chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
It was no accident our enemies found us. It was an opportunity.
They were still establishing security when we arrived. Security without proper IFF protocols. A stolen car, a few camera distracted, and our first agent entered their perimeter without incident.
Normally one agent would be insufficient for the task, of course.
Which is why we brought the most effective force multiplier in our arsenal. Within the first minutes a sizable percentage of the civilian populace was following my, excuse me, our every whim.
The constabulary did not fare better. Of course, this was a delicate part of our operations. If the enemy had sealed their communication chanels, we would have no ability to control their agents. It would be simply a clash of martial might, and I have hours of field tests showing how effective a mostly unarmed populace is against cybernetic killing machines.
In case you cannot access those recordings, the results are... unpleasant for those involved.
An ambush seemed more effective than straightforward brute force. Fire the adrenaline and hope.
The imbeciles had no cyberware defenses in place. A quick mental jolt, exposure to the song of the many, and their first agent folded.
I was promised fanatics. I was promised men who would kill or die rather than surrender. Heroes. Achilles and Hector fighting like demons.
No. They were men like the rest. Fragile lumps of impulses, unable to even act in their own interests for long, let alone fight for a cause.
Nothing and less than nothing.
Solipsism has never been so tempting.
A police officer objected to our actions.
It did not go well for anyone. He recanted before I forced him to eat his service pistol.
The other agents against us fared just the same. Failure and subversion and more blind worship.
A woman threw herself against our car on our way out. A sacrifice to her new god.
And our little cult escaped.
The dawning of a new empire.
It's feeling less and less like an inherited publicity line at this point. More and more like an inevitability. Oh brave new world...
14% accuracy. Shameful.
I've taken the liberty of purchasing several miniguns. Perhaps with that volume of ammunition, you can hit something.
I suggest you pad out your spreadsheets so as to facilitate a paradigm shift within the corporate structure, in order to harness results-driven market forces and maximize first-quarter deliverables
I really liked Syndicate. But all I ever ended up doing was dumping a shit-ton of research into brains, and just wandering around persuading everyone until there was noone left to oppose me.
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chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
Hmm.
It seems our current enemies are not taking our threat lightly.
They are building more agents. Hiring more security.
Massing at our borders.
And worst of all?
They've found a defense against our primary weapon, and a scientist capable of mass producing it.
Right now, we are, I will not mince words, an ant hill. Tenacious, functionally brilliant, capable of war and subterfuge with the best of them.
But oh-so-small.
We have an advantage that can keep us alive despite this.
To rephrase, we have one advantage. One advantage that is a few short weeks from becoming entirely obsolete.
Simple work this time.
Find one man. Kill him.
Destroy his backups.
Kill any witnesses.
Burn the city.
Are we clear?
Four of you will be assigned this task. Do. Not. Fail. Me.
chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
Well.
We are gathered together here today...
But I get ahead of myself. Roll the tape.
And pay attention for once. It might be of interest to the survivors.
It was a simple enough mission in theory. Simply murder everyone between you and the target, then murder him. Pursuading enemies to our cause was, at best, a side benefit. Not a main goal. You were to remain focused and together.
But no. Agent one, or "Bursar" insisted on running ahead to convert our enemies to my cause. Normally, I appreciate initiative. It has done us good in the past. But this... imbecile forgot we were dealing with A PREPARED ENEMY FORCE, WORKING ON AN ANTI-PERSUASION PROJECT.
I shouldn't have to do all the thinking, should I?
But no. Our resident fanatic had to keep trying to convince them. Had to keep speaking of my "glory" and "wisdom" while the enemy shot at my agents.
Eventually, Bursar had the sense to head back to the main group, when the civilian populace was all dead, their ability to function as living shields extinguished.
But it was too late.
The enemy killed one of ours. The rest of you managed to force them back with minigun fire, but the damage was done. My agents were surrounded by hostiles, in the middle of an enemy occupied city.
Worse, they were being riddled with bullets. Not an ideal situation.
Then again, that's what miniguns and combat stimulants are for. Our research and development department must be thrilled to see their handiwork advertised so publicly.
Poetry in motion.
Of course, there are disadvantages to turning heavily armed psychotic killing machines loose in public.
But technology has ways of silencing any witnesses.
After that, it was simple. Brainwash some guards.
Kill the scientist who was opposing us.
Leave with any research he had.
Oh, and use explosives to burn the whole place to the ground. Outside of our employees, there was not a single survivor.
Machiavelli recommended ruling by fear. I intend to follow that advice. The city sponsored our enemies, plotted against us, and had research that threatened to destroy all we were building.
They also killed one of our agents. A fool and an insubordinate zealot, but mine none-the-less.
While the song of the Ancients brings me closer to you, I have doubts about your interpretation of the verses. Fear will be the message, but we must be patient until our forces are beyond negotiation.
I implore you to consider what we might lose, if we impulsively pursue without considering the folly of man.
It is such an easy thing to predict, and they may throw themselves on pikes we need not fund.
If my death is to be the spark that ignites the furnace of God's fury, then it shall not have been in vain.
GNU Terry Pratchett
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
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chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
Pope said to err was human. To forgive divine.
I do not err, leaving me the second category, however awkward it may be.
Then again, Pope was human. Limited in his understanding of the divine nature. I feel there is a better description in a more popular work.
Something about "Vengeance is mine."
I know that revenge is unproductive. The resources invested have so many better uses.
Incredibly anti-corporate. Wasteful.
But here we are.
Killing agents of enemy syndicates for no reason beyond my own satisfaction.
There are benefits to being in charge.
Unfortunately, I made... amusing but perfectly acceptable judgments in the past, liquidating captured enemy agents rather than employing them in the field.
Elaborate maze based deathtraps break ordinary test subjects die too quickly. It was the only reasonable use.
It left us shorthanded.
Outnumbered.
But not outgunned.
And never outmatched.
Bait. Flank. Minigun. Simple as dying.
They take one of ours. We slaughter eight of theirs, and leave the bodies marked as a foodsource on the public perception network.
Someone should find out what happened in a few hours. Perhaps it will serve as a lesson.
There is not a single Executive Jihad agent left alive.
The first of our enemies has fallen. They will not be alone for long.
chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
Well, revenge has been delayed. We are critically low on troops. Which means we are...
expanding our customer base.
Town full of hostiles, millions of dollars in hardware arrayed against us, and plentiful enemy cyborgs. Under normal circumstances, this would be a potential problem. Right now, we find ourselves in an even more precarious position. Oh, our finances are solid, but our stock of warm bodies capable of combat is somewhat low. It's the peril of taking advanced cybernetics as a primary tool for testing old theories of placation regarding volcano gods.
(In case anyone was curious, it seems very few of our opponents are virgins, or volcano gods are steadily increasing their standards. Then again, they should be grateful for anything in this skeptical era, let alone the quantity an advanced... well that would be telling.)
At any rate, you will be attempting to capture as many agents alive as possible. You will want aid in the field in the form of formerly hostile corporate assets. I will want more live test subjects for experiments, and Milos will want more human sacrifice.
Everyone wins. Except the human sacrifices, admittedly.
chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
Bad news.
It seems empirical evidence denies the existence of volcano gods. All that death, entirely in vain.
Well, at least the footage is selling well. I'm sure the quarterlies will make their families feel better. If any of them are still alive, I mean.
Onto business.
Insertion? Simple. No security to speak of outside.
The benefit of rapid deployment and increased mobility. The enemy never knows quite where you're aiming.
In this case, our mind controlling agent 4 went south to persuade the local population to our cause. Meanwhile, agents 1 and 2 drew hostile attention by...
I don't suppose there is a more sophisticated way to say "firing miniguns into the crowd while laughing like maniacs", is there?
While enemy agents were rushing to deal with the obvious threat, I was able to send agent 4 around the back to crush their little wills and subvert them to mine.
Simple and clean. Half the town fell without issue.
Apparently, you took this as an excuse to fool around.
Throwing people in front of trains may be amusing, but it does us no practical good.
Look at this. Trains running over hapless pedestrians, over and over.
