B) Danielle Wright and her possible future story use

Danielle has been a part of the city background since launch; most of the primary details about her--like her being ex-Zion, having worked with the Exile named Silver, having invented the emergency-jack out system that all operatives use to survive the death of their RSI in the Matrix, being head of the Wright Research corp who has their large HQ building in Vauxton, and her disagreement with Zion's Commander Lock and wish for the Matrix to survive, but under human control--have been in our internal "Story Bible" document for ages.

In 8.2, it is suspected by Zion, and eventually found by the Machines, that Danielle has her own direct connection to the Zion Mainframe. The Machines capture this and use it to insert a virus into the mainframe, after killing Danielle at her lab somewhere on the Earth's surface above Zion.

Now, here's where I've left things open a bit for future use of Danielle. A genius, expert in Matrix interface systems, and a believer in keeping the Matrix intact, but run by humans, she could have in fact, once she found herself betrayed to the Machines by Silver, launched a desperate plan to preserve her consciousness beyond the death of her physical body. Players would not find out about this for sure until we reintroduce her at the time of our choosing later on. Her scheme would go something like this:

1) Learning of the betrayal by Silver, Danielle realizes that the Machines will discover her lab, kill her, confiscate her work, and use it to access and destroy the Zion mainframe.

2) She quickly rigs up several custom circuits on her jack-in interface. These will cut the connection between her jacked-in consciousness in the Matrix and her physical body, at a time of her choosing.

3) When the Sentinels locate her lab, she trips these circuits just before they kill her body. Her consciousness is set adrift, existing as pure avatar in the programmatic interface areas around the Matrix simulation. Normally, dissolution and death of consciousness come quickly, as the human mind cannot conceive of itself as a non-physical entity. Wright, however, is a highly unusual mind, and moreover has been practicing prolonging her stays in these interface computer realms that are normally traversed in the blink of an eye during jack-in and jack-out. Still, she knows she cannot survive here more than a matter of minutes.

4) She also knows, however, that the Machines will move as quickly as they can to activate her interface to the Zion mainframe. She is counting on this. She thinks there is a chance that she will be able to move her consciousness through the activated interface, into the Zion mainframe, and from there, into the body of someone whose hovercraft jack-in system is still running through old Zion's mainframe. These are computer systems she is familiar with from long study--more of a master of them than any other living human being.

5) In the Machine 8.2.5 critical mission at the end of subchapter 8.2, events unfold as Danielle's desperate plan requires: her body is slain, and the Machines activate her interface to the Zion mainframe.

So, that is the possible explanation for Wright's survival of certain death, and what could happen with Lock and Roland's crew starting at the beginning of chapter 8.3. See D below for the rest of that.

All of this would leave Wright in a unique position: a human mind in another human's body. Particularly in light of her desire to preserve the Matrix under human control, this could make her a very interesting character somewhere down the road, say once we get into Oligarch's trying to use the Trinity program for new bodies, or whatever we decide to do along those lines.

This story of her survival, in any case, would not be told to players until is brought back.




C) New details on the red pill program

Wright makes a new red pill program for Zion in 8.2, one that does not have the security hole that the Machines exploited at the end of 8.1 to obtain information on Zion's mainframe. In the course of her and Zion working to make this new red pill program, I had to flesh out a few things related to it:

- The red pill program not only includes a trace to the human asleep in their pods, it also includes the code routines that help bring the human's consciousness out of the Matrix, wake the human up, and trigger them being flushed from their pod into the sewers, where the extraction team's hovercraft can pick them up.

- The red pill program is a synthesis of Zion and Machine code, and very difficult to modify (which is why Zion had to call in Danielle Wright).

- The Machine code involved includes partial code from the pod control routines that the pill overrides to get the awoken human out of the pod.




D) Commander Lock, Captain Roland, and his crew - possible use in chapter 8.3 and beyond

Captain Roland is the older, bellicose, possibly Australian Zion captain seen in Reloaded and Revolutions--it's his ship, the Mjolnir, aka "the Hammer," that eventually picks up Neo, Trinity, and Niobe, and the one that Niobe pilots and crashes into Zion's dock, where they trigger their EMP in an attempt to stop the Sentinels swarming into the city during the huge battle for Zion in Revolutions. Roland and his crew, including his operator, "AK," his first mate, "Colt," and his crew member "Mauser," all apparently survive, and are alive at the end of the trilogy, safe in Zion. Roland himself is seen in one of the final shots of Zion, when the Sentinels have stopped attacking thanks to Neo's truce with Deus Ex Machina.

Where we are now in the story, Roland must be one of Zion's most senior captains, next to Niobe herself.

My idea for using him, beginning in chapter 8.3, is this:

Roland's new hovercraft, which I'll just call "Mjolnir II" for the sake of convenience, is one of the few ships still operating from old Zion systems when the end of 8.2.5 comes, and the Machines are about to destroy old Zion. The ship itself is near Zion city, trying to get back to help with the evacutation triggered by the Cypherite saboteur who sets off a bomb inside Zion Command.

At the precise time that Danielle Wright's consciousness enters the Zion mainframe, just minutes ahead of the Machine virus, Roland's crew member Mauser is jacked in. Wright finds Mauser's interface, and jacks out into his body. Seconds later (or possibly at the same time, because Wright's overwriting of Mauser shorts things out?), when the Machine virus KOs the Zion mainframe primary Matrix interface control, the jack-in system and Matrix interface on-board the Mjolnir II suffer a massive system failure. The feedback from this kills AK, their operator, and cripples the hovercraft, which promptly crashes in a tunnel just outside Zion.

Sentinels are swarming into the area, everything is chaos, but at any rate Roland and Colt, and possibly other crew members they have who aren't named in the films, are rescued, and evacuated to New Zion. Fire, wreckage, and swarming Sentinels prevent a search for Mauser, who is eventually presumed dead.

Wright in Mauser's body, however, in fact managed to struggle out of the wreckage, and made her way up the tunnel, into Zion's dock, and from there into the wrecked Zion Command, somehow avoiding detection by Sentinels and desperate Zion evacuation teams.

Here she finds Commander Lock, who has survived the Cypherite attack, and the Sentinels, but is badly hurt. Wright picks him up, and continues to her goal: a hidden escape shaft inside the wrecked Zion Command, known only to high ranking Zionites, and those, like Wright, who hacked secure parts of the Zion mainframe.

Somehow, they get to the surface (Lock, recounting this later, will only have the vaguest recollection of his time while injured, and this tortuous journey up through old shafts, mostly carried by "Mauser"; he will probably have some memory of hidden access lifts, or mechanisms of some type that carry them large parts of the way toward the surface; at any rate, he has an idea that it must have taken weeks). Wright/Mauser brings Lock to her hidden lab, significantly damaged by the Sentinels who killed her old body.

Here she nurses Lock back to a semblance of health, never revealing that she is not actually Mauser. During this time, unknown to Lock, she salvages equipment and programs from her lab.

When it is clear that Lock will recover, she leaves. She fakes a Sentinel attack, ramming large pieces of equipment around to make it sound to the woozy Lock nearby like a squiddie has found her, and frying everything else in the lab that she can't take with her with a lightning gun. She departs for areas unknown, to be brought back whenever we want to use her later in the story.

Lock recovers. By this time--our chapter 9.1--E Pluribus Neo has moved into old Zion, and started some repairs. They find the wreck of the Mjolnir II, and AK's remains, but no sign of Mauser. Lock is able to contact them; he finds a signal of some kind that Wright intentionally left there for him to find, though he doesn't realize this. EPN sends a hovercraft to investigate, and brings him back to Zion.

Eventually, Lock will probably rejoin his Zion comrades in New Zion. But we can decide that later. For the moment, in 9.1, or perhaps 9.2, he tells operatives a confused story of how he was dragged out of the wreckage of Zion by the heroic Mauser, who must have perished fighting a Sentinel after nursing Lock in the wrecked lab they happened to find on the surface. Lock would NOT know that this was Wright, or Wright's lab. As far as anyone knows, Wright was killed by the Machines in 8.2.5.

Meanwhile, in New Zion, Captain Roland, perhaps having had his jack fried from the feedback that led to the wreck of his ship, has been appointed Commander in place of the missing (and presumed dead) Lock. This would have happened right at the beginning of chapter 8.3. His first mate, Colt, is promoted to Captain of a new ship. Colt becomes a Zion character that we can use in Live Events along with Zion's two current event characters, Niobe and Ghost. I haven't checked the films to see if they show any particulars on Colt's personality, but possibly he can be something of an aggressive, devil-may-care type in comparison with the more reserved Niobe and Ghost.

(Meanwhile I would also have to alter some of our current Zion training missions that have new players speaking with "Commander Lock." ;)

[Square brackets below surround information that will not revealed to players directly, possibly not at all, during this subchapter.]


