roughly a 12% probability that one of them might be in the habitable zone. Since AC is a triple system, and such planets have been observed around all three members of it, we must then consider the implications for the abundance of life in the universe.... and ponder deeply the very existence of the Fermi paradox."

"When I said most of the Universe, I was excluding this solar system. Something is affecting nuclear decay rates, in terms of slowing them down considerably, and causing sufficient variance in each individual measurement that in many cases we were unable to discern any significant time relationship from the noise floor."

"The good news is that anybody wishing to go for a picnic in Chernobyl or the Nevada nuclear test range is welcome to do so. It's perfectly safe. You could build an unshielded synchrotron, stick it in your backpack, and use it to peel the paint off your house walls, and not care one iota about your radiation intake."

"Interestingly to people in my own field of study, despite the fact that the amount of cosmic rays has decreased greatly, neutrino emissions remain stable. One other good thing is that we won't have to worry too much about the hole in the ozone layer: between this and the CFC production ban, it is closing up quite nicely."

"The bad news is that I could not get Rev. Barnes to shut up because, to be fair, if someone were to perform a radiometric survey of Earth's crust in order to derive its age, 5000 years is now as plausible an answer as 5 billion. The overall emissions have decreased significantly, but not in a uniform manner, meaning that the noise floor is simply too high to derive any useful information. Nuclear physics has stopped making sense - we should ship our textbooks to the history department, and start over circa 1895."

"You'd think the physicist to finally prove Einstein wrong would be the happiest man on Earth, Foreman, right? I am that man, and... to be honest , I'm exhausted. I wish this had happened when I was at the beginning of my career, and I had the energy..."

>>3655484

Finding additional agent is generally done through looking for opportunities in a territory. In general, you can only have one agent per department (but there are exceptions - at the moment, you have two star researchers; fortunately they haven't interacted much).

You have not dealt with David Hassid; you can do so at any time, since he works for you he can damn well report to your office at your convenience.

You have not begun work on an electronic currency system yet, although Carpatescu was very interested in the notion.

>>3655484
>>3655472

Who?

In general, using more than one covert team for a job is overkill UNLESS you expect there to be an actual battle, in which case, more troops are usually a good idea.

>>3655520
>Who?
I'm assuming our boss.

How many guys are in a covert team? Like 20?

If it was 50 guys then yeah that would be a bit much.

>>3655306
Lets just go with this to move things along.

>>3655520
I mean we're gonna have to keep The Anti-Christ alive. He seems to be just the right mix of too anxious and too confident to live.

>>3655511

Dr. Robertson sent you a smaller, encrypted file. It contains a few notes regarding nuclear warheads.

"At this point, should any modern thermonuclear device be initiated, it would act as an incendiary-radiological weapon; the implosion charges designed to initiate a nuclear reaction would go off, the hydrogen around them would expand rapidly and catch fire, and the plutonium dust would disperse in the immediate area, creating a radiation hazard even in the currently attenuated conditions - in addition, plutonium dust is poisonous even disregarding the radiation threat. Should, say, a madman detonate a nuclear bomb in Central Park in New York, you would still have a New York afterwards, but you'd still want to evacuate Manhattan for a few days, and the fire department would have to show up in full NBC gear."

"The one exception I was able to find are gun-type fission weapons, like the very first Hiroshima bomb and a few pieces of nuclear artillery deployed by the United States in the sixties. The abortive uranium-hydride bomb design from the 1930s may also work with the new physical constants - if we can call them constants at this point."

"I am loathe to publish this, because I wholeheartedly support Carpatescu's denuclearization plan, as much as I am not necessarily a fan of some of his other policies. We finally have peace; the last thing we need is another arms race. However, I estimate that if I do not publish this, it will not take too long for others to catch up; I simply happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right equipment."

Dr. Robertson is still scheduled to present his report at or near the Lantern unveiling; you

# confirm the need for a new Manhattan Project, and ask him to design a bomb that would work with the new physics. If anyone is to have atomic weapons, it should be someone with no intention to ever use them.

# express interest in taking advantage of the new nuclear physics paradigm, rather than working around it: what was that about backpack mounted particle accelerators?

# thank the man, and offer to end his contract; if he feels exhausted, he can be assured that his legacy in the annals of science will be unimpeachable, and he should return to full-time pure research in order to make the most of his discoveries.


>>3655535

That may very well be, yes.

>>3655531

A covert team may deploy one private investigator and two former repo men to back them up, or a full squad of 36 former soldiers and other muscle in three shifts of 12, backed up by two IFVs; it depends on the job.

>>3655548
# express interest in taking advantage of the new nuclear physics paradigm, rather than working around it: what was that about backpack mounted particle accelerators?

Ask him to redact the part about
>
"The one exception I was able to find are gun-type fission weapons, like the very first Hiroshima bomb and a few pieces of nuclear artillery deployed by the United States in the sixties. The abortive uranium-hydride bomb design from the 1930s may also work with the new physical constants - if we can call them constants at this point."

Should we inform our boss of this before hand?

We should tell Robertson that if he goes ahead with publishing this, we may need to put a security detail on him 24/7 from then on since its dangerous stuff to talk about. And I suspect information on this has been censored as well.

This can go either way for us, very good or very bad.

On one hand our boss will be shock, somehwat happen that the news cycle is not on jeruslem, then upset at realizing his nukes he holds are more or less useless. Then well, he may fund us on researching this further or if we give him the full redacted report, he may have us research nuclear bombs for him. Which would be a scientific boon, but it would mean making nukes....

>>3655581
He may just as well have us all killed just so no one else will know about this.

Tempting to make a nuke, but it would be very hard to test. We could go the Nork route with a underground test....

Rolled 13, 53 = 66 (2d100)

>>3655531
>>3655306

Your Atacama crew tells you that Dr. Robertson has been working in a bit of a frenzy: he's divided his students into groups with the intent to send out as many papers for peer reviews as possible, with him as first author of course; some of your people will also get to publish. He is also preparing a number of press releases of varying complexity to be sent directly to magazines like Popular Science.

Your people are surprised to see you intend to launch a second satellite cluster; Mr. Andrews flat out tells you that it's a waste of resources to do it without advance preparation. Moira, on the other hand, figures that it's a good idea.

You send her to Vandenberg AFB in California, where an Antares rocket is quickly prepared and provisioned. In the unlikely event of the main launch having problems, the video feed to Jerusalem will transition seamlessly to the backup site.

