forbarrayar_ooc | [ may i event results ]

Quick links: Team Rosters / RNG results & LP gains
BARRAYAR: Courier / Attack: Infiltration / Attack: Sabotage / Attack: Rescue / Mystery Plot
CETAGANDA: Cleanup Duty / Eavesdropping / Hacking / Defend: Interception / Defend: Force Fields / Lab Notes / Gene Therapy / Undercover

Note: Some of these missions have follow-up choices that are mostly just to let me know what diretion you're taking things in, please be sure to let me know!

TIMELINE
5/5 Eavesdropping
5/7 Hacking
5/11 Mystery Plot
5/15 Attack on the Cetagandan base

Courier
Miles Vorkosigan
Lakshmi Bai
Agent Washington
Agent Carolina
Duv Galeni
Byerly Vorrutyer
Nash Latkje

Attack: Infiltration
Agent York
Agent Maine
Duv Galeni
Ratchet

Attack: Sabotage
Miles Vorkosigan
Agent Carolina

Attack: Rescue
Agent Washington
Lucy Preston

Mystery Plot
Lakshmi Bai
Benjamin Sisko

Cleanup Duty
Symmetra
Kaidan Alenko
Natasha Romanoff
Deanna Troi

Eavesdropping
Lapis Lazuli
Jasper

Hacking
Deanna Troi
Kaidan Alenko

Defend: Interception
Tarn
Julian Bashir
Pearl
Vex'ahlia

Defend: Activate Force Fields
Symmetra
Natasha Romanoff
Whirl

village repairs

Miles – 20
Lakshmi – 16
Wash – 5
Carolina – 16

Duv – 12
Byerly – 3
Nash – 16

+1 LP to Miles, Lakshmi, Wash, Carolnia, Duv, Byerly & Nash
Maybe it's because there's pressure on soldiers to actually behave, or maybe it's to the credit of the couriers themselves, but few of the couriers encounter any real harassment in the course of their duties. Duv gets some considerable shit, but Wash and Byerly seem to have the most trouble. With Byerly, it's probably that face. Wash...I dunno, man, sort your shit out.

attack: infiltration
Roll 1: Successfully pose as Cetagandan soldiers to get through gate security - FAIL
Roll 2: Disable stunner net & force screens - SUCCEED
On the 15th, the evening of the attack, the infiltration teams are charged with posing as Cetagandan uniforms by donning their uniforms and face paint -- to the best of their ability, anyway. Maybe they didn't get the face paint quite right, or maybe there were other complications, but either way, the initial entry doesn't go as smoothly as hoped for. They're held up at the gate by guards who figure out the ruse, but luckily, they're just barely able to resolve the situation enough to take control of the security situation and successfully disable the stunner net and force screens along the top perimeter of the base, so that more guerillas can rappel in. It's also possible to disable all external (i.e. anything not pertaining to building interiors) security from gate security, provided you can get past the palm lock and the use of a badge from an on-duty guard, but beware – trying to disable the security by using the badge of an off-duty guard will trigger a security alarm.
+2 LP to York, Maine, Duv & Ratchet

attack: sabotage
Roll 1: Disable the backup protocol - FAIL
Roll 2: Sabotage the primary and backup generators - SUCCEED
(For the original power supply intelligence gathered, see here.)
Miles and Carolina were on the original power supply recon teams back in January and are passingly familiar with the interfaces, and so they make ideal operatives for generator sabotage. Getting into each generator room requires a palm lock and a key code, both of which can be taken from any unlucky guard with clearance.

Unfortunately, they aren't able to disable the backup protocol before disabling the main generator, which means that the backup generator comes online as soon as they've disabled the main one, resulting in a delay of the power outage and alerting the Cetagandans to their activities before they're done. However, they do manage to get to the backup generator as well, effectively dismantling them both by either stealing or destroying the tri-phase conduit, a previously-identified key component to the power converter, which seems to be crucial to controlling the generator's polarity functions. It also seems, as far as anyone tech-savvy enough can gather, to be delicately constructed of refined materials that mean it's probably impossible to fix, and likely expensive to replace.