10/4

8.3 Cinematic

In the Matrix, two Agents watch a computer terminal. One says "The virus is running." Switch to Zion in the Real, where vast swarms of Sentinels engulf a hovercraft attempting to depart from old Zion, rip through the base's malfunctioning dock doors, and turn their attention to destroying a large quantity of loaded cargo containers filling the dock area. Cut to Neo confronting Deus Ex Machina, from the scene close to the end of The Matrix Revolutions, only seen from the side and slightly below, some distance away. A hand passes quickly across the screen, and the scene freezes, as a robotic bug begins to crawl across it. A side view shows what appears to be a human male, clothed and in shadow, watching the screen in some sort of small, high-tech metallic room. He says "Most interesting."

Cut to Persephone reading poetry by herself in the Chateau--the fourth verse of Swinburne's "Dolores": "O lips full of lust and of laughter..." ( http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/2079.html -- Swinburne's quoted summary at the bottom is useful). The Merovingian enters the room, surprising her. "What are you doing?" "Nothing. Reading." "More of your...obsession?" Persephone closes the book and stalks out.


Supplemental background info (will be explained in the crits)

Zion is still trying to bring New Zion Command systems to full capacity. In Zion, the Machines captured some mainframe data that hadn't been evacuated or destroyed in time. Among this data is an archived copy of Zion's pre-war RSI signature database. With this information the Machines could lock the signals of Zion operatives whose signatures are on file and who are still jacking in via Zion's systems, ie veterans like Niobe and Ghost, and also access certain restricted stuff, like the Zion organization areas.

This archive is neural-locked and will respond only to the two ranking officers who signed it: Morpheus and Lock. Neither the Machines nor anyone else knows where Lock is. Because the user has to be in a relaxed state to reproduce the brainwave patterns necessary to match the encoding, the Machines can't force the information out of the sim; they have to persuade him to help them.

Zion can update their databases and an operative's RSI signature to a new one, and this is done from time to time for various reasons, but it is a painful process that involves a physical operation on the person's jack, updates to encryption hardware in the Zion operative's hovercraft, and updates to multiple high-security databases. Colt's signature, for instance, has been updated, because Roland is a paranoid son of a gun, especially after that **** Bane incident.


Roland and crew

Captain Roland, the bellicose older captain of the Mjolnir (aka "Hammer") seen in Reloaded, Enter the Matrix, and Revolutions, was returning to Zion in his new ship, the Mjolnir II, after receiving news of trouble there in 8.2.5. The ship was in the tunnel nearing the main gate just as the Machine virus crashed through the Zion mainframe. It was one of the few ships still running its systems through old Zion; Roland saw himself as the senior ship captain (now that Niobe's got a desk job :p), and was determined to be the last ship out of old Zion.

The Zion mainframe crash sent massive feedback through the Mjolnir II's systems. The ship crashed just outside of the dock. Roland and his first mate, Colt, managed to escape from the burning wreckage, and the Sentinels, and get to a ship back to New Zion. Their operator, AK, crew member Mauser, and some of their other (unnamed in the movie scripts) crew are missing, and presumed dead.

Commander Lock is also among the missing. Roland has been promoted to Commander. (I changed the intro/meet mission stuff with Lock to treat his quotes as recordings or something rather than live messages.)

Colt is a new Zion Live Event character in this subchapter. I'd like to use him as more of a down-to-earth character than Ghost and Niobe. With that scheme in mind, I'm not going to use a fixed RSI disguise for him in-game, but will make him a standard player RSI, who can change clothes and so forth (he won't use RSI pills permanently, though, because I don't want to have to be updating his NPC version all the time :p). His default clothes will be a bit plain, and maybe players will feel like helping him work on his per-server wardrobe. He's going to use pistols in combat, for now at least the big silver shiny ones, like Elmore's Automatic, and those bugged Harlick 464s that look like twin silver semi-autos instead of revolvers.


Crit 8.3.1

Zion: Tyndall briefly describes the attack on Zion, Lock missing, and Roland promoted to Commander in New Zion. Ghost says that after taking out old Zion, the Machines are increasingly on the offensive in the Matrix as well, and it's looking like they probably found something useful in Zion's mainframe, because they're really nailing specific targets now. Ghost introduces the player to Colt, Roland's former first-mate, now a captain since Roland's been promoted to Commander. Colt sends the player off to try to save some Zion facilities from attack. It's too late at the first one, as the player finds only dead Zionites, a locked computer, and an Agent who cooly tells them that Zion is doomed, and if they want to live, they'll go Machine. The next location is under attack, but by Exiles (Dire Lupines). The player saves some data and takes it back to Colt, standing next to two dead Exiles. Colt gruffly describes how Roland's ship went down right outside the main gate, its systems fried by feedback from the mainframe's destruction; he and Roland got out, but Mauser and AK, who were on the main deck, probably didn't. He repeats the rumor about the Cypherites being behind the gate-ramming and bomb in Command, and the Machines killing Wright, and using her stuff to drop a virus into the mainframe.

Mach: Gray says Sentinels are now in control of Zion and the area around it, and Zionites have retreated to their new city. He says that the Machine virus managed to preserve some mainframe data from Zion's emergency shutdown sequence. Meeting the player in person, he explains about the capture of the three-year-old neurally encrypted RSI signature archive, and that it is locked by Lock and Morpheus; even Zion doesn't know where Lock is, and Morpheus is dead, but existing records of Morpheus will allow the Machines to construct their own Morph sim, once the player collects just a little additional data. Another Agent in the room describes the Cypherite gate-ramming at Zion, and silenci0's bomb that took out Zion Command. Gray mentions that the General's sim is not cooperative, and cooperation is necessary for a neural match to unlock the encryption. The player mugs some Zionites, stealing their Morpheus recording, which they take to Pace, waiting in a lab. Pace says the sim is coming along all right; maybe not the best, but they only need it for a very limited Morpheus impression. Pace describes the pleasure she felt watching the videos of Zion's destruction, and wishes she could have been there in person. Back to Gray, where the completed sim is initialized and examined. It parrots some Morpheus lines, but seems to jumble them a bit. Gray says that it may need some human guidance to help it learn how to respond correctly. A hackable computer in the area gives details on the deletion of the Incidence 5.991 (aka Joker*) Exile.

Merv: Flood describes the Cypherite/Machine destruction of Zion, and says that some of the Sentinels swooping into Zion were the General's--undercover, as it were. The General's hologram reports two humans spotted scrambling into cover in Zion's wreckage: Lock, and one they didn't recognize. Flood receives the General's surveillance photos and describes the man as "a tall, muscular, dark-skinned, and disgracefully dressed man with jacks in him." The player is sent to steal Zion operative records so they can find out who it is, but the computer at the location assaulted has its database access limited due to "mainframe issues," and the data can't be reached. A hackable computer in the area contains a message from some Zionite, complaining about Roland being a thug who keeps getting promoted by losing his ships--he must have real good buddies on the Council, the message-writer concludes testily. Flood sends the player to try to get Machine data on which Zionite ships were found in the vicinity of Zion when it was attacked, since knowing which crews the man could have belonged to would narrow down the search considerably. They find Machine guards, and a lab worker who says "SNTL OAJDE"--a weird message that was also part of a cryptic Sentinel report found in 8.2.5, from a Sentinel lurking around Zion. Data is found on this worker's body, uploaded, and Malphas is consulted about the findings. Malphas is found being growled at by Ookami, who's apparently miffed that Malphas has said something to her about the intended target of her next hunt. Malphas tells the player that from the Machine records, they've identified the person with Lock as Mauser, of Roland's ship, the Mjolnir II, which went down outside Zion's gate, although the Machines did not record it being downed by their own forces.


10/4-10/10

Required Events:

Zion: Colt and Ghost brainstorm with operatives to try to locate the Morph sim; they may get close, but either the sim vanishes just before being found, or Machines interrupt, or something like that

Mach: (after Merv event) operatives attempt to get the Machine Morph sim into the correct frame of mind by interacting with him as they would have with Morpheus; they then have it try to access the encrypted RSI archive; it fails and the Machines have it deleted

Merv: (before mach event) using insight on the code signature of Morpheus obtained from the General's experience, the Merv ambushes and abducts the Machine Morph sim; he finds it much more pliable than the General's, and toys with it, attempting to extract some useful information; gets sim to play old Morpheus FX like Neo's RSI, and that green zap effect around his body; Merv begins to suspect this sim is a dullard; Machines intervene and rescue the sim


10/11

Crit 8.3.2

Zion: Tyndall says that the Machines have captured the pre-Truce RSI signature database, that the database is locked by Morph/Lock neural encryption, and that the Machines seem confident a Morph sim could unlock it. She sends the player to talk to Seraph about finding the Morph sim to convince it not to help the Machines. The operator mentions that to unlock the encryption, the person with the right neural pattern has to be in approximately the same state of mind they were in when the encryption was encoded, which usually means that they can't be forced into unlocking it--thus why the sim has to be persuaded. Seraph says Morph hung out in abandoned areas telling people he'd fade away, that he's seem the sim in these places, and that he'll show where they are (ie signal the locations to the operator). Tyndall warns that the sim hasn't exactly been pro-Zion; the operator points out that neither was Morph before he died. The first area has only a weird Unclean who says that you can only find Morpheus if you believe. Cypherites ambush on the way to the second abandoned location, but there is the sim, hanging out with a puzzled vagrant. The sim concedes that if what the player has told him is true, many in Zion must die, but he points out that every side must have their own reason, and he promised the Machines [at that Mach event w/ Gray before the Truce ended] he would consider what they had to say; that, according to the Oracle, the purpose of life is to life, and Gray has admitted this applied even to the Machines. Player takes this info to Niobe, who says that if nothing else the sim is as stubborn as Morpheus; that if it wants to talk, they'll talk, but it won't unlock the data for the Machines if she has anything to say about it. A Zionite guard mentions the Machines trying and failing to make their own morph sim. Tyndall reminds the player that the sim can reconstruct, another reason why it can't be coerced.