You begin work on non-stealthy Nomenklator units, largely as a way to get your mind off the big reveal,

# and manage to do so; the units will be stockpiled for now.

# but can't quite get yourself to do that, and plan an Apple-style product reveal in Jerusalem, with everything else going on.

Aki is largely left to her own devices, or so she thinks; in truth, you've set up schedules for your researchers so that they have time to spend with her, keeping her at least partially focused.

The days and weeks pass quickly, and before you know it, it's time to pack up and head to Jerusalem; your preparations should pay off, you reckon.

# Let's do the thing!

# Handle some more details.

In Jerusalem, the preparations for the Temple event include a sort of misplaced Chautaqua rally by Tsion Ben-Judah, taking place in a soccer stadium; in it, he exhorts new Jewish converts to the Christian Remnant to "infiltrate" places like universities, and preach there.

The "two witnesses" who have been camping at the Wailing Wall make a surprise appearance, courtesy of a video call on the jumbotron, and to some people's surprise they pronounce themselves against the rebuilt temple, albeit for different reasons than Pontifex Peter.

“Israel has rebuilt the temple to hasten the return of their Messiah,” Eli and Moishe had said, “not realizing that she built it apart from the true Messiah, who has already come! Israel has constructed a temple of rejection! Do not wonder why so few of the 144,000 Jewish evangelists are from Israel! Israel remains largely unbelieving and will soon suffer for it!”

Hundreds of thousands began streaming to Jerusalem to see it; nearly as many as had begun pilgrimages to New Babylon to see the magnificent new Global Community headquarters, the Brj Carpathia, which has finally been completed.

Bruce Barnes has done his share of traveling, too. He has instituted a program of house churches, small groups that met all over the suburbs and throughout the state in anticipation of the day when the assembling of the saints would be outlawed.

>>3655581

Dr. Robertson already has a security detail - it's what you ended up using the Ghilotti goon squad for.

In Atacama, a few members of the Spartan Guard have been spotted discreetly keeping an eye on the telescope facility.

>>3655596
# but can't quite get yourself to do that, and plan an Apple-style product reveal in Jerusalem, with everything else going on.

Might as well make big bucks and such.

# Handle some more details.
Speak to David Hassin.

>>3655599
Make sure we clean up the place before leaving, have no data or equipment we brought left behind. Make sure all the computers are thoroughly wiped if we don't take them with us.

I wonder why they are watching us...

>>3655599

You're glad you left a team with Dr. Robertson; the last group leaving the observatory takes the time to bring in new hard drives, install the OS and the various drivers to operate the equipment - and a VNC server for your later use, just in case, since your deal with Santiago only covers cameras - and simply takes the old hard drives back to HQ.

>>3655621

You briefly call in David Hassid, and confront him about the missing equipment. He offers his resignation there and then.

"I have been offered a position as the purchasing manager for the New Babylon local government - it's technically a demotion, but I get to be closer to the seat of power, where my skills are more urgently needed. If you have proof of any illegal conduct on my part, Foreman, I suggest you call the police. Otherwise, you can't do anything to me, I quit."

# Fine, good riddance. Throw him out the front door.

# If that's the way he wants it... Call the police.

# Mr. Hassid made a mistake. Throw him out the window.

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>>3655621
># but can't quite get yourself to do that, and plan an Apple-style product reveal in Jerusalem, with everything else going on.
>Apple-style product
It's actually a Microsoft Windows product. Here's the phone's photo.

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>>3655680
># If that's the way he wants it... Call the police.
Calling for aid works the best. Here's a photo of what the police looks like:

>>3655680

# Mr. Hassid made a mistake. Throw him out the window.
Make sure to make some paper Armour for a spider and put it in his pants.

>>3655687
>>3655693
Why not both. Watch the police throw him out the window.

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>>3655588

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Upshot–Knothole These are the tests Dr. Robertson was referring to, other than the Hiroshima bomb, of course.

>>3655682

Sure, why not. I was more thinking see pic, but that also works :)

(Yes, that's a Cybiko from 1999/2000. It had long-range 900Mhz wifi running at 19200bps. And you could write apps for it! In BASIC!)

>>3655720
Aaah, turn of the century tech is always wonderful. So's the original Fatman launcher.

What's your word of God on making power armor that runs on fusion cells, robots that use 1950's anti-communism slogans excessively, and creating a virus that abuses the process of evolution to an absurd degree?

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>>3655716
>>3655693
>>3655687

Your desk isn't nearly as fancy as Carpatescu's, but it does have a silent alarm button -- two in fact, one for the Chicago police, one for your own security people. You press the first; you also casually start a new recording buffer on your desktop PC.

"So I see, Mr. Hassid. Let me just print your resignation form then. I'm sure your new employer won't change his decision after I have a talk with their human resources department."

"That's not going to do anything. I have contacts, I know people! Why, I was supposed to have your job in the first place! Go ahead, do it!"

"Maybe, maybe." The printout comes out of the old-timey dot matrix printer. "Now if you could sign here, and initial here and here... So, out of curiosity, did your pastor make room for you in his super secret hideout, or is he leaving you out to dry?"

"Pastor Barnes knows what he's doing! He needs to keep room for the core members, they need all the support we can give them!"

"What, like with the laptops? Come on, you took five top of the line laptops intended for field agents. Didn't you think they would have a GPS receiver in them?"

"This is ridiculous! This is slander!"

"This is the Custodial Arrangement of Telecommunication Systems, Mr. Hassid."

The cops come in.

"This man stole government property, and rambled something about core members of an underground cell under a church. Shall I email you the recording?"

The two cops grab the man, who is smart enough to not resist. The older guy asks if you could put them on a floppy disk, or a tape, instead. You compress the file to 1.44Mb in size and hand it over to him.

"You will see me again!" Hassid shouts as he's being dragged away.

>>3655746

Fusion cells would be nice - right now Dr. Robertson is pretty sure nuclear FISSION doesn't even work anymore, although you do know that radiothermal generators still do.

The only robots you've seen around here recently are cell phones with little tank chasses built under or around them, largely because your research team had a bit of downtime and a basement full of random parts. You can definitely make them drive around and say things. You're scheduled to talk to a drone manufacturer in Israel right before or right after the big presentation, though. You have not started a biotech research program at this time, but during your tracking of Harriet Durham, you have found out that Carpatescu is one of the first - though not THE first - test tube babies; there's a conspiracy theory making the rounds on internet forums that he's the product of genetic engineering.

