Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9747027" data-attributes="member: 4937">Tales of the DogfishEpisode #9: Wings of Terror (Session #71)ARRRGGGH!!!!  Bit of a vent here.The house Benelux hunters are still trying to capture the terrorist known as The Aguia before he disrupts the peaceful transition of power from the occupation forces of the Empire to the provisional Lafraian government.  Acting on a tip from a local Bounty Hunter they had brought in to help on the investigation, the team knew that Aguia's supporters had declared that the Aguia would be attending the races being held in honor of the visiting Moff and other Imperial VIPs.  These races would be held at the galactically renowned Lafra Pinnacles race course, considered one of the galaxies 50 most important racing venues, and would consist of a Pod Race held in the morning followed by the (more politically acceptable) Swoop race held in the afternoon.  Racing fans from across the galaxy would be tuning in live to watch the 819th running of the Lafra Pinnacles Cup, a storied race which had not been held for various political reasons for 13 years owing to among other things Lafra's involvement with the Separatist Alliance and its resulting military occupation.  The Empire for its part hoped that backing the races would help win over good will from the restive Lafraian population leading to incorporation of the planet in the New Order and a wave of Galactic investment from corporations and human colonists.So the PCs arrive early at the race course, with its massive five kilometer long concourse and grand stand, a million race fans on hand, 28 racing teams both local and galactic and thousands of members of the galaxies various press corps and media groups (all being watched over carefully by ISB Agents to ensure nothing seditious is broadcast back to viewers at home) and everything watched over by both local security and a whole cohort of Imperial Troops - 1200 strong with AT-ST's, gunships, CIWS and SAM installations all discretely placed around the perimeter.  In the are hundreds of camera droids and massive suspensor mounted holographic generators to support massive arial broadcast screens 500 meters across.  The mood in the crowd is festive and the huge crowd is just chaos.  There is seemingly no way you'd find one person, even one with supposedly distinctive scars in which a crowd.But, it's not like the PC's don't have any clues.  Early investigations exposed a possible link between the terrorist organization and a professional racing team on Lafra "The Most Handsome Fliers", and as it turns out the pilot for "The Most Handsome Fliers" - Slar Zark - is the Lafraian champion in both pod racing and swoop racing and is scheduled to participate in both races.  The PC's knew that members of the racing team met at the bar the discovered to have terrorist links, and that one of the mechanics was close friends with the air truck driver who had been part of the caving club and whom had been the driver in the attempted truck bombing.Yet for some reason, they had made only a cursory investigation of the racing teams' shop, having been deterred merely by the glowers of the gruff foreman and had never attempted to access their electronic records or interrogate any of their employees by any means.  But now, surely, with the racing team here on site preparing to race in front of the Imperial VIPS, they'd conduct a more thorough investigation, poke around, ask questions and generally be a nuisance as is their general modus operandi.  Especially when at least a couple of hunters were suspecting that, given The Aguia's known expertise as a swoop bike pilot, that perhaps he intended to participate in the contest, and that this particular venue - being a source of nationalist pride - was quite unlike the usual targets of his organization the corporate factories, hotels, and other infrastructure of the new colonial rulers of the planet.  Some even reasoned that a Lafraian victor at the races would serve his purposes better than a terrorist attack, especially given that 90% of the fans present in the stands were Lafraians and the Lafraians almost religious devotion to sports and contests.  This was a sacred event in their eyes, and probably not an appropriate venue for covert murder.  So of course, you'd expect the PC's to follow their leads and instincts.No of course not.  That would be too rational and predictable.  Instead, they limited their investigation to sweeping the course for explosives and verifying that the Lafraian pilots all matched the faces presented in the programs."Yep, that's Slar Zark alright.  There is no Aguia here.  I guess we'll just bet on the races go up to the lobby under the VIP boxes, and hang out with some storm troopers as they excitedly talk about the latest sporty civilian replusor lift craft."I mean, they did win 80,000 credits by betting on Slar Zark to win the races (since he was 80:1 odds to win the swoop race) which is more than the Empire is paying them, so it wasn't exactly a loss for the hunters.  But it was a very frustrating session for the GM as I spent the whole evening just narrating as they verified that indeed the Empire could do security on their own without their hand being held and then settled back to let me narrate all 20 laps of two races as they watched them on TV, minutes away from their own highly modified racing swoop bike which they had purchased and spent a day adding weaponry to so that they could chase the Aguia should they locate him, and minutes more away from the Imperial Gunship they had arrived in with its powerful anti-personal weaponry that could surely threaten or destroy even an agile racing swoop.  No, they just watched him zip away at over 300 mph on TV after winning the race in dramatic fashion, while the crowd - having been informed through local social media that the Aguia was in the race during the last lap - chanted "Aguia, Aguia, Aguia" to the annoyance of the ISB censors who were forced to filter the crowd noise and stop camera coverage of the races winner.</blockquote>

Verification