The Strategic Framework for this Mission

We need to find some ground rules we all agree on for how to proceed with this mission, so we all know within what bounds we are finding solutions, and so we all know that, outside of those bounds, apparent "solutions" will not be pursued; at least, not without everyone agreeing to reconsider the issue.


So... some proposed rules, approximately in order of priority:

Mission Specific:
1. Any assassinations should be done in as obvious a fashion as possible, so as to remove all possible doubt that the targets were anything but regular mortals.
2. We should do everything possible to avoid giving any side an advantage through unwittingly playing into their strategy.
3. We should avoid creating an exploitable power vacuum, by defeating one faction without having some means to keep the other sides from gaining ground in the removed faction's absence.
4. We should avoid disinformation campaigns; it just stokes the paranoia of zealots, and you will lose the rational when the truth is inevitably uncovered
5. We should prioritize exposing the truth behind their various acts of fraud in as obvious and easily understood way as possible, so their pitiful followers will go back to their regular everyday lives.

In General:
1. In case of "them or us", we're prioritizing "us".
2. In case of "them or bystanders", we're prioritizing "bystanders".
3. In case of "them or legitimate authorities", we're prioritizing "legitimate authorities".
4. In case of "them or pesky meddlers", we're prioritizing "pesky meddlers".
5. In case of "them or nosy busybodies", open question.
6. In case of "them or authoritative wannabes", open question.
7. In case of "them or their fawning idiot cultists", we're prioritizing "their fawning idiot cultists".
8. In case of "them or the mission", we're prioritizing "the mission".
9. In case of "the mission or us", we're prioritizing "us".
10. In case of "the mission or bystanders", we're prioritizing "bystanders".
11. In case of "the mission or legitimate authorities", we're prioritizing "legitimate authorities", unless they've accepted the risks of our mission taking priority.
12. In case of "the mission or pesky meddlers", we're prioritizing "pesky meddlers".
13. In case of "the mission or nosy busybodies", we're prioritizing "the mission".
14. In case of "the mission or authoritative wannabes", we're prioritizing "the mission".
15. In case of "the mission or their fawning idiot cultists", we're prioritizing "the mission".

Gevaudan, the Follower of Runetha Saetedz, dog-in-the-fight and generic hero would ask the next comparison.

Heroic or Dastardly

Get paid or tuck tail
1.  What's in this for me?  
    a.  How much are we getting paid?  Is this beyond the pay-scale we negotiated?  Where's that Agent Jyoon who began this ticket anyways?
    b.  Is this Heroic (with a capital H)?  This is important to Gev.  He has a lifepath (religion aside) and a worldview and is not just some lordless warrior ronin.
    c.  Vargr are Charisma-driven.  Is there a chance that Gev's self-esteem will increase or plummet? Let's review:  Gev walked right into a sniper assassin's kill-zone and took two hits so as to generate enough time for Dagne and Charoux to get into place.  The real hero here is Hane who ran to shield Gev, (loyalty point earned for Hane!)  Gev might be dead if not.
2.  Are we in over our heads?  Is this too big for us?
    a.  This is a big chance for some soul-searching, common ground-seeking and general operations parameters for the company whether we are Heroes, Agents of the State, disaffected Imperium ex-pats, ihatei seeking Territory, semi-loyal ex-Navy spacers, right down to emotionless assassins.  As a GM, this makes my heart sing as it develops character behind the attributes, skills, Career and equipment and weapons.  It adds another dimension to the characters we are playing.
    b.  Is this beyond the scope of play the players wish to engage in?

