December 1997 Official Responses

From:  John Groszkiewicz (Tork)

Greetings,

Things Tork wants to do this turn ( in priority ).

1) Talk to the team and see if someone can pull Spider's prints off the ammo ( 
assassinators ) cartridge. Then run the prints and see what we get. 

Note to Layne: Tork will not make any suggestions about what to do with the 
assassinators unless someone speaks up first. If the suggestion is to give them to 
team-mates with needler weapons - Tork will agree and pass the ammo out. If the 
concensus is to hand the ammo over to the local police - Tork will volunteer "I'll take 
care of it." but the ammo will never quite make it to the police station. ( Tork will 
hide the ammo in the air vent of his room and then booby trap the vent. If it comes to 
this I'll send details on the booby trap used. ) 


2) Drat, I don'r believe Tork forgot to get a picture/description of Spider. Tork will 
contact Crayman Heit/Loer for this information. ( He will try a vid call first, if that 
fails he will take backup and return to the apartment. )


Other things:

Taanik mentions checking out the mine robots. This is not high on Tork's priority list 
but he would welcome the chance to 'get outside'. If Tannik (or anyone else) wants to 
go Tork will go.

Given a chance Tork will talk to the team Techs about building a small (room size) 
'white noise' generator. Tork would like to make sure that his conversations are not 
being monitored.

Tork will be a little reserved around Kare. He is still troubled by Kare's "other 
connections" but has thought of a couple ways that those "connections" might be useful 
to the team. Problem is he is not sure (1) how to bring the subject up and (2) still is 
not sure if he can trust Kare.

TTFN
John johngroz@velocity.net

From:  Clark Valentine (Taanik)

Sorry for the late and short response this time, guys. Hectic holiday
happenings.

The way Taanik sees it, there are 4 possible paths to pursue at this
juncture. 1. Lay some bait for the raiders and set a trap for them, using
our new barium paint to track them. 2. Explore lost Point. 3. Wait and
see if something happens to Selson, like Urugg thinks might happen. 4.
Try to track down the bad Ixiol - I bet it leads to "Spider". He may have
brought this bad Ixiol into the colony to create a diversion, similar to
the life support takeover.

1. If we lay a trap for the raiders, Taanik thinks it would be a good idea
to get a few hand grenades filled with that barium paint as well as the
gyrojet ammo. (Layne - is this poossible? If so, Taanik picks up a
couple for himself and the team - say 10 total.)

2. Taanik thinks that if we go to Lost Point, we should do so in force
andf take Cimmy along with us. Maybe hypnosis can be used to get some
more info out of her. (Who's go the psyche skills? Urugg?)

3. Seems like Selson's on our side after all. We need to keep a close eye
on this Alicia woman - if there's a "sleeper" agent I betcha it's her.
Taanik thinks we should warn Selson (even if we don't stick around to
protect him), but won't unless the team agrees it's the right thing to do.

4. If "Spider" did have something to do with the bad Ixiol, Taanik going
undercover as a buyer might allow us to discover his whereabouts. Syzygy
- did you make Taanik's fake ID yet?

Also: If time permits, Taanik still wants to check out the mining robots,
but it's not a top priority.

Taanik thinks that there's still too much to be learned at first landing
to go to Lost Point just yet. Taanik will advocate action plan #1, but
will definitely participate enthusiastically in whatever the team does.
No matter what we do, we need to keep in touch with Cimmy and warn Selson
about the possible threat to his safety.

From:  Andy Campbell (Urugg)

Well, the time draws nigh once again. Hope you all had a Merry Christmas,
Happy Hanukah, etc.! On to our heroes' predicaments...

