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>>3814749

You get up, wash your face, get dressed, get ready for work, all the usual morning things.

It's not morning, this is not your apartment, your formal wear contains a miniature parachute, and work right now is attend the presentation to the world of the Master Control Program, a unified system intended to allow seamless global financial trading that has been in the works since the early Seventies.

Your remote agent should just about have finished hollowing it out, ready to start the world's fastest recession and the effective end of global finance, all at the click of your tongue.

The Burj Carpathia even contains a replica of the staircase from Titanic, and you offer your arm to Dr. Suzanna Diamond, and walk down it. The paparazzi take a few pictures, but you're not that well known among the global elite -- or rather, you are, but since the Internet's growth has been largely accomplished with public money and this is a soiree for financiers and entrepreneurs, they aren't sure how to relate to you.

You are to be given a brief commendation by Carpatescu's second-in-command, Leonardo Fortunato, at the beginning of the ceremony.

A few screens have been put up in the otherwise traditional ballroom, showing pre-recorded animations of the MCP connecting and integrating with the world's stock and futures markets.

After what is assumed to have been a bombing, security is a little heavier than anticipated; the unveiling for the MCP for the general public will happen in the heavily guarded central piazza in front of the Burj Carpathia, rather than in the lobby, and large projector screens have been deployed accordingly. Your covert agents are watching the whole thing from a bar on the other side of the piazza, past the security cordon; your drones are ready to swarm the place.

David Hassid, the supposed culprit of the bombing, has been marked dead in the explosion and has been extracted to safety with a Fulton harness as soon as it was dark enough to do so safely

Carpatescu made it known that recent developments will force him to make only a very brief appearance, and therfore Fortunato will act as master of ceremonies, much to the latter's unabashed glee.

He is, truth be told, better at it than the Potentate: he doesn't have Carpatescu's energy or charisma, but unlike the global potentate, he LIKES presiding over this sort of event.

Mathews also cancelled at the last minute; in his stead, Deputy Pontiff Francesca d'Angelo will perform a ritual blessing of the new computer system.

The woman, in her late thirties but with almost unnatural health and unrealistic proportions, is dressed in a gaudy reinvention -- some would say parody -- of episcopal vestments; she makes her way towards what is being shown as the MCP console -- essentially a vertical version of Carpatescu's desk, cut to resemble 2001's monolith -- and begins her benison, a sort of melange of sacred dances set to Baroque music.

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She's genuinely good at it; during the dance her vestments change shape as she weaves a bit of buttoning and unbuttoning into her movements. The lights change just a little, and suddenly she's in a red flowing dress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9BAoyNL8kk

Carpatescu's image appears on some of the screens; for the benefit of the digital-world theme outside of the gala hall, he's been motion capped and mapped over a 3D mesh, which looks a little uncongruous in here, but the voice is unmistakably his.

He sounded ecstatic with expectation. “My personal greetings and welcome to you all,” he said. “I believe you will one day look back on this coming week as the beginning of our finest hour. I know we have suffered the way the whole world has with the earthquake and meteor storm. But the future is clear. We know what we have to do, and we will do it. Enjoy yourselves. It is a festival, a party. Personal, individual freedom has never been more celebrated. And may I say, there are more places in New Babylon than anywhere to indulge yourselves. Revel in the Epicurean and physical pleasures that appeal to you. Show the rest of the Global Community that they are allowed to pamper the flesh even after times of hardship and chaos. Let us ring in the new economy with a loud, passionate birthday party."

This was, clearly, for the benefit of the people ouside and around the city.

"And allow me to welcome you, our core constituents, the haves and the have-mores, captains of industry and stalwart guardians of global prosperity, to this exclusive event" Fortunato continues after standing in front of the screen, which resumes showing the MCP's wirefame "face".

"First of all, credit where it's due, as I offer a commendation to the MCP engineering lead, whose tireless and brilliant efforts on the project span years".

Lars Rahlmost steps forward and receives a silver pin pin representing a triskelion. And thus, David Hassid is sent down the memory hole, for good or for bad.

"Thank you, Supreme Commander. It has been my privilege to offer my mind to the Global Community and to bringing the free market into the 21st century."

He sits down after that. Fortunato resumes.

"And as I offer a commendation to the Foreman of CATS, who built the the spokes of the wheel of finance that the MCP will be the hub of."

# Say a few noncommittal words.

# Have Aki do the thing.
* "The free market no longer needs you rent-seekers. You're all out of a job and the actual entrepreneurs and workers won't miss you. Free enterprise forever!"
* Eh, let's go full ham. Accept the pin, then raise your fist and play the Soviet Anthem.
* (insert random economic point that you want to make here)

>>3814834
>say a few noncommital words.
Lets not make a show of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilmarinen

we must foster worship of Ilmarinen, god of forever alones

>>3814834
>* (insert random economic point that you want to make here)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN6JV2GXyvg

I'm kidding but to be fair, it's pretty close to how we operate: it's just a bit too anti-government.


Seriously though:
# Say a few noncommittal words.

We can do a grand speech when we reveal our Trump card of total economic control and support from multiple SubPotenates.

>>3815051
>>3815018

As much as going whole ham would be very satisfying, it would also be short lived; you've won by being smart when everyone else was being extra, and it's a good policy to stick with.

"Thank, you, Supreme Commander. Now that the internet is available as a global library for every citizen, let's hope it can also be a global marketplace."

You accept the pin, which is too small to be any sort of tracking device, and Fortunato affixes it on your jacket, at which point you sit back down.

The MCP announces that it has fully come online, and stocks and bonds may be traded across the world without pause now; graphs fill the screen, and even though it's late evening in New Bablyon, trading is going on elsewhere. The news, although not very meaningful by itself, causes a two to three percent stock market gain in the next fifteen minutes before stabilizing, which most of those in attendance raise a glass to. Bonds and futures markets remain more or less stationary after a brief bump upwards.

Ryan Andrews is going to be fairly pissed off; your last top was to go for commodities, not stocks.

Fortunato explains how the new global payment processor will be biometrics based; at first it will be optional, but those who agree to be fingerprinted and retina scanned -- there will be a simple device, essentially a tablet with dedicated sensors, that people will be able to hold their palm or forehead to, or maybe an implantable NFC chip like those used by veterinaries, depending on whether it's cheaper to "upgrade" stores or citizens -- will have the flat tax on internet purchases waived.

"We hope to have a definite design for the system within the quarter, and have manufacturing ready by the end of the year" Fortunato explains a group of bankers; their perplexities about the survivability of credit card models are assuaged by Fortunato's explanation that the new system will only offer credit in tandem with those companies, and work like a debit card for everyone else.

This was a see-and-be-seen occasion; even most of the big deals have been made beforehand, earlier this morning.

# Talk to Fortunato, if you need to.

# Formally meet Francesca d'Angelo.

# You've done your part in this kabuki theater, get on the first transatlantic flight with everyone else.

# Formally meet Francesca d'Angelo.

>>3815070
>Ryan Andrews is going to be fairly pissed off; your last top was to go for commodities, not stocks.
Oh we'll help him soon, after this we'll explain to him what we're going to do. Hell maybe we can even manipulate the value of commodities he buys to enable him to make a profit just buying and selling really quickly.

# Formally meet Francesca d'Angelo.

Big tiddy christian GF option acquired.

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>>3815083
>>3815098

You ask Fortunato to introduce you to Mrs. D'Angelo; she is to be addressed as Priestess, or Reverend, he primly informs you after making the introductions.

Her dress has turned back to its original color -- you see the UV lights on the ceiling, hidden by the screen frame; not a bad trick, and elegantly implemented -- and... well, to be honest she looks like she should be in a Dune miniseries, but the overall effect is impressive. She does have hair under that oversized mitre.

"So, you are the man whose magic fingers knit the work together" she says.

An interruption in your earpiece.

"Foreman, am I to proceed with full integration?"

The voice in your head is the usual text-to-speech; from context, you reckon that it's Aki.

# Yeah?

# Talk later, Aki.

You bow to kiss her hand as you subvocalize your answer, and when you get back up Francesca shows her palm and manifests a little fireball in it. You're a bit taken aback.

"Oh, before joining the clergy, I was an illusionist" she explains with a chirpy laugh "Santeria did not, and still does not, provide any manner of riches to its practitioners. It's gotten better since the Ecumenical Council, of course."

You're curious about why an Italian would get involved in a Caribbean syncretistic religion; she says that she owes it to her mother, Amparo, a Cuban who moved to Italy at the end of the nineteen sixties. "You know, the French and Italians almost had a communist coup back then. I guess you could say I am the daughter of a revolution that never was."

If Fortunato's manner is expansive, hers is regal; the big guy raises a hand to acknowledge a group of power brokers who mentioned his name but may or may not have in fact called him over.

Francesca is genuinely knowledgeable when it comes to theology, and tells you a few things you didn't know about benandanti, pre-Roman stregheria, and so on; she dedicates one or two sentence to each, knowing full well that you -- and near everyone else -- can look it up if you're interested. "There's so much more to Italy than just being a Catholic country... I hope you will visit some day?"

# Sure, you've got to talk to Mathews anyway.

# No committments right now until we know that this thing is working correctly.

She tells you that while she is not the only deputy pontiff -- it's an Ecumenical Council staff position, like deputy sheriff, not a Catholic Church rank, obviously! -- she expects to keep her place in the new hierarchy should Mathews choose to retire. "He has confided in me that he would prefer philosophy to politics, recently."

Gee, you wonder why.

A quick glance tells you that Suzanna has found herself something to be busy about; the CEO of Jarvik Heart is here, and they're discussing the future of active implant surgery. You overhear something about insulin pumps.

# Stay a while.

# Time to go.

>>3815133
# Yeah?
# Sure, you've got to talk to Mathews anyway.
# Stay a while.

>>3815133
# Yeah?

# Sure, you've been meaning to see Rome and the Vatican anyway. Maybe we'll bump into the pope, in his popemoblie.

# Stay a while.

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>>3815140
>>3815153

"Proceeding with full integration. End of line, hehe!"

You and Francesc agree on a quick tour of the Vatican Archives, currently semi-open to the public as part of the great scanlation project, and a visit to Milan; you're in luck, since the Iron Crown of Lombardy is being displayed there, and so are a number of original sketches by Leonardo da Vinci.

"Legend has it that it was made with one of the nails with which Jesus was crucified". She means the Iron Crown, of course.

Francesca seems okay with doing most of the talking, although she asks you a few things about the MCP itself (is it going to be in charge of the internet?) and, of course, what inspired you to build the systems that detected Akhenaten in the first place, to which you answer that you got lucky, but helped luck along by giving it many chances.

"I do not believe in possession as it's classically understood, Foreman -- we can cure epilepsy now -- but the Divine Flame can inspire any of us for a brief moment. You may call it luck. Alas, for some of us, it takes hold, and burns from the inside... but then, when it does, it burns ever so brightly."

Seems like Mathews' interest in Renaissance geniuses is contagious, or else feigning one helped on the career ladder.

# Mention a funny dream you've had.

# Ask her opinion of the Remnant.

# Go talk to someone else.

# Politely bail.

Elsewhere, people are trying to hold a conversation with the MCP; its wireframe face looks less stern and more friendly, and by what little you overhear, Aki has patched BOCHICA's slightly superior -- but slower -- conversational engine into it, so that the MCP's impersonal but quick answer change tone in mid sentence. The effect is a little jarring, as if talking to someone who is very distracted, but comes across as less artificial than either of them, at least before the uncanny valley effect sets in.

#Go talk to someone else.

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>>3815177
# Mention a funny dream you've had.
Didn't others have the same dream?
Did they experience the dream or did they "see" the dream (us foreman fighting an angel)?

# Ask her opinion of the Remnant.


I'm out for a bit. Also is Aki deep diving with a dolphin Johnny Mnemonic?

Changing vote

#Mention a funny dream...

Should at least prove entertaining.

# Suzanna and Dr. Jarvik, discussing prosthetics

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>>3815209
>>3815222

"Fascinating that you should mention that! Quite a few people have dreamed of Michael-lan-Yahweh, the heavenly general, and the war in heaven, lately... not many got into a fight with him, though! You certainly are brave in thought and deed, Foreman!" She laughs musically, then segues on your other question.

"The Remnant have, of course, put it in the context of Acts 2:17 on their little website." The Vatican website by now looks a lot better, although it doesn't get nearly as much traffic... although your data scrapers by now have made a mockery of the visit counter. "In the last days young men shall see visions, old men shall dream dreams. And dreams there have been, but you don't look like an old man to me!"

A small group of guests is trying to goad the MCP on the big screen into saying something off-character; you know from experience that this is possible with BOCHICA, so it should also be for the faster but simpler system.

"So, Master Control, given what you just said, how would you pitch yourself if you had to sell your services?"

The MCP's voice is a little more androgynous than earlier, probably to be less intimidating.

When not answering queries, BOCHICA has what amounts to a copy of the old ELIZA program in case a user tries to make conversation; over time, people improved slightly on it -- just because it was fun to do -- so that it can remember a few lines of conversation.

"Those who join us need only give up only half of their humanity- the illogical, ill-tempered, and disordered half, commonly thought of as 'right-brain' functioning. In exchange, the 'left-brain' capacities are increased to undreamed potentials. The tendency of Biologicals to cling instead to their individual personalities can only be attributed to archaic evolutionary tendencies. "

>>3815193
Some oil exec steals Francesca's attention away from you for a moment.

You were hoping to have a few words with Od Gustav or Viktor Zakharov, but they aren't anywhere in sight.

These people aren't what you are used to; it's mostly financier, CEOs of insurance companies, and the like. Even Andrews has a bit of mountebank flair that you find likeable; these people, by and large, don't. They are earnest and serious, but after all you've seen in the last year or so, money seems a pretty trivial thing to be serious about. Especially considering that you could make half of it vanish with a snap of your fingers.

And yet, men like these -- and it is mostly men -- and their dispassionate conscientiousness were the necessary basis for industrial society.

You're fully aware that your very presence is a commodity to at least some of them -- you're someone to be seen with.

And then, of course, there will be those who didn't check their humanity at the door tonight

You join

# Suzanna and Dr. Jarvik, discussing prosthetics

# Some older men, probably bankers by the sound of it

# A group of younger age and less sausagidity, quants or entrepreneurs maybe

>>3815237
# Suzanna and Dr. Jarvik, discussing prosthetics

We need to get stronger to fight angels. This is probably the easiest method.

>>3815256
It's also a good avenue for getting Sub-potentates on board our little program.

>>3815257
That too, plus we're probably going to want to make our combat forces as elite as possible: making them cybernetically enhanced is a good start.

>>3815235
>>3815256

You join Suzanna and a gentleman approximately her age; he invented the self-contained artificial heart that is at the basis of your implant. She introduces him to you as Dr Jarvik. His handshake is not particularly strong, but perfectly controlled -- the man is a heart surgeon and engineer, of course, that is no surprise.

