Revised, Jan 31 2008

So, if I’m understanding right, the plan is:

• The Resistance does training exercises.
  This is happening now, in the various Hide and Seek threads.
  
  
• Once that is done, a Resistance team will capture a Stalker.
  Revised, Feb 08, 2008 We aren’t going to wait for the Hide and Seek thread to end before starting Capture a Stalker.
  
  
• Once that is done, Gearhead and Hades and Dr. Ingram (NPC) will study the Stalker and develop Stalker-destroying gadgets.
  
  
• Once that is done, Hunter will organize the Resistance into independent-but-coordinated teams of four or less, give them orders, and lead the raid/rescue operation on the Camps to free the inmates.
  This will probably involve redundancy and duplicated effort, since not everyone in the Resistance is letting Hunter know what resources they have. For example, Rupert is in a position to neutralize the bracelets on command, which Syn knows but Hunter doesn’t.
  
  
• Once the inmates are freed, the remaining Stalkers will attack Mondragon Labs, and be defeated.
  
  
• In the aftermath of all of this, the Mutant Registration Act will be repealed (or, at least, will be modified so it’s actually a Mutant Registration Act rather than a Mutant Criminalization Act) and mutants will be free to wander the rest of the world again.
  

Yes?

Comments, corrections, complaints, additions and subtractions welcome.

---

Earlier post, superceded by the above.

So... if I recall correctly, the plan was:

• Cassiel & co would lead an X-Men raid against the Camps, which would fail, bringing the concealed X-Men to the attention of the Resistance, but allowing Camps residents who wanted more RP opportunities to get out and play.
  
  Near as I can tell, this is not actually happening.
  Is it still in the works?
  
  
• Meanwhile, a Resistance team was going to lead a team to go hunt down a Stalker and examine its innards.
  
  This is happening in Skeletons of the Closet with Hades, Nox, Abyss, Kami, Mandain and Shogun, as of a couple of days ago, I think.
  
  
• Meanwhile, a bunch of Resistance types were going to do some training exercises.
  
  This is happening in the various Hide and Seek threads.

Is there a plan yet for what happens once the Stalker is captured and the Hide and Seek exercise completes?

If not, here's a suggestion:

• We find a way to neutralize the Stalkers.
  Some possibilities:
  • Upon inspecting Stalker innards, someone at the Labs recognizes the work as being Zane Bishop's. The Resistance promptly descends on Dr. Bishop's head and "convinces" him to reveal the weaknesses in his Stalkers.
    
    Some possible weaknesses:
    • They are programmed to ignore non-moving targets.
      
    • They overheat quickly if their vents are clogged.
      
    • They always go after the nearest target rather than the most dangerous one
      
    • They don't respond to threats more than a thousand feet away
      
    • There's a relatively unarmored spot where the knee-bone connects to the hip-bone where they can be disabled
      
    • Extreme cold messes up their targeting sensors so that they miss with their ranged weapons
      
    • Etc, etc, etc.
    
    
  • Some clever investigator (possibly Crystal?) chases the money-trail behind the Stalker development and finds out about Dr. Bishop, without needing to investigate Stalker innards. Same result as above.
    
    
  • Upon inspecting Stalker innards, someone at the Labs is clever enough to figure out some of the above weaknesses on their own; Dr. Bishop stays out of it altogether.
    
    
  • (really cheesy option) Upon inspecting Stalker innards, someone at the Labs is clever enough to figure out a way to reprogram them remotely (for example, so they turn on the Camp guards instead of the inmates).
  
  
  
• Once we find a way to neutralize the Stalkers, the Resistance organizes into N battalions as follows:
  • Stalker-killers.
    Anyone physically capable of defeating a Stalker in combat, once armed with knowledge of their weaknesses.
    (Note: if we go with the Stalker-reprogramming option, then this becomes moot. Which would be a pity, because blowing the #!@#!@$ out of some Stalkers would be emotionally very satisfying. That's why I label the reprogramming option as cheesy.)
    
  • Prisoner-rescuers.
    Anyone capable of carrying, teleporting, tunneling, cloaking, or otherwise getting prisoners out of the Camps safely.
    
  • Guard-disablers.
    Anyone capable of defeating Camp guards in combat (via mind-control, physical powers, turning them into llamas, whatever).
    
  • Distractions
    Everyone else! Especially those who can jam communications, confuse senses, create illusory targets, absorb damage, or generally cause havoc.
  
  Each batallion breaks down into one or more squads, with no more than 4 players in each squad. (This is so we don't hang waiting for players to post.) The squads coordinate but operate independently.
  