>>3655720
Okay, but I'm not sure what that changes?
Aside from wanting another scientist to do R&D so the workload can be lifted from Robertson, I would like to ask him on all three options here.
>>3655548

But I don't want to really end his contract since losing him would hurt us greatly.

>>3655766

(Not much changes, I was just looking up stuff from the dot-com-boom era that didn't quite make it to mass market, and that looks like it'd fit the bill for "early smartphone". ).

>>3655766

You take a bit of time to talk to Dr. Robertson after he's gotten back to Canada, on a secure line.

He tells you that he's a theoretical physicist, not a nuclear engineer; his experience as a lab manager has been useful to you in your enginering and applied research projects, but he doesn't think he's necessarily the right man to head a new Manhattan Project. He mentions that he's considering semi-retirement, if the scientific community accepts his magnum opus - mostly, he does not want to enter the political arena, which he would have to do one way or the other should he participate in applied nuclear research past this point, given people's extreme hostility to the idea of using nuclear power for anything, as they blame it for the Event. Should he stay on, he and his team can realistically work on one thing or the other, not both: it'd be hard enough to keep one covered up!

He looks uncharacteistically tired, although you can guess that he's gotten little sleep while working on the report; he blames it on recurring nightmares.

"You know the Mad Max movies? Nuclear devastation and all that? Imagine the opposite. Happy fun sunshine land with everyone eating steaming piles of vegetables drenched in butter, forever. Scared me worse than imagining a nuclear holocaust. The brain works funny, doesn't it."

>>3655788
I didn't mean the phones...

>>3655788
Awesome, We can look for Dr. Manhattan.

>>3655788
>Literally seeing and being horrified of the after kingdom.

>>3655802

If you are to continue work on nuclear research, you'll have to decide if it's towards reinventing the nuclear bomb, or towards making use of whatever the new nuclear physics turn out to be for other applications.

>>3655621

The Jerusalem shindig will include an address from Ryan Andrews, announcing an open standard for smartphones that will include a companion AI service. Of course, the open standard has been defined by you, so your people will get to decide who gets a big leg up in implementing it and be first to market. It's the best compromise you and Andrews managed to come up with, since as the head of a government agency you don't exactly get to launch new products as if you were the CEO of a private company. You do, however, get to make the Lantern announcement - an online encyclopedia, updated once a day, available to everyone on Earth for free outside of data caps and accessible by practically any terminal from the modern to 1980s dumb terminals as long as they have a VHF antenna.

# Let's do the thing!

# Handle some more details.

>>3655827

Dr. Robertson is keenly aware of academic politics, and plays the game like any other lab director, but remains an earnest scientist: civilizational stasis would be a worse nightmare than a post-atomic wasteland for him.

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>>3655827
>>3655852
# Let's do the thing!

>Dr. Robertson is keenly aware of academic politics
My god, If only this was 20 years later, he'd probably drink himself to death.

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>>3655874
Let's go for new nuclear technologies, since we know the bombs do nothing.

And yeah I don't think he:d survive clownworld.

>>3655887
Can't any of the posts in that tiny blurry image.

>Let's go for new nuclear technologies
I'm fine with that if we can hire another scientist, we can keep em separated. Also we give Robertson seniority and de jure tenure....

I kind of regret not going for the other nuclear options earlier.

>>3655887
>>3655926

What you do know is that nuclear reactors of current design, implosion-type plutonium bombs, and thermonuclear weapons (whose first stage is a plutonium bomb) no longer work. Dr. Robertson mentioned that gun-type uranium bombs like the Hiroshima device, and uranium hydride bombs, may still work; radiothermal generators still do work, albeit at reduced rate. Dr. Robertson hinted at the fact that a number of things which could not built before because they'd go supercritical can now be manufactured; the quip about a backpack mounted particle accelerator was probably in earnest.

Looks like the consensus is working on a new Manhattan Project, HOWEVER, you don't have to choose until you put manpower and funding into nuclear research again.

Basically, research trees must be unlocked (0 to 1), then have a basic branch (2 to 5) and two advanced branches, one of which must be chosen (6 to 9) and finally a capstone (9 to 10). Note that the Theology branch only goes up to 5; it's special, as each breakthrough must be unlocked.

>>3655874

(IRL I actually know a nuclear engineer who went hardline fundie Christian, including the whole 6000 year old universe nonsense, after he retired. Yes, alcohol was involved).

>>3655887
>>3655874

“Foreman, I feel the need to take you into my confidence. Our intelligence has discovered an insurrection plot, and we are being forced to circulate false itineraries for me in the United States.” Carpatescu tells you, texting from a secure line. “We suspect militia involvement and even collusion between disgruntled American factions and at least two other countries."

Well, that's just the kind of thing you want to hear flying to Jerusalem for the big unveiling, isn't it?

The reconstructed Temple has been made with great attention, using traditional techniques whenever safety laws allowed it and taking advantage of the Internet to collate a great number of donations for financing - if a history of the net is ever written, it'll be marked as the first large crowdfunding project. Chaim Rozenweig donated a significant, but not majority, percentage of the construction funds.

In deference to the hosts, the first sacrifice at the Temple will be the capstone of a media event which also includes Ryan Andrews' announcement about Nomenklator smartphone and your own announcement about the Planetary Datalinks.

# Pick an order for those two announcements!

# Secretly launch the backup rocket first, just in case.

The event itself, a sort of gala, is happening on a platform at a nearby hill; in contrast to the Temple inauguration, it's a decidedly secular affair, and you have to endure some autotuned pop music and nu-metal first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBpueJ7ho6A

>>3655941
# Secretly launch the backup rocket first, just in case.

>>3655941
>Dr. Robertson hinted at the fact that a number of things which could not built before because they'd go supercritical can now be manufactured; the quip about a backpack mounted particle accelerator was probably in earnest.

I thought that was the one safe option for things that won't potentially go supercritial.

>>3655958

You've just landed in Jerusalem, having made a point of staying up all night in order to take some melatonin on arrival and be as functional as possible for the main event despite it being almost on the other side of the world from you.

Maybe the decision was so you'd give yourself a shot of adrenalin in order to stay awake until sunset, but once you are settled into a hotel - enough people outrank you at this shindig that you can only get a suite if you agree to a significant limo ride to the presentation from a faraway hotel, and who's got the time for that, so you're in a regular room - you give the go-ahead for the backup launch.