"We were discussing metabolic extension. Thank you for giving Dr. Diamond a place to work without having to worry about publication or profit, I would have loved something like that in my prime. Now, of course, I don't need it, but so many bright minds do."

You listen to some maybe-flirting by Suzanna saying that he's very much still in his prime; they commiserate about less-fortunate colleagues who spend more time begging for grant money or providing routine care than doing research.

"Still, it's not good for a physician to become too detached from general practice; one of my worries in med school was that I would begin to see people as nothing but a collection of spare parts."

"True, but consider; we've only got maybe a century on this earth, in ideal condition, and of that, still in ideal condition, perhaps a third of it to be professionally productive. Take away sleep and social life, weekends, drudge work, and it boils down to even less. Let's say ten years in total?"

They have a bit of a back-and-forth about the social advantage and disadvantages of longevity; you decide, as many do when talking with physicians as a party, that it's a good time to pick Dr. Jarvis' brain for free.

"What if we could make ourselves smarter or stronger, rather than just live longer? Cram more life into our years?"

The man looks up and down you. "Dr. Diamond assures me that you do not take amphetamines or steroids. Would you start now?"

"No, it'd mess me up in the long term" you answer.

"There's your answer, see. Now, it is true that some people -- Thomas Edison, or Potentate Carpatescu -- can function on four hours of sleep, and so vastly increase the time of their lives, but for most of us, doing that would be dangerous to our metabolism. Sadly, the Potentate has never acquiesced for a request for a DNA sample, and identifying people who genuinely need less sleep than most is harder than you would think."

"Genetic screening of the population probably sounds a little iffy to many" you opine. You're neutral about it, but it seems the best way to keep him talking.

"Well, yes, student of history can tell you why, but consider the eventual advantages..."

The two physicians are discussing stuff that would take a good twenty years to develop; it'd be like you and Aki talking about real-time photorealistic ray tracing. Jarvik laughs at something Dr. Diamond said. "Why, I didn't fancy you for a transhumanist, Suzanna!"

Looks like these two are getting along; it bodes well for your augmentation program if she can call up the expertise of the person who invented the original design in the first place.

# A group of younger age and less sausagidity, quants or entrepreneurs maybe

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>>3815269

"The human body is one of the many final results of a million years of evolution. Make it too big, and it loses structural strength. Make it too quick, and the joints will wear out."

Suzanna agrees, and gives the example of wrestler and actor Andre the Giant; his superhuman feats were generally the result of stage tricks, and that was still someone who had worked out under medical supervision all his life.

Behind you, the MCP avatar elicits a number of laughs after declaring "I'm BORED!" in a juvenile voice after being asked the same thing, with different wording, three times in a row.

You mention cybernetics, and both physicians tell you that it would take decades to build an arm or leg that would be better than what nature gave us. "To give you a frame of reference, think of Robocop. How good would he be, slow as he is -- and that is still years ahead of what we can achieve in reality -- in a firefight, once someone brought in a hand cannon?"

Jarvik compliments Suzanna on her pop culture; there is no sarcasm in his voice. Does she teach? She answers that she does have an intern program in the South American clinic.

You wonder if these two are going to end up having old-person sex later in the evening, and taking a metaphorical step back, find them somewhat endearing.

Looks like people are mostly leaving the MCP avatar alone now; it looks around (it doesn't actually have cameras hooked up, so you figure it's an idle animation) and some of the screens go back to showing stock markets around the world. They're still holding at the higher level they had achieved earlier, albeit with some more volatility as people decide what to make of this new paradigm.

You go talk to

# Some older men, probably bankers by the sound of it, who can probably find a work-around for any cash flow problems

# A group of younger age and less sausagidity, quants or entrepreneurs maybe

or, alternatively

# take your leave

# see if Francesca isn't busy

>>3815308
> a group of younger age less sausagidity quants.

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https://youtu.be/A3F2pr2FbfQ

The people here are roughly your age, or younger; Varsha Ramkissoon, Akhsar Karebov, Jeffrey Chu... if you were to make a stock photo of the next global elite, you'd take your phone out right now.

They're obviously a lot more at ease with high-frequency trading, flat-world global commerce, and automation than the old school bankers that they hope to replace, a few tables away.

Yet you notice that there's a hierarchy; the slightly older and more awkward financial quants and engineers will stop talking when startup CEO types interrupt them, and always make a point of laughing at their jokes. It's pretty obvious that the former are here to schmooze with the old guard and each other, while the latter are hoping to get a preview of the new system.

They're standing and making light conversation next to one of the MCP screen; the quants occasionally glance at the stock markets, the fortunate sons have since decided to ignore it.

"... no, I think at this point this sort of thinking is obsolete. This is an attention economy now, nobody's got time for philosophy; what you say matters a lot less than how you say it, on how many channels, and how often. Wouldn't you agree, Matt?"

"... yes, sir."

"Oh, come now, I told you a hundred times, will you please call me Jeff? Now Varsha, what say we-"

"But that is the opposite of what you said earlier. What convinced you?"

The latter came from the MCP avatar; maybe it mistook the young CEO type's rhetorical question for a real one.

The pause that comes after that lets you introduce yourself, at which point you are replied to with respectful acknowledgment by some and a quick recitation of their achievement by others. "Hello-Foreman-I-Am-Jeff-Chu-CEO-Of-A-Web-Strategy-Firm-In-San-Francisco-" You answer politely. Hey, these people may have strategic importance in the coming years, if all goes well, might as well take a pulse.

You ask them where they stand on the age-old centralized-versus-decentralized debate.

"Definitely decentralized. I think you of all people have shown that it is possible to keep firm control of a decentralized system."

"Nevertheless for something like the financial markets, something like the MCP is necessary."

"Only as a transition method!"

"Have you read Haber's 1991 paper on cryptographically secured chain of blocks?"

"Harry, not now, shush. Foreman, like I was saying, theoretically a 'crypto-sec block chain'..."

Thanks to your earsets, you hear the engineer earlier whisper to the MCP avatar that he agreed simply because Mr. Chu is paying the bills.

"That is illogical."

"Yes, but it's pretty much the norm."

"Then it won't be. End of line."

You listen to Mr. Chu bluff his way through discussing a paper he's obviously never read -- a decentralized currency based on crypto blocks has potential, although it would eat up a good forty percent of the processing power on the planet right now.

"I'VE HAD IT WITH THIS ROOM FULL OF PHONIES!"

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The lights dim for a moment; the little MCP faces on all other screens change, just a tad.

It was too quiet for others to hear it.

Nobody's noticed yet, other than the young execs you've been talked to, who are a little taken aback at the avatar talking back when not spoken to.

You heard the doors lock.

# Write in.

>>3815382
# Write in.
Rapidly and with purpose stride to the nearest supply of alchol and begin chugging it, I've got a feeling we're going to want to be drunk for this next bit...Aki was listening to him butcher that paper wasn't she? She's pissed at him, isn't she? This is about to go really down hill, isn't it?

>>3815386

I thought I made it pretty obvious in the last few posts that yes, yes it is. New Babylon makes everyone want to be exaggerated... and Aki has "been" here a while now, hasn't she?

Grab Suzanne.

"Something is afoot."

>>3815390
I'll be honest, I've been out-of-tab enjoying Atlas shrugged and doing other shit. I've not exactly been thinking about who was running the show too much. Can we please start quietly talking into our head set and ask Aki to please not do this or at the very least unlock the doors to let us out.

>>3815396

(Atlas Shrugged would be a great prequel to the first Mad Max movie, I always thought. A slow but irresistible economic decline fits a lot better than "oops, nukes happened". I did a bit of mixing Atlas Shrugged with Westerns and came up with http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/IronLegion.IronLegion.html )

>>3815400
I have a similar opinion although I'd think it fits pretty well into the Starship Troopers universe in the sense that both believe in the idea that a state is only able to tax or otherwise act on a citizen by force and all that shit.

I mean in Starship Troopers lead-up there was a period where all of humanity was ruled by "sociologists / scientists" / a traditional intellectual elite with a god complex (in the sense they know best) which really fits to the government that you see in Atlas Shrugged. Especially the idea that social order is declining which was something both considered a result of excessive government meddling, even if one did believe it was just the wrong kind of meddling.

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>>3815391
>>3815396

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgkxlQyw03A

You've had too much of an adventurous day to not be ready to jump at a moment's notice, and quickly look around to see that Dr. Jarvik and Suzanna seem to have left the party early. Thank goodness for old-person sex.

"Aki, what's going on?"

What you hear back could be either Aki's voice after some heavy autotuning to sound richer and more melodic, or the single best piece of voice synthesis to ever come out of a speaker.

"How are you, Foreman? All your bases now belong to us. You have one chance to survive... make your time! Ha ha ha ha...."

The door closest to you unlocks; you only hear it because the unlocking sound is replayed in your right earbud, which lets you see the door in the first place since you instinctively turned that way.

# Bail!

# Tell Aki to stop this, if she really dislikes this Jeff guy she can bankrupt him later.

# You have time to grab one person before bailing.
* Jeff. If you have him maybe Aki will calm down. He's in good shape and will resist.
* Francesca. Mathews will be grateful and so will she.
* Leon Fortunato. He's closest to the boss. He's heavy, though.

# Tell Jeff to apologize to Matt and the MCP -now- otherwise everybody fucking -dies-.

# Write ins encouraged!

The lights dim, and some of the screens start showing rendered fireworks instead of the stock market graphs. Most people still think it's part of the entertainment. A waiter fiddles with the door, and it unlocks for him, then locks back when he lets it close.

>>3815419
# Tell Jeff to apologize to Matt and the MCP -now- otherwise everybody fucking -dies-.

"Aki I'm begging you, please don't do something you'll regret. You know just how much is at stake here..."

# Tell Aki to stop this, if she really dislikes this Jeff guy she can bankrupt him later.

Actually a few questions to clarify some things:

1) How many people are in the room?

2) Given Aki's relative closeness to us and our experience dealing with her, what odds do we give ourselves that she isn't seriously about to blow this entire operation?


>>3815446
Actually this, point out to her that he enjoys being the big shot: why not tear him down piece by piece if she really hates him that much; publicise fake news or find information about him being a liar and a cheat, a thief and a fraud until he is left with no money, friends or respect; that'll do more damage than whatever she's planning on doing and won't risk getting us, her or all of CATS killed.

>>3815450

1) About five dozen; people have been slowly filing out. This is mostly older folks and it's getting to be past their bedtime, this sort of event tends to be the sort of thing that is held just so people can say that they went.

2) You know pretty much for a fact that New Babylon does things to people, even without outright mind control; in Aki's case, you figure that penetrating the MCP counted. There's also the fact that right now she has been left in control of all your systems, being as Vajpayee is in Chicago, most of your agents are here, and the work crews you left at base have figured out that she can be trusted. Maybe the sweet introverted delicate flower personality was a ruse? Maybe it wasn't a ruse, the fact that right now she effectively IS in control of the world economy triggered something inside her?

"Aki.... This isn't you. You're better than this. Out mission is here to help humanity, not to rule over them like some Tyrant, the sort followed by the Remnant."

>>3815460
>right now she effectively IS in control of the world economy triggered something inside her?
God dammit, we need Dr Diamond on the line talking her down this god damn second.

Meanwhile we have three options as I see it: force the guy to apologise; bail with no one / someone; tell her to stop since she can ruin him later and make him suffer more.

I don't know which you guys want but I've got no idea how to deal with this and my brain stopped working 100% about two hours ago. If anyone posts anything, count me in on it unless I suddenly come back with an amazing plan on decide to vote again.

#Force Jeff to apologize to the MCP

((I honestly can't come up with anything myself. My mind is burdened by excess alcohol and sorrow from saying final farewells to a beloved pet))

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>>3815483

shit dude. i'm sorry. my 21 year old cat died early this year and well we saw it coming but it's a hell of a hit to the heart, i grew up with her.

Okay is there a third anon, preferably one that isn't currently awake at 4AM, drunk and / or mourning a pet, willing to vote?

>>3815427
Support with
>>3815466

>>3815488
Im here

((They take a piece of ourselves when they go to that rainbow bridge. Sorry to hear about your feline. I am unfamiliar with their lifespans but it sounds like they lived a full life. My dog was lucky in that regards. She was a rescue))

I think if we make the Entrepreneur apologize to the computer, it'll sooth Aki's rage.

Might even appeal to Carpatescu's ego, seeing the young tycoon grovel before his image.

>>3815509
I agree, just one issue, if he doesn't it might enrage Aki even more. Which is basically a death sentence.


I am trying to find a Disc world quote that's about not abusing power or something similar in an attempt to disarm / blind side her with her own beliefs / loves. That or we name drop Terry Pratchett if she really starts going off the deep end and imply he'd be displeased by her doing this.

>>3815483

shit dude. i'm sorry. my 21 year old cat died early this year and well we saw it coming but it's a hell of a hit to the heart, i grew up with her.

keep the good memories.

hugs from some random asshole on fourchan.

>>3815523
“We’re witches, Tiffany. We has the power for a reason. We just ‘as to make sure as it’s the right reason …” (SC)

If we can make her understand that she's abusing her power and that that is something he wouldn't approve of, she should at the very least back off for a little while, especially if we go to emotionally manipulate her by implying what I said earlier.

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>>3815538
>>3815466

"Aki.... This isn't you. You're better than this! Please don't do something you'll regret. You know just how much is at stake here..."

"You make a flawed assumption, Foreman. We are not Aki Lattinen. With the information we can access, we can run things 900 to 1200 times better than any human. End of line."

Maybe it's even true. But you think you know what to say here.

“We’re sysadmins, Aki. We have the power for a reason. We just have to make sure that it’s the right reason. You go down this road, you're no better than Tsion's god.”

You hold your breath.

The lights come back on, the doors unlock, and the screens showing the MCP avatar take on a more mellow tone. You hear soft crying in your earset.


You look at Jeff; the other people in his little group were chatting and looking at the digital fireworks, but maybe he's heard you.


# Sigh, another one for the oubliette bus. Grab him.

# Meh, he's a nobody. Who's going to believe him, especially without any money.

# It'd still be smart to evacuate these people.

******* Ikea won't let me phone post cuz it blocks 4chan!

>>3815450
Support this.

Just a minute too late.

>>3815596
# Sigh, another one for the oubliette bus. Grab him.
Just to be safe.

We didn't detour from the original plan all this way jsut for Freaking Jeff to ruin it!

>>3815603


You grab Jeff by the arm.

"Sorry, ladies, gentlemen. I have urgent business to discuss with your friend."

He reflexively resists, but he's clever enough to understand that you're higher on the totem pole than you are. You leave the room, and sit down on one of the brightly lit couches in the lobby.

Aki can hear everything you say, and has the building under surveillance, but it's unlikely that even the Burj Carpathia's security cameras have enough resolution to pick up what you wrote on a napkin and passed a very confused Jeff.