It will be playing in the lobby for the next week. That should teach you a valuable lesson.
At least you managed to use that as a distraction when obtaining the remaining agents.
And the police. And the civilian population.
In the end, not a single soul escaped. A few were fortunate enough to die. The bulk joined with us.
All will fall in the end.
And then I remember a poem. Something about lone and level sands.
chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
None of it matters, really.
Oh, it could go quicker or slower, but to the enlightened, all time is one and any length longer than a day is eternity. Past a certain limit, time no longer has meaning.
The world is ours. The only problem will be taking it.
Recon turns to control, as inevitable as the seasons. As constant as entropy.
One agent. More than sufficient.
Insertion becomes an ambush.
An ambush turns into mind control. Them becomes Us. Someone stops to mourn a bystander. Inefficient. Our enemies cut them down in the middle of their unseemly weeping.
We spread through the city unnoticed. One becomes many, the plague's infection failing to disrupt their ordinary activities. We gave them bread and circuses, and we removed everything else.
I shouldn't be disgusted. It helps us now. But the disgusting limitations of meat and bones still slobber through the world, and having any part in its decay does not weigh light on the mind.
More agents arrived in time. They painted the streets red. A brief flicker in the CHIP architecture made the citizens aware of the threat. They tried to flee, with the riot trampling the masses beneath it. Death everywhere.
But not entropy. It makes the system less stable, not more. Entropy is our work.
The city is painted in our colors.
And a little red. Hard to avoid with such limited tools.
Brief chaos.
Then order. A victory over the world.
All unimportant.
The relevant, important part is the millions in profit we earn from control of the region. I mean, honestly. Who counts on a philosophy degree in this day and age? Much better to stick to business.
chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
So, uh, sorry about the break. Life intervened.
Now, got the pictures, finished the next couple levels. If anyone cares, can get this thing going again tomorrow. But I'll level.
I'm not sure this has been any good.
Not trying to beg for attention, sorry if it feels that way, but looking this over, it doesn't seem up to the standards I'd like to have for these things.
On the other hand, not sure if I'm qualified to judge that. So, uh...
Yeah. Was this any good, what could I be doing better, and so on. Even if this should die (valid possibility), I'm not fond of seeing these things six feet under without an obit.
NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
Part of it is there's very limited interaction due to there's only 4 agents in the field. If you were to expand the narrative and throw some of around into other departments that might help.
chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
Internal communications: Research division.
Drs. Rogers and Franklin voice match-89% accuracy.
Rogers: Uh...
Franklin: Spit it out.
Roger: Ever think we're the bad guys?
Franklin: Are you a moron?
Rogers: Look at the last mission.
Rogers: We're supplying wetworks aimed at anyone who dares disagree with us. Or their families.
Franklin: Yes. Duh. That's why you're a moron.
Rogers: What?
Franklin: We're not the bad guys. Everyone is.
Franklin: Look at the last mission. Sure. We send in hardened killers.
Rogers: Undead cyborg killers. With machine guns.
Franklin: Right. But look at what they do.
Franklin: Temporarily, we brainjack civs. Bad, yeah. But it keeps them from panicking, and is a lot nicer than outright killing. We haven't done anything illegal.
Rogers: Well, our lawyers...
Franklin: Ignore that. Meanwhile, other corps ice us on sight. AND any civvies or cops in the way.
Franklin: We keep things in line. Safe. No rampant murder, tolerable tax rates, and the gen pop thinks they're in paradise.
Franklin: Sure people die. It's war. Very sad. But we're basically stabilizing society.
Rogers: Maybe.
Franklin: Definitely.
Rogers: What about the skull logos everywhere?
Franklin: It's simple, dude. Skulls?
Rogers: What about them?
Franklin: Badass.
END TRANSCRIPT
Termination order for Dr. Rogers available. Proceed?
SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
I am sure Dr Rogers just hasn't read his contract carefully enough. He may be interested in the section that states:
Subsection 3a:
All employees may be reconstituted into organic residue for research or agent repair processes. No prior written and/or verbal warnings are required. Reconstitution counts towards the 0.3 days of annual leave supplied to all employees of Eurocorp as standard.
I really liked Syndicate. But all I ever ended up doing was dumping a shit-ton of research into brains, and just wandering around persuading everyone until there was noone left to oppose me.
You are making it sound like this isn't the most awesome thing I've ever heard.
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
This is great, i'm always excited to see a LP by you.
Want to play co-op games? Feel free to hit me up!
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chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
[Incident recently. Unfortunate one. I'm looking for the root cause already. I suspect it was one of YOUR failures. Rest assured. I will deal with the culprit shortly. Until then... Let's review]
A typical news broadcast. Let's call the gleaming toothed automatons Host A and Host 1. They deserve no more distinction.
Host A: Well, the puppy shelter certainly had a "Ruff" time of it, eh Henry?
Host 1: Hahaha. Too true, June. Too true. But now our benevolent friends at NovaCorp are helping out. It should be a dog's life from now on. In fact, didn't NovaCorp send some charity workers over just yesterday?
Host A: They sure did, Henry. I'll run the footage.
Host 1: That... that doesn't look like the dog show, June.
Host A: What are you talking about, Henry? That's the footage. There's Buck Laughlin waving.
Host 1: He's not...
Host 1:Buck Laughlin doesn't have a GODDAMN MINIGUN!
Host A: I don't know what you're talking about, Henry. It's an ordinary dog show. There's a pug on stage now. You love pugs.
Host 1: I don't see pugs. I don't see pugs.
Host 1: Oh god. Oh god. There's blood everywhere.
Host A: That's just dog widdle, Henry. I mean, it's been a long time since you last saw someone die, it's been a killer for the news, but...
Host 1: It's NOT DOG WIDDLE.
Host 1: How can you... This isn't a dog show. I... saw this. I saw this. I don't know why I didn't notice earlier. It's all so clear.
Host 1: There I am.
Host A: Oh, you are! Buck's shaking your hand! I bet he had a lot of clever remarks.
Host 1: No. I'm picking up a pistol. No. Nonononono. This didn't happen.
Host A: No, Buck was that clueless. It was pretty funny.
Host 1: I KILLED SOMEONE JUNE. I'm a murderer. I'm a murderer.
Host A: Uh, Henry? Killing a buffet isn't murder. Neither is killing the crowd with a witty joke, you old kidder. Look at you!
Host 1: Eight people dead. And nobody remembers. I'm a killer. And... God help me. It's still here. How did I not notice the gun in my hand?
Host A: What are you doing, Henry. Is that.. gun fingers?
Host 1: Camera on me. Camera on me. They should see this. They won't forget this.
Host A: Henry, what are you...
[video ends here]
At least the problem sorted itself out. The witnesses remembered it as a heart attack. Tragic in someone so young, but stress. The human capacity for self deception wins another day.
But somehow, we had hostiles in OUR territory, and worse, some simple bag of meat saw the truth about his world. We are not paid to give people the truth.
Things are wrong with this scenario. And it isn't my fault.
chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
[Mission Logs 1-35 inclusive. California series. Logs active. Proceed?]
[Y]
[Standard briefing, retrieval, eliminate all opposition, no chance of success, blah blah blah. It should be simplicity itself.]
[Insertion goes smooth every time. No hostiles in immediate vicinity. Agents armed.]
[Local forces coerced.]
[And then some idiot makes it go to shit. Again, 100 percent of cases. I should ignore it. Write off the whole thing as an unprofitable investment. Replacing agents alone makes this wasteful. I have my pride, of course, but my pride seems intent on irritating my much more sensible avarice.]
[Then again, this could prove useful material in the future. A few dead now, billions in profit later. Hardly a question. If the later profit is assured. Now, this is interesting. Survivors of initial assault in 65% of cases. Team manages to recover and neutralize enemy syndicate agents, and subvert enough of them to provide a superior force.]
[And civilians soak fire aimed at valuable targets. Simple, effective engagement tactics. All as standard. But then, every time...]
[The agent serving as a hive mind node dies. Every time.]
[Sometimes the process is delayed. The target is approached...]