Save the Darrian Confederation or Not Our Problem
1.  Remember that if we do stabilize Zamine, it will probably mean Artemis become unsung heroes.
2.  Only two of the crew are Darrian.
2a.  Of the two Darrians, only one has shown any heart.
3.  I am reminded of that quote, "All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing."
4.  If Gevaudan throws in to save Zamine and the Confederation, it might mean more opportunities for him to raise his Charisma....or lower it in defeat.
    a.  Vargr Charisma is a double-edged sword.  Low Charisma is hard to rise upwards and out of.  Gev's current Charisma is 5 (-1DM).  It's difficult to end a social downward spiral.  But if it rises to a number with a positive DM, then you can bet you have a dog with dangerous ambition, delusions of grandeur and a desire to Alpha for more than just a spaceship.  See how Charisma cuts both ways and its up-and-down, mercurial nature?  Be warned.  Gev may be a puppy now, willing to follow, say the Colonel, or buddy up pack-style with, say Crow (steak and Astroburgers!) and Hane (took a bullet for Gev); but he can just as easily turn in to the Society of Equals Alpha of Equality, (a misnomer to be sure if you read and understand his home polity and culture).

How does Gevaudan feel about each religious Faction?  The answer can lie in that he has a lifepath, worldview, religion, (whatever term you desire).  Runetha Saetedz' Fellowship of Heroes or Brethren of Heroes is not a Society of Equals belief system or philosophy.  It originated out of Menorb in the Spinward Marches and he picked it up while travelling Rimward to hire on to Artemis Mercenary Corporation.  His home culture and his current belief system color how Gev reacts to each of the Zamine cult leaders.

Archaeologist Lonelik - coward Doomsday Prepper, deceptive liar (about her race) and heart-bender.  Gev would like her removed, or if she won't go quietly - assassinated for the good of the community.  (What's that line from Remo Williams?  "Professional assassination is the highest form of community service." -Chuin)

Bishop Thogferda - loudmouth, supremicist, Church Of The Chose Ones (see the capital letters?), needs to be deported from the Darrian Confederation.  Gev thinks Thogferda and the COTCO is barking up the wrong tree here, so far Rimward in the Darrian Confederation.  Yet zealous and holier-than-thou dogs like him could be put down and not look back.

Blessed Gidjet - bubble-headed waif from Rorre.  Deport her back to Rorre before she kills herself by her own faith healing.  Gev is curious as to how she's pulling off her miracles, but not at the expense of a little Darrian woman's life.

Capt. Yllia - enigmatic, embezzling and backed by an intelligent starship.  Dangerous and to be handled surgically if necessary.  Gev does not want to get into starship combat with an A.I.

Priest Tiyik - this is the one Faction leader that Gev would show mercy as the smallish Aslan male is trying to unite the Roget Traditionalists, the Augmented Aslan, the Darrian-Aslan, the Augmented Darrian-Aslan and the Darrian-Improved Augmented Aslan.  Tack on Aslan ihatei just arriving from the Hierate, (like our Warrior Kay [respect to him from Scout Gev]).  At most, deport his leonine tail to some other Darrian Confederation world to do his banner waving, e.g. Cunnonic, Stern-Stern, Ektron, Roget or Mire.

Scion Pwll Vaarson - outted Psion.  Imperium Human.  Wants to pay back the Darrians for sheltering them from the Psionic Supressions?  C'mon.  Really?  What is his real game?  So he might really be a bilocator (look it up).  Just put two assassins at either end of his In Two Places At Once and finish him if he won't go quietly back to Rorre and quit destabilizing Zamine with his offers of mind over space/time/matter/energy.  Gev might be a closet-psionic, but not everyone is ready for Vaarson's vision of the future.

Gev has a heart and it goes only so far now that he's been shot and hit twice, nearly dying to perform First Aid on Hane and Charoux before himself.

Hope this contribution from Gevaudan Cannagrrh's point of view and opinion helps.

Dagne just wants to know who gets the claymore in the face.

Simone thinks she needs more bandages if this keeps up.

Jacob is all for ground rules/rules of engagement. All of Charoux's priorities work for him. He might quibble the order, but doesn't see the need. He will remain insistent, however, that we not spread ourselves out too thin. While some complicated, precisely-timed master plan to take down all of the trouble-makers with one fell swoop might sound elegant and shiny, it's neither practical nor likely. I don't know exactly what went down last session (sorry again!), but it sounds like you guys made it out alive specifically because you were all together and had one another's backs.