And remember: the generator rooms' EM shields interfere with comms, regardless of who's using them.
+2 LP to Miles & Carolina

attack: rescue
Roll: Rescue Sonia and Byerly from holding - SUCCEED
Sonia's cell is in a different block in the same barracks building as Byerly's, under heavier guard than the regular holding area. Wash and Lucy are able to free Sonia from her cell without alerting security, but she refuses to leave without Byerly – and she knows where his cell is located. They're able to get Byerly free, too, and amidst all the chaos, more or less safely out of the base before the attack is over.
(The details on how this goes down are up to you guys; I'm happy to help coordinate.)
+2 LP to Wash & Lucy

mystery plot
Roll 1: Find the body - SUCCEED
Roll 2: Find additional evidence - SUCCEED
(Note: the objectives for these rolls were a little vaguer than usual due to the nature of this mystery plot. The first roll was to determine exactly what scene the PCs would find; the second roll was for just how much evidence they could gather.)
Early in the morning on the 11th, Sisko and Lakshmi will happen upon the body of a Barrayaran soldier while on courier duty – in fact, it's the body of Falco Vorkalloner, the soldier in Vorvolk's camp clamoring for Duv's death. They will find Vorkalloner's body a little ways outside of Colonel Vorvolk's camp on the way from Piotr's camp, sprawled on the ground below a rocky outcropping above – not terribly high, but certainly high enough if one falls the wrong way, and cause of death looks to be a broken neck from a fall. The body has already gone into rigor mortis, which means he's been dead for at least four to six hours, but he was last seen yesterday, so the death presumably occurred overnight. A broken bottle lies nearby, its contents soaked into the ground – maple mead, by the smell of it. The location is close to one of the guard patrol routes; if Lakshmi and Sisko weren't the ones to find the body, then the morning patrol most certainly would have. It looks like a simple case of a soldier drinking a little too much while on guard duty and having a nasty fall...only a few things look a little out of order.

Lakshmi works guard duty sometimes, and while she wouldn't be privy to the whole schedule, she might know that Vorkalloner was off-duty last night, and either way there's no sign of a second man. The bottle of mead must have smashed on the ground when he fell, holding it, but on close examination it seems that the broken bottle is lying too close to the body -- given the most likely trajectory, it probably should have landed farther away as it fell out of Vorkalloner's hand.

If Lakshmi and Sisko go up to the outcrop to investigate, there won't be much sign of a struggle, but there is some scuffling on the ground near the edge of the outcrop – torn vegetation that's newly sprouted in the spring, scrapes in the dirt on the rock surface. There are still small amounts of snow lingering higher up in the mountains from the bad winter, and a few child-sized half-footprints, much smaller than those of an adult man can be found in a small patch of snow smeared over the surface of the outcrop. At a glance, it certainly looks like a drunk soldier might have had a nasty fall and broken his neck – and on closer look, it certainly looks like someone went to trouble to make it look that way.
+3 LP to Sisko & Lakshmi
CHOICE: Please let me know what Sisko and Lakshmi decide to do with this information, and if they decide to tell anyone, who they go to first (this can be threaded or handwaved as you like). Keep in mind that in this case, Loyalty Points affect how believable any claims or accusations will be taken as.

cleanup duty

Symmetra – 17
Kaidan – 16

Natasha – 12
Deanna – 5

+1 LP to Symmetra, Kaidan, Natasha & Deanna
The whole base is on cleanup efforts after the battle, and with two power generators down, there's not much they can do. They appreciate the exotics' help in pitching in, but Deanna...you could have stayed in, Deanna. That would've been okay.

eavesdropping
Roll 1: Avoid detection - SUCCEED
Roll 2: Gain additional intel - SUCCEED
On the evening of the 5th, while Lapis and Jasper are sneaking around the science/medical complex, they'll witness the following:

The lights are half-on in Gene Lab Gamma when Amai walks in, the scent of a room fragrance diffusing in the air, and at this late hour, it must be the Handmaiden. At least Amai is fairly certain she'd heard that the Handmaiden would be working in Gamma tonight. Conveniently, Amai has some data she needs checking from Gene Lab Gamma.

She does, actually, need data from Gene Lab Gamma, but she deliberately waits until she's sure the haut lady will be there more or less alone to head to the high-clearance lab. Her delay doesn't seem to have been fruitful, though; the room looks like it's been recently occupied, but the air is utterly still and silent. Amai calls softly, but no one answers. After a minute or so of quiet, she frowns and stalks over to the row of comconsoles. She was hoping for a moment to talk with the Handmaiden alone, but if she's not here, then Amai might as well just get her data and go.

The row of comconsoles is easily visible from the eavesdroppers' vantage point. As Amai approaches, she realizes that one is already lit up, and she stops to look at it with a curious frown. There's a half-composed message pulled up on the screen, loaded with attachments. Amai squints at the com code of the recipient and apparently doesn't recognize it, because she pokes at the screen and does some quick typing before she mutters to herself, "Jackson's Whole?"