I've gone back and reread the last update (parts of it more than once) to get
familiar with our situation again. I confess that I'm (both me as player and
Urugg as PC) mighty disturbed... We've got some potentially major problems
here, folks. Streel "Black Ops" teams, uppity Streel corporate execs (ie.
Alicia), most-wanted criminals. So much for an easy contract on Metrosphere :P

John / Tork wrote:
<<1) Talk to the team and see if someone can pull Spider's prints off the ammo
( 
assassinators ) cartridge. Then run the prints and see what we get. >>

In addition to dusting for prints, Urugg will suggest swabbing down the
assassinators to get surface samples for analysis. If Spider handled the
cartridge without gloves (as it appears he did if Loer saw him carrying them
around), there is a chance that there are minute quantities of sweat, skin
flakes or body hairs on the cartridge. If such exist, they may be a
sufficient quantity to run a DNA match against the DNA profile in law
enforcement databases (I'm sure Spider was DNA-typed by Star Law when he was
apprehended). Although prints may smear, micro-traces like these may give us
a positive match. Also, if a sample does appear to be present but none of our
teams' biosocial types can analyze it successfully, I recommend - *quietly* -
submitting it (the sample, definitely not the cartridge!) to Metrosphere's
forensics lab so they can take a stab; if we do this, we won't tell them who
the sample is from, just request an analysis and DNA-typing... 

[snip]
<< Given a chance Tork will talk to the team Techs about building a small
(room size) 
'white noise' generator. Tork would like to make sure that his conversations
are not 
being monitored. >>

If Tork mentions this, Urugg's opinion is that this is an absolute priority.
It appears we are facing multiple threats and that there may be opposing
factions within our employer (Streel). At the least we've got Selson, Alicia
and whatever other faceless corporates work here or elsewhere that could
profit from Selson losing control (or just "face") over the Metrosphere
operation. It is also possible that we've been hired (intentionally or
unintentionally) as "patsies" to flush out some folks Streel hasn't been able
to locate so that they can then be dealt with by the Black Ops guys; if so,
we might be next on the list, or forced to take the blame for the consequences
as a "bunch of trigger-happy amateurs". 

Given that we don't have a true "safe house" where we can have secure
conversations, a white noise generator would be the next best thing; if we
can cook one up, we should also make sure we cover our faces (masks, gas
masks, etc.) to conceal our facial movements from any optical scanners (ie.
the holosystem) - wouldn't want to be foiled by lipreaders either.


Next order of business:

Kare has clued us in that the large vent tunnels have been "sealed" but can be
broken into. I suggest that we have Met-sphere's maintenance / security goons
do a better job of sealing them. A simple way [if the tech is available at
this point in Frontier time] would be having several teams of techs use
spraycrete (from Zeb's Guide) to seal off the tunnel exits - getting through
that stuff'd take some time and heavy duty equipment - within the means of
Metro's boys if they want/need to get into or use the tunnels later, but
permanent enough to deter short-term saboteurs.


Other angles:

Now that Spider has been almost certainly identified as Dakka Syte, we need to
gather dossiers on him, the conditions of his escape, and any possible links
to beings on this moon. This includes figuring out if anyone on Dakka's list
of enemies (real or imagined) may be here and therefore targets. Important
names to check:
- Jecc Weep (Vrusk Star Law agent) - apprehended Syte; could be here
undercover?
- Grogan & Karchudka (freighter pilots) - helped Jecc Weep; could be here as
part of a "witness protection program"?
-Alicia - Selson's assistant; [note: Urugg will only suggest this if Kare has
relayed Alicia's heated talk with Selson to the rest of us; otherwise remove
her from this list]
-Maxim Zek'et - Urugg will suggest that there is a stong possibility that if
Dakka holds Maxim's brother, Zyluss Zek'et, responsible for his imprisonment,
Syte may be planning to murder or kidnap Maxim as revenge against Zyluss.

While we're getting dirt on Dakka Syte and pals, we should check into his
known associates and cross-reference them to Metrosphere immigration papers.
Also meet with Met-sphere's police lieutenant Ap-Harrow and try to get some
info on recent organized crime activity on the moon. Spider is linked to
Star's Arm, in turn linked to the protests, in turn potentially linked to the
Red Eye outbreak, in turn potentially linked to someone running Ixiol into
this tin can of a colony. If they're running Ixiol in here, they could be
running anything in - guns, stolen top-secret Streel gear... 