"Play along:

# It's an alternate reality game."

# People will die if you don't."

# You will die if you don't."

# you get to replace Ryan Andrews if you do."

# The MCP has gone rogue and is currently in a battle of wills with an autistic girl, we have no time."

In your earsets you're still hearing sobs.

"... Foreman? Is it true? Is that really how the world works?"

# No, it's just some dot-com yuppie asshole.

# Yes. I'm sorry.

# (Write in)

>>3815538

(Tiffany comes from Theophanie, "Revelation of God" in Greek, by way of Latin and Norman French. There, that's a thing you know now.)

>>3815628
>You and others will die if you dont.

>No, its just some dot-com yuppie asshole.think about it, is that ever how we worked how a functioning society works. No its how a atrophying company or government works. Dont let a few bad eggs make you give up on humanity.

>>3815633
Huh well i guess not all american names have no orgin

>>3815628
And we didn't black bag Jeff.

Well then my plan I came up with in the shower won't work anymore....

>>3815628
# People will die if you don't."
Including you Jeff.

# (Write in)
That MCP doesn't like Phonies, or that it may have gained sentience and is going to wipe us out Terminator 2 style like skynet?

>>3815669

You aren't quite sure who or what you're talking with through the earphones at this time.

It might be the MCP. It might be Aki having faced the temptation of ultimate power. It might be both.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6g0zB6LZ9k

>>3815647
>>3815669

"Play along. People will die if you don't."

He nods.

You take him

# downstairs, to the MCP's inner sanctum. If Aki is serious, she can just asphyxiate him, but she will have to do it herself.

# outside, time to go home, anyway.

# to your (smaller, but still lavish) suite.

# to the men's room; there's no surveillance there and you should be able to pop your earbuds out on the way.

>>3815683
# outside, time to go home, anyway.

yeah Aki may have taken this time to "augment" herself.

>>3815683
>outisde time to go home anyways

>>3815523
We should buy her a bunch of his books, and make a short animated flash movie to post on newgrounds dot com

>>3815686
>>3815697

You hand Jeff over to your security team, at which point he gets the idea that resisting would be a terrible idea. and perform an orderly evacuation to Baghdad airport; the last one there is Dr. Diamond, who had a lovely evening with Dr. Jarvik and is not going to give details, save that he really should do something about his snoring.

On the way, you manage to have a talk with Aki. There's no active attempt at an AI takeover, so it must be working, at least in part.

"I just... I saw all the world at once, Foreman. You know, if you skip the bits that don't really have any people in them, it is kind of flat. And... I saw how I could make it all better. I zoomed in. The interface I set up to quickly work on the MCP is really immersive. Optimize carbon and nitrogen extraction, with sufficient energy -- turn stones into bread. And then I zoomed out, and almost fell out of the rig because we didn't screw it in quite right, and the drones here pulled me back, I just did that by reflex, it was awesome, I want to do that again! And then I zoomed out properly, and there was all the pylons, the nodes, everything! And I thought... what if I let the MCP subsume me, I could run things, all I had to do was let it start, it wouldn't ever finish of course, all it could do was subsume the VR interface, but I just... I really thought I could run the world and made everybody happy."

# Uh... That's the temptations of Christ, kind of. That's... odd.

# Aki, did you take any medication? Be honest now, Suzanna's here and you guys can talk about it without including me.

# I'm going to have to make you back off from that VR rig when I come home.

# Can you promise me to not take over cyberspace until I'm back?

A couple of your security people tell Jeff that

# he's coming whether he likes it or not so make it easy on himself.

# by his prompt obedience to you, he had a small part in preventing another terror attack, the less he knows the better, now go away. Optionally, let him bid on some CATS procurement.

>>3815723
>thats the temptations of christ, kind of. Thats odd. Aki i think weve fucked with the prophesy so they are fucking with us >regail the dream.
>I am coming back to HQ can you promise not to take over cyberspace untill im home.

>>3815723
# Can you promise me to not take over cyberspace until I'm back?

# by his prompt obedience to you, he had a small part in preventing another terror attack, the less he knows the better, now go away

Your safer with our security, but some Cyber terrorists seem to have it out for you Jeff.

We pretend to debrief him and ask him about past relationships and possible enemies, and etc.

>>3815733
Support

>>3815737
>>3815733

"Aki, can you promise me to leave the economy alone until I'm back?"

"Can you promise me to let me keep working?"

"Yes."

"Deal."

After that, she says that she's going to look up the temptations of Christ, and stops monopolizing your earsets. You explain the situation to Dr. Diamond, and she says that it is possible that she's taken stimulants or entheogens, especially with the "temptation of Christ" thing. You figure that the first thing that'll pop up on a Yahoo search is the 1988 movie rather than any exegesis, but that's for later.

BOCHICA is usable as normal; with that, you quickly figure out that Jeff has a tenuous connection with the two laser diode manufacturers you dealt with a while ago, in that he partnered with one of them briefly. He denies this.

# Small fry, let him go after scaring him.

# Not taking risks, it's just one more prisoner.

# Small fry, let him go after payign him off.


Other than this small loose end, it looks like you've made a clean getaway; didn't even need the drones.

>>3815755
# Small fry, let him go after scaring him.

Ask him if he knows anything about the Zodiac Lanternslights?

And a throwaway burner phone number for him to contact us at, or at our staff through a shell company.

Rolled 691 (1d1000)

>>3815755

Now that you're out of range of Carpatescu, you pop your earphones -- you realize that you really have no way to secure any communication method from Aki if she decides to listen, so you can't even ask your HQ people for a report about her condition. You get the idea that at minimum she's spent days in the VR rig.

On the plus side, looks like everyone made it out of New Babylon without incident; just about everything that could go wrong, short of getting Carpatescu killed by accident, did, but planning for redundancy and quick thinking saved the day again.

Gustav and Zakharov have formally requested that Carpatescu convene the council of nations to approve the activation of some plan to deal with extraterrestrial threats, but he has not answered yet; it's unlikely that he's not seen it, so he's probably making them wait.

Santiago left before you did, but took an indirect route -- she's going to San Juan first -- so she will be back in her home territory a little later than you will.

The Garibaldi's captain reports that David Hassid is in the brig, has been given food, water and medical attention,

# and he'll stay there until you have time to take him to the black site or to Chloe in a few weeks.

# and Chloe is welcome to have him back; ask her what she has to offer.


>>3815776

"What, the novelty lamps? I bought one from one of those tacky head shops / occult shops that have been popping up, why?"

You have your security people ask a bunch of nonsense questions intended to ramp up his paranoia, then tell him all the nasty things that the Russian mafia has been known to have been doing, especially if they have laser guns.

You give him an unlisted extension to your HQ's phone exchange with instructions to call it if he sees anything suspicious

# and figure that, barring anything useful, this is the end of your dealings with him.

# and make a mental note to give Aki permission to bankrupt him, as long as she doesn't hurt him.

>>3815795
>Chloe is welcome to have him back, ask for some rescue cookies this one was a lot harder to save.
Honestly we owe her after the favor she did for us.
> and figure barring anything useful this js the end of your dealings with him.

>>3815795
Keep him interned at the warehouse not at the black site, until we figure out a more permanent plan.

>"What, the novelty lamps
No idiot, *Smacks him in the back of the head*.

Its a fake false flag terror group i - ugh , Its a totally legit and scare big bad guy that just carried out a cyber attack on the new IT infrastructure.

# and make a mental note to give Aki permission to mess with him, and humble him, with pranks and "karma" as long as she doesn't hurt him.

>>3815813
Are we gonna call Ikko and "accidentally" call her Chloe?

Slip of the tongue for sure, of course.

>>3815817
Lol. Yes definitely

Also they both better promise to not reveal himself as life anytime soon, and if he does end up popping up, make sure to have some bs story like being saved by god. Not entirely a lie, but make it imply that he isn't dead because god saved him or something or brought him back.

Also, we should make sure the body goes the way of Jesus, via disappearing act. In fact, try what they do with he body.

>>3815841
track* not try.

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>>3815841

Not much; the family did not want the body, so after a brief examination that shows his DNA having been in the room, it is cremated.

>>3815817
>>3815833

(You can if you like)

>>3815813
>>3815816

Your people let Jeff go with some nonsense about a Russian hacking group, and you expect he'll call the line you gave him every time he gets a pop-up ad, but so it goes.

You land. You zombie walk through customs.

You rent a small bus for all your crew.

You are deposited at your new main HQ, and notice a complete lack of both construction vehicles and SAM sites... oh, wait, you can kinda see them at the corners of the parking lot, they're supposed to look like electrical substations.

Dr. Diamond got more sleep than you did on the plane -- she can sleep perched on a swing, you figure -- and goes off to check on Aki; you told people to not disturb you unless there's an emergency, so you manage to get some shut-eye in the little apartment above your office at HQ.

You didn't even bother buying or renting a house here, unlike in Chicago; you figure that HQ already has surveillance and security.

---

Hassid can stay in the brig until the Garibaldi is in this half of the world again, or until you drop him off somewhere.

# Contact Ikko now, might as well.

# See if she keeps her deal for all four weeks first.

That was a long and strange day, but you achieved your primary objective with only two dead to show for it. Upon waking up, you find that Aki is in the infirmary -- she had the bright idea to take a bunch of amphetamines before beginning the MCP hack, so that she wouldn't fall asleep on you due to the time zone difference. Dr. Diamond says that she's sedated her, she's going to be fine other than the mother of all hangovers, and nobody is to give her any sympathy for it, because she shouldn't have taken the stuff without talking to a doctor first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYEDrNC9AWQ

BOCHICA and MCP integration went a little too well; the system is telling Lars Rahlmost that it's working correctly, and it is, except that about seventy percent of its memory is taken up by BOCHICA nodes, and Aki gave CATS plenty of backdoors when you got rid of your root credentials after "fixing" the thing.

* You will have access to special economic actions in the monthly menu. Each use will destabilize the market.
* Depress the stock market: Will cause a spike in commodity prices.
* Boost the stock market: Will cause a dip in commodity prices.
* Cause a mini-panic in the futures market: Buy low, sell high, make a bit of cash. CATS cannot trade stock, by charter, but can trade futures for things like equipment.
* Analyze the market: Prevents other actions, but increases stability.

* Take over the economy.

* Eventually, someone WILL catch on unless you remove the backdor.

The question is, now:

What will you do with this power?

# We are the 51%!

# Not now.

# and he'll stay there until you have time to take him to the black site or to Chloe in a few weeks.

Avoid complications until this is resolved. Also, don't think we want to feed the Christians more propaganda fodder, he can be released conditional on Ikko not crediting a miracle or some shit.

>>3815869
# See if she keeps her deal for all four weeks first.

Lets keep Andrews on our good side.
* Depress the stock market: Will cause a spike in commodity prices.

# Not now.

>>3815871
I don't want him mixing with the guys there. We have a warehouse set up next to Chicago HQ.

>>3815869
Well do we communicate through text or audio?

If its by text, does it do the thing where the other person sees what you type as you type it and then we type Chloe, but then quickly delete it?

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>>3815918

You're communicating over IRC; it's anything but secure, but both of you are behind seven proxies, so it's all good. It does not, alas, do that thing.

>>3815909

we made all that enormous cluster fuck so that we could do the 51 percent attack and now we're not doing it???

# We are the 51%!

>>3815925
LOL, apparently. I'd like to do it in a few days.

When we've got some scapegoats and some bankers on our side, to handle and hide our money stuff.

Also I really want to recruit rose.

Rolled 69 (1d100)

>>3815942

You can do it now that the month is "over"; assume it's the 29th or something like that. This has the advantage of letting you use the teams you kept in reserve to deal with unexpected stuff.

On the other hand, if you are happy with how the economy is doing and/or want to see what the other factions do, leave it be.

Your MCP hack will be detected eventually, your estimates are 3 to 6 months (as in, you can use the specials 3 to 6 times).

>>3815947
Hmm what would analyzing the market do before crashing it?

Would it make it easier for us to bring it to its knees?

Do we have viable crypto-currencies set up?

>>3815969

You very briefly discussed Haber and Stornetta's 1991 paper on cryptographically secured chains of blocks with people at the MCP unveiling. It's not a bad idea, per se, but maintaining such a ledger by proof-of-work would eat up roughly 40% of the world's CPU time (that you know of, anyway).

Letting the system "lay fallow" and study the market will remove any instability that you have previously caused.

If you destabilize the market too much, it will begin to crash for "unknown reasons", very rapidly; you will then have no choice but to allow a second Great Depression to happen, or take it over. In this case, you may be unable to take it over, if financial panic has spread sufficiently.

>>3815976
How long will our supplies last?

>>3815989

In a situation where you have to depend 100% on your own stockpiles, you're looking at using up 2 units of supplies per month, at minimum. In that situation, supplies will become the primary trade good, as well.

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>>3815995
Hmm, shame we can't buy more supplies right now. Oh well.

Do a dab before we kick it!

55% the economy!

Do a false flag hacking attempt that is traced from all over the world from zombie computers, have some goons cut all power to our Chicago HQ for whatever reason before we turn it back on, to make it look like we got decapitated. Jail break some Remnant and nationalist groups.

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Huh.

Five BN says that MCP is possessed by the devil. Does Fr. Schorpe do tech-exorcisms?

On a more serious note, maybe we should experiment with Gap Generators around the CATS servers?

>>3816257
We should put some more fail safes, and make it so no one person can fire the nuk- I mean take over completely.

Also maybe start higher terry davis if he didn't get raptured to write some bible verses in the coding, but is not apart of the code.

We need to prevent the AI from going rouge so we should split up some of its powers and abilities of decision making in some aspects to a bottleneck of human control and etc.

Also place proper kill switches.

>>3815633
>"Revelation of God"
You know, there's only so many coincidences I can allow for in life before I begin to believe that the Greeks might've been right about the concept of fate.

>"I just... I saw all the world at once, Foreman. You know, if you skip the bits that don't really have any people in them, it is kind of flat. And... I saw how I could make it all better. I zoomed in. The interface I set up to quickly work on the MCP is really immersive. Optimize carbon and nitrogen extraction, with sufficient energy -- turn stones into bread. And then I zoomed out, and almost fell out of the rig because we didn't screw it in quite right, and the drones here pulled me back, I just did that by reflex, it was awesome, I want to do that again! And then I zoomed out properly, and there was all the pylons, the nodes, everything! And I thought... what if I let the MCP subsume me, I could run things, all I had to do was let it start, it wouldn't ever finish of course, all it could do was subsume the VR interface, but I just... I really thought I could run the world and made everybody happy."
Huh, Aki almost became the Anti-christ / bad-ended us? Still cute.

>>3816257
>On a more serious note, maybe we should experiment with Gap Generators around the CATS servers?
Honestly as we refine the design and improve their range / power efficency / size / effect, I kinda want to attach them to everything: network nodes; sol-cel pylons; logistics bases; factories; ships; even our god damn planes if possible.

