[d20 Future] 22nd Century: Solar Odyssey to Hell. [The game]

[Turanil]

Spying on Shemezgan & Balmers

The Bug Spying Device: During the few next hours, you hear Shemezgan at work on his computer, but don't hear him speak. Then later, you hear him call an hospital in Lagrange 5 (a location between Earth and Moon where are many space stations and asteroids, inhabited by thousands of people). He asks about his associate Mr. Balmers, but learns that the latter is still in bad physical and mental condition, and has hallucinations.

Sneaking into Shemezgan & Balmers files: Before entering their files and database, Jay will have to go past Ashira_29 station protection systems. He remembers that they are well defended by three idiots... that is: I.D.I.O.T.S. or Intelligent Digital Individuals Optimized for Troubleshooting & Sabotage. This means that an infomorph confronting an idiots would be deleted by it if he lost.




[OOC: Hacking through the idiots requires a Computer Use check at DC 30 for each of them, so three successes in a row! Then, there is the paranoid Shemezgan & Balmers security system, only one Computer Use check, but at DC 35]

 

[Brendan Radley]

"From what we've got from that bug it looks like the real Balmers has become a liability. Would it be possible to find a discreet way of getting any information he may have out of him?" Brendan enquires.

 

[Jay Purr]

Hacking through the idiots requires a Computer Use check at DC 30 for each of them, so three successes in a row! Then, there is the paranoid Shemezgan & Balmers security system, only one Computer Use check, but at DC 35.

Jay realizes that he has little chance of successfully breaking through the computer security around Shemezgan & Balmers database and informs Collins of this.

Jay likes Brendan's idea, and it should certainly be faster to get to L5 than to Mars. Using data from the spying device, can we forge sufficient messages & a cover story to get in to see Balmers at the L5 hosptial? Possibly one of our medical team can assume the role of a medical specialist recruited by Shemezgan to evaluate his partner.

The bombs should be near Jupiter still, but probably will not stay there for long. Unfortunately, by the time we could arrive at Jupiter, the bombs could be anywhere in the inner system.

 

[Jay Purr]

Question for Kecia and Vincent:

Evaluation of the IDIOTS system indicates that an infospace break-in to access S & B's database is unlikely to succeed. After your visit to S & B do you two feel that a physical break-in is useful and stands a reasonable chance of success?

 

[Christopher Lambert]

I had liked the idea of going to Jupiter... but if we can find no way to track the Pilgrim at long range, going to see Balmers is a better idea.

I've got a little medical training, and if he's experiencing a mutation of some kind I shouldn't have any trouble identifying it.

 

[Caine Freerover]

The thing about this situation is, that all three of the organizations on the station have plausible deniability. Even if they worked together as we suspect on this heist, what we really need to do is find the organization that they all were serving, if it exists. Someone needed to get a ship and crew to Jupiter to hijack the bombs--the Church may have provided it. Someone needed to smuggle potent weapons aboard the military ship to kill the crew--was it the cloners, working w/ Dr. Mopta? Someone helped procure materiel for the operation...was it S&B?

We need to find this mysterious fourth party that all the others have in common. To do this we need to either access the records of at least two out of the three, preferably all three in case one is a red herring.

When did Balmers land in the hospital? If it was a long time ago, he would have no personal knowledge of the operation. Someone should check that out discreetly on the infosphere. If not, I agree that he's a potential whistleblower and merits a visit--but a visit by someone in disguise.

In the meantime, while we're here it might be worthwhile to try and access some records in the Church, if someone can do it without blowing our cover. Anyone feel up to the task of posing as a petitioner and doing some breaking and entering into their main office?

I don't suppose that Vincent's mindreading powers are up to the task of getting the Church head's password?

 

[HAR-Vee]

HAR-Vee,

Can you modify one of the space suit 0-g maneuver units so that it will work with my Medium Combat Armor?

Thanks
J. Purr

HAR-Vee has it's optics about 3 cm from a tiny object. A thin probe tipped with a glowing ball of plasma protrudes from a compartment of it's right hand. Nearby a small monitor fuzzes as it obvious displays a camera view of HAR-Vee from the tiny object. The robot doesn't look up.

"Answer: Yes"

 

[Jay Purr]

Suggestions:

• When did Balmers land in the hospital? If it was a long time ago, he would have no personal knowledge of the operation. Someone should check that out discreetly on the infosphere. If not, I agree that he's a potential whistleblower and merits a visit--but a visit by someone in disguise.

  Jay will attempt to evaluate how difficult it will be to determine when Balmers went into the hospital, based on infosphere access. Shemezgan & Balmers have gone to some trouble to hide the fact that he is ""out-of-the-office" and we do not wish to alert Shemezgan. Further, medical information may be less public and thus harder to acess. If it does not seem too difficult to access the info discreetly and Collins so directs, Jay will do a search, gladly accepting assistance from others as applicable.
  
  As far as a visit is concerned, whoever we send may wish to take commercial transport rather than shifting Telarion This may help with maintaining a disguise.

• In the meantime, while we're here it might be worthwhile to try and access some records in the Church, if someone can do it without blowing our cover. Anyone feel up to the task of posing as a petitioner and doing some breaking and entering into their main office?

  Jay has already made an initial approach to the CotSR as a potential convert. We can easily play that up by having him return and attempting to join. Jay's skills at physical breaking-and-entering are quite limited, however. Possibly Collins or another could accompany him and use the cover of another bit of theatrics from Jay as the opportunity to do so "on-site research."
  
• Shall we proceed to rent a space on board Ashira_29? This will help to establish our cover story, as well as giving us an on-station base from which we can mount a more intensive, long-duration surveillance of the potential suspects. If we leave the vicinity of Ashira_29, we can leave some monitoring equipment and/or personnel at this location.
  
  Question for Turanil: If we establish an office/lab inside Ashira_29, does this put us inside the IDIOTS info-shield? In other words, once we are station residents, does the IDIOTS still stand between us and the informatics systems of the other residents?
  
• In response to Jay's request for a modified 0-g maneuver unit, Harvee responded "Answer: Yes." If the captain approves, Jay requests that HAR-vee proceed so that Jay can use his combat armor for any future 0-g EVA that might occur. Such as the need to patch the hull or conduct other external repairs on the ship.

 

[Liam Forbes]

If approved, Liam would like the same modification.


"I would say the recovery of the bombs is paramount. If we discover who stole them. Only for them to use them, what have we accomplished?"

 

[Vincent Collins]

"Clearly we have a number of options to choose from here. I suggest that we team down to visit the real Balmers under the guise of medical researchers or specialists. Perhaps some members of the science team can find out what state he is in, and see if he had any side dealings or knows any more about the antimatter bomb theft.

For my part, I would like to continue to examine the Church's activities here on the station and perhaps have some other people look into the work of Dr. Mopta and see if any connections can be made in a more solid sense. We are working with a lot of conjecture here, and we need facts. The Pilgrim lead seems promising; perhaps Jay and Liam could return and make an effort to infiltrate the cult. My presence might arouse a bit of suspicion, given my professed position of corporate liaison. I would like to work on gathering some more information from some of the station's residents on some of the potential connections we've been making between the various businesses.

But what we need right now more than anything is motive. Why would any given person or organization risk stealing the antimatter bombs? Let’s find out if the church professes some apocalyptic end to the known universe, or whether any of the current corporations have terrorist ties. If our investigations here do not pan out, then we should consider Mars as the next place to begin searching."