As for personal motivations and such, Jacob's pretty much WYSIWYG: he's a spacer and a soldier, in that order. Ship and crew are his main priorities, then the mission, or the job, as it may be. He's got a moral compass and all that, but if we agree to take a job, we do the job to the best of our abilities. That's why he had the need to express all of his concerns before we signed on. Once we've taken the job, we do the job. Setting and following mission parameters is part of the job, and having that framework helps Jacob function more efficiently and comfortably. 

Now, to get into the details...

1) I think we should get a better idea of "the legitimate authorities." Who are they, how closely should we be working with them (if at all)? Can we either enlist their help in some of this or perhaps fulfill some of our objectives by giving them the means to expose or neutralize out targets? For that matter, as Gev asks, shouldn't we have some kind of Darrian contact to bounce this stuff off of?

2) While we're discussing priorities, maybe we should prioritize our targets based on the immediacy of their threat to the stability to the planet. That way, we can take down the ones in the best position to benefit from any power vacuum, and give ourselves a bit of breathing room without leaving our flank exposed. Tactically, Jacob doesn't like setting up a target and then just moving on to the next target without pulling the trigger. That leaves the first target the time and freedom to either detect and move against us or cover whatever weaknesses we might have uncovered.

That's it for now. 

While Charoux is generally in favor of figuring out who the Legitimate Authorities are, working with them is, at best, problematic, at least until we take out Yllia and expunge her influence from the governmental and Darrian Fleet networks. The vague political situation is a very good reason why the Special Arm sent us a liaison, much to Charoux's paranoia-induced chagrin.

The ones best able to exploit a power vacuum are generally the ones whose forces aren't committed elsewhere, and are in a "hold and wait" pattern. As such, it's not the ones that are an immediate threat, per se. Yllia is probably the one who would be best capable of exploiting a power vacuum, having the capacity to deploy ground pounding space marines anywhere from orbit. Geographical and infrastructural advantages of other factions may also be relevant, but that's quite a bit more detail than our GM has given us to consider. :)

The only reason that Charoux hasn't been pushing against Yllia immediately is because the Hero ship she's involved with hasn't arrived, and he needs to figure out what the ship's intentions and motivations are as well, not just hers. She could just be the figurehead, the patsy, or even enslaved; but she could also be the mastermind. The ship may be the mastermind, but, as a computer, it could also simply be a tool that's being exploited by Yllia. Until the ship arrives for Charoux to talk with, we can't be sure what we need to do.

Taking out the Zhodani posing as a Darrian seems to be the most obvious and easily executed operation, which is why it should be a priority. While genetic evidence and a verifiable chain of custody will be enough to verify what we suspect and convince authorities, it won't be enough to convince her followers. So we need a way to make her Zhodani biology blatantly obvious and undeniable to the entire crowd, in a way they can check for themselves in their own time. Something along the lines of modifying some sort of off-the-shelf medical scanner to scan from a distance, have it run a check for Zhodani features, and display the results through a projected image visible to everyone in attendance. If we make the projector modifications available to everyone, there won't be anywhere she can go without being found out.


Charoux has a plan to convince Gidjet Twotown to stand down. It may go well, or it may not. As such, he'll certainly need a backup plan, which will depend on the exact circumstances of how things play out. He'd like to find her doing her healing show somewhere large enough for a big audience, and with good enough acoustics that the entire crowd can hear their conversation. Throw in some psi suppression in appropriate locations so the crowd can consider the arguments fairly while not interfering with her healing. The plan with Gidjet revolves around arguments regarding the following:

Understanding the difference between Tactics & Strategy, particularly in the context of a 5 front war
Understanding the difference between a game, where the rules are known, and a war, where the rules are not
Understanding the importance of being able to assess the strategic capabilities of your opponent
Understanding the importance of leveraging as much capability, including technological and psi, as possible
Understanding the importance of heroism in the modern age, and recognizing the importance of heroes of all capabilities
Understanding the importance of utilizing your resources more carefully and efficiently

By and large, Charoux is going to assess her position and strategic prowess publicly, and no doubt find it wanting, since she's running herself into the ground by her own actions during what are effectively peacetime operations. Since this is largely going to be a bit of a contest of two-way conversational and gamesmanship skills, it may be better to play out the conversation outside of regular game time, unless Pakkrat has some ideas of things that can be going on behind the scenes, like our medical team running triage on those that want to be healed, separating those that can be easily healed by basic technology from those that genuinely need her help to survive, and Dagne and Crow sniffing out bombs or snipers in the crowd.