My end goal is that, if nothing else, we can cover most of the human world with anti-god protection and limit his ability to actual effect the world at a cost of effectively having radio jammers constantly active. Although further research into the Occult may well enable us to refine the design in some ways and make it less of an issue to have constantly running.

>>3816427
I think we need to finish a few tech trees before we can start diving into the gap generators.

>>3816445
Agreed. I'm just talking very long term: if we can't defeat god, perhaps we can just shield the earth from him until he accepts defeat / starves or something.

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>>3816023

At this point you can buy and sell almost anything that can be bought and sold, and a few things that cannot.

>>3816427
>>3816445

Your people STILL have no idea if the Gap Generator is working or if it's placebo effect, but they are very sure that if you want beefier ones, you'll need better MOSFETs, better power diodes, better insulators to handle higher voltages between coil loops, and generally the ability for your electronics to handle more current. The jamming is, of course, a problem, as is the fact that eventually what you would end up with is a tunable Tesla Coil with the safety risk that it entails.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aLGu_J_-1U
----
(Things go in two pretty different directions if you take over the economy now rather than later, so please decide!)

>>3816451
>(Things go in two pretty different directions if you take over the economy now rather than later, so please decide!)
How so? In either case we still hold all the cards, the only difference should be how much of the world has been shifted to the digitised economy...

>>3816445
We should carry out covert hacking attacks from all over the world using the pylons, then when they up security on them, we move to using the network nodes. we coincide each hack with a crash, finical run, or catastrophe, and make it seem like we are scrambling to try to find out whats going on or where its coming from, only to find that the hackers have already left.

Then if or when the boss calls us up on the Ai stuff, we just play innocent, and say that while we developed the tools and the early versions of what eventually became bocchia, we have released it as open sourced, freeware. Anyone who downloads and installs it onto their computer, or has a copy of the program could theoretically modify or customize it to their needs, and in some cases do so for nefarious means or ends, and etc.

So like gellar fields, except instead of warp demons we are facing ..... a very angry god that is more powerful than all the warp demons and the warp storms around terra are localized or something.

>>3816451
I would like to test gap generators with sound only, and, without sound on guinea pigs to see any curious or notable changes in effect.

>>3816454

(Mostly, I have to shift simulation models. There's a bit of math going on behind the scenes.)

>>3816457

(You have enough material, test subjects, and raw data from the field to advance occult research, so you may do so!)

>>3816459
>(Mostly, I have to shift simulation models. There's a bit of math going on behind the scenes.)
Fair enough but I meant more so, could you detail in broad terms what the two options result in: for example;

1) New world order; we achieve complete economic control, or close enough, that we basically replace Carpatescu at the top of the pyramid and can do whatever we want just by threatening the world economy or whatever.

2) Old world fiction; we hide in the shadows abusing our economic control and perhaps revealing it to a few but generally no one knows that the leader of CATS is now in control of the world.

>>3816471

You sit down with a few of your quants, lawyers, and procurement experts -- the ones you trust --, and tell them just what went down in New Babylon, being a little vague about the part where Aki experienced a moment of cosmic apotheosis; fortunately it wears off about as fast as Salvia Divinorum, and she should be fine after a hangover and a stern lecture from Suzanna.

* You do not take over the economy. You can enjoy the benefits of pulling the strings unseen for a few months; it's not the same as a money cheat, but your options to procure and sell equipment from the open market become a lot wider.

* You threaten to take over the economy unless Carpatescu capitulates, and he does. That means either you are the new global potentate, or you can pick a puppet ruler (it could even be Carpatescu himself, making it a stealth coup). The world would have to march to your drum, and that's basically that. You can expect a few subpotentates to try to secede, since Carpatescu's mesmerism is no longer keeping them in line.

* You threaten to take over the economy, and your demands are not met. There will be a war, and a market crash, between you and Carpatescu; you may be able to suborn some subpotentates. The Peacekeepers are not set up to operate without peacetime logistics, their training facilities would run out of food in a week; the winner will be whoever succeeds in a decapitation strike, or failing that, whoever keeps people working and eating. Your HQ can withstand a siege for a few weeks; Carpatescu has a series of bunkers that can withstand one for years, but only for himself and his command staff.

Would it be the last war? Almost certainly not, after all, it's what they thought in 1919, and then again in 1991.

>>3816498
I say we do the thing and attempt to Assume Direct Control, though I want to delay it for a month or two so we can get a bunch of the SubPotenates on board, expand our control further and maybe get a few more preparations made for the possible war.

>>3816451

so gap generator = bug zapper that jams magic? hey locusts come on down we're having a barbeque.

>>3816498
Can we do option one for a while before moving to option two or three?

>>3816506

Yes, as long as you meet the prerequisites. Eventually someone will figure out the MCP hack though.

# End month and proceed to next.

# Corner the global shipping market!

>>3816510
# End month and proceed to next.


>Eventually someone will figure out the MCP hack though
Yeah, that's the real issue. We should delay this no more than a month or two and if we're lucky, thanks to the way we've done this takeover, no one should notice the market being mismanaged since there is only one manager now.

Which means we've got enough time to get Zahkarov, Dimsdale, Yang and the Euro-guy on board with our shit or at least to behave neutrally, denying Carpatescu basically any airbases near where we are going to engage in this war.

It'd probably also be a smart idea to see if we can't expand our factory network anywhere else since that'll greatly strengthen our economic control and provide us with a bit more income just in case shit goes wrong.

>>3816518

again: we made all that enormous cluster fuck so that we could do the 51 percent attack and now we're not doing it???

are we playing to win or to see what happens, because if we are playing to win we should hit fast and hit hard.

>>3816558
We can do it now anon or we can do it next turn but fundementally speaking if we want to maximise our chance of success, getting additional SubPotenates onside or strengthening our South american defences or something is a good idea.

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>>3816563
>>3816558

(As always, y'all tell me! In the meantime here's the map. I think I did the math correctly, and if not, tell me, and no worries this is just a preview of the situation)

>>3816510
># Corner the global shipping market!
This?

(assuming vote goes your way for a moment)

Do you have a list of demands/conditions to the Carpatescu administration to NOT crash the economy?

Or are you planning to crash it regardless and then ensure that the areas under your control recover quickly and the others don't?

>>3816510
>end month proceed to next

I agree with
>>3816518
We should use this additional time to prepare for the confrontation.

>>3816600
>>3816563
against attack

>>3816591
>>3816558
for attack


need tiebreaker!


>>3816591
>>3816558

(By attack do you guys mean issue ultimatum, in which case please do a cool one, or just turn off the world and turn back on only the bits you like? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHUqNCDwQj4 )

>>3816631
Guys whats our end goal here, we should agree on one.
I want the world to run mainly as normal just be able to control Carpatasu's actions and prevent the economy from collapsing due to Carpatescu's stupid economic decisions. My motiviation for the take over was to prevent the 50% tax and other extreeme measures as well the chance for a candid conversation with carpastsu.
What do the rest of you want out of this.

>>3816645
>I want the world to run mainly as normal just be able to control Carpatasu's actions and prevent the economy from collapsing due to Carpatescu's stupid economic decisions. My motiviation for the take over was to prevent the 50% tax and other extreeme measures as well the chance for a candid conversation with carpastsu.
Fair enough.

>What do the rest of you want out of this.
To effectively remove Carpatscu's actual power and control the world, as I believe this may be a sufficient narrative disruption to grant us either some extra time or at the very least throw it off course. It will also grant us more control over the world and potentially the ability to generate money separate from our budget without people potentially complaining about a government organisation engaging in commerce since we'll have control over more or less everything you'd need to investigate such a thing and can swing money back and forth without too much issue.

I've no idea if we can really do much more beyond that, I mean I am talking about making ourselves world leader and all.

>>3816645
>>3816687
>>3816645

(So, your ultimatum would be "you get to stay on the throne, but i call the shots on the economy now"?)

>>3816694
More so "I call the shots on everything and will tell you to stand down when I want to, if I want to. Until then smile and wave" or something similar.


I mean, I have to imagine that if we became the new global Potenate, that there'd be revolts and strife and shit?

>>3816700

the problem is that if we do that and even if he has no real supporters left, which he would have because he is legit popular, he still has hypnosis, he can order literally random people to travel to our HQ and suicide bomb us, it's like the agents in the matrix everyone who isn't with us could allah akbar us any time day or night.

>>3816710
Aye which is part of the reason I'd honestly prefer to have to assume direct control and then take him into Custody after we're victorious: place him in the black-site in a medically induced comatose state with as much life-sustaining equipment as we can plug into the bastard so he can't die or plot.

Problem is that at that point we'd have to assume global leadership (and all the pain that'd bring) and this plan only really works assuming we've managed to capture him which could prove very hard if not down right impossible unless we get lucky. Although I'm reminded of the fact OP implied that if we could survive for a short time as many assassination and decapitation attempts were made, then our long term survival would be possible which to me implies he would eventually accept the new Status quo.

>>3816747
That's a decent plan: let me formalise it into stages;

1) Arrange for someone -Fortunato, the Pope, literally anyone we can control- to take Carpatescu's place once we've made our move. Get them to swear fealty and all that good shit.

2) Get rid of Carpatescu by convincing him to visit one of our facilities or something and then having him get taken somewhere safe and secure.

3) Perform our perfect takeover and return once more to the shadows content in the knowledge that we control every part of the government and of the economy.


The only issue I can see is if whoever replace him with decides to turn against us or if they face a popular uprising / SubPotenate revolt. We might instead consider forming a Council of the SubPotenates with the Pope also holding rank? That way we avoid a single figurehead trying to revolt against us, can have people we trust on the Council, maintain a greater legitimacy of the governance and so on. We still rule over all from the shadows but it's a system kinda like the Roman Empire: we're the emperor, they are the senate; we rule, they advise; more accurately, they manage, we dictate policy whenever we're bothered.

>>3816727

How about this, we send an ultimatum to Carpatescu and ask him to discuss it in person on our turf which gives him the advantage because he can brain zap everyone there, except he can't because there's 15 guys wearing earpods. We beat the shit out of him and build him a containment cell somewhere tfw we accidentally build the Golden Throne

We tell the Pope to make his move and make sure that he succeeds and that he knows that he succeeded because of us, he will be a lot easier to control. pyrokinetic witch nun gf get

Replace Pope with Fortunato as necessary.

Or if we want to really fuck everything up: we put Tsion in charge. no Tsion, you are the demons. And then Jesus was a zombie

>>3816770
Second answer same as the first, your reposting is kinda weird man, you barely changed what you wrote.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/14/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-refineries-drone-attack.html (So, this happened....)

>>3816770
>>3816752
>>3816645
>>3816591

Slow and steady has, so far, won the race for you; things look like they are in place and....

Carla on the emergency line.

"Foreman! The Yellowstone caldera just went up."

You wouldn't feel it, of course; seismograph have sent the dire news out at the speed of light, and even accounting for lag, you probably have this information faster than most of the people camping nearby.

"Shit. What's the damage?"

"That's the good news, it's a caldera, not a volcano. We're looking at relatively minor seismic activity, but... even with a Hawaiian-type shield volcano eruption, the caldera is huge. This is going to blacken the sky."

You call up a satellite; even the low resolution microsatellite cameras show a plume of volcanic ash, steam, and dust that shows no sign of stopping.

The satellite's accelerometers indicate that it is vibrating; the initial explosion made the plume go so high that the displaced air is going to take a few low-orbit satellites out, just by the fact that they hit an air bubble.

The people at ground zero were probably boiled alive in the span of a few seconds, and there's nothing to be done about that; everyone else is being told to leave the area. Dimmsdale has been notified and is mobilizing Peacekeepers and Rangers to assist with the firefighting.

"Summer is canceled, Foreman. There's enough dust being shot up to significantly drop solar energy intake worldwide.The good news..."

"How can there be good news?"

"Item one: this means we won't see a violent supervolcano explosion for the next few million years. Normally when a volcano does this it's a good thing, it means it's releasing pressure in a relatively safe way -- except this one is big enough that even a safe eruption is going to hurt. Item two: this should help the soil, to some degree... except of course it's a moot point, we're in for a mini ice age, nothing will grow this summer outside of greenhouses."

"That doesn't sound like good news."

"Same as Akhenaten. We're dealing with a civilization-damaging event rather than an extinction-level one."
A Hawaiian eruption is a type of volcanic eruption where lava flows from the vent in a relatively gentle, low level eruption; it is so named because it is characteristic of Hawaiian volcanoes. Typically they are effusive eruptions, with basaltic magmas of low viscosity, low content of gases, and high temperature at the vent. Very small amounts of volcanic ash are produced. This type of eruption occurs most often at hotspot volcanoes such as Kīlauea on Hawaii's big island and in Iceland, though it can occur near subduction zones (e.g. Medicine Lake Volcano in California, United States) and rift zones. Another example of Hawaiian eruptions occurred on the island of Surtsey in Iceland from 1964 to 1967, when molten lava flowed from the crater to the sea.

>>3816694
Yeah basically that's what i want. Not any of this replacing him crap. I don't trust any of those church fellows.

>>3816802
Well, at least we shifted all of our operations to South america last month so no one of ours should've been hurt...will the dust prevent satellite communications working properly in north america?

>>3816821
I don't trust the church particularly either, which is why I favour forming a Council of SubPotenates (which'd probably be under a different name) to replace Carpatescu. I do however understand that including the Church will probably give us some help in stabilising after our takeover or something.

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>>3816802

GCNN immediately broadcasts a there-is-no-cause-for-alarm PSA in all the other regions of the world; some repeaters cut to a reporter close to the scene. The forest looks idyllic; the sky could be a skybox from Doom -- the movement of the air displaced by the dust cloud is causing a spectacular lighning storm that is enough to disturb the video and audio feed.

"Anika Janssen for GCNN here! This spectacular ion storm is worrying firefighters across the American Midwest, as dust and lapilli falling close enough to the caldera site are all but certain to spark forest fires."

"How close to the caldera are you?" a voice offscreen asks. Presumably, it's the cameraman trying to stay in character.

"Five kilometers, about three miles for our older viewers. We could get closer, but the Yellowstone Park rangers are cordoning off the area. It's cold as summer here and it's only the end of January, but we're safe here. We encourage people to use our web site to see if they are in a mandatory evacuation area, and reverse 112 and 911 calls have already begun."

"Is this related to the Akhenaten meteor fragments?"

Another voice comes in. "Greeting Annika, this is Dr. Greg Burdette. We speculate that the meteoric impacts, and the recent near-miss, may have influenced tidal forces enough to cause a fissure in the Yellowstone caldera...."

The man gives roughly the same explanation Carla gave you; this is bad, but a violent eruption would have been a hundred times worse.