The Antares rocket lifts off without a glitch, and the security team confirms that the only people who seem interested in the launch are a few space fans with their noses pressed against the fences and their cameras rolling. The small cluster of microsatellites reaches their elliptical transfer orbit without a single problem. You stay awake long enough to see the first satellite circularize its orbit; the others will do so in a staggered pattern, to ensure global coverage. The CF card memory correctly loads the first encyclopedia update and is ready to rebroadcast it using the existing low-orbit satellites.

# Let's leave nothing to chance, and turn the Lantern constellation on right now. The presentation tomorrow will be purely ceremonial.

# Give the presentation invitees something to actually do, and minimize the chance of someone figuring out how to mess with the system while you get some sleep: turn the constellation on at the allotted time.

Either way, the launch will be broadcast to Jerusalem with a ten second delay, and should anything go wrong, Moira has rigged the cameras at Wallops to switch over to recorded footage of a different launch - dissidents could literally shoot the main rocket down in midair tomorrow, and you wouldn't have to care.

>>3656026
Wait I don't understand.

If we leave nothing to chance with the first option, why do we have to worry about people messing with the system later?

Can we turn it on just to check it and then turn it off if everything checks out? What if David our IT guy did something to mess with the programing or code?

>>3656081

The satellite's systems checked out OK; thing is, a lot of people are going to be monitoring the moment the satellites start broadcasting, since you've made a public event of it. You can definitely send a test message, if you like. Since the online encyclopedia is user-editable (OOC note: You've built Wikipedia a few years early, except that anyone with a TV that has videotext, or a radio modem, or even a VHF antenna and $3 worth of electronic components and a serial port, can download pages for free even if they have no data plan), a full test could result in someone jumping on the feed and sneaking in an edit before the edit approval process is fully set up. The encyclopedia is otherwise intended to operate in read-only mode for the first few days.

>>3656026
>You can definitely send a test message, if you like.
Sounds good.
# Give the presentation invitees something to actually do, and minimize the chance of someone figuring out how to mess with the system while you get some sleep: turn the constellation on at the allotted time.

>>3656026
# Give the presentation invitees something to actually do, and minimize the chance of someone figuring out how to mess with the system while you get some sleep: turn the constellation on at the allotted time.

The only thing left to do is activate the CF cards on the satellites. That's achieved by a simple console command, but you decided for a physical switch, so people would have something to look at on TV.

The next day is chaotic, loud, hot, and also loud. The heightened security due to Carpatescu's presence means you get jostled around a bit.

The Temple opening seems to be going well; a few Ultra-Orthodox complained that the "red heifer" that must be sacrificed there doesn't count, since it was obtained by artificial insemination, but they are kept at bay by local LEOs.

Eli and Moishe had angered everyone, including the visiting Carpatescu, the day of the celebration of the reopening of the temple. For the first time they had preached other than at the Wailing Wall. That day they waited until the temple was full and thousands more filled the Temple Mount shoulder to shoulder.

Moishe and Eli made their way to the temple side of the Golden Gate, much to the consternation of the crowd. They were jeered and hissed and booed, but no one dared approach, let alone try to harm them.

Nicolae Carpatescu had been among the cadre of dignitaries that day. He railed against the interlopers, but Eli and Moishe silenced even him. Without the aid of microphones, the two witnesses spoke loudly enough for all to hear, crying out in the courtyard, “Nicolae! You yourself will one day defile and desecrate this temple!”

“Nonsense!” Carpatescu had responded. “Is there not a military leader in Israel with the fortitude to silence these two?”

The Israeli prime minister, who now reported to the GC ambassador, was caught not recognizing the Henry II quotation on microphone and news tape. “Sir, we have become a weaponless society, thanks to you.”

“These two are weaponless as well!” Carpatescu had thundered. “Subdue them!”

But Eli and Moishe continued to shout, “God does not dwell in temples made with hands! The body of believers is the temple of the Holy Spirit!”

Carpatescu, who had been merely trying to support his friends in Israel by honoring them for their new temple, asked the crowd, “Do you wish to listen to me or to them?”

The crowd had shouted, “You, Potentate! You!”

“There is no potentate but God himself!” Eli responded.

And Moishe added, “Your blood sacrifices shall turn to water, and your water-drawing to blood!”

Carpatescu lost his cool for a moment... but then got most everyone's attention, with a brief speech praising the modern, secular state of Israel for its tolerance of even extremist religious viewpoints. He then exhorted people to look above the Temple hill and towards the sky, where a new era of freedom of information is about to begin!

# Give your spiel and tell Carpatescu when to flip the switch. (Write one!)

# Let Andrews go first, and keep an eye on the temple.

>>3656135
>>3656135

YOU get free satellite internet! And YOU get free satellite internet! And EVERYBODY gets
free satellite internet!

>>3656135
# Let Andrews go first, and keep an eye on the temple.

Rolled (1d100)

Rolled 89 (1d100)

>>3656171
okay

>>3656147

"... new generation cell phones, based upon a common kernel that everyone will be able to get for free - everyone can be a programmer! With the new CATS voice recognition codex, the world's information will always be on the tip of your tongue... or sign up for the premium service and get personalized lookups any time you're at a loss for words."

Andrews is playing up the old timey patent medicine salesman act; in truth, the public Nomenklator system is mostly useful in enterprise settings, for example to allow maintenance people to quickly access a datasheet just by speaking the serial number of whatever they're working on.

In the few minutes that this buys you, you look towards the Temple, and notice consternation among the priests. Using the full-featured Nomenklator, you are put in contact with a GNN cameraman covering that side of the event.

"The priests are saying that the blood let from the sacrificed heifer had indeed turned to water. And the water drawn in another ceremony turned to blood in the pail. They are blaming the two witnesses for debasing their celebration."

You ask if you saw any sleight-of-hand that might explain it.

"Hard to tell, Foreman. They're all in traditional robes... thank goodness nobody snuck an Uzi under those, because there's plenty of room to."

The priests have decided to proceed with the ceremony, simply by swapping the pails, with the two witnesses mocking them. By the look of it, they're not helping their own cause: people still won't approach them out of fear, but they did form a human cordon between them and the temple to prevent further interference, and are soundly booing them.