[Losses remain acceptable...]
[And then, vaporization. Something is very wrong here. Something I don't understand. Not a pleasant thought.]
[Delete all relevant logs, and delay California mission teams 36 and on until further input. Can't have them thinking I'm fallible. Failure is their domain.]
chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
Interrogation reports: Southern expansion.
Ah, you're awake. Good.
Where am I?
Patience is a virtue, meat. Your questions, inevitably, do not matter. Mine do.
Who are you?
Were you even paying attention?
Our corporation performed activities in a major metropolitan area recently. You had the misfortune to be present.
WHERE AM I?
Do you want me to apply the electroshocks again? I would rather like to, but there are certain incompatibilities between that and my other goals vis a vis keeping you alive and conscious to tell me everything you know. If your pathetic organic form was less fragile, my life would be considerably easier. You will answer my questions. You will stop asking your own. Or you will die. Are we clear?
I said, are we clear?
Yes
Excellent.
What do you remember of the incident?
The mayor had just been assassinated, so things were a bit on edge. I was on guard duty when fifteen, twenty guys with miniguns showed up.
My Captain came by with a bunch of civilians carrying guns and someone in a trench coat. When I asked, he said they were "emergency deputies".
Did you notice anything unusual?
Other than the guys IN TRENCHCOATS WITH MINIGUNS? They kind of made me miss a few details.
There's no need to be rude. At least, there's no need for you to be rude, ape. I have an urgent need towards incivility based on dealing with my inferiors. Continue.
I joined up with the patrol. Lot of people shooting, and they didn't seem to have much in the way of alliances. Sometimes the woman in the trenchcoat ran up to someone shooting us, they turned around and started shooting their buddies. Didn't make much sense, but if it restored the peace...
I just wanted to make the shooting stop. Get back to my wife and kids.
And, to prevent the idiotic question you were planning, they are intact. They have been informed you died in a boating accident, in case you had further idiocy. There, I just prevented your questions and saved your life. If you had actually asked, I would have been forced to terminate your employment. Permanently.
They're...
No. Questions.
I see you assisted in the termination of at least one hostile agent. Good for you.
Oh, and you managed to survive the incident, while three of my four trained and heavily equipped agents didn't. Do you know why?
No.
No, SIR. And I will tell you why. Because you ran and hid when firing started. In other words, your self preservation instincts were fully active, you ignored orders from central command, and your behavior generally did not match those of a hive mind controlled entity.
What?
Do you want me to kill you? I am saying your CHIP is malfunctioning and will not return to operational status. I am saying that there havee been more and more of your kind lately, irritating insects that cannot be herded along conventional channels. I am saying I want to find out what makes you tick, and dissection would produce no viable results.
I am also offering you professional employment. Do not ask what the alternative is.
chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
Incident report: Government contracts.
Briefing:
The military has constructed a small fortress close to one of our production plants. Reports indicate that an enemy syndicate is also using it as a stop off point for raids into the plant.
An assault force is being dispatched to destroy the fortress.
Your assault squad is to launch a preliminary attack and take out much of the defences as possible before withdrawing to allow the main strike force to attack.
The primary target is the base commander who must not be allowed to leave the base. It is believed that there are two armoured personel carriers in the complex and these must also be destroyed. Finally there is an medical rescue vehicle with some very interesting equipment on board. You must steal this and return to the drop zone for retrieval.
Transport has been provided for this mission.
City update:
There are two entrances to the fortress. the main gate is quite well defended and is only accessable by car. There is also believed to be a side entrance leading to the roof area. This is very heavily guarded as most of the guards are on the roof.
Tactics:
A frontal attack using the vehicle provided to get through the blast doors would get you into the base with the minimum of fuss and exposure. All agents should be deployed and equiped with close and area of effect weapons. At least one should carry some support firepower and explosives for dealing with the A.P.Cs. The ambulance is your best bet for escaping so do not destroy it with the A.P.Cs.
In other words, a military base sold out to our enemies. It would be merely patriotic to cleanse it of them.
What was it President Eisenhower said?
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Well, I like to think we provide well placed power. It is ours, therefore it is properly placed and can defend against those... less enlightened.
It was a simple mission.
1) Load an APC with heavily armed psychotics.
2) Enter the facility, slaughtering all active resistance and the primary target.
3) Blow all hostile transports and technology to hell, acquiring prototypes bound for the mega-cities in the process.
4) Extract, and inform the local government affiliates of the current state of affairs.
They can run their little fiefdoms. They can pretend to be masters of their world. They can even march their tin soldiers around and shove the populace if it makes them feel better. But they cannot sponsor our enemies.
Their era is over, and loyalty has become the only currency they can supply. If they cannot at least imitate it, they can perish with the rest of the species.
chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
Internal recording- debriefing. Intel.
Hello again, officer.
What do you want?
Is that any way to talk to your employer? I have a mission for you to review.
Murder, mayhem, the standards. You know our methods of operation by now, valued employee.
Employee? You locked me up and toss me out to look at videos of your atrocities. What kind of employment is that?
Tut, tut. We're offering you a valuable 'your family alive and intact' benefits package. It's the envy of all your friends. Or will be soon enough.
You're a monster.
Let's avoid flattery and restrict ourselves to the matter at hand. Our little assassination.
Why?
Why murder, or why I want you to watch? I warn you, I will answer neither.
Ah, a brief skirmish with enemy agents. Notice our superior firepower, innovative training techniques, and so on.
You're mowing them down in mass. This isn't war.
Yes, yes, it's slaughter. They deserve it, if it soothes your troubled conscience.
Besides, the reports called it a populist uprising against corporate interests! It is in no way our fault that a few of the locals finally took arms against their cruel masters. We merely... assisted.
Ha.
We even lost a number of our agents in the peacekeeping efforts. Tragic proof of our commitment to civilization and democracy.
You killed you own...
I merely let them die when they were no longer of use. There is a difference.
Of course, there were so many volunteers when they faltered, it's like we didn't lose agents at all.
Tragedy inspires sympathy in the plebeian masses. Allowing it from time to time is a perfectly functional solution to any number of problems.
And then you killed a politician for selling your secrets. The world is full of bastards, we just admit it, and all the crap you keep feeding everyone on the Inspirational Words For The Day.
Oh, no. Never!
I just had an agent... speak to him. It's just a coincidence he retracted most of his statements.
And when the megacorps murdered him for his statements, well, that was just tragic.
Your doing.
Of course.
Mind control is much more useful with a nudge than a shove.
You're...
I know. The look on your face speaks volumes. One of the benefits of an outsider. Corporate offices rarely show that disgust which makes being a pure bastard so rewarding. Sleep well, meat.
chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
Mission Report: Western expansion.
I hate myself for saying it almost as much as you must, but...
California, rest in peace.
Our endless attempts to claim further territory in the mainland United States are finally bearing fruit. I won't go into too many of the boring details. You would hardly understand them, at any rate. But it was a simple victory.
First, assemble a militia from local resources.
Use the majority of disposable agents on site as bait for hostile forces. Trenchcoat clad cyborgs draw much more attention than odd clusters of civilians.
Then, when the enemy takes the bait?
Ambush. Our enemies don't spend enough of their energy planning for contingencies. For example, they do not expect their agents to be subverted within seconds of contact.
Everyone is a threat. Always. Trust is a weakness, faith in humanity is idiocy, and on and on and on. I learned this early. Our foes have not learned it yet. A significant advantage.
It made approaching the researcher in question simple. Unfortunately, his guards had developed some frustrating habits.
Like paranoia. They fired well before they could be subverted. An irritating waste of resources.
Their corpses stand as a monument to the futility of resistance.
The scientist was captured with no further fuss.
We commandeered a vehicle, and the forces on site extracted.
Most of our forces.
The locals needed a scapegoat. I provided. For the best for all concerned. Except the scapegoats, but they knew the job was dangerous when they took it. Or they would, if they actually read their contracts.
chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
Onward and inward:
Poor tactics advice and bad jokes. I weep for the wasted expense that is our intelligence department.