Speaking of dossiers, I think it is imperative we do some digging into
Streel's dirty laundry, though not openly. If there is a Sreel black ops team
on Metrosphere, a powerful someone in Streel had got a deadly axe to grind
with someone here. We should start with public sector documents - quarterly
reports, shareholder reports, profit & loss statements to the Frontier's
equivalent of the SEC; anything that might help us figure out if there are
hidden forces at work on Metrosphere - maybe rival execs in the megacorp want
it to fail so they can promote planetary mines closer to the core systems, or
want it to fail to prevent Selson from gaining more say in the corp, or want
it to fail to hurt customers who rely on Metrosphere's ore production but have
bidded prices lower. Who knows? Something very strange could be going
here... 

Well, that's the general stuff Urugg will propose to the group. He will try
to help out on this stuff, but may have to put it off due to his immediate
actions - these will follow in the next email...

From:  Andy Campbell (Urugg)

OK - here's the specifics on Urugg's immediate actions:

on the chronocom call from Syzygy:
Urugg steps out of Cimmy's shelter before answering...
(in a hushed voice)"What? Maxim knows her? That's more than we could have
hoped for - Zane and I are here with her now. According to Zane, she's
suffered untreatable brain damage from long-term oxygen deprivation. I hate
to admit it, but besides making her more comfortable, there's little we can do
for her - I still hope to locate any surviving kin or clan she may have so
they can care for her."

"Anyway, is it possible that Zane and I can join you at Maxim's? I know he's
an important man, but I think we need to pick his brain and find out just what
happened during the Lost Point revolts - how they started, why they started,
and why there may still be survivors lurking on this moon. He may be the key
to unlocking this whole mess."

[If Maxim agrees to allow Urugg and Zane to join Syzygy, Urugg will make for
his quarters like the devil himself was behind him. Once there, Urugg will
try to get the following questions he raised to Syzygy answered, as well as
broader questions as to what Maxim envisioned Metrosphere becoming - "worker's
utopia", luxury tourist resort, major colony, terraformed garden paradise,
etc. Also whether he thinks Streel is following through on his original plan
or abandoning it, and what he knows of the colony's backers as far as
integrity, willingness to use force to achieve their objectives, etc. He will
also - taking care not to appear insulting - suggest to Maxim that he request
police protection or beef up his bodyguards if he has any; given his brothers
involvement with Syte's imprisonment, he may see harming Maxim as a way of
settling an old score.]

Next:
If Tork relays his exchange with Loer to the rest of the party, Urugg will ask
him to set up a meeting with her at a place of her choosing. If she agrees,
Urugg will ask either Tork or T'Klkk to come along for backup just in case.
Also, Urugg will suggest it may be wise for us to request (and suggest to
Loer) that she get some protection from her followers or the police, or go
totally underground. If Spider is Dakka Syte, he may come to her looking for
his assassinators and/or to "cover his tracks". If Loer meets with Urugg, he
will try get a better understanding of Star's Arm and try to find out if
Spider may be helped by Star's Arm "defectors" who agreed with his violent
revolution program. He will also try - very carefully - to figure out if Loer
has ties to surviving Lost Pointers (ie. bring up Lost Point's failed colony
in the context of environmental degradation of Metrosphere - does she agree
with the Lost Pointer's in breaking away? Did they just "pollute" the moon
even more? Were they more "responsible" than Streel's managers?). 

Urugg will also argue some politics with Loer to try and find out how
dedicated she is (or if she is just fronting for someone else by leading
Star's Arm, though she seems genuine). Some of the question he will pose: 
"Given that this moon is not being left in its natural state, would it not be
better to oppose Streel mines planetside on the Frontiers' colonies? Though
natural formations on asteroids and moons have their own beauty, is it not
more worthwhile to first stop destruction of biological ecosystems - much more
complex natural systems than non-living systems? If mining on a lifeless moon
or planet prevents eradication of a planet's native species, is the loss of
the moon not the lesser evil?" 

"New colonies like Metrosphere may reduce stress on older colonies - crowding,
food shortages, pollution, destruction of native life - across the Frontier.
Not only that, but building biological preserves like the parks here may
preserve species that otherwise would be wiped out - by mining, an asteroid
strike, in the next Sathar invasion, or who knows what other disaster?"

"I just don't understand how - with all of these more important issues that
the colony here may help solve - you are opposing colonization of
Metrosphere."