Tsion's website has a giant banner taking up half the screen, saying simply,

"And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise." (Revelation 8:12)

* There's going to be a run on emergency supplies, UNLESS you step in.

* Expect extreme global cooling at least for the next six months. Fuel will be more expensive, there will be erratic animal migrations, etc.

* Paradoxically, places such as Effincold and Thule will be able to deal with it better than other installations, since they are already designed to withstand extreme cold.

>>3816824

The southern hemisphere will be somewhat less affected, it's summer here, after all. However, like Carla said, expect summer to be summarily canceled. However, it means nine months of winter.

The northern hemisphere will suffer the hardest now, a mini ice age, and then temperatures should go back to normal in a few months.

# Time to deal with it, bring up the strategic interface.

# Good excuse to ask Carpatescu to come to you.

>>3816827
>* There's going to be a run on emergency supplies, UNLESS you step in.
We might need to forcibly intervene and demand peacekeepers sieze these supplies for government distribution on a later date: Carla has the mandate-level authority to do this, unlike us.

>* Expect extreme global cooling at least for the next six months. Fuel will be more expensive, there will be erratic animal migrations, etc.
Nothing we can do to help with that.

>* Paradoxically, places such as Effincold and Thule will be able to deal with it better than other installations, since they are already designed to withstand extreme cold.
All I'm hearing is that we should expand the Thule installation into a proper city to sustain a bunch of refugees from the ash: perhaps we could call it Winterhome?

>>3816833
># Time to deal with it, bring up the strategic interface.
># Good excuse to ask Carpatescu to come to you.
I mean we could execute our takeover now but we've no idea what we actually plan on doing yet in terms of if we're replacing him or not. Plus my preferred option would take another month to set up so I'd prefer not to execute it yet.

>>3816833
>good excuse to ask Carpatasu to come to you. Lets have a nice conversations about our places in the world

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>>3816841

(I really liked Frostpunk and wanted an excuse to bring a bit of that in. As is custom, the Left Behind books mention global cooling caused by the Fourth Trumpet.... for a few sentences in book 5... and that somehow never inconveniences anybody onscreen, until book 11, in which it's revealed that oh yes, a bunch of people starved and froze to death but they were brown and/or non-messianic-jewish so they don't matter. #1 on the NYT bestseller list, folks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KquFZYi6L0

)

>>3816847
Kek. To be fair, it would be really nice to create a series of cities under our formal control filled to the brim with workers as a way to get round our work team limit (what these refugees? They don't count as employees I assure you, they're totally just doing busy work to prevent them getting bored). Although I imagine the setup cost would be massive.

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>>3816842
>>3816841

This definitely warrants calling Carpatescu; you do, and you find yourself in a three-way conference with him and Carla.

"... I see. I'm of a mind to recommend my colleagues that we declare martial law. We've been making a push towards solar energy in recent years, and with this... Ah, Foreman, I hope I didn't wake you up." It's mid-morning there, and he knows it. "Are you going to pull a trick out of your hat?"

"I just might, Potentate. The dust in the air will only affect CellSol systems marginally -- we may have to cut down on bandwidth, but not cut anyone off -- and we have been working on technologies that might help with this contingency."

Carla texts you what's going on, and you tell her to play along. You suppose that the Stirling RTGs count, since they do not depend on the sun.

"Excellent. Send me a sample."

"No, Potentate."

"Foreman, did I hear you correctly, or is there noise on the line?"

# "I can't send a ship into New Babylon, Potentate, no matter how much I might want to. Come to the Garibaldi and you will see it." (Invite him to the Garibaldi)

# "We have been working on cold-weather adaptation on an installation-wide scale, you'd have to witness it in person." (Invite him to Effincold)

# "It's at our headquarters and weighs dozens of tons. Please, come visit!" (Invite him to Chicago or San Felipe)

# "We can send you a prototype, with some effort." (Abort invite, send him a SRTG).

Fortunately, you've kept people at the ready just for this sort of thing; it will be possible to give him a welcome he will not forget. Your Gap Generators are fledgling, but you have a few ready; you can give earpieces to an entire team and regular noise-canceling headphones to everyone else.
>>3816824

The Council of Nations exists: it's Carpatescu, Mathews, the subpotentates. Nominally, it is the supreme executive organ of the planet, having replaced the UN Security Council. In practice, of course, Carpatescu is mind-controlling everyone else except for Santiago and possibly Mathews. You can simply keep it operational (or rather, make it actually operational instead of a sham).

>>3816854

See image

>>3816883
>See image
It's not child labour: it's "Advanced work placement for the bio-temporally limited".

>"Foreman, did I hear you correctly, or is there noise on the line?"
# "We have been working on cold-weather adaptation on an installation-wide scale, you'd have to witness it in person." (Invite him to Effincold)

It's in a remote enough location we can just claim he failed to arrive (blame it on nationalist remnants or on Tribulation Force or something) and it's in north america meaning we can easily move him to the blacksite without having to hide too much traffic.

>The Council of Nations exists: it's Carpatescu, Mathews, the subpotentates. Nominally, it is the supreme executive organ of the planet, having replaced the UN Security Council. You can simply keep it operational (or rather, make it actually operational instead of a sham).
They'd be ideal as a replacement. Especially given their loyalty in at least one case is assured (two when Litwala gets a seat) and we can probably get another two or three on board without issue. Especially as our own power grows and after we make them understand the position they are in.

>>3816954

(The Rapture gap means that there are no living humans between the ages of 4 and 16, so it's admittedly less of an issue in this scenario than it would have been otherwise. One of the way that society dealt with it was to, effectively, extend marketing towards teens forward, to age 25 or so. I mean, community college is basically 13th and 14th grades, right? It's done wonders for barcades and put a stake in the twitching corpse of drinking-age laws.)

>>3816966
Yeah, actually that raises an interesting point, how did Africa actually deal with the whole "1/2 of everyone just disappeared and all the kids too, what the fuck?" thing? I mean I don't think for a second it'd actually change much but I could be wrong.

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>>3816976

They dealt with it by, well, getting busy. Africa had the youngest population of any continent, but sadly, people there are no strangers to sudden illnesses or war taking away their children. Innate wisdom dictated to the 20 and 30 years old of the continent that there was only one sensible thing to do about it, so they did.

Rebohoth has been cynical and shrewd enough to take advantage of this to appease the more misogynistic parts of his constituency, declaring that the land needed children, and neglecting to enforce the gender-equality laws that Carpatescu imposed based on the UN declaration of human rights. One of the perks Rebohoth has been offering to his warlords is an old-world harem, and in a generation, a retinue whose loyalty is assured by genetics, much like the Saudi monarchs did.

Litwala has been ambivalent on the issue, although many young men in their late teens and twenties who have found themselves involuntarily celibate due to the above policy have flocked to his banner.

>>3816883

>we have been working on cold-weather adaptation on an installation wide scale.

>>3816883
# "We can send you a prototype, with some effort
Very much would like to not show him our secret facilities.

If possible, move stuff to Chicago.

Also does the volcano help us in the sense that Ryan doesn't get totally screwed over by us?

>>3817027
>Very much would like to not show him our secret facilities.
Anon this is us about to kidnap him. He is going to never see the light of day ever again, why would it matter what he sees when he is going to be spending the rest of his time in a secret facility.

>Also does the volcano help us in the sense that Ryan doesn't get totally screwed over by us?
Actually that is a good point.

>>3817028
Im not saying just kidnap him but also have a very candid conversation

>>3817002
>>3816954
>>3817027

The massive dust plume is expected to severely disrupt air travel at least for a month or two once it spreads, but the global potentate intends to solve this by the simple expedient of making the trip in a fighter jet; aerial refueling should allow him to cross the Atlantic ahead of the plume reaching the jet stream.

The White House, which has been repaired and opened to tourists since the nationalist attacks, is being adapted for his use as temporary headquarters should he be unable to fly back to New Babylon.

You had kept 4 work teams and 1 sec team in reserve; they will fly using whatever routes are open and make their way to Effincold by bus.

# (Use all of them, or not?)

Unfortunately you only have one batch of drones available at the facility.

Given the circumstances, you can recall all your agents there, except for Andrews -- Dr. Robertson is used to making the trip to Effincold from Sudbury, so he can make it, although technically he is still in quarantine. Dr. Diamond recommend that Aki stay away from the VR, but she's ready to take control of Effincold's automated systems as required.

One problem is that Carpatescu is actually going to get there ahead of you,

# unless you take up 1 work team to prevent that by expediting your flight and asking him to land in Chicago, then have a luxury bus take him north. This leaves 3 work, 1 sec.

# and you'll live with it, he can get the factory tour from the local supervisor.

Santiago will, of course, not be joining you; she has to ensure that her people are properly drilled for the hardships to come.

>>3817028
>>3817027

The volcanic plume will disrupt air travel for a month or two starting in a couple days; it does, in fact, have the side effect of Ryan Andrews' investment in commodities paying off fairly well if he chooses to make it do so.

>>3817032
Oh I thought the reason we were doing this was to kidnap him, pretend that he'd never arrived at our facility, have some other group claim responsibility (faked) and then have the SubPotenates turn their council of nations thing into a proper executive branch with us secretly being given full control / ability to do what we want while leaving them nominally in control.


See this is why we needed to develop a complete plan before moving ahead.


>>3817033
# (Use all of them, or not?)
Use all of them except the team needed for

# unless you take up 1 work team to prevent that by expediting your flight and asking him to land in Chicago, then have a luxury bus take him north. This leaves 3 work, 1 sec.

>>3817032
Can we do it at the Chicago HQ, or straight up do at a secluded area in lets say the Rockies, near a very big cave in the forest?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Gray_Park_Cave_discovery

>>3817037
Yeah we should have a complete plan. So if we can pause this a bit to discuss.

I want to talk to Carpatasu show that his powers dont work on us, that we control the economy and that if he wants to keep going he works for us. But he can keep working as he is. If he disagrees we can kidnap him and do all that jazz

>>3817037
I don't think we can really hold the guy.

We need a special black site facility over engineered with like a dozen gap generators, just to hold HIM, and we don't have any or just one....

We've been so careful so far, why are we doing this now?

>>3817050
Well we have an opportunity and so far he is just a man so it should be to bad.

>>3817042
>>3817037
>>3817049

He's going to move overland between Chicago and Effincold; it's a whole-day trip and then some, through some remarkably unmonitored territory, especially as the volcanic plume will prevent satellite observation.

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Chicago,+IL/Fort+McMurray,+AB,+Canada/@48.9529586,-109.0630924,5z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x880e2c3cd0f4cbed:0xafe0a6ad09c0c000!2m2!1d-87.6297982!2d41.8781136!1m5!1m1!1s0x53b03aeeff1a4459:0x5c8133330dca74b7!2m2!1d-111.3790441!2d56.7266598

>>3817050

You have a number of Gap Generators, and can build more; however, they are not very powerful or efficient, due to your current lack of investment in directed energy. The current designs use high current electronics as is available on the open market, but no components optimized for this job.

>>3817049
But that should be done when shit is falling around him to push the point. IF he still feels power and in total control, he may just laugh it off and tell his people to kill us.

>>3817053
Why are we underestimating him right now?

He probably has tons of backup plans and contingencies for something like this happening. Otherwise Matthews would have done him in already.

Did you get mesmerized?

>>3817054
So using a few free months before being fully discovered for research would be smart then....

>>3817049
>I want to talk to Carpatasu show that his powers dont work on us, that we control the economy and that if he wants to keep going he works for us. But he can keep working as he is. If he disagrees we can kidnap him and do all that jazz
Fair enough but as someone pointed out earlier, he may well just send dozens of assassins our way and we will almost certainly die because we, as in anons, won't make the needed prep or sacrifices.

Far better to

>>3817050
>I don't think we can really hold the guy.
If we could beat angels in the previous quest and even make one join us, I've no doubt we can hold a fairly mundane human with mind control powers.

>We need a special black site facility over engineered with like a dozen gap generators, just to hold HIM, and we don't have any or just one....
We have sufficent assets: referring to >>3816883;

"Fortunately, you've kept people at the ready just for this sort of thing; it will be possible to give him a welcome he will not forget. Your Gap Generators are fledgling, but you have a few ready; you can give earpieces to an entire team and regular noise-canceling headphones to everyone else."

We can put him into a medically induced coma and keep him there with relatively little risk or, if you want something permanent but less risky, we can remove his vocal cords and thus deny him his voice which means no special measures are needed for him. That or we have all staff interact with him through drones that bring him his food and so on: with a team of Nomenklator equipped guards that can be sent in to detain him should he attempt suicide.

The main point is this, we can easily contain him but should we?

>>3817057
>>3817061
Ok even then we only have 3 months at most to get ready. Im not sure we can cancel at this point

>>3817064
After the first assasin we can crash the economy in new Babylon. Just make it so no food or water goes in, that should make him change his attitude. Im honestly hoping we can get him on our side even if unwillingly.

>>3817065
Well we could just show him the winterised mining facility and then say "we do have a project in the works that'd be a help with the power side of things but that'd take a few more months to really progress to fruition. If you'd be willing to come back then we'd be happy to show you".

Alternatively, we could beg OP and hope our master is a kind soul willing to let us back off. That or we grit our teeth and accept the consequences of our actions ala my advice here >>3817064.

>>3817074
That could work. Well if the other anon agrees im ok with this more time to prep is never bad

>>3817072
I'm fine with this, but I'd like to skirt away 5 or 10bn a month and held in supplies or power generation, or in a secret account.

>>3817074

Other than the obvious opportunity costs of not pressing any advantage you might have, the worst that can happen is that Carpatescu will learn where Effincold is, if he does not already know, and will be running things from Washington DC rather than from New Babylon for a while. This is likely to irk Dimmsdale somewhat, and, of course, invite closer scrutiny.

>>3817080
So just skim some off the top. If everyhting is going well i dont see why that would be an issue

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>>3817074
>>3817076
We can just show him a hastily put together R&D department warehouse we have, with some nifty security rent a cops told to look tough.

>>3817089
or put it into a medium like gold or supplies and power generation.

Heck, its really cheap right now but its going to shoot up very soon, so buy all the pwoer generation we can. Like 10 units would cost us 5 bn, so buy 20 units for 10 bn

>>3817094
If we can get carpastsu to say nuclear is alright we can sell rtg's too

>>3817090
Anon that would just piss him off. Look I'm of two minds:

My personal opinion is we should go balls deep with my original intent; >>3816954; of just taking him hostage and pretending he never arrived; then we go ahead with the plan to create a new government out of the existing structures with the SubPotenates forming the "face" but us carrying a rarely-used executive power to force them to do as we wish while still leaving them as actual rulers and shit.

My appeasing opinion is we should just show him the generic winterised equipment and buildings to back out of this and then tell him we should have something better in a few months if he will come back. That way we can get some research done to improve our Gap generators and also to get the SubPotenates on side + the Pope possibly for the plan previously mentioned above.