I will attempt to feign similar weeping for their funerals, which will come much sooner than they plan.
I admit, this mission has a certain moral ambiguity. Our opponents are the military, the duly appointed guardians of what passes for the peace. Meanwhile, my forces are a quartet of drugged up maniacs with limited oversight and no moral imperative beyond survival and increased corporate profit.
Of course, anyone who would bring up these ambiguities is far too softhearted for our line of work, and their death would be an act of charity considering the alternative, but the point stands. We seem to be in the wrong here, as opposed to our usual approach, where we are, if not the least, at minimum equal in a comparison of evils.
This time, my excuse is simple. The just war theory as professed by Saint Thomas Aquinas holds three central concepts.
First, war must occur for a good and just purpose rather than for self-gain (for example, "in the nation's interest" is not just) or as an exercise of power.
Normally, we fail this. Here, however, we arrive as liberators. One of our employees, along with his lovely wife, was taken captive. Unlike many of our operatives, he did not take any action against his government. He merely had the wrong friends. Knew the wrong people. Even if we happen to benefit, the liberation would not hold self gain as a primary motive. It would be a side benefit.
Second, just war must be waged by a properly instituted authority such as the state.
I admit, this seems more doubtful. We are not, in any normal sense, the state.
Then again, in this day and age, who is? Recent legal precedent allows megacorporations extraterritoriality. Every holding we possess is its own state and is legally treated as the same. Meanwhile, the state loses its luster by the second, with their forces given less and less legal standing. There are countries where the quote unquote government barely controls the postal service. Are we to claim they are more the state than we are? The premise is absurd.
Finally, peace must be a central motive even in the midst of violence.
Well, that we also secure in this instance. War with the government hardly secures a profit, and success means they will not interfere with our employees. Further agitation would be ludicrous. Peace between ourselves and the powers that be is the goal.
In other words, we pass.
More recent theory grows more complicated. There, our actions grow more debatable. Some arguments claim that right intentions are required. There, we are apparently found wanting. Force is only allowed, not for a proper cause, but solely for innocent and heroic motive. Solely if the source is pure.
I am shamed by this naivety. Purity, if it exists, is for saints and fools. Both categories I hope to avoid. Wars may be fought by both, but when they organize an attempt at armed conflict, the result is a disaster. In practical terms wars are waged when a variety of motives reach fulfillment.
At any rate, we cleaned the area easily.
No quarter asked, no quarter given.
All legitimate targets destroyed in a fountain of blood and viscera.
And all innocent parties extracted no worse for the wear.
Textbook.
42 soldiers dead, 200 million in damages, and some juicy research projects stolen. I hope the governments of the world have learned a lesson from this exercise.
AntimatterDevo Was RightGates of SteelRegistered Userregular
this is cool.
+2
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chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
Incident report: Failures.
Damn.
Damn Damn Damn.
It was all under control. Everything was going right. All the personal matters were dealt with, and business was profitable.
Now, this.
A routine assassination. I've forgotten more of these than any one sapient has the right to. An American senator found out our nasty little secret regarding brainwave patterns, and threatened to broadcast it to the world.
Like any right minded individual, I assumed it was blackmail. The primary human concern seems to be financial, after all. When he refused a generous offer, I assumed someone else had paid more. Which is when I sent the kill team. Lessons must be taught, after all.
How was I to know he was a fanatic?
Worse still, he was a prepared fanatic. Guards without convenient CHIPs to hijack. Witnesses to provide an early warning system against our intervention.
A major police presence. All the basics of a properly paranoid mind.
As a finishing touch, it was all to defend a decoy. He almost escaped while I was distracted.
Almost.
The extraction was textbook. I assumed we'd seen the last of the problem. A dead man can't take bribes. A dead man can't report on crimes.
But a man who doesn't care he is going to die CAN use his own assassination as a distraction! While we WASTED millions on a very public campaign against him, he broadcast his own death on a private channel, complete with diagrams of the persuadertron CHIP interface architecture.
Within a MONTH there will be effective defenses against our best weapon. Within a year, it will be obsolete. Within 3 years, we will be caught, tried, and convicted, leaving another collection of power hungry bastards to take our place.
We have to take rapid action if we wish to ensure our survival. Plans are in place, but they were hastily drawn backups at best.
We are in desperate times, but I can assure you one thing.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I keep picturing and hearing Malcom McDowell in any villain role (John Henry Eden from Fallout 3 comes to mind) when I read your operations. Fantastic and entertaining stuff. I'm glad you kept on.
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chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
The depths of iniquity.
I know that in today's economy morals are an imbecile's dream, but I assumed we could maintain standards. Obviously I was wrong.
One of our executives made a... request recently. One involving use of valuable resources to resolve a personal indiscretion. He is currently contemplating the depths of his mistake, and will be for another... eight minutes or so.
The funeral is in ten minutes. Refreshments will be provided, supplied by the deceased. As I understand, it will be traditional Maori cuisine.
Fortunately, his folly was our gain. The woman in question, Westwood, may have ties with an offshore project. The Atlantic accelerator.
We need a miracle to survive, and it arrived in a spray of reproductive fluid and idiocy. If there is a higher power, he obviously has a sense of humor at a level well below the average street thug.
The accelerator is, apparently, the one hope of restoring the global ecosystem to a functional state. Anyone who could provide such a bounty would be treated as a hero at worst, a god in better times. Westwood had access codes. We need them. A simple state of affairs, made simpler by her poor CHIP security protocols.
We sent the standard acquisitions team to secure her.
Three decoys and an agent. Distract the enemy. Control the enemy.
And allow the automated grief subroutine to cover for the letters regarding the deceased. It's a useful little node. Polite, competent. Silent, except when called for. It seems to know how close I am to excising it, and acts accordingly.
By the time the enemy understood the true nature of the scenario, we had already won.
Blood filled the streets, children screamed for their parents, the usual nonsense. The target stumbled into view, and we removed her from the equation temporarily.
Then she was removed more permanently, extracted to one of our research facility somewhere in Belgium.
I hear Bruges is lovely this time of year. Perhaps I will allow her to see the sunlight one last time before this all ends.
Now all that remains is reaching and claiming the accelerator. A last, desperate gamble. Hardly fitting after years of slow, careful expansion. But needs must.
chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
Last ties
Every day it comes closer. The end of the era. Our death or our redemption.
...slip of the tongue. I meant victory. Obviously I meant victory.
Eliminating a Mafia presence in our march to the sea was simple economics. We can control their markets later. For the moment, we advance. Let the clean streets be a calling card until we return. Advertising.
Clean except for the bodies. The exception goes unremarked. I've trained you well.
Oh, and the fires. Some things need to burned out of a city if you wish to secure the location.
Other things... deserve to be burned.
Our agents secured the location, eliminating any resistance.
75% fatalities on our end. It was, of course, necessary to stay and eliminate any and all local mafia affiliated groups. If one is eliminating a rot, leaving the work unfinished is not an option.
Even if it costs us our most veteran agents.
A small price to inch closer to our goal. Nothing can be held back, no expense spared. Death comes for all.
chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
[Incident report: Desperate Measures]
It's easy to forget how thin and transitory any grasp on power is. Our reign, of course, will be eternal and so forth, but every previous attempt has a lesson for the observant.
Politics. In the past, simple bribery would have accomplished our objectives. Our timeline and resources are not in any position to follow the conventional route. Instead, we resort to a last tour of the once reliable persuadotron. It seems when these citizens rebelled against their government, it included a rejection of its propaganda. Including firmware upgrades to their local CHiP architecture.
Beautiful. Of course, every agent but a few untested prototypes was reduced to a fine mist in our last misadventure, so we made do with a few borrowed from out
What did Kipling write? If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue? Well, our contact with the common man has failed to further degrade our moral outlook. Not that much could. Neither friend nor foe can hurt us. All men count, to the exact extent they advance our agenda. And we have run the full sixty seconds with enthusiasm.
I'd say we earned the Earth and all that's in it. Or, at any rate, I have. The other prize is more in doubt, but less desirable in the first.