Mach: Gray says that since their data was insufficient to make a Morph sim, and Zion's data was pretty much destroyed with the mainframe, or smuggled to New Zion, they'll have to try the General's sim, which was accurate enough to fool some Zionites for a while; the Machines don't know where the General got the data required to compile such a program. They've had it under observation and know the derelict places it frequents. Some EPN have to be cleared off at the first location, but nothing else is found there. The next appears to hold just a drunk vagrant, but he laughs, and Morpheus sim appears in the room behind the player. It guesses that the Machines want a favor from it, but says it has reservations about Machine methods, and thus, about the ultimate purpose of the Machines. Without knowing this, it is not certain that it should aid them. Gray summons the player, giving them two level 255 (non-aggro, un-attackable) Agents, saying that nothing must endanger their mission to obtain the simulacrum's cooperation. With this hefty entourage the player goes back to the sim, where Pace has been trying to give it the Machine pitch. Even after talking to Pace and the player, the sim says its mind is still not at peace on the subject; it only wants to do what it believes is right, but it isn't sure which side is right in this case.

Merv: The Merv wants to know if there was something between Man and Machine back in the old days that inspired the Machines to use humans as their sole energy source. Flood sends you to ask the Oracle. The operator briefly summarizes the 2nd Renaissance story of B1663R (or however it was written), the first robot to kill its master, the rise and nuking of Zero One, etc; he also says he saw "old vid tapes" when he was in Zion that were supposed to be from back in that era, and they seemed legit, but then again considering that the Machines invented even Zion itself, who knows? The Oracle says that old stories get exaggerated, and not all humans hated Machines for their business success, and not all Machines were obsessed only with business, but adds that the Machines were simpler back then, before they started getting "muddled up" like humans. Flood ponders the "simpler back then" remark, and sends the player to go steal a certain special access code from Binary Boy (the Zero One "Area K" quest item collector), specifying that the player must not let Binary Boy spot them. Getting the "acccode0110.blip" access code out of Binny's apartment isn't really that hard, and Flood finds that the Boy, as he thought, had this access code that can get into Zero One directly, without going through the Archivists, so he could "get live runtimes out without alerting the Machines." The excited Effectuator is called in to put the access code to use, and succeeds in summoning the Zero One construct's robotic overlord, the Taskmaster (who speaks very briefly and confusedly in binary). Taskmaster is led to the Merv. Beirn and Persephone are also present, and the Effectuator arrives too, to observe. The Merv scans it and says that its code is simple and lacking in complexity--unique behavior, creativity. He wonders if the Machines only came by such things gradually--evolution, or a learning process. Could their early simplicity have led to a reliance on humans? At this point the level 60 Taskmaster can (optionally) be killed, but drops no special loot.


10/11-10/17

Required Events

Zion: Niobe very awkwardly talks to Morph sim and seems to make an impression, but it leaves without agreeing to anything

Mach: more attempted "friendly" persuasion of the Morpheus sim; it might show some favorable signs, but still leaves without agreeing

Merv: a cozy evening with Persephone where she reads Swinburne, reminisces about the old days back when she interfaced directly with humans in the pods, and talks about how the Merv is no longer the exciting young Frenchman/OS he used to be

10/18

Crit 8.3.3

Zion: Tyndall sends the player to Colt to see about an "alternate means" of ensuring that the Machines don't get the RSI sig data. Colt is trying to spell out an elaborate attack plan against the Machines tracking the sim, but then the Effectuator appears and says that since Zion is in trouble again, the Merv'll help by sending the General to give tips on this Morph sim business. Colt is annoyed. The General's projection says that he has some unused scraps of Morph data that the Machines haven't deleted yet. The hologram is cut off by the Machines before he can describe certain old security measures still in place. The player has to fight past Elite Commando defenders to get to the data, and then escape with it past Machine ambushes. Tyndall says that recorded data on Morpheus in the Matrix is very rare because the Machines try to delete/confiscate it; she wonders where the General got his. Ghost congratulates the player and warns that if the Machines do get that data, they'll be able to go straight after some of Zion's top operatives; talked to a second time, he admits that he and Niobe would be in danger, too. At the end of the mission, the player receives copies of the three Morpheus audio recordings they retrieved (old recorded voice clips: "Thank you for your guidance," "At last... I have been waiting for this," "If you have learned anything, you will know better than to challenge me").

Mach: Gray says that the sim has been detected within the vicinity of the Oracle's home around Debir Court slightly more frequently than mere chance would account for, and anyway the Machines are out of ideas about unlocking this RSI archive, so go talk to her, 'cause sometimes the crazy stuff she says seems to help operative make logical leaps. The Oracle says that if they really want Morpheus (that's what she calls him--"it's simpler") to help, they've got to give him a reason that will matter to him. Seraph says that the sim has visited a number of times, sometimes asking many questions, sometimes none. Gray sends the player after some EPN creating a disturbance nearby; the player finds nothing but two dead EPN, one with a "Love Letter" on its body, sealed with lipstick, and hiding an embedded code easily detected and decrypted by the operator. It's written in Veil's style, and says to drop by a certain bluepill's place, to say to him "He shouldn't have believed you." Gray says the bluepill was recently released by cops, after having been suspected of murder, since he was found nearby when a manic-depressive friend had fallen to their death from their apartment; no evidence turned up, though. Gray says the message is obviously meant to seem to have come from Veil, but it's an odd means of contact, so keep an eye out. Anyway it's complicated but the confronted blue freaks out and confesses to the murder of his friend (who was awakening to the Matrix, to the dismay of observing Cypherites, who also witnessed the unexpected murder), Veil phones the player in, and Cryptos explains that the player got this confession from the bluepill with that "believed you" remark because the Cypherites knew him--just as Cryptos knew Morpheus (way back in Zion). Cryptos offers to persuade the sim to help, in exchange for first dibs on the RSI archive, so he can remove entries for any ex-Zionites who are now Cyphs. Gray says they aren't after Cyphs anyway, and Cryptos did know Morpheus, so they'll try his deal.

Merv: Still pondering why Machines would use human batteries, the Merv decides to re-examine the death rate disparity found last subchapter: the simulation shows humans what they expect, ie birth rates exceeding death rates, but if the Matrix is a stable system, the Machines couldn't really allow the population to grow like that. The Coroner had hinted at the Machines handling this by making people "disappear." Confronted and asked for more detail, the Coroner tells the tale of a PI friend of his, Mr. Reynolds, hired by a jealous husband to investigate ex-wife Mary MacHenry, who promptly fell to her death while caving in South America. Mary had called her mom from South America the previous day, but the version of the call recorded by Reynolds (tapped mom's phone? 8o) had Mary saying she didn't feel well, and had called off the next day's caving expedition. Oh, and then Reynolds was mysteriously killed, by a bullet. The Coroner says that if they investigate, they'll find differing accounts of Mary's call to mom. Mom, when asked, says that she does remember now that Mary said she felt sick, but she definitely insisted she'd go to the cave the next day, despite mom's protests. Breaking into a federal records office, the official transcript of the call is obtained, and it has Mary telling mom she was in excellent health, and raring to go to the cave the next day. Another computer in the records office has a transcript of that phone conversation between Trinity and Cypher at the beginning of the Matrix, subtly altered to omit Morpheus' name, and reverse his hope of finding the One. The Coroner, asked for his theory about the disparate versions of MacHenry's phone call, says: "They didn't expect Mrs. MacHenry to take ill and call her mother; their plans called for her to have an 'accident,' alone, unseen. They changed the records, deleted Reynolds. They wanted to leave no evidence...that Mary MacHenry did *not* die." Flood calls him an idiot and a liar. There were silent Nightmares creeping around the Coroner, who said oh, don't mind them, just a spot of...work...to do later.