The slightly bored and irritated look washes away completely and instead, alarm creeps slowly over Amai's face. She pulls up the attachments and runs through them -- too quickly for the eavesdroppers to see just what they are, but they don't have to, because Amai just breathes, "The complexes?" She sits stock-still at the comconsole, her face pale wherever it isn't touched by paint. "But the Star Crèche would never sell… Not to the Jacksonians…"

A note of disgust rings in her voice then. Whoever the Jacksonians are, they're clearly regarded with even more disdain than Cetagandans regard most offworlders.

A small noise rustles from the back of the room, and Amai spasms away from the comconsle as though hit with an electric current.

Ba Talim steps out of the shadows from the annex leading to cold storage, its hairless head gleaming softly in the half-light. It looks at Amai not accusingly, but inquiringly, almost concerned, approaching her at an even pace. Amai, looking suddenly very nervous, backs away toward the door, her hands taut. She opens her mouth, but doesn't even know what to say to it. It's loyal to the Handmaiden anyway, isn't it? But maybe it's here on its own. Maybe she can convince it that she saw nothing of import…

Haut Sei's force bubble comes hovering gently through the annex after Ba Talim, the soft iridescence looking almost misty in the half-light. Amai hitches a breath and straightens up, taking a few steps into the room as though she's only just walked through the door.

"Doctor ghem-Soren," Sei says before Amai can greet her, her voice even and flat through the force screen. But her tone is otherwise perfectly courteous. Amai manages a brilliant smile and inclines her head in a nod of respect.

"My lady," she says, though her voice is a little tight and breathless from neatly contained panic. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to -- disturb you. I just needed to retrieve some data stored here. I didn't think anyone else would be here so late…"

"You work most diligently," the Handmaiden comments. Amai flushes slightly beneath her face paint.

"So that I may best serve the Star Crèche."

Out of the corner of her eye, Amai watches the ba nervously. However, it hasn't said a thing -- hasn't done more than glance up at Haut Sei when she entered the room.

"Of course." The force bubble seems to rotate slightly. "By all means, Doctor. I won't delay you."

Amai suddenly wonders if the haut had been out of her force bubble before, when it was just her and the ba. Had those perfect fingers touched the same screen as Amai's? But then the lit comconsole screen goes dark, and Amai realizes with a flash of disappointment that Sei must have some remote terminal in there somewhere. She takes a seat at a comconsole two away from Sei's.

"How long have you been on Lady Diya's senior staff, Doctor ghem-Soren?" Sei's voice floats across the room to her as she logs in to the comconsole. Amai tries to calm her nerves.

"Four years, my lady."

"Four years? And Lady Diya has only been here five. That's very impressive indeed, for such a young lady."

"Thank you, my lady. It is an honor to serve her."

"A rare one," Sei comments neutrally. "What do you think of Lady Diya's work, Doctor ghem-Soren."

Amai tries not to go still. "What do I think of Lady Diya's work," she says slowly, still looking at her comconsole screen, "or what do I think of Lady Diya?"

A laugh tinkles from the force bubble, startling her. She swallows, smiling nervously.

"I can see why she selected you. What do you think of her, Doctor?"

"I think she is brilliant," Amai says carefully, hands still over the keyboard. "And she possesses great vision."

"And great ambition," Sei follows smoothly, and there's almost a smile in her voice, although not a reassuring one. Her force bubble floats a little closer. "As do you, Doctor. You have made a great upward climb -- but there is no upward climb from Lady Diya's position."

The words ring strange and strike Amai as wrong, chilling even despite Sei's perfectly neutral tone. "Consider yourself fortunate, Doctor. You have so many possibilities ahead of you. So much room to grow. Ambition with no room to grow is to strangle a garden with weeds. If not carefully nurtured, it can grow…desperate." Her smile is somehow audible, and her force bubble begins to float again, hovering past Amai. "Please do tell me if you notice any weeds in Lady Diya's garden, Amai. It would be a waste to see her strangled."

Amai feels utterly cold as Sei hovers on past her through the door with a murmured goodnight, Ba Talim trailing after her. But it catches Amai's gaze on its way out, shaking its head, and mouths you must keep her confidence. That only leaves Amai more discomfited.

It isn't until she's certain they're gone -- really gone -- that she sags in her seat, clutching at both face in her hands, her violet eyes staring down at her lap. "Oh, God," she moans, dropping her head. She now finds herself in the position of having her superiors' dirty secrets in both hands, and Ba Talim knows at least one of them. "What do I do?"