  Some PC is officially in charge of assembling squads and battalions (Kaz? Hunter? Other) but we shouldn't force the player to do all that work... we can do it OOC ourselves and just let them take IC credit for being tactical geniuses.
  
  Similarly, IC there is a grand plan of attack, with maps and X's and Os and stuff. OOC, I don't think we need to bother with that.
  
  
• Once the battalions and squads are organized, the Resistance uses its contacts in the Camps to prepare the ground:
  • Inform trusted inmates that a breakout is coming, so they can be ready.
    
  • Sabotage as much defensive equipment as possible.
    
  • Covertly eliminate the mutant-power-neutralizing-goop from inmate diets.
    
  • Get ready to neutralize the bracelets.
  
  
• Once the ground is prepared... ATTACK!

Does this seem feasible?
Comments, corrections, complaints, additions and subtractions welcome.

Note that there's also no reason we have to actually wait for various interim threads to complete. The "Catching a Stalker" thread can continue even while the "Investigating Stalker Innards" thread gets started (just like there's threads going on now that start after Hide and Seek is over, even though the Hide and Seek threads are ongoing.)

Point one is almost definatly not happening, unless the X-men have been planning in secret there's just not enough of them (Only Cassiel and Fade on the outside I think).

Skeletons of the Closet is not actually about the Stalkers, it's about the bracelets and the mutant database. Also Hades will be grabbing copies of the plans for the camps and anything else he finds that might be helpful.

The Catching a Stalker mission will happen after the training is done. Currently Em seems to be missing, so we'll need to devise another means of exit, but other than that we're good to go with a plan Abyss outlined in the thread.

Once we have a Stalker Ingram, Gearhead and Hades will examine it to find weaknesses. Ingram (AKA me) has several ideas for anti-Stalker weapons, ranging from disable to destroy that once he has a Stalker to examine he can implament.

I intend to be back for the camp raid (me and Iris are almost done with the infiltration) so volenter to take charge. I'll work out a battle plan that allows teams of four or less to go about there work in an independant but co-ordinated fashion, much like Sonya outlined.

After that we have the final showdown (if people are still up for it) where everyone gathers at Mondragon Labs and an army of Stalkers amasses to attack. Now that will take some serious organising, which I again volenter to do, and believe that with enough forethought can pull it off so we don't get bogged down.

Just a note (don't have the brain power to comment bout everything). I've already talked to Syn about Zane and that info, only the origional Stalker would have information about Dr. Bishop, all the others would have info about where they're being manufactured (not the same place as where Cyber Doc/Stalker are). So that's out of it.

> Skeletons of the Closet is not actually about the Stalkers, it's about the bracelets and the mutant database.

Two things:

• Unexpected Harmonies of Strife picks up from Syn assigning Teresa to get her hands on the Mutant Registration database, and my making some assumptions about how that would work.
  
• Rupert has made IC comments several times about being able to disable the bracelets, in his capacity as Camp Supervisor.

So if Skeletons is also about the bracelets and the database, we should decide how to reconcile that.

The easiest answer is that the Resistance doesn't allow its right hand to know what its left hand is doing, and we are in fact working on the same problem at cross-purposes to one another. Which would be emotionally unsatisfying, but entirely plausible. Is that acceptable? Do you have something else in mind?

> The Catching a Stalker mission will happen after the training is done [...]
> Once we have a Stalker Ingram, Gearhead and Hades will examine it to find weaknesses
> [..] for anti-Stalker weapons

(shrug) OK. If you already have all this planned, great... sorry to duplicate effort.

If we can include a pointer to or summary of those plans somewhere in the official plot summary, that would be good too. There's a lot of folks involved in this plot; it would be good for us to be able to see the progress that's being made and understand where we expect it to go.

> After that we have the final showdown (if people are still up for it)
> where everyone gathers at Mondragon Labs and an army of Stalkers
> amasses to attack. Now that will take some serious organizing, which
> I again volunteer to do, and believe that with enough forethought can
> pull it off so we don't get bogged down.

I would suggest we not commit to a second big fight until we actually get around to freeing people from the Camps. At the rate we're making progress, we may be more interested in moving on by the time we get there.

> only the origional Stalker would have information about Dr. Bishop,

Actually, I wasn't thinking the Stalkers would have information about him. I was thinking that Zane, being a amazingly uber-geniusy guy capable of designing these amazingly fantastic automated weapon things that are tougher than anything else ever built, probably has a characteristically geniusy design style that other experts in the field would recognize.

And, after all, it's not like he's some hermit in the woods; he's actively seeking sponsorship for his projects, so people with sufficient military security clearance (or good enough spies) ought to have heard of him, and it should not be impossible to find him.

But all of this is moot; if our plan for defeating the Stalkers is for Hunter and Hades to built Hunter-killer gadgets, then we don't need to involve Zane at all.