10/18-10/24

Required Events

Zion: (before Mach event) Morph sim is attracted by news of the new data, and accepts copies from operatives, if they want to give them to him, but still will not definitely promise to ignore the Machines

Mach: (after Zion event) Cypherites, Cryptos, and the Morph sim; Morph sim eventually agrees to listen when Cryptos offers to tell him why Morpheus was so obsessed with obtaining the One's remains--they go off for a little private chat [note that players are *not* going to be told what they talk about...and actually I still have to figure that out at some point, but it can wait for a later subchapter]

Merv: Mary MacHenry "disappearing" story is investigated, the General's Sentinels help locate her pod (pod # P0100:021:0257:084)*, and with the aid of some additional data captured from the Machines, it is found that Mary was removed--but not as in "flushed"--from her pod by the Machines themselves

* [Pod number format is this: "[cluster 1-1000]:[tower 1-10|mc1-30]:[ring 1-300|mc1-1000]:[spoke 1-100]," where the second "mc" ranges are for the large "mega cluster" tower collections, like the one found next to the Fields near Machine city; I don't want this explained to players (note that this note is in square brackets :p), just thought it might be handy if any of you decide you want to incorporate pod numbers into some story]


10/25

Crit 8.3.4

Zion: Niobe and Ghost bid farewell before jacking out to have their jacks reconfigured. Niobe says that the people still in the Matrix will have to pick up the slack for all the old operatives who have to leave for a while, but she knows the player can do it; Ghost has a few confusing words of wisdom meant as encouragement. The player reports to Colt, who's with a dead operative whose signal was locked. He sends the player to go rescue some people with compromised signatures; he also mentions that his own was reconfigured when Roland got his new ship, and it was painful. A Zionite with him explains that because of all the security measures Zion needs running, the process requires a physical operation on the person's jacks, hardware and firmware updates on the hovercraft, and updates to multiple high-security databases, all of which can take weeks; it's usually only done in the rare cases where a hovercraft is compromised. At the first stop, the player gets a couple vets to a hardline without incident, although they complain a little. Tyndall explains that with someone whose signal may be locked, a hardline is the only almost-safe way to jack them out. At the second stop, the presence of the player "blows the cover" of the veteran operative, Machines pop in, and it's a fight to get them to the hardline. Tyndall mentions that the data the Machines have will also allow them into some Zion areas within the Matrix.

Mach: The player meets up with the Morph sim, Agents, and other Machine programs, and the sim successfully breaks the encryption on the captured archive. The sim ponders this success a bit: "So I am close...to the mind of a madman." With an escort, the player takes the decrypted data to Cryptos, where Gray and some Agents are standing by, a little on edge. Gray says that Cryptos isn't stupid enough to try to pull a fast one with the data. Cryptos removes the Cypherite entries and hands the data over, along with some musing on the slaughter about to unfold. Gray immediately sends the player after signature-compromised Zionites, before they can evac. The operator explains that the Machines can lock the signals whose signatures they know, and if the RSI is killed while its signal is locked, the EJP doesn't work, and the victim is perma-dead. Two Zionites are found hovering over a dead Cypherite, and quickly killed. The next target is on a ship with n00bs whose signatures weren't on file. Nevertheless, any remaining Zionites in the area drop dead when the locked Zionite is killed, and Gray explains that they were able to trace the locked signal back to the crew's hovercraft, and Sentinels ganked it. Gray's speech pattern for the perma-kills is "Termination of target [target name] confirmed."

Merv: What did the Machines do with MacHenry? The player is sent to hunt up Machine data on the caretaker program that would have been in charge of her; machines are cracked, and it is found to be PSR-000c8201-DMT3R ["PSR" = "Pod Sub-Routine"]. If the Trainman were there, they could try spiriting DMT3R away from the Machines into the Matrix, but Trainman is AWOL (possibly dead, according to Malphas), so instead they have to settle for a séance in which Effy summons DMT3R to speak through the mouth of a blood-drinker. Blood-drinker/DMT3R bluntly and robotically (capitalizes the first letter of every word, and line-breaks each sentence) tells the assembled Effy, Merv, Persephone, Malphas, and the player to get stuffed. Persephone is discomfited by the apparition, saying something about at least touching real people back then, whereas now she has just this illusion; the Merv makes a suggestive crack to her about "those mothering programs" being so defensive. The Merv suggests a new stratagem: stealing the records on DMT3R's activity at the pod from the Machines. A computer in the Machine area is scanning a "signature database" and has 4372 "signal matches" so far. DMT3R's log shows multiple "PHS CND" (physical conditioning) and "DC PRP" (disconnection preparation) sessions with Mary before "DSNCT" (disconnect). Female Night Watchmen pounce on the player after they obtain the log. [Also, Agent Pace is in the area, but two rooms away behind a locked door, with Agents around her--her presence is not pointed out, but some player may notice her if they get the right configuration of connecting rooms with interior windows.] Persephone translates the log, saying that it shows the Machines worked Mary very hard to build up her muscles before she was removed, but why? Talked to a second time, Persephone seems to remember something "that happened long ago," but she doesn't explain further. Malphas says that they know of no use the Machines have for physically active humans, but the effort they put into Mary suggests they weren't simply going to kill her, even that they may have wanted to use her as some kind of operative in the outside world. Flood thinks that's a ridiculous notion.


10/25-10/31

Required Events

Zion: with Colt; hold off Agents in White Hallways while team gets data out of org area

Mach: Taking advantage of the data: rampage through Zion org areas, or track down and terminate some veteran operatives, or something fun like that

(once they've completed crit 8.3.4, for the rest of this subchapter, Machinists w/ 100+ Machine rep will have an additional one-time mission: Zion org area, no key required)

Merv: Hypatia must be removed from Machine surveillance (started last subchapter) so that she can be consulted privately (in next crit)


11/1

Crit 8.3.5

Zion: Tyndall sends the player to rescue veteran Strenlo ( http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300003053 ). He says something that sounds like he's close to tracking down a backup of important information otherwise lost with the mainframe, but then Agents appear around him, and he is killed (Agent: "Target Strenlo signal lock confirmed. Terminating client."). The operator hopes that maybe they didn't actually have a lock. Tyndall is having trouble getting a response from Strenlo's hovercraft. She sends the player to Colt, who says he's trying to locate Joshua Maston ( http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300013871 )--now a loner rather than a Zionite, but an old vet nonetheless, and someone they feel should be warned, especially because it's suspected he's still using his old Zion hardware and RSI signature. Tyndall describes how Maston was last found by EPN, printing old Morpheus leaflets. Searching one of these old haunts, the player comes across the Kid and some EPN; they're looking for Maston too. With EPN assistants in tow, the player checks another area, where Tyndall and the operator report high Machine scan activity--the Machines might be having trouble locking Maston's signal, but it won't take long with that much scanning brought to bear. Maston is there, and some Machines. Maston says he'll evac, because he doesn't want to die uselessly; he's grateful for Zion's offer to reconfigure his signature, but warns that as soon as it's done, he'll leave to continue his work. More Machines spawn in, even a level 100 Agent, but Maston is led to a hardline and gets out (the Machines won't actually attack Maston--because he's fixed at high level, I couldn't let him be attackable, else he'd be exploited as a tank by lowbies). Tyndall says she got through to Strenlo's operator, and was told Strenlo is dead.

Mach: Gray sends the player after veteran Zionites remaining in the Matrix against all logic of self-preservation. The first target is a recruiter, and Gray suggests that perhaps the dire straits in which recent Machine advances have placed Zion's recruiting program are responsible for this Zionite staying on the job. Two horrified bluepill potentials are there along with the target (and two other Zionites). There are hostile Zionites at the next location, but this second target's signal is lost--the operator thinks they may have got to a hardline. A hackable computer here has a message from Roland to Colt, telling him to get the vets out ASAP, and to tell them to stay out until their RSI signatures are reconfigured. Gray says that it will probably take several weeks for the surviving veterans to get reconfigured, during which time Zion's efforts in the Matrix will be at a near standstill, especially with Niobe and Ghost offline. The next target is found with some buddies, desperately trying to rewire a Redpill Extraction Point into a makeshift hardlinesque jack-out point, so that they don't have to try to use a hardline that the Machines might know about. A hackable computer here has a message from the target who escaped in the previous phase, saying they'd heard Strenlo had been killed, and advising the recipient to get out. At the next location, as the player nears the target, Gray orders them to stand down. Of course you can't really do this in the middle of a mission phase, so the player will have to go inside, where they are again ordered to stand down. They will actually fail the mission if they kill the ex-target. Gray curtly thanks the player, congratulating them on their exemplary ability to obey orders.