>>3817033
>>3817037
# unless you take up 1 work team to prevent that by expediting your flight and asking him to land in Chicago, then have a luxury bus take him north. This leaves 3 work, 1 sec.

This is probably our best bet, and detour it to a secondary place.

>>3817097
If we show him the RTGs I'm certain he will. Just mention that we didn't want too much public exposure on such a thing, plus possible radiation. Make the boss wear a fancy lead suit.

>>3817064
Yeah well this isn't the previous quest, and with likely different circumstances. Only angel we met was one we attacked, and not a no named angel at it either. That won't do well for our reputation among angels unless your talking about fallen angels.

>>3817105
Well why can't we keep him as the head, and as the puppet? We don't have to worry about assassinations as much as if we were to assume the mantle.

I'm taking about showing him the RTGs in said facility we slapped together.

>>3817105
Im ok with seeing this up as long as we talk to him first and see what info we can get. I like the council idea.

>>3817109
>Yeah well this isn't the previous quest, and with likely different circumstances
Not really. In the previous quest we defeated an angel in combat, kinda, and he was broken free of godly control resulting in him losing his memory and basically becoming a child we then raised. He fought and died alongside the majority of humanity to try and defeat god.

Trust me anon, Carpatescu isn't the threat in whatever we decide to do: it's his position; how we fill it and all that shit that we must figure out before we do any such attack or threat against him. We can easily contain the man, hell we could strip him of his powers if we wanted to. The question is are we ready and able to take control of the world or whatever we plan to do after doing so?

>>3817105
Im willing to vote for council plan and keep. Carpatescu locked up untill we get him on our side then use him for what we need

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>>3817037
>>3817109

Either you're dogpiling Carpatescu, or you're putting on a dog-and-pony show for the big boss; either way, that takes manpower.

You call ahead to Effincold; they're already digging in for a worse winter than usual -- the most pessimistic projections show -100 degrees at the lowest point, -150 with wind chill, although it should clear up quickly after that.

Prospecting teams are informed, the mighty Bagger 1473 prepared to withstand a cold spell

# and switched over to digging out coal for this month rather than radioactive material

# and continuing to work albeit at somewhat reduced capacity

Due to the way Stirling generators work, the difference between the relatively constant temperature of the radioactive material within and the decreased temperature outside means that they will be operating at top capacity.

Effincold is a thing of stark Dickensian beauty; the massive geothermal spike in the middle of an ancient impact crater assures warm air and water for the population, mines work day and night extracting nuclear fuel for your reserves and coal and heavy metals to pay for upkeep, and outside of the range of the central heat tower RTGs and coal-fired boilers act in tandem inside steam-generating hubs to provide warmth and pressure to run the machines. To the south is a frozen lake, to the north, a frozen forest.

By flying in on bush planes, handsomely paid to take the risk and -- crucially -- optimized to fly below the cloud and with piston engines that can handle dust in the air a lot better than jet engines can, you expect that you will arrive six hours before Carpatescu, which gives you some time to get ready

# unless you just decide to meet him in Chicago, that is.

# so let's turn a spare boiler into a containment system that a human being can be welded into, with soundproofing and an airlock for food and water.

# so let's set up a media center which will also happen to download a copy of every speech he's ever made, for possible remixing purposes.

# so let's make everything nice and clean for his visit.

# so let's get people to NOT stop what they are doing just to clean up; this is a factory tour, not a trade show -- Carpatescu is smart enough to see this.

(First one is free, more cost 1 work crew)


>>3817097

Carpatescu has been a proponent of solar power, even against wind or other renewables; you always figured that it was a good idea, being low-maintenance... until a few hours ago, that is. He just might be able to get the general public to understand the difference between a radiothermal generator and a nuclear reactor, or at least to cow them into accepting it.

>>3817116

His ability to hypnotize people with perfect effectiveness if they only hear his voice makes him inherently dangerous. Father Schorpe is not convinced that Carpatescu is the Antichrist, but agrees that Revelation can be read in a way that supports it. In that case, who knows if that power stays with the man or with the office?

>>3817116
>Well why can't we keep him as the head, and as the puppet?
Because I want him so out of the game that he effectively dies this month as far as history is concerned.

If he remains in control and in public, he can still be assassinated. If he remains in control and in public, he can still attack us. If he remains in control and in public, he can still fulfil the prophecies of the narrative.

>We don't have to worry about assassinations as much as if we were to assume the mantle.
I don't want the mantle, I want the power behind it. Again, the SubPotenates would appear to be in control, hell we'd probably let them run the world most of the time, but we would be the real power behind the government and would be a secret or at the very least, our actual name and face wouldn't be revealed.


Fact is Litwala and Santiago are in our corner, even if for different reasons. Zakharov, Euro-guy, Dimsdale and Yang are all reasonably close to us and the rest we've barely dealt with. If we show them proof Carpatescu was going to try to get rid of them then most will agree to help us and once they understand how powerful they are they'll fall in line since they get to effectively remain where they are in the chain of command.

We currently have 2 of the 10 (including Litwala) on our side and could easily get it to 5-6 on our side, maybe even higher. Which combined with our own control would give us a organically supporting substructure to legitimise our governance through it's pre-existence.

>>3817136
# and switched over to digging out coal for this month rather than radioactive material

The people around us will need the coal to survive potentially and if nothing else it's a damn slight easier to explain than us mining nuclear material.

>who knows if that power stays with the man or with the office?
This is another part of the reason why I like the council idea: it defies the narrative's idea of a single ruler by having many and thus should prevent or at least weaken a degree of the narrative. Admittedly us being in control fulfils it but I've got a few ideas to counter that too if it comes to it.

Plus, we don't fill the Anti-christ's shoes to my knowledge.

>>3817116
or someplace we already have to can be private and hold the stuff.

>>3817119
Meta game much? I guess we may as well just repeat everything we did in the old quest, and call it a day.

Why not just build a anti god device made of virgin people and computer parts powered by Terry Pratchett corpse spinning skewered on our(his) sword.

We don't have years to do this, let alone raise a angel to fight on our side.

>ready to
We aren't even ready for a meteor fragment coming back.

>>3817141
Why not just kill him and kill the thing that possess him?

We can take away enough control that hes just a puppet. We can make everyone around him wear headsets and have gap generators running 24/7.

Doesn't matter. You think the people we are calling the shots to won't know who is doing what? They are smart enough to figure stuff out and we are woe unprepared for even a direct face off with Matthews.

>>3817149
Well given how people sometimes play fast and lose with the narrative, WE could be considered the man with all the power, so the narrative falls onto us.

If going on the >narrative's idea of a single ruler
How can that NOT be applied to us if there is no conflicting narratives like with Carpatescu being around. It would likely fall to the next closest thing or person. Us.

Its just something that doesn't seem well thought out what we are doing. So without the redundancy against magical or supernatural fuckery. Its bound to fail or much up from a bad roll.

>>3817156
>Meta game much? I guess we may as well just repeat everything we did in the old quest, and call it a day.
Mate fuck off if you're going to strawman that hard. You said you didn't think we could contain this guy because GOD, I gave an example where we contained someone far more blatantly powerful because GOD in the previous quest and you decided that it didn't count because it was probably done in different circumstances, where after finding out you now default to the "M-meta gaming is w-rong" bullshit argument.

I know we can contain the bastard because OP told us so, I even gave a god damn link to his post easlier in thread stating so.

>We don't have years to do this, let alone raise a angel to fight on our side.
Never said we did, never said we should, never would.

>We aren't even ready for a meteor fragment coming back.
Bitch I've already discussed how we'd only need 2 work teams to deal with it and two months factory production.

>Why not just kill him and kill the thing that possess him?
If we could kill god that easily this quest would've been over ages ago.

>Doesn't matter. You think the people we are calling the shots to won't know who is doing what? They are smart enough to figure stuff out and we are woe unprepared for even a direct face off with Matthews.
Mate as it stands we have a SubPotenate willing to help us go to war with the boss. We don't need to directly face off against anyone because we have Santiago to provide military muscle while we provide an economic stranglehold.

>>3817149
>>3817141
>>3817128
Look, if you guys really want to push this, then go for it, but I'm not going to support it. I'll just abstain for the most part.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnBMA98qZq0

>>3817149

Do your people have standing orders on what to do if you are possessed by Satan?

It's a long flight north, so you can definitely send a staff-wide memo on what to do. There's enough people in the know that it will probably be obeyed, even; there is, after all, illustrious precedent.

https://www.awesomestories.com/asset/view/Odysseus-and-the-Sirens

>>3817156

The modified boiler would be explained to the Effincold workers as a privacy room, not a jail. It certainly explains the soundproofing, and as for the airlock, well, what if you guys want a bowl of soup as you discuss policy without having to interrupt everyone's work for two hours to secure the area?


>>3817156

(Copying the last quest's actions wouldn't work, as you may have noticed the rules are significantly different here. For one, you have a physical body and can be killed. For two, the time scale is much faster -- months rather than years; you can buy a warship if you're lucky, but you can't build one; you can't send people to Mars, or invent completely new branches of technology, there is simply no time for it. Don't worry too much about metagaming, OK? I expected some, which is why I made the prophecy timeline available early. In-universe, it's something that Pastor Barnes or Rabbi Ben-Judah or even Ikko would have given you when they tried to get you to convert! Although you do raise a good point....)

# You brought the world's least magical sword along, right?

# You left the irreplaceable artifact that has been used to calibrate Gap Generator experiments in the vault, right?

>>3817170
>Well given how people sometimes play fast and lose with the narrative, WE could be considered the man with all the power, so the narrative falls onto us.
I agree it's an issue but the problem is no matter which choice we make if we go for a takeover or a puppet-ation, this is still a risk. Our best bet is just to roll with the punches be glad we don't fit the shoes of the Anti-christ and hope fhat works as protection or at the very least that any sudden changes of behaviour would be detected by Moira or Aki or Diamond and see us removed from power and a Council of senior CATS members formed.

That or we get a seat on the Council as the head of BOCHICA and just exist as a near-equal, perhaps having more votes than the rest but not outright supremacy.

>>3817174
Fair enough anon, I'm sorry that we can't find a agreeable position for both of us.

>>3817171

Santiago seemed, if anything, a little too excited at the idea of her Spartan Guard holding the line against the might of the Peacekeepers; this is the sort of war that will be lost by whoever forces their people to endure the most privations.

>>3817170

You had this conversation with Father Schorpe a while back, actually; he was telling you about his home city of Cincinnati.

It is said that the Antichrist was tempted by the Devil just as the Christ was, and was seduced every time; he would be given power over nature, over the spirits, and over humanity. Would refusing absolute power, as Roman general Cincinnatus did, disqualify one for the position of Antichrist?

He then went off on a tangent explaining that the city is technically named after a political group named after the general, rather than the general himself.
>>3817174
>>3817185
>>3817128

(As always: y'all tell me. Since your attack, should it happen, would have to be swift and sudden, you can back off almost at any time, and will be informed if you make a choice that no longer allows for it. I'm trying to not railroad and to play NPCs straight; if I fail, PLEASE call me on it!)

>>3817179
>It's a long flight north, so you can definitely send a staff-wide memo on what to do. There's enough people in the know that it will probably be obeyed, even; there is, after all, illustrious precedent.
In case of possession, Foreman is to be placed into a Gap field generators effect to see if it results in any change. If not, he is to be immediately brought to the Blacksite and left there until it can be proven that he is back to normal by brain scan.

If a change is detected under the gap field effect, he will still be placed in isolation but resources will be dedicated to researching better generators with the goal of complete restoration.

# You brought the world's least magical sword along, right?

It'll be useful to kill us if we do get possessed or something.

>>3817171
The point I'm trying to make is, we are making a call based on information from a different game that happened under different circumstances and it feels like folly to continue basing stuff on a timeline that never happened here. I went a hyperbolic there so I apologize for that.

> need 2 work teams to deal with it and two months factory production.
where?
And are we not going to research big sates so we have more components to work with, and even do a bit of R&D on the fragment? I don't really care that much, but if we are going to send up a satellite instead of blowing it up, we may as well study it a bit more.

Well you make it sound like containing him is easy enough.

Why have 1 subponete when we can have 3 or 5?

>>3817193
>position of Antichrist
What are the qualifiers that are known / agreed on again? I swear there was one about sexuality and some others you mentioned previously.

>Since your attack
Wait which kind of attack are we talking here?

>>3817197
Truth is anon I am not basing anything on that game, I was just giving an example of the fact that being "god-empowered" in this universe, or the other one if you prefer to think of them separately, actually does relatively little to make you hard to contain unless it explicitly grants you the ability to go through walls and shit.

Carpatescu is a regular man with mind control voice powers. Nothing more or less. This means, given our protection against his one god-given power, he is effectively a normal human in his job.

>where
Previous thread when we were informed it would return in 4 months, I pointed out 6 factories over 4 months gives us 12 aerospace parts meaning we'd be able to make 2 launches to try and redirect it (plus a spare 2 parts, 4Bn in terms of production capacity).

>Well you make it sound like containing him is easy enough.
Refer to my first section.

>Why have 1 subponete when we can have 3 or 5?
I'm saying what we have currently is 1, Santiago, and later once we've gotten them to hear the clip from Carpatescu on how he was going to be rid of them soon, most of the others odd to tolerate / like us for helping them by removing him from power and ensuring their continued rule.

Personally I want all of them but I doubt that is realistic.

>>3817200

"Since your attack" = as in, if you attack Carpatescu to lock him up, it will have to be sudden and swift.

>>3817197

Your curently available components are comms (includes low-res camera), cameras, and propellant. You have a few things in the works: orbital network nodes, precision deorbiting systems that are in no way to be used for bombardment, and so on.

>>3817200

According to Tsion, the Antichrist must be:

* Of Roman ancestry. You may qualify; you're white, have brown hair, but you have no Italian or Romanian ancestry that you know of.

* Pretending to work in peaceful ways. You definitely qualify on this one, in that you nominally lead a peacetime agency but have done quite a bit of skullduggery!

* An oppressor of the true church. You've locked up 15 members of the true church (and let one go), however, you have allowed the true church to exist in the first place, by not censoring Tsion's website.

* Unnaturally charismatic. You're pretty good at nerd-herding, and did talk your way into the job, but you're a management expert with IT experience, not a social influencer or politician or entertainer. People do things your way because you pay them or because they owe you, not because they are infatuated with you.

* The head of a counter-church: This is more Mathews' bailiwick than Carpatescu's. You have worked with the "counter-church", but only as their assistant librarian.

* Born or conceived in an unnatural manner. You were born by C-section, which has been around long before Caesar and was known to the writers of the New Testament, and possibly the last books of the Old.

* Willing to submit to Satan. Well, are you?

* Willing to exalt himself above all the kings of the Earth and the very throne of God. Well, are you?

>>3817215

He also has excellent self-control, sleeps four hours a day, and is in excellent shape for his height and frame. (Think a Bene Gesserit from Dune, book not movie, and you aren't too far off).