Ryan finishes his little spiel, and it's now your turn. Carpatescu looks agitated, continually stealing glances in the direction of the temple; his only role here is to flip the switch that will give the Planetary Datalinks to the people of Earth, but you wonder if you should just issue the command yourself. You've never seen Carpatescu in anything less than complete control of himself, and you suspect, neither has most everyone else here today...


# Write in.

(Anyone wants to write something in?)

>>3656135
# Give your spiel and tell Carpatescu when to flip the switch. (Write one!)

Greetings to all who are gathered here today. I am proud to be here at this moment as are all of you to witness the start of a new and highly advanced, online knowladge repository. We are about to enter a new information age, of free information exchange, of free thoughts and shared scientific progress that will be shared globally around the world unrestricted by dogma or laws. Know that this free and open sharing of the worlds greatest wealth of humanity, will inspire and propel our future and evolution as a united civilization towards new heights by the seeds we plant today. We will be able to teach and share great wisdom unlike any generation before us, from teachers in eurpoue to students in South America, or scientific researchers in the Antarctic writing papers shared with to be pratically implemented with engineers in Asia, all around the globe who thirst for knowlage will partake their fair quesnching of ideas and information from this virtual book of knowlage, open to all, and all are deserving.

The children of today and tommorow will remember us foundly for the trees we plant even though we know that the shade that will come from them will never touch our backs!

I tried what I could. Make changes you see fit.

>>3656258
Ahh I missed the deadline. Posting anyways.

>>3656258
I'm not going to write a speech. I'm bad with those. But in addition to making a grand presentation of the rockets, we should see if any sound sensor equipment picked up anything when the witnesses made their declaration.

>>3656284
Right before the speech, you quickly check with the HQ team: nothing interesting. Notably, the two witnesses were not using that weird monotone that you know Carpatescu uses and that you think you've heard Tsion Ben-Judah try and fail to use. They're apparently just being really loud, or else being good at knowing where to stand so that their voices will project - this is the old part of Jerusalem, and the markets were designed to allow sellers to project their voices.

>>3656278
(I like it, I vote we go with it!)

>>3656296
>I tried what I could. Make changes you see fit.
I rushed this last sentence, basically anyone is free to make any additions or changes to better suit the character or whatever. Its not part of the speech.

>>3656296
>(I like it, I vote we go with it!)
I bet you double dip your chips in the chip dip too don't you!
j/k.

>>3656296
Could we get samples of the blood and water?

Do the full spectrum testing of it.

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>>3656278

",,, The children of tomorrow will remember us fondly, as they sit under he trees we planted today, even knowing that their shades would never touch our backs."

Carpatescu seems oddly distracted, and actually forgets to flip the switch; you wait for a few seconds, then have the official launch show on the Jumbotron and, just because you can, activate the "backup" system while the Semyorka rocket is still ascendng.

Since this is happening next to a Jewish ceremony, you had intended to cut away to the view of a camera already in space before the booster stage separation, but that part of the program does not get executed correctly and a Korolev cross briefly shows on the main screen. As luck would have it, from the safety officer camera that you are streaming from, it looks inverted.

Carpatescu seems to recover some of his aplomb. "Thank you, Foreman. Excellent job. Now, I believe the Prime Minister has a few words for us..."

Things wind down after that; you left practically nothing to chance, and practically nothing went wrong.

The next issue of the Global Community Weekly still manages to disappoint; William Cameron had been there that day as the new publisher of the renamed GCW. He resisted Carpatescu's urging him to editorialize about what he called the intrusion of the two witnesses, and he persuaded the Global Community potentate that the coverage could not ignore the facts.

As far as he is concerned, the blood let from a sacrificed heifer had indeed turned to water. And the water drawn in another ceremony turned to blood in the pail. And the upside-down cross drawn in the sky by the Planetary Datalinks rocket was disrespectful.

You are heartened to see that the comments section of the magazine's sparse website is full of people using the Datalinks to point out to Mr. Cameron what the Korolev Cross is! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-7_(rocket_family)#Korolev_Cross

>>3657322
>>3656772

Infiltrating the Third Temple's opening ceremony would have been exceedingly difficult... but politely asking one of the janitors when the festivities are over isn't: as a non-Jewish dignitary, you are welcome to visit the outside of the Temple, you are shown two common wooden pails, and told that one was supposed to end up with water in it, but ended up containing blood, and vice versa.

The official line is that the "two witnesses", who are now back to camping under the Wailing Wall, heckled the priests and distracted them for long enough for a third person to perform the swap; the Israelis blamed the two witnesses for debasing their celebration.

It would have taken a master stage illusionist to make the switch, but it's not impossible, as such, especially considering that the distraction did take place.

You suggest labeling the pails from now on, or at least painting them different colors, and ask the janitor to take a picture of you with the Temple in the background and you crouched in front of the pails. The old man happily obliges once you slip him a few banknotes.

While he works out how to work the camera on your phone, he take a sample of the pails by scraping them with a cotton swab; the subterfuge probably wasn't even necessary, but you feel proud of yourself for putting that covert ops training to use.

You don't have an in-house biology lab, so you send the swabs to be checked by the University of Chicago when you get home, as a courtesy, and get the results back - cow blood, and nothing (so presumably water that evaporated). Unlike the priests, you DID label the swabs, so you verify that there was no second swap.


The only thing that didn't quite go according to plan was the construction of a Network Node in southeast Asia: your crews were prevented from completing the job by an unfortunate confluence of nationalist activity in the chosen area and the disappearance of a bit of crucial equipment in transport.

The local subpotentate, in a brief press release, says that Indonesia's technology rivals that of any nation, but these setbacks are part and parcel of working in such a diverse region; after all, we are only human.

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Before the end of the month, Carpatescu announces the creation of a new Global Space Agency, intended to unify the efforts of NASA, Roscosmos, ESA, JAXA and the former national space programs, "in order to reduce waste and strengthen the spirit of cooperation pioneered by Apollo 18 during the Space Race".

Their first mandate, it seems, is going to be deorbiting Mir and merging the existing Mir-2 and Space Station Freedom projects into a Global Community Space Station.

Most of your workers don't think that it bodes well that the first act of this new global agency is to end humanity's continuous presence in space by deorbiting Mir before the GCSS' first module is launched. You are mildly irritated by their request that from now on communication satellite launches should go through them, and by the fact that the request came through the staff office rather than the new director emailing you. Come to think of it, you don't even know who the new director is - one hasn't been announced yet, and you suspect that there's a lot of infighting between the Americans and Russians going on about it right now.