During the conversation, Charoux will be engaging with Gidjet in a "contest"; the exact details of which will remain hidden on a need-to-know basis. All-in-all, Dagne will probably hate this entire plan. Suffice to say, Charoux expects to win the contest in an instructive fashion, which he expects will be convincing to both Gidjet and the crowd.


I'll confer with Pakkrat about the exact nature of this "contest". Let me know what you guys think!

From my conversations with Pakkrat in setting up this mission:

Tenacious-Techhunter:
Charoux will be bringing a series of game boards and game pieces, and challenge Gidjet to "a game, to assess her strategic ability"; in actuality, they're all tactical board games, a distinction that will be lost to many, probably her as well, but not to some significant figures in the crowd; but Charoux will be keeping true to his word. He'll specifically tell Gidjet to "pick a board and a set of pieces", and specifically not say to "pick a game". The subtle, potentially unnoticed difference being, that Charoux will be picking the game; a simple custom set of house rules applicable to any board game with pieces: "Thermal Last-Man-Standing".

"Thermal Last-Man-Standing" is a strategic game variant of any tactical game. As a player touches a piece, they increase the temperature of the piece, bringing it closer to its melting point. So a player must play fast as well as careful, and avoid using the same pieces over and over again. As applied to Chess or Checkers for example, overusing, and thus, overheating, the same piece will result in its destruction by sudden catastrophic melting; a shock Gidjet will not be prepared for, having mistaken the rules of the game they are playing. The game requires balancing defending against an attack with attacking unused pieces that are more dangerous in the long term. The pieces will be made from materials just one Technology Level higher than Gidjet's experience, to enable the subterfuge and increase the drama of the spontaneous melting, while still keeping the lesson valuable. This combination of violated expectations will illustrate Charoux's intended lessons in a non-threatening, but striking manner:

Fighting Tactically when you should be fighting Strategically is a mistake.
In a war, the enemy won't be playing by the rules you expect.
If you aren't capable of knowing the technological capabilities of your enemy, you will be caught off guard; often fatally so.
You need to leverage all your advantages in a war, technology included, or you will fail.
You need to understand the advantages and limits of all the resources at your disposal, technology and technologists included.
You need to utilize all your resources efficiently, and not overwork them.

Charoux doesn't see Gidjet as a bad person; just misguided. What Gidjet proposes isn't going to work, in spite of her good intentions; and Charoux believes that, by conveying that message, she'll stand down for the time being. Charoux would like to see Gidjet work in whatever city on the planet has the most hospitals, dealing with those hard-luck cases that the medical institutions can't or won't handle themselves. She'll have all the benevolent work she wants, and all the time off she needs. But, by making clear how strategically weak her position is, no one will follow her lead on such a grand sweeping effort ever again.

Of course, Charoux has been taking what she's been doing at face-value. She could be part of something much more sinister going on behind the scenes. Or, she could be manipulating the crowd on purpose. But what will happen during the game in those circumstances will be very revealing. If someone tells her the game is rigged, they'll need to use increased TL knowledge to do so; and if she uses that information to win, she will be cheating her own values; the conscientious thing to do would be to ask for a stalemate, or forfeit. Of course, if she knows about the pieces on her own, and plays to win, she'll have been revealed as a fraud that knows more than their background could possibly allow. And if she's really not the pacifist she claims to be, well, Charoux could well be in deep trouble.