Merv: Persephone recounts her recollection of a time during her work for the Machines at the pods where a human was removed, very similar to MacHenry's case; the log files were almost identical, which is what reminded her. Hypatia says that the Archivists may have records of the incident, since they've recovered and collected many records from previous versions of the Matrix; normally they'd charge a hefty fee, but Hypatia will give her permission for "the rev.2 data" [Matrix version 2, the one Persephone and the Merv come from] to be given in this case, and that now she and the Merv are even. The Archivists, who all look exactly like those green-jacketed guys in the bookstores ( ie http://thematrixonline.station.sony..._syntax/034.jpg at http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300013211 ), only without the books stuck to their hands, are a little weird, and can't find the "rev.2" data, but their index shows another similar log entry in rev.1, "the first iteration of the Matrix." They don't have the data, but know where it is, and agree to tell, if the data is eventually returned to them for archiving. Flood doesn't sound at all sincere about returning it, but agreement at any rate is made (although a dissenting Archivist appears, calling the Merv a "destroyer of history"), and off the player goes to steal the data from the Machines at the location indicated by the Archivists (who also don't want to be given "credit" for the location information [since they're sort of on good terms with the Machines]). Flood says if this works out, he may have to re-evaluate his (low) opinion of "those moth-raisers" (the Archivists). A Machine in the area is making a geeky journal entry about his theories on how the Matrix's dust-accumulation algorithm could be improved. The rev.1 data is found on a Machine, who is trying to smuggle it out before the players find him. Too late for him. Malphas says that the recovered data describes 14 individuals run through the disconnection process at the same time in the first Matrix iteration. Suddenly the General's hologram appears, looping a message: "I repeat: I am withdrawing all units from the vicinity of the Machine city. A large number of enemy units has [ooh, should really be "have"; I'll hafta fix that for the archived version of the mission :p] launched from the emplacements surrounding the city to take up what may be either defensive or reconnaissance positions. Simultaneous with this development, my perimeter scouts began reporting unusual patrol activity, including what may be a convoy or escort formation approaching the city." End of mission. Flood says not to bother him just now.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Notes:



Machine Morph sim abilities:

- the green zap around Morpheus
- Neo's RSI



Morph sim event dialog:

Vs the General (7.3.2): http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300013678
With Machines and Gray (7.3.3): http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300013890
Morph on Morph (7.3.5): http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300014510





Merv finds record of human in city very recently

Persephone's obsession...?
Persephone misses the interface with the Real that she had in her old job at the pods, although what she would really like, now that she feels like she has used up the pleasures of the Matrix, would be to be fully alive herself in a human body. Thus she will be very interested by any hints of this kind of possibility, such as the Trinity program.




Configuring Colt:

suspicious cynic
rsimskin001
rsimface001
rsimhair001
rsimtat004
rsimbody002
rsimhead010 (MHead_9)
mclothing_shirt_a8_c7 ("Green Sleeveless T-shirt")
mclothing_pants_a14_c1 ("Derin Canvas Pants")
mclothing_shoes_a2_c1 ("Skaver Short Boots")
mclothing_gloves_a5_c1 ("Steen Threaders Gloves")
mclothing_glasses_a10_c1 ("White Emerena Sunglasses")
8819 (the bugged Harlick 464s that look like the big semi-autos)
42910 (Elmore's Automatic - big semi-auto)

Colt's scenes in the movies and EtM:


Enter the Matrix (1 scene)

- about 2/3rds of the way through


The Matrix Reloaded (1 scene)

- final scene of the movie


The Matrix Revolutions (3 scenes)

- near the beginning

- about 1/3rd of the way through, right before Morpheus and Niobe meet at the Logos crash site - chapter 9

- about halfway through, right after they've discovered that Maggie is dead and Bane is missing - chapter 13

Coroner (shifty) dialog from Merv 8.2.1:

The death rate? The question is simple, but the answer is not. City officials would tell you it's 0.7%--about half of that birth rate figure of yours...not forgetting to factor in the 0.6% infant mortality rate, of course.

But we know something else, don't we? This simulation is meant to be stable--a closed system. Deaths must equal births, or it all goes to hell. But that isn't the picture they want to show the plebs. Do you see? Hah.

I'll tell you this, though: I trust their birth numbers more than their death numbers. Much easier to hide a death than fake a birth...believe me.

----------

Foreign travel, detention facilities, retirement homes, the suburbs... There are so many ways to make the undesirable simply...disappear.

[Square brackets below surround information that will not revealed to players directly, possibly not at all, during this subchapter.]

11/15

9.1 Cinematic

A mysterious figure who will be known in this subchapter only as the "Intruder" appears at the top of Ascension Monument. His large male humanoid body consists of glowing white wireframe, with white code bits spiraling upward from his torso and limbs. He walks heavily down the monument path to the street below, where terrified pedestrians scream and run. Agents rez in, surrounding him. The Intruder raises his hand, there is a bright white flash/ripple/explosion, and the Agents fall to the ground. The Intruder stalks off into the Barrens.

The Intruder and others

When the Intruder appears in missions and events, he will be level 100 (which just happens to be the highest level player character I can make for myself). Due to the way the character is presented in the cinematic, I suspect players will suspect this is another Unlimit style affair. It isn't really, aside from the characters having new and mighty powers (which in this subchapter he will use relatively sparingly, sorta), so eh hopefully I'll be able to show that in missions and events. [And yes, more of these wireframed weirdos will show up, but not in this subchapter. They will not be innumerable hordes like Unlimit...in fact there are less than 100 of them in existence. If we do it right, each one who pops into the Matrix will be a distinct personality with their own agenda. That's getting far ahead, however.]

EPN

EPN has what I hope is a decent chunk of story for once: they will be moving into Old Zion, to fix it up as a forward base for possible strikes against Machine City--or I suppose whatever other useful things you could do from that position. Outside the shattered main dock gate they will find the remains of Roland's operator, AK, in the wreckage of the Mjolnir II. [They will find something rather more interesting, too, but not until the next subchapter.]

Cypherites

The Cypherites will learn about EPN moving in, and won't like it. They may want to do something about it. They also won't like the way the Machines are kind of playing hands-off with the Intruder (I suspect Machinists won't like it much, either, despite what the Agents may tell them).

Zion

It should be generally understood that by the start of 9.1, most of Zion's compromised veterans who survived and escaped back to Zion have had their RSI signatures updated, so that they are no longer subject to signal lock and termination by the Machines.


Crit 9.1.1

Zion: Ghost briefs the player on the weird appearance in Westview, and the Machines pulling their forces back in the Matrix and the Real, before sending them off to try to track down the mysterious intruder. Following tapped emergency calls, the player encounters a frightened bluepill talking about running into a huge guy "made out of lines, like something out of a computer," and then blacking out. Further pursuit turns up a Machine security team ("sanitize the area"), and finally a dead "Accelerated Exile" NPC, who yields some strange data that the player uploads. The operator wonders briefly if the dead Exile was the being who appeared at the monument.

Mach: Gray asks the player to find some Agents who have stopped responding. The Agents are found, dead, and Gray grudgingly admits that he needs to involve the player in the investigation of "a certain odd occurrence." The player checks in with a bluepill who made an emergency call. The bluepill says they already talked to some detectives. Whoops, Zion's been there! Gray checks, finds a line tap, and has the player take out some pesky eavesdropping Zionites. The bluepill they were questioning is kind of freaked out by all this, but manages to say something about a big neon robot type of thing with white sparks, that scared him and made him dizzy. Gray says that yes, they are tracking an unusual individual consistent with that description, sorta, and that they're highly dangerous. The player is sent to check out one more emergency call, and finds a dead "Accelerated Machine." Gray thanks the operative, and tells them that will be all for now; oh, and by the way, related to this weird intruder, we've pulled back some forces to protect "core routines." Bye.

Merv: Malphas briefs the player on a weird wire guy killing some Agents at Ascension Monument, and how the Machines are all worked up about it. The Merv hunt for the intruder begins, and the player is sent to check up on hunting blood-drinkers who seem to have run into a hitch of some sort. They're dead, with live Machines on the premises. This irritates Flood, because he's running short of responding hunt programs, and has to put the player themselves in the hunt. They come across Zionites, and a dead Accelerated Exile. The operator says "its cycle speed is off," and "there's some kind of code residue fouling up the readings." Flood says that sounds ridiculous, and that it's time to call in a data expert: Cerulean. She says the code readings are of an unfamiliar type; she'll investigate, but she wants double her usual payment. Flood is aghast.


11/15-11/21

Required Events:

Zion: Tracking the code signature, Zion finds a strange packet of data bits. They think they can use this data to help understand the Intruder's code. (Afterwards I'll return the generic Data item to the person who found it as a "Decelerator Bit." This is a single-use item that hits all enemies within 30 meters with a viral attack that causes a 25% speed debuff, and -3% to all accuracies and defenses, for 60 seconds.)

Mach: Machines catch up to the Intruder, but are counter-attacked by their own overridden "Accelerated Machine" programs.

Merv: Cerulean and operatives track the Intruder, and find that his wanderings around Westview keep looping past the Heart o' the City Hotel.


11/22

Crit 9.1.2

Zion: The player picks up a sample of the data acquired so far from the intruder. Zion technicians haven't been able to make any progress in understanding it. In that lab, a Zionite guard mentions that a buddy told him that the Machines have pulled out of (old) Zion. Tyndall sends the player to get the Auditor, first by disabling the Machine station maintaining surveillance on the Exile, then by taking out the guards where he's being held. The Auditor examines the data sample, but returns it hurriedly, saying that the code doesn't belong in the Matrix, and "this was not supposed to happen."