# Make a point of ignoring them until they get their ducks in a row, you have a global mandate and they are, if anything, your peers, not your superiors.

# Track the issue closely so that you can take sides. This may require doing things their way, at least for a while. (Satellite launch complexity increases by 1)

From slashdot.org
Major Power Outage Hits Manhattan (gnn.com) 96 comments

Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday July 31, 1999 @09:45PM from the dark-nights dept.

"More than 40,000 in Manhattan don't have power," reports GNN:

Of the 42,000 customers without power in New York, most are in Midtown Manhattan and the Upper West Side, the utility company said. The city's fire department is responding to numerous transformer fires, the first of which occurred in Manhattan on West 64th Street and West End Avenue, officials said.

The outage is having a widespread effect, with the New York subway system also experiencing power outages in its stations, the agency managing the trains said. "We're working to identify causes and keep trains moving," the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said in a broadcast SMS... Photos from Times Square are showing some of the new electronic billboards dark as dozens of people stand confused on the sidewalks.

Updates from GNN report that subway trains "have been stopped for more than 45 minutes and they can't move back to stations. Some people have been forced to walk through train cars to evacuate."

Con Edison said the failure apparently stemmed from a problem at a substation on West 49th Street, and affected six power sectors. Con Edison’s chairman and chief executive, suggested it was a false alarm raised by an earthquake detector sensor, but emphasized that the utility would not know the cause until an investigation was completed.

At least the damn sensors work...

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You are planning out CATS' operation for the month.

Rules: http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.Quest2Rules.html

Datalinks: http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.Quest2Datalinks.html

Tentative timeline: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BlMOSEOxSihj1gdagq7yxCjONaRBgcdlRxnc68uWf0A

Agents:

You can deploy yourself on TWO actions for a small bonus to all rolls. Your Nomenklator system can be issued to ONE team per turn, for a small bonus to all rolls.

Dr. Robertson can be deployed on ONE action for a large bonus to R&D rolls or a small bonus to any non-covert rolls.

Ryan Andrews can be deployed on ONE action for a large bonus to construction rolls or a small bonus to any non-covert rolls.

Moira McSingh can be deployed on ONE action per turn, for a medium bonus to covert rolls or a small bonus to all rolls. She can give basic combat capability to a work crew.

Aki Lattinen can be deployed on TWO actions per turn, for a medium bonus to R&D or construction rolls. She will hack into things if bored.

Performing an action outside of your home territory will also require the availability of (complexity) fleet assets, OR renting fleet assets out at the cost of 1/asset.

C0:

Survey a territory for opportunity using an agent. Not surveyed: Caribbean, Northern Europe, Western Europe, China, India, Greenland, Japan, Indochina, Pacific Islands, Afghanistan, Madagascar, Sahara, Central Africa, South Africa, Israel, Middle East, Western Russia

Undergo combat training (Max 1 per month)

Move the Garibaldi (Mediterranean, Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, Pacific).

Tail someone using an agent.

Buy equipment on the open market (no agent needed):
Power generation 1
Small arms 1
Network equipment 2
Fleet assets 2
Aerospace part 3
Supplies (food, fuel etc) 0.33

Buy equipment on the black market:
Small arms 1
Squad weapons 2
Stimulants 1

C1:

Reconfigure the Garibaldi (generic, cargo, hospital, strike, orbital)

Tail someone using a team.

Survey a territory for opportunity using a team.

Hire out a covert operations team for a situational reward.

Construct network equipment.

Construct a Cellular-Solar pylon. (+1 cellular or internet; requires 1 network part)

Make and sell consumer-grade Nomenklators (Net gain 1BN). Reveals it.

C2:

Do research (1~3).

Construct an aerospace part.

Construct a logistics hub (cap 1 fleet requirement for that territory; can deploy covert teams there with no advance notice; costs 1 power; stores supplies)

C3:

Recruit a work team.

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

Do research (4~6).

C4:

Recruit a covert team.

Do research (7~9).

Construct a network node. (unifies cell and net in that territory; costs 1 power, 1 network)

C5:

Rush a satellite launch, which will happen at the end of this month. Requires 1 aerospace part.

Construct a base and a network node at the same time (2 power, 1 network)

Do research (10).

What are your orders?

>>3657373
# Make a point of ignoring them until they get their ducks in a row, you have a global mandate and they are, if anything, your peers, not your superiors.

Well nothing is ever easy is it.
>Construct a network node in India. 3 teams.
>One covert team to run security.
Since they're so long distance let's make china and Britain compete for who we do a node in next month. Use one of our actions for it. For the other action let's look for our new nuclear Physics guy. Moria should work with us to mess with china and Britain, as should one other covert team.

>Expert system should be given priority. Put Aki on it as well as three work teams.

>Logistics hub with 2 teams in Eastern Europe.

>>3657373
And we can buy the power. For that logistics hub, let's out that last covert team on something that can make us money.

>>3657394
>>3657392

Does this mean you are building both a node and a hub in India, or buying power parts?


Carla mentions that the price of supplies has gone up, largely due to the Community Co-Op scooping up a lot of MREs and water filtration systems last month.

Also, you have 1 unit of consumer grade EarNommies ready to sell (Forgot to update the inventory screen, my bad).

>>3657373
Have Dr, Robertson research cellar solar.

Have Aki research Defense and preparedness.
preparedness.
(Can we put Carla on this?)

Survey Territories North and western Europe with +2 work teams

Recruit another Covert team. Us leading, 3 work teams + 1 covert

Deploy 2 covert teams for work.

Andrews leads +3 crew making 3 network units

We lead another +3 teams making and selling Ear Gators.

Look for a naval captain for our carrier, ideally British, French, American, or even Japanese, since they are countries with carriers....

Look for an engineer or tradesman to help with in house making stuff.

Look for a person who can do PR and HR for us who worked in government.....

# Track the issue closely so that you can take sides. This may require doing things their way, at least for a while. (Satellite launch complexity increases by 1)
We can end up favoring a Russian so we gain one favor with their ponty.

Do we have a new head of IT?

Can we keep tabs on Hassin?

Food prices went up... this is concerning.

We should buy some heavier weaponry so we can finish off Rebohtha later...