...and that's as long as they can afford to stick around before they need to get gone, but it sounds like Amai now has a lot more than she wanted on her plate.
CHOICE: Do you confront Amai? If your characters want to bring this up to Amail, let me know and we can thread things out.
+2 LP to Lapis & Jasper

hacking
Roll 1: Avoid detection - SUCCEED
Roll 2: Gain additional intel - SUCCEED
On the evening of the 7th, Deanna and Kaidan will manage to hack into a comconsole terminal in search of more information on the Star Creche, as well as military logistics. However, it's far from the only thing they find…

In the restricted files, Kaidan finds reports on Zahal's personnel shortage: correspondence between the ghem-General and a high-ranking personnel officer at Cetagandan central command and Vorbarr Sultana confirming that there would be no reinforcements available for at least a month. The last message is dated to about ten days ago.

Attempts to dig up more information on the Star Creche are mixed and confusing, as even internally there isn't as much in the way of explicit information. They are able to gather, however, that the Star Crèche is not some societal organization, but an official branch of the Cetagandan government -- and technically, the Star Crèche itself isn't this group, but rather Cetaganda's entire genomic database. The Dowager Empress oversees the Council for the Star Crèche, the Handmaiden her second-in-command. They'll also find information on the genomic contract that makes her the Dowager Empress -- her son, the Emperor, was the result of a genomic contract with the previous Emperor, one of several. When the previous Emperor chose her son as his successor, she became the Dowager Empress.

While nosing around in Star Crèche files, Kaidan and Deanna will find something unexpected: a series of transactions and correspondence between a high-ranking researcher and some non-Cetagandan contact. No major monetary transactions have taken place, but there is microtransaction activity between accounts, the sort used to verify account connections. The correspondence, however, is far more revealing: someone on this base is negotiating the sale of gene complexes with someone from the outside, and it doesn't take much checking to verify any suspicions that it's the exotics' gene complexes. The com code of the would-be buyer can be traced as coming from a House Bharaputra on the planet of Jackson's Whole. The Cetagandan com code seems to belong to Haut Sei, but all of the messages are signed with Amai's name.

If Deanna and Kaidan go to look up more about Jackson's Whole and House Bharaputra in the base network's files, they'll learn that Jackson's Whole originated as a hijacker base that evolved into its own form of government with interlocking crime syndicates. Wealth and influence are the source of power on Jackson's Whole, and the planet has evolved into an ultra-capitalist society where nothing is illegal if you can pay for it, and the only rights you're granted are the ones you can afford. Jackson's Whole is, essentially, the black market; just about anything can be bought and sold. The planet's power brokers are the Houses Major and Minor, rated so by their relative wealth and influence. House Bharaputra, one of the major houses, deals in genetic engineering, specializing in brain transplants. One of House Bharaputra's most sought-after services is a special kind of body trafficking, in which clones are grown on demand for the wealthy to transplant their brains into from old or failing bodies. If anyone sells immortality, it's House Bharaputra.

Luckily, Kaidan and Deanna seem to have avoided tripping any network security, and no one catches them at the terminal before they close up and sneak back to the exotics' quarters.
+2 LP to Kaidan & Deanna

defend: interception
Roll: Defend against the Barrayaran infiltrators - SUCCEED
Vex and Pearl, both having weapons training, are each given a stunner and a considerably more deadly nerve disrupter; Julian and Tarn, however, are provided only with stunners.

All but Vex'ahlia decide to go with the flow and aid the Cetagandans, and Vex's contributions toward the Barrayarans are largely in the form of her acting less capable than she really is. However, the Barrayarans aren't interested in taking prisoners, only in doing maximum damage, and so overall their efforts help the Cetagandans rather than harm them.

That isn't to say they stop all the incoming guerrillas, of course, but with their help, they do an excellent job in their sector of the upper perimeter. With the stunner net and force screens down, there's nothing stopping the guerrillas from climbing up to the parapet, and up here, it's close combat -- something the Barrayarans excel at. If they can get close enough to stab you with a sword before you can fire off a shot, it doesn’t matter what you're packing. By the time the intercept teams get up to the parapet, Barrayarans are already pouring in, but they do a pretty good job of staggering the flow and keeping more guerrillas out in their sector. There are casualties on both sides, but where this team is working, there are more Barrayaran bodies than Cetagandan ones.
+2 LP to Tarn, Julian, Pearl & Vex

defend: force fields
Roll 1: Defend against the Barrayaran infiltrators - SUCCEED
Roll 2: Activate force fields around secondary backup generator - SUCCEED
In all the chaos, it's made clear that one thing needs to be protected: the secondary backup generator, which has a dedicated force field that needs to be activated from two separate points. The activation does not need to be simultaneous, but as a failsafe, if both points are not activated within five minutes of each other, the system will reset. This doesn't sound hard -- except that they're dealing with incoming guerillas, some in their weathered Imperial Service uniforms, others in stolen Cetagandan uniforms and face paint, all coming to attack and do as much damage as they can. In all the chaos, five minutes doesn't feel like a very long time at all.