Pakkrat:
If this is indeed Charoux' modus operendi for approaching Gidjet, then we need to talk. Yes, his plan will work after he sees her losing at the game. She will cheat only in the fact that she too heals fantastically fast also at a cost to her energy reserves. She tires even as she loses the game. But she is truly self-sacrificing during the game. It will be painfully obvious to Charoux in playing against her, she is way out of her league as some form of religious leader. She is truly no more than a gifted country bumpkin from Rorre. Intensely curious, but drained of energy most days, she has a support team of assistants to handle the higher-TL stuff for her.

But since Charoux is going to visit her before a crowd of followers and a line of the infirm waiting to be healed, he is definitely in "deep trouble". Then begs the question: who did Charoux bring with him?

Let's discuss the skills in use in this Encounter as well. It is well thought and there are details I must reveal during the gaming.

Tenacious-Techhunter:
Let me be clear; before Charoux does this, he's still going to have the team come up with a backup plan to keep him safe while he does this.

And again, he's going to have Doctor Simone and the new Medic running triage, to reduce Gidjet's load, so she can do as well as she legitimately can.

It's worth noting that if Gidjet's assistants start trying to respond to non-violence with violence, that sabotages their plans too.

Pakkrat:
Acknowledged. We are setting the stage. There are still some dice to roll. Charoux gets to place his pieces. So do I, the GM.

Tenacious-Techhunter:
Well, it's a bit early for that; the rest of the team still has to approve this plan... which they might not. I was just trying to help you plan ahead, so we can arrange for the start of the Gidjet operation to take place at the end of a roleplaying session, if there was nothing interesting that would be going on while the game was being played... which, apparently, there is, so there's really no need for that. XD

That was how we envisioned this leg of the mission to happen.  But what Charoux didn't know developed into what we now know as a conspiracy of Zhodani proportions.

The Zhodani man in Lonelik's holocomm and "Rants'" secret room comm logs are the same person, after voice recognition and word choice are analyzed. This makes the factions appear to be manipulated by the same person, whether against each other or haphazardly in some common goal of theocratic change on Zamine.

Artemis has now prisoners, evidence and loots that make a strong case that Lonelik is some form of Zhodani Agent, while Gidjet Twotown is a bumpkin patsy used by Rantsbienchval, the girl in the Zhodani Trooper Battledress.  How many other factions are being used in this way or similarly?

Meanwhile, inhabitants of Zamine, followers, visa workers and visitors are being caught quite literally in the crossfire.

Since this pertains to the Zamine Ticket, here's a third-person point of view into the mind of Gevaudan on the Bishop Thogferda leg of the mission.

Gevaudan’s Introspection
258-1109, 0600 local Highport time:
Gevaudan spent the morning stretching, working out, and Infighting. Then he ate breakfast and took his supplements. His singular thought was the coming challenge to Bishop Thogferda, the power psionic of Telekinesis, who could lift multiple objects with his mind and manipulate them as if by hand with all the precision that implied.

The Pilot-Astrogator knew that psionic disruptors would be in effect, so he did not bother to wear his Teleportation suit, nor carry much of his usual gear. His weapons could ride in the trunk of the Air/raft and be available then. Instead, Gevaudan wore his Sylkwear over his Ballistic Cloth armor. He remembered the scent of the ladies of Hot & Spicy rock band when he slid into the expensive evening wear. Gev felt that dressing up for the challenge might help his argument, however little, before Bishop Thogferda, his Sister-Dame Qithka and her Witness and the entire congregation in attendance.
 
This was much of a show as it was important to throat the Vargr Bishop of the Church Of The Chosen Ones, attaining a surrender yelp from the black-pelted cur. For the first time in his life, Gevaudan was about to engage in jihad by socially representing himself as a Follower of Runetha Saetedz, a Hero. In doing so, he hoped to save an entire high-population planet full of impressionable Darrians, Darrian-Aslan, other Humaniti and of course the local enclave of Vargr. This racial supremacist behavior could not be allowed to go beyond helpful Chosen Ones to becoming a “master race” of lupine idiots, to Gevaudan’s mind.