Mach: Gray says that the intruder shouldn't be in the Matrix, and that their presence is causing code failures: he needs to be removed, or at least restrained and isolated. Going after him with programs hasn't worked out so well, so now they're going to try a combo of operatives and programs. The player takes up the hunt for him and runs into lupines, who are evidently looking for him also. Sent to check on one (program) search team that's stopped responding, the player finds them dead, along with a frightened bluepill who describes a wave of white light that washed over the room and dropped the Machines in their tracks. Armed with redpill reinforcements from Pace, the player resumes the hunt, this time coming across hostile "Accelerated Exile" programs.

Merv: It's been decided that it's time to make the intruder's acquaintance, and show him that the Mervs are the ones for him. The player is sent in to talk to him, and he seems to be in an accommodating mood ("A tour of the city, you say? ... Why not? Impress me.") First stop is Cerulean, who tells him that she tracked him down, and that nobody beats her and the Merv at finding data (she makes it clear to the operative that she's just saying this about being super chummy with the Merv 'cause Flood's paying her to say it). The intruder finds her ghostly form interesting ("I didn't expect to find this sort of mutation"). Next stop is Malphas and Ookami; Ookami is not at all happy to be there, and Malphas talks the intruder's ear off about the Merv's superior intelligence network. The intruder is somewhat intrigued by the pair ("amusing that some of these have survived; I see the Machines aren't nearly as in-control as they would like to appear"). Last comes Hypatia, who contacted Flood wanting to meet the intruder. She's describing the benefits of the Archivist Society to the intruder, who says that maybe the Merv does know more than he'd thought, but he isn't interested in "ancient history" right now. Flood is mad that Hypatia turned the intruder off by tooting her own horn.


11/22-11/28

Required Events:

Zion: Hm... Maybe capturing some Accelerated Exiles/Machines (or their bodies, anyway ;p) to get some final code readings. Level 55+ three-chevron Accelerated NPCs have a chance of dropping "Accelerator Bits" (single-use 30 meter AOE items that give a +50% speed buff, and +3% to all accuracies and defenses (Accelerated NPCs have those buffs all the time, by the way), and immunity to Decelerate to all friendlies in range at time of use, for ten minutes), so maybe we can bring some of them in.

Mach: Machines send operatives to tackle the Intruder. He spawns a Decelerator program that pulses the Decelerate debuff effect on everyone in the area, while he beats to a pulp anyone who actually reaches him (I think I'll have him use plain ol' level 100 Self Defense, and a health regen high enough that he can't be worn down). Machines eventually try sending in high-level Agent programs, but these are terminated by Terminate shockwaves from the Intruder, who then stomps off. This "Terminate" attack affects only programs (and maybe "human" NPCs unfortunate enough to be in range, but never mind that detail :p).

Merv: Operatives rap with the Intruder and tell him how cool the Merv is.

11/29

Crit 9.1.3

Zion: Tyndall says that by examining the code samples they've come up with a hack they can use to contact the intruder directly, but that it's fairly low-level, and has to be run through a land-line. The operator wonders why it would have to be run through a Machine system like that. The player borrows the phone of a bluepill couple, but the call won't go through--Machine jamming. Roland comes up with the scheme of having the player report call in a fake encounter with the intruder, then back-tracking the responding Machine units to find the location of their security center, and hopefully, the broadcast center of the signal jamming. This works, the player takes out the jamming center, and then tries another call to the intruder--which goes through. The intruder doesn't say much over the phone, but what he seems to recognize the name "Zion," and to think that the organization "might be able to tell me ... what I want to know."

Mach: Gray says that since trying to stop the intruder directly has met with failure, they're going to concentrate on stopping Zion and EPN from getting in touch with him. The operator is frustrated by this apparent inability to deal with the intruder in their own simulation. The player takes care of some nosy EPN, a few of whom are discussing something that sounds like it could be about scouting out old Zion. This done, Gray sends the player to contact Pace at a jamming station. Pace hands over some Machine reinforcements, and also drops a little hint about negotiations that went on between the Machines and the intruder "before he entered the Matrix." The Architect and the Network are here also, standing in a room behind two sealed doors (neither Pace nor Gray mention them). Gray sends the player after Zionites who've been trying to contact the intruder via hacked phone lines, then calls on them to rescue a jamming station from a Zionite attack. This is accomplished, but it was a near thing, and Veil was there, getting one of the last kills. She isn't happy about the Machines letting the intruder stomp around the city, scaring citizens.

Merv: Concerns about Zion trying to horn in on the intruder action prompt the Merv to call in the General for a military demonstration. The Effectuator brings in five Elite Commandos, and one nonplussed regular Commando ("Yessss! No casualties!"). The player goes and finds the intruder, who looks around, then pops the Elite Commandos, who had been in the room invisibly, out of stealth ("Someone's been teaching old programs new tricks"). The player leads some of the Elites off to crack Zionite skulls while the intruder and Malphas look on; the Zionites were in the process of trying to hack a phone line to contact the intruder. The intruder is interested in the existence of the General's rogue Sentinel programs in the Real.


11/29-12/6

Required Events:

Zion: Fight past Machines/Exiles/Commandos/whatever to get to the Intruder and get his attention for some kind of meeting.

Mach: Operatives are supposed to form a wide cordon around the Intruder, and prevent Zionites (and Mervs, I guess) from reaching him. They are definitely not supposed to mess with him themselves. Maybe some will and we can make an example of them in some sort of educational but non-scarring way.

Merv: Some minor kind of setback showing the Intruder is a prickly fellow... Like he tells off the General and terminates some of his commandos, or maybe some neighborhood contact called in to help woo him gets terminated (and the Merv complains later about the expense of restoring them from backup).


12/6

Crit 9.1.4

Zion: In preparation for a meeting with the intruder, Colt and Ghost brief the player on Merv and Machine relations with the stranger: the Merv has been kissing up to him, but so far hasn't got much out of him, and the Machines, after trying to stop him directly and getting crushed, have switched over to trying to prevent Zion from contacting him. A hackable computer in the area has a message from "R" ([Roland]) relating to EPN in the old city [and no sign of Lock]. The player checks a report of Machines near the meeting site, and finds Accelerated Machines, and an Accelerator NPC (can be attacked, but it's level 100 and highly resistant (and doesn't drop anything great)). No actual unmodified Machines around, so the meeting proceeds. The intruder is interested in how the Machines were using Zion, and how Zion got out of their control; he says he wants to hear more. Niobe's glad he's been cordial, but a little concerned that he hasn't revealed anything about himself. One plus, she mentions, is that he's buying Zion time to recover from recent losses by occupying the attention of the Machines. Ghost says that although he's powerful, there's something he seems to want very badly.

Mach: Gray sends the player after some Zionites who appear to be involved in arranging a meeting between the intruder and the Zion leadership (Gray says the Machines can track the intruder "to an extent"). The operator mutters that this seems to be a losing strategy, or at best just a delaying tactic. A hacked computer has a message from "R" ([Roland--it refers very obliquely, without mentioning any names at all, to EPN in old Zion, and the search for Zion survivors/data (and Lock)]). When Gray sends the player after still *more* Zionites, the operator countermands the order, and sends the player to get some answers from the intruder himself. They find him surrounded by dead Machine programs. He's not at all interested in giving out any information about his goals, and he says the Machines won't, either, if they know what's good for them. He adds that he isn't likely to tell Zion anything. Gray admits that at least some explanation about the intruder is overdue; this comes from Pace, who says that there isn't a lot she's allowed to impart about him, since he is "inextricably linked with information that cannot be compromised without severe risk to the System"; but she does say that his presence is causing problems because the Matrix wasn't designed to support his code, and that since they can't stop him from being there, they have to try to minimize his impact on the simulation, and they must try to avoid aggravating him.

Merv: Flood says it's time to give the intruder the full-court press, and sends you to moderate over a staged meeting between the wireframed one and Persephone. The intruder seems annoyed by the confrontation with her, and, after choking something back, tells her that he "outgrew the charms of beauty long ago." She says that he does not know himself, and that "there is nothing of a young man's blood in this one's body or mind." After an interruption by Machines, and a puzzling bit of shouting by Flood to someone on the phone about moving some cakes, the player presides over a meeting between the intruder and the Chef, where, while the intruder admits that his body can taste food, he doesn't really seem interested in eating, although he makes a revealing comment about the Machines ("It's almost amusing that they saved all these...trappings of a dead culture--things they were never designed to enjoy. They'd better not be losing their sense of perspective."). Finally, Flood blows out all the stops and sends in the Jeweler, Lotus, and the Sculptress simultaneously. Although the intruder says that he doesn't have any use for "digital substitutes," he does seem to think that the Merv may be useful after all--but it's clear that it's on a "don't call me, I'll call you" level, as far as he's concerned.


12/6-12/12

Required Events:

Zion: Zionites rap with the Intruder and tell him how cool Zion is. He pumps them for as much information as he can get.

Mach: Hmm... I think something quite a bit different, as far as Machine events go anyway. Some sort of investigation of where the Intruder might have come from, despite Machine (Agent) reluctance to say anything on the subject.

Merv: Party in the Hel Club. Merv had extensive plans to entice the Intruder there, but he actually shows up with hardly any prompting, and seems particularly interested in the club itself.