Poor network security landed us every agent for miles.
We have enough for one lightning strike on the Atlantic Accelerator. Of course, we'll need support staff on site, and we cannot afford redundancies.
Half our employees are dismissed immediately, with a severance package consisting of, for a limited time, their lives. Everyone who has not received notice will be deployed to aid our agents on the Atlantic Accelerator. If we succeed, wealth beyond the dreams of avarice and power beyond reckoning.
Posts
It was no accident our enemies found us. It was an opportunity.
They were still establishing security when we arrived. Security without proper IFF protocols. A stolen car, a few camera distracted, and our first agent entered their perimeter without incident.
Normally one agent would be insufficient for the task, of course.
Which is why we brought the most effective force multiplier in our arsenal. Within the first minutes a sizable percentage of the civilian populace was following my, excuse me, our every whim.
The constabulary did not fare better. Of course, this was a delicate part of our operations. If the enemy had sealed their communication chanels, we would have no ability to control their agents. It would be simply a clash of martial might, and I have hours of field tests showing how effective a mostly unarmed populace is against cybernetic killing machines.
In case you cannot access those recordings, the results are... unpleasant for those involved.
An ambush seemed more effective than straightforward brute force. Fire the adrenaline and hope.
The imbeciles had no cyberware defenses in place. A quick mental jolt, exposure to the song of the many, and their first agent folded.
I was promised fanatics. I was promised men who would kill or die rather than surrender. Heroes. Achilles and Hector fighting like demons.
No. They were men like the rest. Fragile lumps of impulses, unable to even act in their own interests for long, let alone fight for a cause.
Nothing and less than nothing.
Solipsism has never been so tempting.
A police officer objected to our actions.
It did not go well for anyone. He recanted before I forced him to eat his service pistol.
The other agents against us fared just the same. Failure and subversion and more blind worship.
A woman threw herself against our car on our way out. A sacrifice to her new god.
And our little cult escaped.
The dawning of a new empire.
It's feeling less and less like an inherited publicity line at this point. More and more like an inevitability. Oh brave new world...
14% accuracy. Shameful.
I've taken the liberty of purchasing several miniguns. Perhaps with that volume of ammunition, you can hit something.
Why I fear the ocean.
It seems our current enemies are not taking our threat lightly.
They are building more agents. Hiring more security.
Massing at our borders.
And worst of all?
They've found a defense against our primary weapon, and a scientist capable of mass producing it.
Right now, we are, I will not mince words, an ant hill. Tenacious, functionally brilliant, capable of war and subterfuge with the best of them.
But oh-so-small.
We have an advantage that can keep us alive despite this.
To rephrase, we have one advantage. One advantage that is a few short weeks from becoming entirely obsolete.
Simple work this time.
Find one man. Kill him.
Destroy his backups.
Kill any witnesses.
Burn the city.
Are we clear?
Four of you will be assigned this task. Do. Not. Fail. Me.
Why I fear the ocean.
We are gathered together here today...
But I get ahead of myself. Roll the tape.
And pay attention for once. It might be of interest to the survivors.
It was a simple enough mission in theory. Simply murder everyone between you and the target, then murder him. Pursuading enemies to our cause was, at best, a side benefit. Not a main goal. You were to remain focused and together.
But no. Agent one, or "Bursar" insisted on running ahead to convert our enemies to my cause. Normally, I appreciate initiative. It has done us good in the past. But this... imbecile forgot we were dealing with A PREPARED ENEMY FORCE, WORKING ON AN ANTI-PERSUASION PROJECT.
I shouldn't have to do all the thinking, should I?
But no. Our resident fanatic had to keep trying to convince them. Had to keep speaking of my "glory" and "wisdom" while the enemy shot at my agents.
Eventually, Bursar had the sense to head back to the main group, when the civilian populace was all dead, their ability to function as living shields extinguished.
But it was too late.
The enemy killed one of ours. The rest of you managed to force them back with minigun fire, but the damage was done. My agents were surrounded by hostiles, in the middle of an enemy occupied city.
Worse, they were being riddled with bullets. Not an ideal situation.
Then again, that's what miniguns and combat stimulants are for. Our research and development department must be thrilled to see their handiwork advertised so publicly.
Poetry in motion.
Of course, there are disadvantages to turning heavily armed psychotic killing machines loose in public.
But technology has ways of silencing any witnesses.
After that, it was simple. Brainwash some guards.
Kill the scientist who was opposing us.
Leave with any research he had.
Oh, and use explosives to burn the whole place to the ground. Outside of our employees, there was not a single survivor.
Machiavelli recommended ruling by fear. I intend to follow that advice. The city sponsored our enemies, plotted against us, and had research that threatened to destroy all we were building.
They also killed one of our agents. A fool and an insubordinate zealot, but mine none-the-less.
I do not forgive easily.
And they have only begun to pay.
Why I fear the ocean.
While the song of the Ancients brings me closer to you, I have doubts about your interpretation of the verses. Fear will be the message, but we must be patient until our forces are beyond negotiation.
I implore you to consider what we might lose, if we impulsively pursue without considering the folly of man.
It is such an easy thing to predict, and they may throw themselves on pikes we need not fund.
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
I do not err, leaving me the second category, however awkward it may be.
Then again, Pope was human. Limited in his understanding of the divine nature. I feel there is a better description in a more popular work.
Something about "Vengeance is mine."
I know that revenge is unproductive. The resources invested have so many better uses.
Incredibly anti-corporate. Wasteful.
But here we are.
Killing agents of enemy syndicates for no reason beyond my own satisfaction.
There are benefits to being in charge.
Unfortunately, I made... amusing but perfectly acceptable judgments in the past, liquidating captured enemy agents rather than employing them in the field.
Elaborate maze based deathtraps break ordinary test subjects die too quickly. It was the only reasonable use.
It left us shorthanded.
Outnumbered.
But not outgunned.
And never outmatched.
Bait. Flank. Minigun. Simple as dying.
They take one of ours. We slaughter eight of theirs, and leave the bodies marked as a foodsource on the public perception network.
Someone should find out what happened in a few hours. Perhaps it will serve as a lesson.
There is not a single Executive Jihad agent left alive.
The first of our enemies has fallen. They will not be alone for long.
Why I fear the ocean.
expanding our customer base.
Town full of hostiles, millions of dollars in hardware arrayed against us, and plentiful enemy cyborgs. Under normal circumstances, this would be a potential problem. Right now, we find ourselves in an even more precarious position. Oh, our finances are solid, but our stock of warm bodies capable of combat is somewhat low. It's the peril of taking advanced cybernetics as a primary tool for testing old theories of placation regarding volcano gods.
(In case anyone was curious, it seems very few of our opponents are virgins, or volcano gods are steadily increasing their standards. Then again, they should be grateful for anything in this skeptical era, let alone the quantity an advanced... well that would be telling.)
At any rate, you will be attempting to capture as many agents alive as possible. You will want aid in the field in the form of formerly hostile corporate assets. I will want more live test subjects for experiments, and Milos will want more human sacrifice.
Everyone wins. Except the human sacrifices, admittedly.
Why I fear the ocean.
It seems empirical evidence denies the existence of volcano gods. All that death, entirely in vain.
Well, at least the footage is selling well. I'm sure the quarterlies will make their families feel better. If any of them are still alive, I mean.
Onto business.
Insertion? Simple. No security to speak of outside.
The benefit of rapid deployment and increased mobility. The enemy never knows quite where you're aiming.
In this case, our mind controlling agent 4 went south to persuade the local population to our cause. Meanwhile, agents 1 and 2 drew hostile attention by...
I don't suppose there is a more sophisticated way to say "firing miniguns into the crowd while laughing like maniacs", is there?
While enemy agents were rushing to deal with the obvious threat, I was able to send agent 4 around the back to crush their little wills and subvert them to mine.
Simple and clean. Half the town fell without issue.
Apparently, you took this as an excuse to fool around.
Throwing people in front of trains may be amusing, but it does us no practical good.
Look at this. Trains running over hapless pedestrians, over and over.
It will be playing in the lobby for the next week. That should teach you a valuable lesson.