This little set of questions is basically more about the stalkers and the plans on how to fight them. I still need to read much of this more throughly, but I remembers something Ayesac had mentioned last night to me. Would an Electro magnetic pulse cause some danger/threat to a stalker? Or cause damage? Ayesac is assuming that some of their vital systems are shielded but some of the other things like movement and weaponry might not be because of gaps in their structure for movement. Or more vulnerable areas.

Also are they weak to water? I remember the preditors, with their cloaking abilities, had that part of their amour short out in water temporarily until they get out of the water.

Were, I believe the Stalkers are shielded against such things.

And their only weakness is 100ft below water.....why that is, makes no sense to me, sort of a cop-out to have a disadvantage like that, that will most likely never come up.

> <i>The thing I don't get is why some people think they can't be beaten. </i>

So, I came in pretty late in this process, but I think this was (and remains) essentially a plot/mod thing.

As I've observed before, for example: if I understand Gearhead's powers correctly, she should be able to shut down a Stalker with a thought. Similarly, there's no particular reason Hades shouldn't be able to build a gadget that jams Stalkers' AIs, or a weapon that can penetrate their armor, just as easily as he designed the serum to neutralize Syn's power, or the gadget to neutralize Vibe's, or any of the gazillion other things he builds.

Stalkers are just technology; any weapon one man can invent, some other man can invent a defense against.

But we've decided we aren't going to neutralize the Stalkers that way, because it's not as satisfying to folks from a plot/narrative/storytelling perspective. And all us players are going along with that, because it's the plot. I think that's where this "the stalkers can't be beaten" idea is coming from.

More precisely: they can be beaten, but we can't beat them now. We can only beat them after we've gone through sufficiently narratively satisfying months of plot buildup, training, misery in the Camps, etc.

Sonya you're correct, Gearhead COULD stop a Stalker, or even a number of them easily and without much problem. Simply one 'command', <Freeze all motor functions.> for example, would be enough to stop it. With a bit more time, probably a minute or so, she could even reprogram one to become her pet (adding/removing certain commands and such, changing what it's objective is, etc). But it's precisely that reason why I'm kinda keeping GH away from the 'action', and not so much her physical weakness. As much as the Stalkers (but not the origional) annoy me, it wouldn't be right to just stop them and turn them that easily.

I think we have a case of misdirection where two sides of the resistance are working on the same goal. Hunter and Syn dont' tell each other everything that they're doing, and so I think this illestrates that perfectly. Hade's mission is to get the mutant database, schematics for the bracelets to shut them down (as we in the resistance don't know about Rupert) and the location of all the mutant blood samples (a little treat for me ). Hades actually has a differant plan to do it, one which involves a trip to England, so there's unlikely to be a moment where two groups breaking in meet one another.

For everyone griping about the "unbeatability" of Stalkers, I have some real levelers in terms of weapons. I've sent a PM to Cyberdoc she we can work out any kinks.

Now *dons mod hat* I'm officially steering this tread away from "Stalkers are too tough" and towards "working out of the plot" so let's hear no more about how hard Stalkers are to kill.

OK.
I've revised the first post in this thread to reflect my current understanding of our plan for this plot, based on Hunter's information.

(And this is my 256th post! Yay! I love round numbers.)

Much appreciated Hunter.

Yes, that's very true that Hunter and Syn don't share all their info. That's why Shade and Sonya are attempting to retrieve the mutant database in a different manner than Hades. Though I do hope Shade is able to find a way to escape. I'd hate to lose a new memeber already.

> I do hope Shade is able to find a way to escape. I'd hate to lose a new member already.

Teleporters do have an advantage wrt that sort of thing, so I'm not too worried about Shade.

That said, Sonya seems to be continuing her tradition of getting shot by normal humans with guns. I'm _sure_ I read somewhere that mutant menaces are supposed to be bullet-proof... good thing she can heal.

going on from hunters comment the fact that Hades is going after the same info that someone else is also highlights their different styles, but the Skeletons of the closet is SOOO much more than just the database, as you will hopefully see, i also did that to start alot of balls rolling. but glad to hear it being discussed

Another modification to the first post in this thread: we aren’t going to wait for the Hide and Seek thread to end before starting the Capture a Stalker. Instead, we’re OOC planning the Capture-a-Stalker thread now here and will start it IC as soon as possible.

This will hopefully shave several weeks off our earlier schedule.

Another correction - no, we aren't yet planning Capture a Stalker... or, if we are, it's not happening where I thought it was.

I'm going to stop trying to update this thread, as I clearly don't know enough about what's really going on with the plot to document it accurately.

I apologize for causing confusion.