It made no sense to the Captain of the Ares that through Charisma, one Vargr should invoke his religion as justification over an entire collection of races, Vargr included, and claim that the Ancients were endorsing Vargr mastery over all other Major and Minor races in Charted Space. Gevaudan always held that Charisma was so mutable as to allow change, but powerful to motivate charismatic individuals the opportunity to stand up and become heroes. Leadership was fine for a time and as needed, but even then, by anacyclosis things could crystallize and become brittle. Governments, religions, even secular states could freeze and deny change, wanting the status quo. The other races might look down on Vargr ways of Charisma, their pack mindedness, and the instability of the various empires across the Vargr Extents. But Gev knew that this was by Charisma-design. The Ancients may have Uplifted the Vargr – Gev accepted this at least – but in keeping that need for group approval, pack behavior, and familial tactility; they gave the Vargr the ability to change with the times and adversity. Gev had never seen Humaniti so adjustable since their ‘charisma’ was set the day their parents decided to procreate. Only rarely and usually it was due to some deed worthy of Heroes, that a Human’s so-called Social Standing was improved, usually by decree of a higher Alpha outside the immediate pack. Gevaudan didn’t understand how someone with no direct contact with the heroic deed or the person responsible could have authority to dictate higher standing through what Humaniti called entitlement. It was a different game with different rules, Gev had to remind himself.

But mongrels like Bishop Thogferda had taken what was once an optimistic and Charisma-boosting religion – the Church of The Chosen Ones – and mutated it into a supremacy and egotistic crusade to convince others that they should lie down and yelp their inferiority before ever having a chance to be Heroic. This mindset twisted Gev’s insides, making him causally ill to think of such. His own religion that he had picked up only a few years ago was inviting to all races to deeds of greatness, that all could be Heroes, Ancients notwithstanding. Was it any wonder that Vargr felt so impassioned to see holovids about daring and swashbuckling Corsairs taking on far more than they could chew and that through Heroism, they could overcome the opposition? Doing the Heroic deed, with or without rising or falling in Charisma, was far more that can attest to higher and finer degrees of living than to claim entitlement based on the Ancients Uplift of the Vargr. Such claims allowed no individual Heroism, putting the entire race, the Vargr (and all its speciation of ethnicities, languages and societies) on the pedestal for no logical reason that at least Gev could think of. And the Ancients weren’t as of yet sharing their minds. If the Humaniti God, (or Gods depending on who was asked), were to say that a person’s race was the apex of evolution and achievement and had no higher to climb, what would be the reason for continued existence at such a lofty yet frozen status? Thus the COTCO was antithesis of the individuality of Charisma, denying individual greatness, growth and focusing only racial superiority by some unconfirmed charter called the Ancients. Today, Gevaudan Cannagrrh would try to topple that line of thinking by words, deeds, tooth and claw….at least on Zamine.

Gev decided that he didn’t have anything personal against Thogferda as an individual. In his home polity of the Dzeng Aeng Kho, the Society of Equals, Gev had heard of the Church before. They had set up shop in the Coreward world of Aegadh. But that local chapter was largely benign and ruled that world and its nearby colony with a low growl of racial greatness. But that world had grown with a politeness to outworlders, the Zhodani and the rest of the Society’s neighbors. It was not malignant and belittling of other races. Having a leg up is somewhat okay, so long as they didn’t force others to eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper. Thus, Gevaudan decided on mercy, to let Thogferda live long enough to be deported from Zamine to wherever he had come from.

If Gev mentions letting him go, Charoux will remind Gev that, while it’s certainly his decision to do so, “letting him go” didn’t work out so well for Robertson and Isis, and that he should be very sure that it’s the right call before doing so.

Those who are close to Gevaudan and believe they know him would be aware that the Pilot-Astrogator looked up to Col. Robertson.  He had Charisma.  He was The Man.  Mentioning Isis will get a similar but different tack.  Isis, and Uthka Varzeekh, were Gev's Mentors, (making Gev a Mentored Psion, but without the Career).  The white Vargr will most definitely want to repay Capt. Maarg, should Isis' revenge ticket comes to the table of Artemis Group.