At least you managed to use that as a distraction when obtaining the remaining agents.
And the police. And the civilian population.
In the end, not a single soul escaped. A few were fortunate enough to die. The bulk joined with us.
All will fall in the end.
And then I remember a poem. Something about lone and level sands.
Best not to be overconfident.
Why I fear the ocean.
And I love your LPs and I love you, Chia.
Brilliant scientist, poorly defended. Standard. I've stopped listening to advisers at this point. Their minds are limited. Human. I am more.
And will be greater still.
It was simple.
Insert agents.
Watch the data feeds.
Allow me to share a few of the best reports.
"Mass hysteria sweeps city!"
"POLICE HELPLESS IN FACE OF SPONTANEOUS VIOLENT OUTBREAKS! 'MURDER PLAGUE' CANNOT BE STOPPED!"
"REMAIN INDOORS! HUNDREDS DEAD IN STREETS!"
"All hail our new corporate overlords. The wisdom of our new god [INSERT NAME HERE] is unquestionable. Kill the unbeliever."
"NUCLEAR STRIKE AUTHORIZED. CONTAINMENT PLAN CHARLIE IS GO."
And so on. After that, it was mostly screaming.
What was it they said? It's good to be king?
Yes. It is.
Why I fear the ocean.
Oh, it could go quicker or slower, but to the enlightened, all time is one and any length longer than a day is eternity. Past a certain limit, time no longer has meaning.
The world is ours. The only problem will be taking it.
Recon turns to control, as inevitable as the seasons. As constant as entropy.
One agent. More than sufficient.
Insertion becomes an ambush.
An ambush turns into mind control. Them becomes Us. Someone stops to mourn a bystander. Inefficient. Our enemies cut them down in the middle of their unseemly weeping.
We spread through the city unnoticed. One becomes many, the plague's infection failing to disrupt their ordinary activities. We gave them bread and circuses, and we removed everything else.
I shouldn't be disgusted. It helps us now. But the disgusting limitations of meat and bones still slobber through the world, and having any part in its decay does not weigh light on the mind.
More agents arrived in time. They painted the streets red. A brief flicker in the CHIP architecture made the citizens aware of the threat. They tried to flee, with the riot trampling the masses beneath it. Death everywhere.
But not entropy. It makes the system less stable, not more. Entropy is our work.
The city is painted in our colors.
And a little red. Hard to avoid with such limited tools.
Brief chaos.
Then order. A victory over the world.
All unimportant.
The relevant, important part is the millions in profit we earn from control of the region. I mean, honestly. Who counts on a philosophy degree in this day and age? Much better to stick to business.
Why I fear the ocean.
Now, got the pictures, finished the next couple levels. If anyone cares, can get this thing going again tomorrow. But I'll level.
I'm not sure this has been any good.
Not trying to beg for attention, sorry if it feels that way, but looking this over, it doesn't seem up to the standards I'd like to have for these things.
On the other hand, not sure if I'm qualified to judge that. So, uh...
Yeah. Was this any good, what could I be doing better, and so on. Even if this should die (valid possibility), I'm not fond of seeing these things six feet under without an obit.
Why I fear the ocean.
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
I'll try to have something by the end of today.
Thanks.
Why I fear the ocean.
Drs. Rogers and Franklin voice match-89% accuracy.
Franklin: Spit it out.
Roger: Ever think we're the bad guys?
Franklin: Are you a moron?
Rogers: Look at the last mission.
Rogers: We're supplying wetworks aimed at anyone who dares disagree with us. Or their families.
Franklin: Yes. Duh. That's why you're a moron.
Rogers: What?
Franklin: We're not the bad guys. Everyone is.
Franklin: Look at the last mission. Sure. We send in hardened killers.
Rogers: Undead cyborg killers. With machine guns.
Franklin: Right. But look at what they do.
Franklin: Temporarily, we brainjack civs. Bad, yeah. But it keeps them from panicking, and is a lot nicer than outright killing. We haven't done anything illegal.
Rogers: Well, our lawyers...
Franklin: Ignore that. Meanwhile, other corps ice us on sight. AND any civvies or cops in the way.
Franklin: We keep things in line. Safe. No rampant murder, tolerable tax rates, and the gen pop thinks they're in paradise.
Franklin: Sure people die. It's war. Very sad. But we're basically stabilizing society.
Rogers: Maybe.
Franklin: Definitely.
Rogers: What about the skull logos everywhere?
Franklin: It's simple, dude. Skulls?
Rogers: What about them?
Franklin: Badass.
END TRANSCRIPT
Termination order for Dr. Rogers available. Proceed?
Why I fear the ocean.
Subsection 3a:
All employees may be reconstituted into organic residue for research or agent repair processes. No prior written and/or verbal warnings are required. Reconstitution counts towards the 0.3 days of annual leave supplied to all employees of Eurocorp as standard.
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
You are making it sound like this isn't the most awesome thing I've ever heard.
Want to play co-op games? Feel free to hit me up!
Host A: Well, the puppy shelter certainly had a "Ruff" time of it, eh Henry?
Host 1: Hahaha. Too true, June. Too true. But now our benevolent friends at NovaCorp are helping out. It should be a dog's life from now on. In fact, didn't NovaCorp send some charity workers over just yesterday?
Host A: They sure did, Henry. I'll run the footage.
Host 1: That... that doesn't look like the dog show, June.
Host A: What are you talking about, Henry? That's the footage. There's Buck Laughlin waving.
Host 1: He's not...
Host 1:Buck Laughlin doesn't have a GODDAMN MINIGUN!
Host A: I don't know what you're talking about, Henry. It's an ordinary dog show. There's a pug on stage now. You love pugs.
Host 1: I don't see pugs. I don't see pugs.
Host 1: Oh god. Oh god. There's blood everywhere.
Host A: That's just dog widdle, Henry. I mean, it's been a long time since you last saw someone die, it's been a killer for the news, but...
Host 1: It's NOT DOG WIDDLE.
Host 1: How can you... This isn't a dog show. I... saw this. I saw this. I don't know why I didn't notice earlier. It's all so clear.
Host 1: There I am.
Host A: Oh, you are! Buck's shaking your hand! I bet he had a lot of clever remarks.
Host 1: No. I'm picking up a pistol. No. Nonononono. This didn't happen.
Host A: No, Buck was that clueless. It was pretty funny.
Host 1: I KILLED SOMEONE JUNE. I'm a murderer. I'm a murderer.
Host A: Uh, Henry? Killing a buffet isn't murder. Neither is killing the crowd with a witty joke, you old kidder. Look at you!
Host 1: Eight people dead. And nobody remembers. I'm a killer. And... God help me. It's still here. How did I not notice the gun in my hand?
Host A: What are you doing, Henry. Is that.. gun fingers?
Host 1: Camera on me. Camera on me. They should see this. They won't forget this.
Host A: Henry, what are you...
[video ends here]
At least the problem sorted itself out. The witnesses remembered it as a heart attack. Tragic in someone so young, but stress. The human capacity for self deception wins another day.
But somehow, we had hostiles in OUR territory, and worse, some simple bag of meat saw the truth about his world. We are not paid to give people the truth.
Things are wrong with this scenario. And it isn't my fault.
Why I fear the ocean.
[Y]
[Standard briefing, retrieval, eliminate all opposition, no chance of success, blah blah blah. It should be simplicity itself.]
[Insertion goes smooth every time. No hostiles in immediate vicinity. Agents armed.]
[Local forces coerced.]
[And then some idiot makes it go to shit. Again, 100 percent of cases. I should ignore it. Write off the whole thing as an unprofitable investment. Replacing agents alone makes this wasteful. I have my pride, of course, but my pride seems intent on irritating my much more sensible avarice.]
[Then again, this could prove useful material in the future. A few dead now, billions in profit later. Hardly a question. If the later profit is assured. Now, this is interesting. Survivors of initial assault in 65% of cases. Team manages to recover and neutralize enemy syndicate agents, and subvert enough of them to provide a superior force.]