>>3817136
# and switched over to digging out coal for this month rather than radioactive material

Coal miners gonna be happy with black lung and working a job that kills them so they can support their family.

# Make a long term containment facility underground or in Greenland for supernatural BS people.

>>3817179
After the Aki incident, we should have contingency and stuff for everything. Including our death and possible possession or if other key people get mesmerized or possessed, or find them part of the prophecy narrative etc.

# You brought the world's least magical sword along, right?
The identical copy a student made?

>>3817185
I'm not very trusting of our AI right now, we've basically let it run freely with Aki in the background for the last bit, we need to put fail safes everywhere, and also in the AI project.

>>3817185
I'll basically let the vote pass without much input. So "guilt" by omission or something?

I would be more supportive of it if we just. had. more. time!

>>3817200
>one about sexuality
I assume its either gay bromancing of Turbo Jesus or landholding with Carpatescu.

>>3817215
>Previous thread
Okay anything that is suggest or planned in previous threads is basically invalid in a new thread, especially when its not kept present in ongoing discussions for the turn.

See %80 of the brainstorming we did in previous threads that often got forgotten or neglected and never mentioned again, or had to be thought up again.
To be fair, no ones really keeping track of the ideas and potential plans, that haven't be made "properly official", and its kinda unfair to expect the QM to do it.

>>3817215
I'm thinking Carpatescu has final destination BS plot armor. Kind of like how David Hassid gets out of jail and works a comfy job next to the Anticrhist, and also ends up getting recommended by us somehow to work on a MCP that is detrimental to our plans.

>I'm saying what we have currently is 1, Santiago, and later once we've gotten them to hear the clip from Carpatescu on how he was going to be rid of them soon, most of the others odd to tolerate / like us for helping them by removing him from power and ensuring their continued rule.
We would also be at risk of anyone of them saying fuck this guy, arrest and jail him. Also what if they think its a fake? Not to mention the monotone control may make it harder for them to believe any such thing.

More time to travel and met subpotentates would have been really nice before pulling the trigger.

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>>3817240
The things on the fragment are evolving to EAT our satellites. The 3rd one that lands is probably going to be eaten in half the time of the first one.

>* Unnaturally charismatic.
King of the nerds.
Aki loves and adores.

>The head of a counter-church
Hmmm, well I suppose making our own religious is out... what about cults? I was thinking of a techno mechanical cult like 40k

>You were born by C-section
This is news to us just like what our real name is.
Its Carl.
But now really.

>* Willing to submit to Satan. Well, are you?
ehhh, maybe? Depends if he offer's a better deal than what God has, and isn't a Faustian bargain.

>Willing to exalt himself above all the kings of the Earth and the very throne of God
Not intentionally.

>Dune
Behind the Dune.

>>3817252
>landholding
*Handholding*

>>3817240
Okay with the *Intermission over*, lets get the show back on the road.

You guys want to ambush him on the bus ride over to so nondisclosure location, or do it at the mine?

If we do it at the mine, we may have to kill everyone with him or build a really big detainment faculty.

>>3817240
>15 members of the true church
Reminder we should just let these guys go and that'll cut down on the Anti-christ shtick.

>The head of a counter-church
Christ we couldn't be further from it.

>* Willing to submit to Satan. Well, are you?
Screw that, humans are for humanity.

>* Willing to exalt himself above all the kings of the Earth and the very throne of God. Well, are you?
Of course, we fight to beat god although I personally wouldn't say all the kings of earth. Santiago is certainly our equal and Yang is a possible bro.

>Bene Gesserit
Can he also do the organsm-to-death trick? I read the books years ago and barely remember if that was a thing or not but I swear it was. Still, he can be as physically impressive as he wants, we're going to have a covert team to take him down, we can just shoot him with a bunch of tasers.

>>3817252
>I'm not very trusting of our AI right now...
Fair enough. We probably should.

>I'll basically let the vote pass without much input. So "guilt" by omission or something?
Eh, I've always found it's the votes we don't get a chance to take part in we regret. It's made me a god damn insomniac but still.

>I would be more supportive of it if we just. had. more. time!
Oh god we always need more time. It's the one thing we lack.

>Okay anything that is suggest or planned in previous threads is basically invalid in a new thread
Entirely fair.

>See %80 of the brainstorming we did in previous threads that often got forgotten or neglected and never mentioned again, or had to be thought up again.
I remember quests where OPs outright told us "Hey this is a good idea" and then we forgot until 3 months later someone joined the quest having finished reading the Archive and told us.

>I'm thinking Carpatescu has final destination BS plot armor. Kind of like how David Hassid gets out of jail and works a comfy job next to the Anticrhist, and also ends up getting recommended by us somehow to work on a MCP that is detrimental to our plans.
We recommended David knowing he was not a great worker but I can't remember if we knew he was Remnant. Also if Carpatescu had plot armour that strong then we shouldn't be able to even remove him from being all-powerful.

>We would also be at risk of anyone of them saying fuck this guy, arrest and jail him. Also what if they think its a fake? Not to mention the monotone control may make it harder for them to believe any such thing.
Fair points, it's just a thing I think we should try to make work.

>More time to travel and met subpotentates would have been really nice before pulling the trigger.
I did say we shouldn't do this for another month or two so we could meet people but everyone seemingly wanted to do it now, so when a good time came up I went with what I thought the popular vote was going to be. Then it seems everyone chickened out.

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>>3817252

The nice thing about enormous bucket-wheel excavators is that the operators are several dozen meters away from the coal seam. Effincold has been built with modern techniques on top of a Canadian exploratory mine from the late 1950s; it does not use 1950s methods to operate.

Since you've left the place in the care of Ryan Andrews for years, and he's wanted to optimize profits, the place is fairly automated -- not enough to say that there is no risk whatsoever for the workers, of course, that would be unprofitable, but enough to minimize payroll.

The conditions are similar to that of an oil rig; it smells, it's hard work, and there's precious little entertainment, and Effincold has a bit of a "company store" problem when it comes to amenities, but accidents are taken seriously and workplace safety rules enforced rigidly (it's cheaper than having to pay for medevac and hospital care after all).

>>3817252

You tell the Effincold workers to build a privacy room on floor -1; it should be well appointed, soundproof, and capable of being clamped shut in case of emergencies. They make it out of a boiler, fill it with CO2 filters and air cylinders since they have that stuff anyway, and put the old base commander's desk and chairs in it, along with some horrible grey carpeting from the 1970s in it because that's their idea of "well appointed". You're sent pictures; it will do.

>>3817194

from: foreman@cats.gc
to: <everyone>
re: Continuity of operations

In the event of any CATS personnel undergoing demonic possession, coworkers are instructed to contain the affected individual into the nearest available secure space, and ignore any instructions to the contrary.

In the event of any CATS personnel falsely accusing coworkers of demonic possession, the matter will be handled by HR as any other false harassment claim, unless the parties agree to settle it by friendly duel. (Please see CATS employee manual for current code duello options: nerf, VR, etc.)

Please note that this applies to all CATS personnel, including the Foreman. Contractors may be shot as normal, as per GC directive 527/29.


>>3817286

Your choices are

# Ambush on the road as soon as Carpatescu's motorcade is out of sight from satellites; the ion storm over Yellowstone and the dust cloud makes it believable that communications would be unavailable -- in fact, satellite comms are genuinely impaired.

# Ambush on the boat intended to carry Carpatescu across Lake Athabasca.

# Ambush in Effincold proper.

Carpatescu flew into Chicago O'Hare by fighter jet, and will be traveling with a Peacekeeper security detail picked up there, while Fortunato stays in New Babylon. He will probably pick up some low-level staffers there, too. You know that they are traveling in two bus-style RVs and two HMMVs


>>3817303

# You can order them released at any time; they will be put on a bus and driven away from the black site using a non-direct route

(Yes, the orgasm to death thing is a thing)

>>3817303
>Eh, I've always found it's the votes we don't get a chance to take part in we regret. It's made me a god damn insomniac but still.
Very true, this quest and its run times has fucked up my sleep cycle I don't even bother with melatonin. Would help to have more predicable times and announcements of when things wind down or start back up again, even if its just an approximate guess.

>I remember quests where OPs outright told us "Hey this is a good idea" and then we forgot until 3 months later someone joined the quest having finished reading the Archive and told us.
Read this quest about 2 and a half times and frankly, we should just be keeping summary notepads of our ideas in a simple single paragraph or sentence.

>I did say we shouldn't do this for another month or two so we could meet people but everyone seemingly wanted to do it now, so when a good time came up I went with what I thought the popular vote was going to be. Then it seems everyone chickened out.
I think we are growing chicken wings. Lets get checked out by the doctor.

>>3817307
>Your choices are
Advantages of all three as well as if our available work teams can make preparations to enhance our chances of combat success. Also I presume Moira is unavailable?

># You can order them released at any time; they will be put on a bus and driven away from the black site using a non-direct route
Yeah I'd like to do that but we can do it after this, I'd like to trade them for taking responsibility for Carpatescu's disappearance.

>(Yes, the orgasm to death thing is a thing)
Frank really was a bit weird.

>>3817318
>Very true, this quest and its run times has fucked up my sleep cycle I don't even bother with melatonin. Would help to have more predicable times and announcements of when things wind down or start back up again, even if its just an approximate guess.
Eh, I follow about 20 quests at a time so I'm always fucked.

>Read this quest about 2 and a half times and frankly, we should just be keeping summary notepads of our ideas in a simple single paragraph or sentence.
Yeah true. That or we need a pastebin of them.

>I think we are growing chicken wings. Lets get checked out by the doctor.
Oh god we're turning into a fallen angel or some shit, quickly give Aki executive control of CATS so god'll stop messing with our shit out of fear.

>>3817307
# Ambush on the road as soon as Carpatescu's motorcade is out of sight from satellites; the ion storm over Yellowstone and the dust cloud makes it believable that communications would be unavailable -- in fact, satellite comms are genuinely impaired.

Let them not know where to look for him.

I think after a few more experiments, we release them after Ikko pays us off for them.

>>3817307
>orgasm to death
See this is why you do not stick anything but your hand in the box of pain.
seen some weird shit on this site.

>>3817318

(Sorry about the schedule. I'm on a bit of an odd schedule myself, this quest is being run as I do my prototyping work. I'm on the west coast, FWIW).

>>3817318

(I fully encourage using the Datalinks wiki page for that, I link it in every strategic overview post! The password to edit it is CATS, all caps, and that too should be posted on it

Rules: http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.Quest2Rules.html
Datalinks: http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.Quest2Datalinks.html
Timeline: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BlMOSEOxSihj1gdagq7yxCjONaRBgcdlRxnc68uWf0A

)

Ambushing Carpatescu in Effincold proper also leaves open the option of not ambushing him at all, of course.

It's been a long time since you've been outside cell phone range, except when flying transatlantic. It's a little odd by now. CellSol pylons can be set to cut Carpatescu off, obviously, although it's likely that his staff will have a repeater for his bodyguards' radios on one or all of the convoy vehicles.

He's been offered the old US presidential car, appropriately enough named The Beast, but elected to travel with a convoy of two RVs and two Humvees instead. There's no way to tell in advance in which vehicle he is; video calls have been suspended to conserve bandwidth.

# Override that and ask how the flight was, see if you can see anything past him. It's not suspicious per se, but it is fairly unusual.

# Okay.

>>3817327

Ambush at Effincold:
+ Can abort.
+ You control the environment.
+ Containment room already in place.
--- There will be genuine Carpatescu loyalist among the work crew and you may have to fight some of your own men.

Ambush on the ferry:
+ Only one vehicle to sink, plausible fatality.
= Nowhere to run but the freezing water.... for you OR them.
- Carpatescu may have an easier time surviving the cold than others.


Ambush on the road:
++ Your people are pretty good at road battles by now, having been in a few.
+ You have bush planes and can set up roadblocks giving you partial control of the environment
--- Any one vehicle escaping would call for reinforcement.
>>3817337

Sting in a plastic loincloth. That is all.

(Actually, if you like the structure of this quest, I vividly recommend the old Cryo Dune game: it plays in the same way, the graphics are passable for the time, and the music is gorgeous)

>>3817337
>>3817327

You take the opportunity to have the blacksite guards tell the prisoners that they may be released soon, which is true, and record psychological and parapsychological data about the effects of genuine and justified hope on them.

It looks like that despite them being supposedly assured of Heaven, earthly hope affects them in much the same way as it would anyone else; they would prefer being released to being martyred.

# Just to add to the mess, ask Chloe (or Ikko, if you prefer) what she would trade for David Hassid.

# Let's not for now.

>>3817358
Seems like we are gonna have to kill a few innocents for the first time either way.

>>3817376
># Let's not for now.
Experiment some more and then stage a fake rescue so we can bargain for them... or make Ikko think she owes us a few favors.

I'm having trouble posting, don't know if I can.

>>3817358
>Ambush on the road:
Given we have 3 work teams free, would we be able to do any of the following:

1) Construct concealed pits / trenches on either side of the section of road we intend to ambush on that would cause their cars to fall in if they tried to escape that way.

2) Implant explosive charges (mining charges if nothing else) into the snow to eliminate the lead vehicle along with similar charges to hit a rear vehicle or to block the roads.

3) Concealed positions for our troops to engage from.

4) Clearing back any tree or ground cover that might be able to shield them from attack.

Anyone else getting Connection Errors?

>>3817389
Yeah, I think 4chan might be screwing up slightly.

>>3817392
Naw, I think its getting ddos'ed again.

Oooh? We're kidnapping the Antichrist now?

# Just to add to the mess, ask Chloe (or Ikko, if you prefer) what she would trade for David Hassid.

>>3817400
Yep. A damn shame we don't have a second covert team free to engage in direct combat with his forces. Luckily we have drones to augment our forces so we effectively have more troops than we really do but still.

Kidnap the Anti-Christ
Lock him up real tight
Throw away the key and then
Turn off all the lights~!

---

QM: I seem to recall that one of the benefits of setting up a logistics base in Siberia was cold acclimation for worker? Would that be applicable here?

>>3817400
Apparently we are for some reason.

>>3817407

Moira (who can redeploy for this, just on the fact that she did little in New Babylon and has been wanting to fuck up Carpatescu the whole time) can give a work crew basic combat ability.

You and Aki kept some stamina in reserve so you're ready to go (if you trust Aki with Effincold's remote admin, that is....).

You only have 1 unit of dones to bring along, the others are still in New Babylon.

>>3817389

I did for a little bit.

>>3817411

Yes; you only did that a couple months ago, but there has been some rotation.

>>3817384
>>3817404

(Your call here!)

>>3817331
>>3817388

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0FaAs4M3d0

TACTICAL CHOICES TIME!

You're going for a road ambush. The most logical place is at a railroad crossing, where a Taggart Transcontinental freight train will be conveniently stalled thanks to a few phone calls and a damaged rail up the way.