Urugg will offer Loer his phone # / email address (whatever's appropriate on
the Frontier - the equivalent of "leaving your card") if she would like to
meet again, or comes up with new info on Spider. If she questions Urugg's
credibility as far as his pointed questions about Star's Arm's agenda, he will
tell her do a newsfeed search of his teen and college years on Hargut. (he
has paid his dues) Urugg will also mention the "Natural Monument Commission"
that he suggested to Selson, and suggest that such programs might be a good
first step for both Star's Arm and the colony to coexist and prosper. 


After these plans are done (or fail to materialize), Urugg will start acting
on his suggestions from my first email - analyzing any sample he can get from
the assassinator cartridge; assembling dossiers on Dakka Syte and related
individuals; assembling a dossier on Metrosphere-related news / reports from
Streel. He will ask the computer experts (Syzygy, Kare or Taanik - whoever's
available and willing to help) for help with the datasearches; he will also
help Tork (if he wants help) with looking into an apartment-scale white-noise
generator. Finally, he will again ask Kare and the team (if there is time) if
she / they would be interested in paying another visit to the dralasite
peddler / smuggler Baab; id may have some leads on the smuggling issues our
investigation has raised - maybe into other underworld stuff too - where to
get fake ID's, who's moving Ixiol, etc. 

Well, that should do it for now. Been quiet lately folks - December's been
quite a pain in the ass timewise in these parts too : P

Looking forward to hearing from you all : )


Happy New Year to all of you, should I not log any replies before then - 

Andy & Urugg

From:  Albin Johnson (Syzygy)

Urugg said:
>"Anyway, is it possible that Zane and I can join you at Maxim's?

Syzygy will turn to Maxim and politely request that his friends join them.
Syzygy does not want to jeopardize the trust he's earned so far from the
elder engineer, so he will propose this tentatively. Also, he will try to
enjoy as much time with Maxim as possible, sharing anecdotes, asking him
questions, visiting him from time to time, and hopefully getting a tech's
insight into how this place really runs. Syzygy would LOVE to know more
about the Spire, how to use it, etc. - who knows? Maybe the old guy has
some backdoors he could share with a friend? :)


Kveldulf said:
>Speaking of dossiers, I think it is imperative we do some digging into
>Streel's dirty laundry, though not openly.

>While we're getting dirt on Dakka Syte and pals, we should check into his
>known associates and cross-reference them to Metrosphere immigration papers.

>Now that Spider has been almost certainly identified as Dakka Syte, we need to
>gather dossiers on him, the conditions of his escape, and any possible links
>to beings on this moon.


First of all, the Syte-Spider is pretty strong but let's not jump to
conclusions. Regardless, all of these tasks are up Syzygy's alley. After
his meeting with Zeket, Syzygy will proceed back to his room and begin
research on the following subjects:

- nature of the software glitch that occurred in his hospital room's
vid-monitor. If he has to return to the room to get any specific terminal
numbers for facilitating the search he will. Specifically, Syzygy will
cross-reference this glitch and the one that occurred concerning the team's
security access clearances. If there's a pattern involved, Syzygy will
inform the team that it may suggest a bigger problem, such as Dakka Syte or
Spider waging a computer-terrorism campaign on Metrosphere (which would
make sense, it's up his alley and this is a computer-heavy environment).

- compile a database on Syte and prepare this for distributing to the
others in the team for their use. This will include everything from his
picture (and aliases) to his favorite movie to every girl he took out
during college. The information will be prepared to download into anyone's
chronocom or a portable datapad.

- Syzygy will continue to bait Syte into revealing himself, first leaving
'open forum postings' about what a superior computer hacker Syzygy is
compared to this Syte-amateur (hackers are, by nature, very ego-tistic).
If this doesn't work, Syzygy will use his security clearance with the Spire
to create a bogus series of programs that simulate poorly-hidden, secret
information from Selson to his workers. The messages will be cryptic and,
if decoded, meaningless so as to frustrate Syte (he'll think his decoding
didn't work or another code is involved). The programs will point back to
a little-used maintenance terminal somewhere out of the way, which Syzygy
will link to using some PPP equivalent to monitor for usage or access. One
of the messages will openly refer to a repository of stuff meant to be
hidden from Star's Arm - the location will be near the terminal and easy to
watch from a distance.