[And civilians soak fire aimed at valuable targets. Simple, effective engagement tactics. All as standard. But then, every time...]
[The agent serving as a hive mind node dies. Every time.]
[Sometimes the process is delayed. The target is approached...]
[Losses remain acceptable...]
[And then, vaporization. Something is very wrong here. Something I don't understand. Not a pleasant thought.]
[Delete all relevant logs, and delay California mission teams 36 and on until further input. Can't have them thinking I'm fallible. Failure is their domain.]
Why I fear the ocean.
Where am I?
Patience is a virtue, meat. Your questions, inevitably, do not matter. Mine do.
Who are you?
Were you even paying attention?
Our corporation performed activities in a major metropolitan area recently. You had the misfortune to be present.
WHERE AM I?
Do you want me to apply the electroshocks again? I would rather like to, but there are certain incompatibilities between that and my other goals vis a vis keeping you alive and conscious to tell me everything you know. If your pathetic organic form was less fragile, my life would be considerably easier. You will answer my questions. You will stop asking your own. Or you will die. Are we clear?
I said, are we clear?
Yes
Excellent.
What do you remember of the incident?
The mayor had just been assassinated, so things were a bit on edge. I was on guard duty when fifteen, twenty guys with miniguns showed up.
My Captain came by with a bunch of civilians carrying guns and someone in a trench coat. When I asked, he said they were "emergency deputies".
Did you notice anything unusual?
Other than the guys IN TRENCHCOATS WITH MINIGUNS? They kind of made me miss a few details.
There's no need to be rude. At least, there's no need for you to be rude, ape. I have an urgent need towards incivility based on dealing with my inferiors. Continue.
I joined up with the patrol. Lot of people shooting, and they didn't seem to have much in the way of alliances. Sometimes the woman in the trenchcoat ran up to someone shooting us, they turned around and started shooting their buddies. Didn't make much sense, but if it restored the peace...
I just wanted to make the shooting stop. Get back to my wife and kids.
And, to prevent the idiotic question you were planning, they are intact. They have been informed you died in a boating accident, in case you had further idiocy. There, I just prevented your questions and saved your life. If you had actually asked, I would have been forced to terminate your employment. Permanently.
They're...
No. Questions.
I see you assisted in the termination of at least one hostile agent. Good for you.
Oh, and you managed to survive the incident, while three of my four trained and heavily equipped agents didn't. Do you know why?
No.
No, SIR. And I will tell you why. Because you ran and hid when firing started. In other words, your self preservation instincts were fully active, you ignored orders from central command, and your behavior generally did not match those of a hive mind controlled entity.
What?
Do you want me to kill you? I am saying your CHIP is malfunctioning and will not return to operational status. I am saying that there havee been more and more of your kind lately, irritating insects that cannot be herded along conventional channels. I am saying I want to find out what makes you tick, and dissection would produce no viable results.
I am also offering you professional employment. Do not ask what the alternative is.
Why I fear the ocean.
There's a catch here somewhere isn't there...
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
The military has constructed a small fortress close to one of our production plants. Reports indicate that an enemy syndicate is also using it as a stop off point for raids into the plant.
An assault force is being dispatched to destroy the fortress.
Your assault squad is to launch a preliminary attack and take out much of the defences as possible before withdrawing to allow the main strike force to attack.
The primary target is the base commander who must not be allowed to leave the base. It is believed that there are two armoured personel carriers in the complex and these must also be destroyed. Finally there is an medical rescue vehicle with some very interesting equipment on board. You must steal this and return to the drop zone for retrieval.
Transport has been provided for this mission.
City update:
There are two entrances to the fortress. the main gate is quite well defended and is only accessable by car. There is also believed to be a side entrance leading to the roof area. This is very heavily guarded as most of the guards are on the roof.
Tactics:
A frontal attack using the vehicle provided to get through the blast doors would get you into the base with the minimum of fuss and exposure. All agents should be deployed and equiped with close and area of effect weapons. At least one should carry some support firepower and explosives for dealing with the A.P.Cs. The ambulance is your best bet for escaping so do not destroy it with the A.P.Cs.
In other words, a military base sold out to our enemies. It would be merely patriotic to cleanse it of them.
What was it President Eisenhower said?
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Well, I like to think we provide well placed power. It is ours, therefore it is properly placed and can defend against those... less enlightened.
It was a simple mission.
1) Load an APC with heavily armed psychotics.
2) Enter the facility, slaughtering all active resistance and the primary target.
3) Blow all hostile transports and technology to hell, acquiring prototypes bound for the mega-cities in the process.
4) Extract, and inform the local government affiliates of the current state of affairs.
They can run their little fiefdoms. They can pretend to be masters of their world. They can even march their tin soldiers around and shove the populace if it makes them feel better. But they cannot sponsor our enemies.
Their era is over, and loyalty has become the only currency they can supply. If they cannot at least imitate it, they can perish with the rest of the species.
It's good to be king.
Why I fear the ocean.
What do you want?
Is that any way to talk to your employer? I have a mission for you to review.
Murder, mayhem, the standards. You know our methods of operation by now, valued employee.
Employee? You locked me up and toss me out to look at videos of your atrocities. What kind of employment is that?
Tut, tut. We're offering you a valuable 'your family alive and intact' benefits package. It's the envy of all your friends. Or will be soon enough.
You're a monster.
Let's avoid flattery and restrict ourselves to the matter at hand. Our little assassination.
Why?
Why murder, or why I want you to watch? I warn you, I will answer neither.
Ah, a brief skirmish with enemy agents. Notice our superior firepower, innovative training techniques, and so on.
You're mowing them down in mass. This isn't war.
Yes, yes, it's slaughter. They deserve it, if it soothes your troubled conscience.
Besides, the reports called it a populist uprising against corporate interests! It is in no way our fault that a few of the locals finally took arms against their cruel masters. We merely... assisted.
Ha.
We even lost a number of our agents in the peacekeeping efforts. Tragic proof of our commitment to civilization and democracy.
You killed you own...
I merely let them die when they were no longer of use. There is a difference.
Of course, there were so many volunteers when they faltered, it's like we didn't lose agents at all.
Tragedy inspires sympathy in the plebeian masses. Allowing it from time to time is a perfectly functional solution to any number of problems.
And then you killed a politician for selling your secrets. The world is full of bastards, we just admit it, and all the crap you keep feeding everyone on the Inspirational Words For The Day.
Oh, no. Never!
I just had an agent... speak to him. It's just a coincidence he retracted most of his statements.
And when the megacorps murdered him for his statements, well, that was just tragic.
Your doing.
Of course.
Mind control is much more useful with a nudge than a shove.
You're...
I know. The look on your face speaks volumes. One of the benefits of an outsider. Corporate offices rarely show that disgust which makes being a pure bastard so rewarding. Sleep well, meat.
Why I fear the ocean.
California, rest in peace.
Our endless attempts to claim further territory in the mainland United States are finally bearing fruit. I won't go into too many of the boring details. You would hardly understand them, at any rate. But it was a simple victory.
First, assemble a militia from local resources.
Use the majority of disposable agents on site as bait for hostile forces. Trenchcoat clad cyborgs draw much more attention than odd clusters of civilians.
Then, when the enemy takes the bait?
Ambush. Our enemies don't spend enough of their energy planning for contingencies. For example, they do not expect their agents to be subverted within seconds of contact.
Everyone is a threat. Always. Trust is a weakness, faith in humanity is idiocy, and on and on and on. I learned this early. Our foes have not learned it yet. A significant advantage.
It made approaching the researcher in question simple. Unfortunately, his guards had developed some frustrating habits.
Like paranoia. They fired well before they could be subverted. An irritating waste of resources.
Their corpses stand as a monument to the futility of resistance.
The scientist was captured with no further fuss.
We commandeered a vehicle, and the forces on site extracted.
Most of our forces.
The locals needed a scapegoat. I provided. For the best for all concerned. Except the scapegoats, but they knew the job was dangerous when they took it. Or they would, if they actually read their contracts.
Another day, another dollar. We are unstoppable.
Why I fear the ocean.