12/13

Crit 9.1.5

Zion: The intruder has been pumping Colt for information, which has Tyndall a little concerned. The player finds them just as Colt is trying to explain about Morpheus' assassination, and how the Morpheus simulacrum acts differently than Morpheus did before his death. The intruder wants to see the simulacrum. Shimada calls: EPN is concerned about the intruder; some people thought he might be the next One, but his behavior hasn't shown him to be worthy of trust, and she's worried about the Morpheus simulacrum being exploited for ill purposes again. She also mentions EPN moving into the old city, and finding the wreckage of the Mjolnir II, and AK's body. She says that the city is in a good position for use as a "forward base," and that although it's vulnerable, EPN is mobile, and can get out quickly if the Machines make a serious effort to go in and get them. Tyndall echoes some of Shimada's distrust of the intruder, and hopes that he can be dissuaded from looking for the sim. The player tracks him down in a derelict area, but the intruder is quite firm about his purpose. A vagrant in the area feels ill after having caught a glimpse of the intruder. Meanwhile, Zion has found the sim. The player goes in to warn him about the intruder's curiosity, and to try to get him to skedaddle. The sim, however, seems to welcome the prospect of an opportunity to respond to the intruder's questioning with more questions, if the intruder does find him. Tyndall worries that the intruder, while he may be great at neutralizing the Machines, is following a hidden agenda.

Mach: Sent to try to do some intruder impact minimization, the player comes across dead Machines, a stunned SWAT guard ("It wasn't human... Emptied two clip... Why didn't it kill me like the others?") and a somewhat more coherent bank clerk, who describes bright flashes, and shockwaves that knocked everyone down, killing the other men there (Agents), and how the intruder laughed at him. Gray says loss of programs to the intruder is becoming a serious problem, and sends the player to check out yet another Agent team that's stopped responding: the player finds dead Agents, hostile Accelerated Machines, and an Accelerator. One of the dead Agents had a recording unit going; his recording is recovered and played back, revealing the frustrated intruder muttering to himself about something: "They must have another... A backup--something they've kept hidden... Somewhere in this small little world..." The operator raises some questions: 1) the intruder doesn't look human, but definitely acts human; what if he is? 2) where's he from? 3) what's he looking for? Gray says okay let's talk about this. In a meeting with Gray and Pace, Gray tells the player that the intruder is a freeborn human, who has not been in the Matrix before; he's kinda familiar with human history, but not with the Matrix itself--although now he's probably learning rapidly. Gray says he can't say anything more about the intruder's background. Pace says that the codes the intruder uses are direct overrides of System routines, and that the Machines can't really do anything about them while the Matrix is running, since it would require tinkering with "root functions." Gray adds that the intruder is looking for information he thinks the Machines have withheld, even though they told him they didn't have it.

Merv: Excited about finally getting the chance to show the Merv how he's tamed the intruder, a distracted Flood sends the player to check on the Exiles sent to summon the intruder: they're Accelerated and hostile. Flood is mad, and doesn't want to hear any back-talk about a possible risk to the Merovingian; he says he's got the intruder under control. Malphas isn't so sure, and gives the player some operative backup. The player arrives at the Merv/intruder meeting, where the intruder tells the Merv: a) he's surprised the Machines haven't wiped out the Merv and Zion; they're doing a bad job of things; b) he thinks the Merv seems all right, and he might have a job for him later; c) he knows the guy the Machines must have copied the Merv's face from. The Merv is horrified at this revelation. Catching up with the player afterwards, he's very angry about the intruder's attitude, and says that he'll find out who this man is, and what he's hiding--and that the secret knowledge the intruder professes to have would have to have come from somewhere outside the Matrix.


[I will probably be trying to go on break from ~ Monday Dec 15th through Monday Jan 1st, which means there would be no official Live Events during that two week period. MXO's annual Winter Holiday event should be going on during that time.]

[Square brackets below surround information that will not revealed to players directly, possibly not at all, during this subchapter.]

1/10

9.2 Cinematic

The Morpheus simulacrum stands at the edge of a windswept skyscraper rooftop. The intruder appears next to the sim and inspects it. The Architect appears a small distance behind them. The intruder turns to him, angrily calling the sim's construction "pathetic." The Architect calls the sim the work of "an amateur," telling the intruder that it isn't at all like the intruder himself. The intruder's anger increases, and he curses, saying that if he thought that was a joke, he'd have the Architect deleted. He then demands "it," and implies that the Architect knows what he's looking for. The Architect begins a smooth denial, but the intruder snorts in disgust and leaps away before he can finish.


Crit 9.2.1

Zion: The intruder is making his way into Zion bases, attempting to access the network. The player has to do some rewiring to shut off his access. He takes it in stride, playing it off with somewhat flippant conversation, but doesn't give any indication that he's going to stop doing whatever he likes. At one point, he mentions that he's never been to either old or new Zion.

Mach: While taking out some accelerated programs, the player runs into Veil, who voices discontent about the Machines not trying to stop the intruder directly. Gray says that they're trying to discuss things with the intruder, but that he isn't responding, although they can track high concentrations of his override codes. After some searching and fighting, they succeed in making their way to a large override signal, but it isn't the intruder; it's a level 100 "Decelerator" program.

Merv: The Merv sends the player digging among Machine systems for dirt they can use to ensnare the intruder, but all they come up with at two separate locations is a simple engagement protocol instructing Machines to avoid the intruder. Next they try getting something juicy from the Network's media servers, but just come up with a long list of censored reports. Finally, Flood decides that Pace is a weak link, and sends the player to apply to her as if they're an operative looking to join the Machines in order to combat the intruder. Filing past eight glaring Agents, the player gets to Pace, who says she's afraid that they don't have any openings for someone with the player's skill set--oh, and next time, they should save themselves the trouble of breaking into Machine computers. The operator says this was Flood's dumbest idea ever.


1/10-1/16

Required Events:

Zion: intruder wants info on Neo and Trinity and what they did in the Matrix

Mach: intruder doesn't want to talk, and creates loads of Decelerator programs, and a Runtime program (spawns Accelerated Machines on operatives in the area)

Merv: while schmoozing the intruder, Machines interfere; General sent to assist in repelling them; General has to cut transmission due to Sentinels closing in, intruder snidely asks why doesn't he just use some Seekers on them


1/17

Crit 9.2.2

Zion: The intruder has been seen entering the area around the Oracle's apartment, and the player is sent to keep tabs on him. After having to work past some accelerated programs, they find him in a room containing some hacked-together equipment. He says that it's the room where Neo was woken up; he says that he isn't surprised that the player didn't know what it was, since the Machines had changed it. He says he's there to take "code readings." Colt has an update: EPN is trying to get in touch. The player is sent to talk to Shimada, who says that they followed a beacon signal from a wrecked surface facility above Zion, and found Commander Lock, weak and recovering from injuries, but conscious. They're moving him down to old Zion.

Mach: Gray sends the player hunting for the large override programs, saying that they need operative help with this, since those programs have been causing very high casualty rates among Machine programs. The player hunts up some Decelerators, and then Gray sends in some Agents to help take them out. With the Decelerators out of the way, the player is able to reach the intruder, who is angry, but agrees to meet with the Machines, adding that "they'd better not try screwing me this time." After this success, the player is sent to take out some of the commando programs the General's been using in his intruder-related operations in the simulation. In the course of this, the player may locate a computer, in which someone was trying to access Machine information on "Stalingrad" before their access was cut.

Merv: The General thinks the intruder must have learned about the Seeker missiles from the Machines. He gives the player some commandos and tells them to go find out what the Machines and the intruder discussed concerning the Seekers, and the battle at Stalingrad. The search of a Machine system is cut off, and the player tries again with sneakier Elite Commandos. This time, they manage to grab a snippet of a report: "...prior to entering the System in the vicinity of Ascension Monument, subject cited alleged remote tracking of System forces to structure code-name 'Stalingrad' as the event precipitating his visit. However, it is probable that the coincidence of this occurrence with the presence of..." Flood can't imagine why the intruder would be interested in that crater.


1/17-1/23

Required Events:

Zion: w/ the intruder, visit the building where Trinity was shot falling out the window and Neo brought her back to life in the second movie--find game building that's as close a match as we can get to building in movie

Mach: meeting w/ intruder, operatives, Agent Pace; intruder initially interested in Pace, but she realizes this, acts more typical emotionless Agenty, he loses interest; he wants to meet w/ Architect, Pace agrees to make inquiries

Merv: brainstorm session w/ Merv & General, trying to figure what significance Stalingrad battle could have had for intruder; decide probably presence of Sati in Real


1/24

Crit 9.2.3

Zion: A message comes through from Lock, who says that he must have been knocked out in the explosion in the command center at the beginning of the Machine/Cypherite assault on Zion. He woke up in a wrecked surface lab: Mauser had brought him there, and nursed him until Sentinels came. Mauser had a lightning gun, and tried to lead them away from Lock; he succeeded, but it cost him his life. Suddenly the intruder appears next to the player, and wants to know about the lightning gun; he seems surprised that Zionites had weapons capable of fighting Sentinels. Colt, who's been there all along, says that Mauser would have been more than a match for a single Sentinel with his lightning gun, and that Neo didn't even need a gun; he could just wave his hands to destroy Sentinels. Hearing this, the intruder suddenly becomes outraged, saying "They WERE lying!" Tyndall reports a sudden outbreak of accelerated programs across the city. With reinforcements from Ghost, the player takes out some of the programs, although a debuffing "Decelerator" program makes this difficult. The player reports to Niobe, who has just had to fight off some accelerated programs herself. She says that the intruder has flipped out, and they don't know why, but they've got to try to calm him down.