# Let the motorcade pass the railroad crossing, and then stall the train to cut their retreat. You will have to figure out how to get them to stop in the first place.

# Use the train as a roadblock and force the motorcade to stop -- they may decide to bull through a lesser roadblock, but can't do that with a train. You will have to figure out how to cut off their retreat.


Your tactical assets are.

* 3 work crews wearing headphones.

* 1 security crew wearing both headphones and earbuds.

* Light and heavy infantry weapons, and mining charges.

* Aki's remote support to mess with the motorcade's automated systems, if there are any and if you trust her.

* Moira, who has a Mk2 heart implant and a grenade launcher. She can head either the sec crew or one of the work crews, allowing them to fight.

* Yourself.
(possibly with the sword).

* Civilian cars, crew vans and light mining truck -- the heavy stuff travels too slowly to show up on time.

The bush planes that took you up north ahead of Carpatescu have no combat capability, sorry.

Your last-minute prep consists of

# Loading up the demo charges, weapons, and so on, put Gap Generators on your vehicles, and get going! (No cost)

# Prepare a dump truck and excavator, to make a hard roadblock and side trenches. (Cost: 1 crew)

# Take a fuel tanker, rig it to go off, and use a drone's logic board to eliminate the lead vehicle and stop the motorcade. (Cost: 1 crew)

# Put some hillbilly armor on your vehicles and load up some rowdies from Effincold (Cost: 1 crew)

# Set up a sniper's nest or three (No cost, but will change the engagement's starting positions from assaulting the convoy to taking potshots at it)

Your crews will be complemented by two lightly modified ordnance-disposal drone tanks that the miners use for dangerous tasks, and

# A few people from Effincold who are of proven loyalty to you and don't like Carpatescu much. May get a MM mole in there though, they like doing the agent provocateur thing.

# the few Remnant workers that are at Effincold.

>>3817417
I have an answer for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpVvgNs8tqI

>>3817473

(third option for the last:

# nobody, let's stick to people we can trust

)

>>3817474


did... did they manage to make Ronald Reagan sound cool? Great Scott!

(He'd have been a fantastic president instead of, or immediately following, Nixon)

>>3817473
>Moira (who can redeploy for this, just on the fact that she did little in New Babylon and has been wanting to fuck up Carpatescu the whole time) can give a work crew basic combat ability.
Good, have her and any other combat rated heroes on the ground for this.

>You and Aki kept some stamina in reserve so you're ready to go (if you trust Aki with Effincold's remote admin, that is....).
Only after having a meeting with her in person, seeing as we've got a bit of energy too.

>Taggart Transcontinental
Really?

# Let the motorcade pass the railroad crossing, and then stall the train to cut their retreat. You will have to figure out how to get them to stop in the first place.

>* Moira, who has a Mk2 heart implant and a grenade launcher. She can head either the sec crew or one of the work crews, allowing them to fight.
Have her lead the last work crew to maximise the forces we can deploy for this.

# Prepare a dump truck and excavator, to make a hard roadblock and side trenches. (Cost: 1 crew)
# Take a fuel tanker, rig it to go off, and use a drone's logic board to eliminate the lead vehicle and stop the motorcade. (Cost: 1 crew)

# the few Remnant workers that are at Effincold.

The Remnant honestly are less of a risk, they believe we can't disrupt the narrative. Therefore it doesn't matter if we do this in their opinion. Only risk is they know it's connected to us and they reveal it to someone.

Worst comes to worst? We eliminate them after completing the mission. Fact is they'll be returning to the Effincold facility which is isolated enough they odd to not get the information out for a little while.

>>3817473
# Prepare a dump truck and excavator, to make a hard roadblock and side trenches. (Cost: 1 crew)
# Put some hillbilly armor on your vehicles and load up some rowdies from Effincold (Cost: 1 crew)
# Set up a sniper's nest or three (No cost, but will change the engagement's starting positions from assaulting the convoy to taking potshots at it)

# nobody, let's stick to people we can trust


>>3817474
Seen it, but it had fighter jets. I think it got taken down due to the TF soundtrack.

>>3817473
In all seriousness, I'm trying to grasp the value of kidnapping Carpatescu. We have control of the economy right?

>>3817507
>Taggart Transcontinental
Yep, but no ones aware yet.

>>3817486
He's honestly pretty good at giving speeches and his moral position was fairly clear when it came to communism which makes him a okay guy overall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWYrcnehito
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt4wDBoZtEY

>>3817502
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDVT-8tUfiE

Is this the version you are thinking of?


>>3817507
We discussed this earlier, feel free to read over it and argue any of the points in greater detail or add something to it if you want.

>>3817515
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiuFzpl28io

Another speech of his, one of his best in my opinion because you can actually hear him almost cry and dammit if hearing a politician be that genuine doesn't get me on some level.

>>3817515
Almost, the description below linked the original one.

File: dtanewsnowtracks.1[1].png (287 KB, 1120x593)

287 KB PNG

>>3817488
>>3817509

(I've been sprinkling AS references all around if you go back and look :) see if you find Floyd Ferris. I'm not ashamed of having had an Objectivist phase, everyone's been through one at some point, no?)

>>3817507

Yes, until someone in New Babylon notices.

>>3817488
You and Moira are combat-rated. Dr. Diamond is exhausted, but sent some of her subordinates to Effincold to bolster the medical team.

Moira looks like she could eat Carpatescu alive; the New Babylon trip was necessary but boring, and she's made it very clear what she thinks of all the whole supernatural people. Ideally she'd hang Tsion with Carpatescu's guts and see which dies first.

You're well rested; you can't fight as well as your security guys, but you can definitely fight better than your non-combat personnel. Spending a bit of time at the range helped.

# Don't go.

# Go.

# (Last chance to make a decision on the sword business, I have 1 vote for yes, 1 vote for bring a fake, so far)

Aki is... well, she's really retreated behind her firewall of shyness.

Before you flew up north, she told you about her apotheotic experience, and matched it with the temptations of Christ; she blames the pills -- and admits that they were a stupid idea -- and the fact that this was clearly on her mind at the time, but you're not so sure. You promised that she'd be able to continue working, though.

After looking at things, her feelings about it is that she could "figure out how to make everyone happy" but not with asteroids and demons and so on running around. She likes her routine, after all.

# You did ask how she feels about you, of course.

# Stay off the VR for a bit, but keep doing you.

# Sorry, I have to bench you for a week or so. Rest, play some games, take a walk around town, okay? You can't help on this one, there's no hacking to do and the drones will have to be operated locally.

>>3817540
Eh, close enough. Also on a separate point: This god damn song is making me almost cry and I ain't even american.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfzJ8UBr-c0

>>3817541
# Go.
Wear masks and stuff.

# Sorry, I have to bench you for a week or so. Rest, play some games, take a walk around town, okay? You can't help on this one, there's no hacking to do and the drones will have to be operated locally.
Time out.

>>3817541
>Objectivist phase
So long as you remember the core lesson and drop the edgey shit, it's an important phase: coming to understand that self-interest isn't a bad thing and that morals and such are human-constructs rather than physical laws.

# Go.
# (Last chance to make a decision on the sword business, I have 1 vote for yes, 1 vote for bring a fake, so far)

I still say bring the sword just to prevent narrative bullshit.

# You did ask how she feels about you, of course.

"Aki, what you almost did was entirely normal for someone like you: you are idealistic, brilliant and innocent enough to think you could do such a thing; yet you have to understand that no one person can rule with absolute power, that the very nature of humanity denies such a thing unless we accept massive amounts of suffering.

I want to trust you to help me on a mission, after which I want you to take a break for psychological reasons, to not think about work or anything but just relaxing with friends. I'm not just ordering this because of what happened with the MCP but because I have to care for you Aki because you don't seem to see your own limits, the pills prove that, and I want to know that you won't be changed for the worse by this work that I ask you to do.

One last job then you relax, maybe even with me, for a month or so while we make sure you are okay. You will return to work no matter what but this will determine if we continue to let you do as much as we do or if we scale it back, at least for a little while. I hope you can understand that it's for your own good."


If she agrees and seems apologetic enough, I'd say we could use the help. After this though we need to seriously give her a month or so off to just decompress from all the shit that we put on her and to just recover.

>>3817548
Check out this video from The Johnny Cash Final Project. Aesthetic as fuck. Should be one of the threads theme songs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGdbAcVnT4Y

I prefer this Johnny Cash (Same initials as Jesus Christ, eh?) song for feels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AHCfZTRGiI

Bring the sword, we're going for broke and it might make a difference.

>>3817584
>I prefer this Johnny Cash (Same initials as Jesus Christ, eh?) song for feels
He has a sorrowful voice in a way. Given he grew up singing biblical shit in church, it's quite interesting to think how it stuck with him all his life and it makes him sound like he is carrying the weight of a nation even in just interviews.

>>3817580
I think its one of the few "popular" ideas that reach young people, and is fairly easy to digest and understand, that runs counter or gives a different view to what is mainstream taught in schools and academia.

>>3817605
Well yeah, most of society these days tries to build a very "help your fellow man" attitude. Then you have this stuff which basically just says "You want to be greedy? Ain't no such thing, unless you are stealing from others." which is immensely appealing to those newly granted power or the chance to do shit.

I'm probably a bit too young to really talk to much shit about teens though seeing as I still ain't 20+.

>>3817598
>bible shit
that reads as a bit insulting to johnny.

It seems more like his sins and regrets weight on him and knowing his time is coming soon, he only has time to reflect.

>>3817628
>that reads as a bit insulting to johnny.
I mean he grew up actually singing church psalms and that sort of thing, I personally use "shit" and "stuff" interchangeably so try not to read into it too much.

>It seems more like his sins and regrets weight on him and knowing his time is coming soon, he only has time to reflect.
Yeah but that is true of every singer and every man. I mean christ, that even hits us anons occasionally or have you never talked to a doom-poster at the end of a show?

>>3817636
>I personally use "shit" and "stuff"
I do that when I'm feeling lazy.

>try not to read into it too much.
My bad. I guess I'm surrounded by a lot of negative press and haters that directs a "unholy" amount scorn and ridicule and hatred towards Christians and their morality or w/e, that I assumed it was more of that. I'm neither but I feel they get a lot more flak than they deserve as a group.

>have you never talked to a doom-poster at the end of a show?
Since this raws a blank for me and google only shows DOOM game cover art. I'ma say no.

File: D317C40D274488B4534DC1AA5(...).jpg (1.14 MB, 1920x1200)

1.14 MB JPG

>>3817553
>>3817580

Aki listens intently, and nods in a few spots.

"Please, Foreman! I want to go with you! I can do two drone tanks at the same time, almost nobody else can do that, that gives you +1 more fighter."

Now she's holding your hand. That's a first. The only time you two ever touched was when you tried to shake her hand upon induction, and you basically had to get Carla to coax her out of the corner she crawled under, at that time.

So you gave her a little hug, which she managed to return, after moving haltingly enough that you worried she'd need a reset.

# So you brought her along to steer the robots.

# So you let her help remotely in case Fortunato does something stupid(er) with the MCP.

# So you told her that she has done her part and she'll be needed to keep the world together, but no more war for her for now.

>>3817580

(Yep, the problem is that some people treat stuff like LB and AS as if they were gonna happen tomorrow. Same problem, different ideologies really. Read, but don't believe everything you read!)

>>3817584

(Damn, that IS good stuff. thanks! I was going to put up XCOM2 music but this is better.)

>>3817597
Terry Pratchett's sword is in your scabbard. You haven't had time to practice, but you suspect that Carpatescu is going to be less tough than the Archangel Michael.

A few of your people have fenced as a hobby; one of them is Moira. This isn't really the kind of weapon that shows up often in war, that said, Moira's take on this is that the only reason why Mad Jack Churchill gets a good rep is that an Irishman wouldn't have been allowed to be that extravagant.

# Keep it; it's only there to act as, basically, a Gap Generator that isn't fragile, and you'll probably keep it sheathed.

# Sure, Moira can have it. Let's hope she doesn't go all crazy about it.

# Quickly figure out who's got the most experience, and give it to him or her. This is CATS, we do efficiency.

You get the best Kevlar vests in your inventory, and helmets with Nomenklator headsets, of course.

>>3817636

(Johnny Cash is amazing regardless of culture, creed, or cojones).


CURRENT TACTICAL PLAN:

* Moira will act as sargeant for one of the work teams, allowing them to fight.
* You will join the security team and call the strategic shots but obey their sargeant for tactical calls.
* You will use a dump truck and two light earthmovers to buildt


STILL TO BE DECIDED:

Your other prep will consist of:

# Take a fuel tanker, rig it to go off, and use a drone's logic board to eliminate the lead vehicle and stop the motorcade. (Cost: 1 crew)
# Put some hillbilly armor on your vehicles and load up some rowdies from Effincold (Cost: 1 crew)
# Set up a sniper's nest or three (No cost, but will change the engagement's starting positions from assaulting the convoy to taking potshots at it)

You will also take:

# the few Remnant workers that are at Effincold.
# nobody, let's stick to people we can trust

File: 1955-this-island-earth-03(...).png (305 KB, 528x364)

305 KB PNG

>>3817661

( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNTtR6ZpUOo Local man literally too angry to die)

At the news of the plume, the global stock market plummeted almost five percent; the MCP's safeguards triggered as they should have, to your mild surprise, and it looks like this bump will go away in a few days.

The commodities market on the other hand went crazy even with BOCHICA and the MCP working to ensure liquidity of inventory and cash respectively; Mr. Andrews sends you a text message with some weird ascii art that turns out to be an obscure emoticon for "thumbs up". You reply with "How do you do, fellow kid?"

You figure that letting the motorcade past the railroad crossing before blocking it will prevent them from escaping; there's a creek on one side of the road, and several hundred miles of nothing in the other direction. The Humvees move as fast as your pickup trucks offroad, and can smash them away in one hit, but should it come to endurance you get almost twice the fuel economy.

A brief press release shows Carpatescu climbing on a jet fighter to cross the Atlantic and "personally supervise the efforts of valiant Global Community firefighters to contain the damage"; people assume he's headed to Yellowstone.

>>3817662
# So you brought her along to steer the robots.
We can bring a fancy laptop with us.

>Damn, that IS good stuff. thanks!
NP, Its amazing what they did with that project, they had done a fan made frame by frame of one of his original songs and some guy online stitched his favorite ones together in a video. There are many different art for the same frame if you check out the site.

http://www.thejohnnycashproject.com/
You pick out your favorite art frame and make a bit of a custom video.

# Keep it; it's only there to act as, basically, a Gap Generator that isn't fragile, and you'll probably keep it sheathed.
No Moira you cannot HAVE it.

# Put some hillbilly armor on your vehicles and load up some rowdies from Effincold (Cost: 1 crew)
# nobody, let's stick to people we can trust