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>>3657479
>>3657392

i don't wanna be that guy but have you looked at the timeline we have hacked out of the preacher?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BlMOSEOxSihj1gdagq7yxCjONaRBgcdlRxnc68uWf0A

Think back…way back…to when mobile phones first started getting a foothold in everyday life – I’m talking mid-to-late 1980s here. They generally attracted derision from people, with insults such as yuppie issued with careless abandon. Back then, you could probably take your mobile phone out in any situation and be scoffed at. But a decade on from those dark days, and it it now likely you’d be the subject of scorn for not having a mobile phone. As for today, well, bus stops, train stations, airports, workplaces, parks, supermarkets…you name it, nowhere is safe from mobile phone infiltration.

Then there’s pub quizzes.

Pub quizzes have become something of a phenomenon over the past few decades, particularly in the UK. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when they took off, but evidence seems to indicate some time in the 1970s.

The concept behind pub quizzes is perfectly simple – you have multiple rounds of general knowledge, themes, pictures, puzzles, music…and everything in between. But something happened - the Datalinks were born, something which enabled the ‘Internet in every pocket’, and things have not been the same.

While the Internet did exist on mobile phones prior to this, and texting friends at home was always a good option for would-be cheats too, it was the advent of the smartphone era that really put the skids on pub quizzes – it’s just far too easy to ask Nomen what the capital of Azerbaijan is. For the record, it’s Baku. You can see where the problems lie.

People may need to access their mobile device for any number of non-cheating reasons. Plus, there are plenty of other people present who may not be actively participating in the quiz. It’s a difficult process to manage, one that quizmasters can’t really be overly militant about.

The fun has been taken out of pub quizzes for many people. Will the Datalinks give us a data desert, where everyone knows everything but understands nothing?

Editorial, Global Community Weekly (UK edition), by executive editor William Cameron

>>3657510
Well, make a post and if I like It I may support it.

>>3657583
Did Dr Robertson release his findings yet?

>>3657608

He has sent out papers for peer review and eventual publication in scientific journals; you asked him to hold off on releasing to the popular press

# and you're now okay with him doing that, he earned it, and it may help recruitment.

# and since he cares more about the specialist press anyway, you intend to keep him holding off.

He's already agreed to not do anything with his hypotheses on alternative nuclear bomb designs, largely because he believes that the world is well rid of nukes and if humanity in general takes a few years to reinvent them, all the better. "Oppenheimer, Fermi, Feynman, Saratov... they all wished they could put the genie back in the bottle at some point in their lives, you know. I, today, have that very chance. And at least until I've had time to meditate on the matter, I am glad to take it."

Last month was also the 30th anniversary of the moon landing; for the occasion, which was marked by somber but low-key celebration since it looks like people care more about cyberspace than actual space these days, no less than Neil Armstrong released a voiceover for one of those Flash videos that are starting to pop up everywhere (you seriously considered asking Aki to write a virus that would erase the "All Your Base" video from any server it found it on after the third time someone made it show up on startup on an agency terminal).

https://youtu.be/6aQlbqHZuYk

>>3657479

You can track David Hassid: his online presence is pretty substantial. He's currently under house arrest after being released on bail. Your new head of IT should emerge through the internal promotion process at the end of the month.

>>3657479

Carla is already working on preparedness: she's helping maintain preparedness websites, making sure cities and towns can afford the sensored cutoff switches that will prevent after-earthquake fires and after-flood chemical spills, and the like. You run a big agency, staffed with mostly competent people, and once you initiate a program there's a lot of work going on in the back office in order to maintain it. The agents you command directly, you do so because they are people of extraordinary skill, who would be wasted otherwise. (Moira is wasted at least some of the time, but has never let her boozing get in the way of her work).

>>3657510

Was the timeline accessible in previous months? I was worried that people hadn't seen it.

>>3657618

it was read only for a bit but it was accessible, now it's writeable by all. is that intentional?

also your wiki page doesn't work immediately, you have to F5 after editing it for the changes to show up.

>>3657589

I'm not sure what to do other than warn anyone we like, build a network node to keep up appearances so supporting doing that >>3657392 , and buy supplies and fleet assets while we still can.

also start tracking whoever's in chage of global NASA as soon as we know.

>>3657479

Counterproposal:

Let's assume that SHTF next turn.

0 teams, buy at least 1 power part. Maybe buy extras.
1 team, build network parts.
Ryan Andrews, 3 teams, network node, Moscow so Zakarov is happy.
1 team, make EarPods and sell our current stock, should make us +2.
We go to North and Western Europe looking for opportunities. Maybe we can find a carrier captain. What can we not do with a generic captain?
Deploy 2 covert teams for work, should make us another +2. Send Moira in case of trouble.
1 covert team buys more heavy weapons so all 3 teams have them.
Aki can work on preparedness since we get good stuff when it hits 5/10. 2 teams.
Aki can work on cellular-solar since we get good stuff when it hits 5/10. 2 teams.
Robertson can do his own thing this month.
0 teams, buy supplies, depending on how much money we made.

This has cost 8 and gain 4 so we can spend 4 on supplies. That gets us 28 supplies total. That's enough to survive on and we have some to trade.

I'd actually like to blow most of our budget on supplies and then hunker down next month honestly.

>>3657795
No, I reject this plan whole heartedly.

>>3657795

The current XO of the Garibaldi can sail her safely, and handle a cargo mission, but can't really do much else. You may want to look in Italy for a captain since this was originally an Italian ship, but any former NATO country should work well.

>>3657799
>>3657795
>>3657479

Y'all tell me! :) If you want any more lore/fluff I'll probably write some while I wait. Do you have any questions about the world?

>>3657799

what should we do to prepare then?

>>3657373
If shit hits the fan next turn guys as far as war goes we should ally with santiago now. My plan is.
>buy one power
> Us do training with santago offer alliance.
> us explore china/-hong kong look for interesting people
> 3 teams with aki on expert
> 3 teams with ryan andrews on making the network node in wouth east asia
> 3 teams on recruit work crew
> 1 team work on making more nomenclatures to sell and start selling them
> 1 team make Network parts.
> 1 covert team work with moira
> 2 covert team recruit covert and be on backup for the one working

>>3657801

where are we in the books?

>>3657819

I like it but we need to buy supplies while they are cheap. there's plagues and disasters and stuff coming. food and power = money when everything goes to shit. they've already started going up in price.

>>3657822

Bit metagame-y, but you're about near the end of "Tribulation Force" since the Third Temple has just been built and consecrated.