Poor tactics advice and bad jokes. I weep for the wasted expense that is our intelligence department.
I will attempt to feign similar weeping for their funerals, which will come much sooner than they plan.
I admit, this mission has a certain moral ambiguity. Our opponents are the military, the duly appointed guardians of what passes for the peace. Meanwhile, my forces are a quartet of drugged up maniacs with limited oversight and no moral imperative beyond survival and increased corporate profit.
Of course, anyone who would bring up these ambiguities is far too softhearted for our line of work, and their death would be an act of charity considering the alternative, but the point stands. We seem to be in the wrong here, as opposed to our usual approach, where we are, if not the least, at minimum equal in a comparison of evils.
This time, my excuse is simple. The just war theory as professed by Saint Thomas Aquinas holds three central concepts.
First, war must occur for a good and just purpose rather than for self-gain (for example, "in the nation's interest" is not just) or as an exercise of power.
Normally, we fail this. Here, however, we arrive as liberators. One of our employees, along with his lovely wife, was taken captive. Unlike many of our operatives, he did not take any action against his government. He merely had the wrong friends. Knew the wrong people. Even if we happen to benefit, the liberation would not hold self gain as a primary motive. It would be a side benefit.
Second, just war must be waged by a properly instituted authority such as the state.
I admit, this seems more doubtful. We are not, in any normal sense, the state.
Then again, in this day and age, who is? Recent legal precedent allows megacorporations extraterritoriality. Every holding we possess is its own state and is legally treated as the same. Meanwhile, the state loses its luster by the second, with their forces given less and less legal standing. There are countries where the quote unquote government barely controls the postal service. Are we to claim they are more the state than we are? The premise is absurd.
Finally, peace must be a central motive even in the midst of violence.
Well, that we also secure in this instance. War with the government hardly secures a profit, and success means they will not interfere with our employees. Further agitation would be ludicrous. Peace between ourselves and the powers that be is the goal.
In other words, we pass.
More recent theory grows more complicated. There, our actions grow more debatable. Some arguments claim that right intentions are required. There, we are apparently found wanting. Force is only allowed, not for a proper cause, but solely for innocent and heroic motive. Solely if the source is pure.
I am shamed by this naivety. Purity, if it exists, is for saints and fools. Both categories I hope to avoid. Wars may be fought by both, but when they organize an attempt at armed conflict, the result is a disaster. In practical terms wars are waged when a variety of motives reach fulfillment.
At any rate, we cleaned the area easily.
No quarter asked, no quarter given.
All legitimate targets destroyed in a fountain of blood and viscera.
And all innocent parties extracted no worse for the wear.
Textbook.
42 soldiers dead, 200 million in damages, and some juicy research projects stolen. I hope the governments of the world have learned a lesson from this exercise.
Somehow, I doubt it.
C'est la guerre.
Why I fear the ocean.
Damn Damn Damn.
It was all under control. Everything was going right. All the personal matters were dealt with, and business was profitable.
Now, this.
A routine assassination. I've forgotten more of these than any one sapient has the right to. An American senator found out our nasty little secret regarding brainwave patterns, and threatened to broadcast it to the world.
Like any right minded individual, I assumed it was blackmail. The primary human concern seems to be financial, after all. When he refused a generous offer, I assumed someone else had paid more. Which is when I sent the kill team. Lessons must be taught, after all.
How was I to know he was a fanatic?
Worse still, he was a prepared fanatic. Guards without convenient CHIPs to hijack. Witnesses to provide an early warning system against our intervention.
A major police presence. All the basics of a properly paranoid mind.
As a finishing touch, it was all to defend a decoy. He almost escaped while I was distracted.
Almost.
The extraction was textbook. I assumed we'd seen the last of the problem. A dead man can't take bribes. A dead man can't report on crimes.
But a man who doesn't care he is going to die CAN use his own assassination as a distraction! While we WASTED millions on a very public campaign against him, he broadcast his own death on a private channel, complete with diagrams of the persuadertron CHIP interface architecture.
Within a MONTH there will be effective defenses against our best weapon. Within a year, it will be obsolete. Within 3 years, we will be caught, tried, and convicted, leaving another collection of power hungry bastards to take our place.
We have to take rapid action if we wish to ensure our survival. Plans are in place, but they were hastily drawn backups at best.
We are in desperate times, but I can assure you one thing.
If I die, I am taking all of you with me.
Why I fear the ocean.
One of our executives made a... request recently. One involving use of valuable resources to resolve a personal indiscretion. He is currently contemplating the depths of his mistake, and will be for another... eight minutes or so.
The funeral is in ten minutes. Refreshments will be provided, supplied by the deceased. As I understand, it will be traditional Maori cuisine.
Fortunately, his folly was our gain. The woman in question, Westwood, may have ties with an offshore project. The Atlantic accelerator.
We need a miracle to survive, and it arrived in a spray of reproductive fluid and idiocy. If there is a higher power, he obviously has a sense of humor at a level well below the average street thug.
The accelerator is, apparently, the one hope of restoring the global ecosystem to a functional state. Anyone who could provide such a bounty would be treated as a hero at worst, a god in better times. Westwood had access codes. We need them. A simple state of affairs, made simpler by her poor CHIP security protocols.
We sent the standard acquisitions team to secure her.
Three decoys and an agent. Distract the enemy. Control the enemy.
And allow the automated grief subroutine to cover for the letters regarding the deceased. It's a useful little node. Polite, competent. Silent, except when called for. It seems to know how close I am to excising it, and acts accordingly.
By the time the enemy understood the true nature of the scenario, we had already won.
Blood filled the streets, children screamed for their parents, the usual nonsense. The target stumbled into view, and we removed her from the equation temporarily.
Then she was removed more permanently, extracted to one of our research facility somewhere in Belgium.
I hear Bruges is lovely this time of year. Perhaps I will allow her to see the sunlight one last time before this all ends.
Now all that remains is reaching and claiming the accelerator. A last, desperate gamble. Hardly fitting after years of slow, careful expansion. But needs must.
Why I fear the ocean.
...slip of the tongue. I meant victory. Obviously I meant victory.
Eliminating a Mafia presence in our march to the sea was simple economics. We can control their markets later. For the moment, we advance. Let the clean streets be a calling card until we return. Advertising.
Clean except for the bodies. The exception goes unremarked. I've trained you well.
Oh, and the fires. Some things need to burned out of a city if you wish to secure the location.
Other things... deserve to be burned.
Our agents secured the location, eliminating any resistance.
75% fatalities on our end. It was, of course, necessary to stay and eliminate any and all local mafia affiliated groups. If one is eliminating a rot, leaving the work unfinished is not an option.
Even if it costs us our most veteran agents.
A small price to inch closer to our goal. Nothing can be held back, no expense spared. Death comes for all.
Why I fear the ocean.
Politics. In the past, simple bribery would have accomplished our objectives. Our timeline and resources are not in any position to follow the conventional route. Instead, we resort to a last tour of the once reliable persuadotron. It seems when these citizens rebelled against their government, it included a rejection of its propaganda. Including firmware upgrades to their local CHiP architecture.
Beautiful. Of course, every agent but a few untested prototypes was reduced to a fine mist in our last misadventure, so we made do with a few borrowed from out
What did Kipling write? If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue? Well, our contact with the common man has failed to further degrade our moral outlook. Not that much could. Neither friend nor foe can hurt us. All men count, to the exact extent they advance our agenda. And we have run the full sixty seconds with enthusiasm.
I'd say we earned the Earth and all that's in it. Or, at any rate, I have. The other prize is more in doubt, but less desirable in the first.
Poor network security landed us every agent for miles.
We have enough for one lightning strike on the Atlantic Accelerator. Of course, we'll need support staff on site, and we cannot afford redundancies.
Half our employees are dismissed immediately, with a severance package consisting of, for a limited time, their lives. Everyone who has not received notice will be deployed to aid our agents on the Atlantic Accelerator. If we succeed, wealth beyond the dreams of avarice and power beyond reckoning.
Failure will breed death.
I take it we understand everything at stake?
Why I fear the ocean.