LESS TIME-INVOLVED ACTIVITIES:
- Syzygy will ask Tork how he can get some of those Barium Isotope shells
for his gyrojet pistol

- Syzygy will continue to compile a list of activity on the monorail from
his motion-detection device - should take only a few seconds

- Do some research on the Streel 'dirty laundry' looking only for the most
obvious clues related to Metrosphere - Syzygy puts this at a low priority
for he doesn't know what to look for

>Urugg steps out of Cimmy's shelter before answering...
>I still hope to locate any surviving kin or clan she may have so
>they can care for her.

Syzygy will conduct a rudimentary genealogical search for Cimmy's
kin-network. If he has to, he will ask Tork or Urugg to explain the
complex clan-system that governs Yazirian culture, so as to help him
discover any unturned stones. This action will not involve the majority of
his time, though.


>Taanik mentions checking out the mine robots. This is not high on Tork's
>priority list
>but he would welcome the chance to 'get outside'. If Tannik (or anyone else)
>wants to
>go Tork will go.

If possible, Syzygy would also like to do a quick-and-dirty analysis of the
robot activity in the mines. Specifically, he'd like a utilities dept.
report on their routines, work patterns, work areas, etc. and compare them
over the last several weeks. It is hoped that if someone is futzing with
the computers, if terrorists are trying to stop the mining, or if someone
in Streel is using them in a hidden way we can find it here. Syzygy is
looking for any sudden changes in work patterns or perhaps the revelation
of a strange work pattern for an objective different from that publically
listed.

Hey Layne,

My deepest apologies, I've been waiting to start playing again...and
then I forgot. Question? where we to get experience points? or did I
just miss them. Anyway, while reading the responces, Kare realizes that
as usual there are a lot of ideas, but too little time. So Kare will
defer to the group in general. All the ideas sounded good. All Kare
really wanted to do was to tripwire the passage ways (Life support)
train herself to use both hands (My spelling stinks, so I not going to
try spelling it...ambadextrious) and then purchase a second needler
pistol. If we are going to battle special ops teams, she going to have
to be ready. Kare needs to get her watch back. Plus she never mapped
the passage ways. But all these are secondary to the teams mission.

Later Layne
ruben

Hey, Layne. You're not the only one who has been silent for a while. I 
apologize for my absence of posts during December. I came down with a bug (no 
reference to Vrusk!) that is going around and was out sick for 2 weeks. Then 
there was the holiday, and the university also decided to shut the system down 
to upgrade software to improve services (which has actually resulted in many 
glitches and utter chaos now that the system is back up). Anyway, to make a 
long story short, I'm back and ready to play. I'm submitting below my 
official actions for T'Klkk....if it is not too late to do so. If it is, I'll 
understand.

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

Once we get back from Urugg's investigation of the attack site, T'Klkk will go 
over the data that he collected. She will also check in with all of the teams 
that are out in the field to get updates from them. If she gets the 
information from Tork which was in the Dec 97 story, she will suggest that 
Tork get a detailed physical description of Spider. She will also volunteer 
to check for fingerprints on the assassination cartridge while Tork continues 
his investigation.

T'Klkk will ask Kare to share with the rest of the group the information that 
she has discovered. She will then say the following: "It is safe to assume, 
with two degrees of assurance, that the would-be assassin is not aware that we 
of the intended use of the old ventillation system. Therefore, I propose that 
we set a trap while we have the advantage. At the very least we should set up 
a hidden camera to monitor the area, and I'd also like to see us install some 
kind of physical trap: anaesthetic needles or doze gas triggered by motion. 
Any thoughts?

T'Klkk will also try to track down, probably using Syzygy's help, very old 
maps showing where the ventillation shafts are located. If Syzygy can get 
this from Maxim, so much the better. We may even consider consulting with him 
to see if there are other long forgotten layout secrets.

That should keep T'Klkk busy for a while.

Thanks!

-JWW