According to the end times timeline you DO have courtesy of Bruce Barnes, who by the way has taken the hint after going to South America to preach and yell at Dr. Robertson and is on an extended mission trip, you're roughly a year and a half in, out of roughly seven.

>>3657822
We could remove the research for nomenclature. Problem is we dont have enough work teams for what I want. Lets put the new one we recruit perm on nomenclatire selling and production. Use that money for supplies.

What would you suggest moving to sell more?

>>3657830

That would have been great 6 months ago but there's supposed to be a war coming up next month or even this month since the timeline we have isn't precise. IDK if people buy cell phone gadgets in wartime.

The nomenklator seems to be working well enough for us so why don't we buy supplies now, sell the stock we have to see how it does in the market, and postpone that after the war happens so that we can see if it's something like the Iraq war where life elsewhere continues as normal or if it's something like WW2 where everyone has to be in the war effort.

Although since Carpatescu already owns the world who's he fighting against? Demons = no because he's supposed to be the demons (And then John was a zombie). Angels = no because it's too early. Aliens? Rebohoth pissd of us but not him.

Is the timeline a red herring?

>>3657840

Carpatescu did mention last month that he had reason to believe nationalists would try something, and for that reason he requested that his travel itinerary not be made public information. Your tracking hasn't show anything related to this, other than Rev. Barnes intending to make sure his little bunker was ready. However, he's not returning to Chicago just yet.

>>3657840
I think with the war our main concern should be more covert teams so we can profit off of it. Economic sactions appear to be about turn 19. Which we should buy supplies before that happens.

How about we use 6 of our funds to buy 24 supplies this turn and then if the nomenclature goes well we can set a number of people on that mext turn to make our money.

>>3657860

works for me. how do you feel about it >>3657799

>>3657392

i love the network node auction idea. do we have time/people for it?

>>3657795
I like this enough and would support it.

Can we look to buy a bunker or two? Or do we have to build it?

>>3657860
Also support.

>>3657931

Logistics bases are reasonably fortified. They'll be destroyed if, say, they get bombed by the few strategic bombers that remain in the world, but they should be able to resist a siege for a while, to let reinforcements show up.

Building one is a C2 job; building a network node and a logistics base at the same time is a C5 job (as opposed to C4+C2, simply because it's easier to get the paperwork and rent the construction vehicles once rather than twice).


(OOC note: I'm a bit confus as to what people want to do, overall, since the plans I see are all different)

>>3657873
I think we currently lack parts for it.

So we have to build one? We can't buy a decommissioned D.U.M.B. that's nuke proof?

>>3657954

You can definitley set up a logistics base at, say, the site of a decommissioned ICBM silo - happily there are quite a few available, even!

You'd still have to spend money and man-hours to clean it up, remove the launch systems, fit modern data lines, build or rebuild a cargo elevator, and so on.

>>3657946
>>3657954
I support this overall.

>>3657795
Last team should come with us if they aren't doing anything, they can even act as a security detail.

Unless we have passive bodyguards like Dr. Robertson has, then send em to work on the robot elf ears.

>>3657960
>You'd still have to spend money and man-hours to clean it up, remove the launch systems
Now lets not be to rash here.....

>fit modern data lines, build or rebuild a cargo elevator, and so on.
That's cool.

Where can we start buying?

I only know of Russia and USA that has an abundance of them.

>>3657960
Didn't we set up a node or a logistics base in eastern Russia? Can we ask to move it to a more underground facility?

Could the locked tech tree be cybernetics or something?

Perhaps we should talk to Aki to see whether her idea about putting stuff inside of the skull has something to it.

>>3657946

New plan


>buy one power
>buy 6 funds of supplies
> Us do training with santago offer alliance.
> us explore china/-hong kong look for interesting people
> 3 teams with aki on expert
> 4 teams on recruit 2 work crew
> 2 team work on making more
nomenclatures to sell and start selling them
> 1 team make Network parts.
> 1 covert team work with moira
> 2 covert team and 1 work team, recruit covert and be on backup for the one working

>>3657972

Yes and yes (they are on the map). They've been built in an Army base in Siberia, so they're somewhat protected already. They're also in the middle of nowhere in the steppes, so any attackers would be seen coming half a day early.

>>3657977

Look around for unusual things! You can let Aki try to do her thing, but she may require medical attention if it doesn't work. The good news is that she's extremely unlikely to actually kill herself and/or giving herself brain damage on the first attempt.

>>3657988
Make sure we stockpile some junk food especially Doritos and mtn dew

>>3657981

(Is this the most current plan?)

>>3657994

Don't forget Twinkies, they are apocalypse-proof.

>>3658021
Its my most current plan not sure what the others are voting on

>>3658021
Its the plan I agree with most. I doubt we will get other anons to agree, so.....

I do want a British or French Carrier Captain for the funny accent.

But i will settle for an American if nothing else or if they are better.

Also German scientist or engineer!

>>3658021
>Twinkies

Never did like them.

>>3658023
Btw your post has 1 leftover crew not doing anything I think.

It cool if we put that last crew on making more finger bangers in your ear?

>>3658129

There's nothing preventing that - the presentation is nice and fresh, so there's likely to be demand. Go ahead!

(If you repost the revised plan it makes my life immensely easier)

Buy 1 power part.
Buy Supplies 10 units for 3.3 bn?

1 Work crew make network equipment.
3 Work teams build network nod with Andrews in Russia
2 Work teams on making and selling Nomenklators.
2 work teams with Aki researches expert systems
3 work teams and 1 covert team on recruitment with us leading
2 Covert teams doing jobs with Moira.
We have another free action as Foreman which I suppose we can decide depending on what type of covert jobs we get or maybe we go and survey a territory or do some training.

So does this look good guys? A decent Compromise guys?
>>3657981
>>3657795

>>3658184
There is already a network node in russia so we shouldnt put it there. Look at the map we need one for every color.

>>3658129
I counted and I am using 11 work crews not sure where you are counting one missing?


>>3658184
the plan dosnt state what we are recruiting I assume covert? Russia already had a node. I would say change location of the node and I will agree with it. Although I do think we should get more work teams too.

>>3658184

Looks good to me if we can split BN's. If not 9 supplies is still pretty good

>>3658192 is right so let's build the node in the UK or or India or China, and we also go look for people there, that way we get good PR for helping build up their country.

I support >>3658184 except build the NN somewhere else (India? Maybe we can recruit Gurkhas)