The first activation point is in the medbay, in the CMO's office; the second activation point is in the Grow Labs, in the security room. Each activation point is a labeled security panel that requires a code, which the Cetagandans would have hurriedly passed on to anyone sent to help with the force fields.

Both Natasha and Whirl, for their own, separate reasons, attempt to sabotage the operation while Symmetra aids as instructed, but despite the sabotage efforts, the force fields are activated as planned, and the secondary backup generator is completely sealed and shielded, preventing the Barrayarans from getting inside. The force screens will remain up until they are manually disabled from one of the two activation points with a separate code.
+2 LP to Symmetra, Natasha & Whirl

damages
The attack on the base is, overall, a success -- the Barrayarans successfully sabotage both power generators, cutting off power from everything from the Grow Labs to the power pack charging stations to the hot water until some workaround is invented. The Cetagandans, mostly taken by surprise, lose about 200 soldiers in the attack. The Barrayarans, fewer in number and working much more quickly, still lose about 70 soldiers before the night is through, but their retreat is successful -- with no power, the Cetagandans can't do much to pursue them.

The only thing that still remains powered is the gene labs and medbay. Significant damage has been done to the areas around the generators, including the Grow Labs and research buildings. Some of the labs in which the Star Gate Project research has been conducted are now badly damaged.

lab notes
Natasha, Symmetra, Kaidan and Deanna, as lab assistants, will learn the following about the Star Gate Project:

Before the attack knocks their research out of commission, satellite data yields confirmation to Micah's earlier findings: the Niadem field projected from the wormhole is growing weaker over time, and while there isn't nearly enough data to make a clear forecast, Micah guesses that they have less than three months before the field disappears. There is, obviously, pressure on Micah from the Cetagandans to find a way to stabilize the field.

Neurological research is coming along, however. Micah took brain scans of Kaidan, Pearl and Symmetra while on their space trip and again when they came back planetside, and found that there were some odd but consistent inconsistencies -- confirming that the Niadem field has some unique effect on neurological makeup. Micah has posited that being in contact with a strong enough Niadem field results in a kind of quantum entanglement with neurons, and that extensive travel through one could cause Niadem particles to tangle with one's neural net, which could account for at least some of the neurological changes seen in extrauniversals. Micah believes that this is the key to figuring out how to send people back home -- but so far, it seems like no implant would be needed to send someone back through the wormhole; in fact, it's inadvisable.

After the attack, with the base's power down, the Cetagandans finally agreet to let Micah use a jump ship to build the Star Gate.

gene therapy
Finally, a turn for the better!

Pearl's case is finally showing progress in the durability department -- they've managed to make her skin three times as resilient to damage and penetration as the average human. The neuropathic pain flareups, on the other hand, don't let up.
Lapis's case shows improvement as well. She begins to regain the hydrokinetic powers that had regressed, and makes a little progress beyond that, her ability to manipulate small amounts of water stabilizing. Her migraines begin to improve as well, reducing to garden-variety pressure headaches whenever she uses her hydrokinetic powers for more than ten minutes or so.
Natasha's case is as slighter improvement, but an improvement nonetheless. Her healing factor's regression reverses and begins to improve slowly but steadily, and her hemophilia begins to stabilize.

undercover
Natasha Romanoff
Roll: Maintain cover - SUCCEED
Despite Byerly's recent outing as a spy, Natasha's cover has remained intact -- although she's on thin ice and needs to move carefully now.

Please comment if you have any questions! NPC starters will go up for each mission top-level with the IC log as usual, and, as always, here are the rolls for this event. All rolls are d20 unless noted otherwise; the skill ratings of 1-4 are converted into modifiers of -1 to 2. The number of people in each group is also added to the total modifier.

And don't forget to take down your new LP! As of this post, event LP is immediately granted and you can go hit up the loyalty perks page if you so choose.

+4 LP	Lakshmi Bai
+3 LP	Miles Vorkosigan Agent Washington Agent Carolina Duv Galeni Benjamin Sisko Symmetra Kaidan Alenko Natasha Romanoff Deanna Troi
+2 LP	Agent York Agent Maine Ratchet Lucy Preston Lapis Lazuli Jasper Tarn Julian Bashir Pearl Vex'ahlia Whirl
+1 LP	Byerly Vorrutyer Nash Latkje