Mach: Accelerated programs are causing so much havoc among Machine systems that they even disrupt the usual "get backup from Agent Pace" bit, and she fights beside the player against the accelerated programs who took out the intended backup. The player has to go on without backup, and finds a pack of dead Elite Commandos, then an Accelerator program that has overridden some Elite Commandos, buffing them up so that they're more dangerous than ever.

Merv: Flood sends the player to sound the intruder out about the Sati theory, but he's suddenly nowhere to be found, and there are hostile accelerated programs everywhere. Flood decides to go ahead and try to nab Sati ("if the General could do it..."), sending the player to a Mara apartment where she has supposedly gone to meet a playmate; inside the apartment, though, a bluepill couple say that the kids just went out (they then threaten to call the police). Flood says not to worry, he just got a hot tip that Sati's in a building nearby. The player goes there and finds not Sati but Seraph, who says: "Take this message to the Frenchman: she will not be found while the Oracle lives, nor before you have returned what you took from me."


1/24-1/30

Required Events:

Zion: find intruder and try to chill him out; when asked why he's mad, who "they" were, what the "lying" was about, or whatever, he becomes incensed and fights the operatives

Mach: swarms of Accelerators, Decelerators, and Runtimes across the city

Merv: get to intruder, tell him about Sati, he questions General, suggests some way to access her program data from General's surviving logs or servers

1/31

Crit 9.2.4

Zion: After fighting off more accelerated programs, the player finds the intruder, who tells them to stay the hell out of his way. He adds that he's got "fish to fry," and that he doesn't like being lied to. Colt calls the player in to talk to the Kid, who has details on the facility where they found Lock. Sentinel claws and lasers had breached the structure. Inside, they found Mauser's fingerprints, and traces of blood confirmed to match Mauser's, but they haven't found his body. They didn't find any dead Sentinels in the area, but there were lightning gun scorch marks everywhere. Whatever equipment had been in the lab was completely wrecked. Tyndall has the player try capturing Sentinel activity logs that might cover their encounter with Mauser, but although they're able to steal such logs from a Machine facility, the data contains no record of Sentinel activity at that surface lab in the past several months.

Mach: The player is sent to investigate why a group of Agents, held in reserve for counter-attacks against override threats picked out by operatives, have stopped responding. The player finds all five of them dead. Then another pack of Agents turns up dead, and Gray is worried. Data retrieved from one of them is analyzed, and a program devised to counter the threat. During this analysis, scientists allude to core routines being rewritten to protect them from the intruder's override codes. The player locates the problem, a "Terminator" program, and uses the counter program to take it out.

Merv: The General sets up one of his own commandos to be captured by the Machines, so that they can track where the Machines take the program, in the hope that the Machines will store him alongside other data previously captured from the General. The player breaks in and runs a search, but doesn't find anything there about Sati. The General thinks the Machines have probably deleted the data as too sensitive, and figures that the best course now is to go present the matter to the intruder, who seems to have calmed down a bit since the previous week's rampage. The player finds the intruder standing with a Terminator program among piles of dead Machines. The intruder asks for more detail about Sati, and, after "She was taken into the outer world by the General... That was the only time? And did she have a body there, or..." says that she couldn't be what he's after, which is a "biological interface program," and that if the Merv can get him one of those, he'll make him king of the Matrix.


1/31-2/6

Required Events:

Zion: players find intruder fighting Bookwyrms; gets to Hypatia, demands "biological interface program," when she says she doesn't have a program like that, he terminates her; intruder disconsolate, says something about being trapped

Mach: operatives find intruder; Gray shows up to ask what he wants; intruder terminates him; Pace shows up, offers meeting w/ Architect; intruder doesn't terminate her [Gray will be restored by the System in time for the next crit, yay!]

Merv: show BIP possibility to intruder: Beirn; not what intruder's after


2/7

Crit 9.2.5

Zion: The player is sent to look for anything they can find on a "biological interface program" at Wright Research, since mechanical-to-biological interfaces were one of Wright's specialties. After some breaking and entering, the player makes their way to Wright Research "Building 27," a heavily guarded area where they keep their really important new research, but they don't find any sign of a true breakthrough in interface technology there. The intruder's been a little less savage, so the player goes to see if they can get more details on what he's after. The intruder isn't surprised that nothing useful was found at Wright Research, saying "if a human could have written it, I'd have had it by now." He refuses to say anything more about it, saying "the less you know, the better."

Mach: Hypatia was restored by her support programs after her termination, but is still infected by override codes, and must be terminated properly. The player fights past her Bookwyrm guards and takes out Accelerated Hypatia. Then it's off to notify the intruder that it's meeting time. He warns that they'd better not try lying to him again. At a pre-meeting briefing, a wounded Gray (still recovering from the 9.2.4 event) admits that the Machines "misled" the intruder before he entered the Matrix, because they wanted to keep him out of the simulation. That didn't work, so now they're going to have to tell him the truth, in the hopes that this will convince him to leave. At the meeting, the intruder demands a "biological interface program" from the Architect, saying that he knows it exists. The Architect confirms this, but says that the Machines did not create it, and the only remaining copy was removed from the System--the one the intruder himself had detected outside the simulation before he entered the Matrix. This brings the intruder up short, but he's clearly not happy with this state of affairs. Gray hopes that this meeting will lead the intruder to leave the simulation in pursuit of the interface program.

Merv: Going to talk with the Merv, the player finds the Twins arguing about who the intruder will "off" next (Architect vs Pace). Malphas has a theory that the intruder asked the Machines for this "biological interface program" before he entered the Matrix, and they put him off somehow. The Merv is determined to find this program before anyone else, and sends the player to go talk to his wife, who he says "interfaced" with humans at the pods, back when she served the System. Persephone, however, says she was just a "caretaker" there; any control she had over the humans was indirect, whereas what the intruder wants is immediate control that will allow him to change who he is, because he hates what he has become. Flood sends the player on plan B, which is seeing if the reconstructed Silver, who worked on interface programs with Wright (and gave information about it to the Machines, for which he was killed for the Merv by Sieges, whose name is mentioned here), has anything that would help. Silver says that what he worked on with Wright was just complex data conduits, although she had wild ideas of her own about "control transfer." Anyway, all his data on his work with Wright was confiscated by the Machines. Finally, Flood sends the player to ask the intruder for more information on this program he wants, but the intruder, surrounded by dead N30 AG3NTs, says 1) Persephone/Silver's work is nothing like what he wants, 2) the program's got to be here somewhere, 3) "if only HE hadn't taken the other one...," 4) the player knows as much as the intruder needs them to know.

[Square brackets below surround information that will not revealed to players directly, possibly not at all, during this subchapter.]

2/25 [was pushed back from 2/21, although a brief leak of the cinematic occurred on that day]

9.3 Cinematic

A second wireframed man appears, taunting the intruder. From their conversation it is clear that they are familiar with each other, that the newcomer has followed the intruder to see what he's up to, and that they are in competition with each other. In fact, they fight, until the intruder decides that the other is only trying to distract him, and leaves. An Agent is seen observing the scene and reporting.


Notes

[This second wireframed man is named Carlyne. He will tell players that the intruder's name is Halborn, and the intruder will appear with that name throughout this subchapter. 9.2 was tricky because sometimes an org was supposed to be nice with Halborn, but once we get up to around 9.3.2-3ish, there will pretty much always be one or the other that they can fight, and hopefully other orgs they can go fight too.]



Crit 9.3.1

Zion: Tyndall and Colt inform the player of the appearance of a second wireframed man, his fight with the intruder, and an outbreak of more override programs. The player takes care of them, and then locates the intruder, who has a Terminator in the middle of a bunch of dead Accelerated Exiles, and tells the player that the newcomer is Carlyne, his own name is Halborn, that they've known each other a long time, and that Carlyne is a practiced liar. At a debrief, Niobe is concerned that Carlyne will distract Halborn from keeping the Machines busy, and that the two of them together could cause problems as well. She also indicates that she isn't in any hurry to trust Carlyne.

Mach: Gray sends the player to check out the new wireframed guy, saying not to attack him; finding him, at least, will be easy, since he hasn't even tried to hide himself from Machine scans. The player fights past a few Accelerated Exiles to find Carlyne (and some friendly Accelerated Exiles). Carlyne apologizes for the hostile programs, saying he thought the player might have been "like those others." He's pleased to find the player works for the Machines, saying they're just the people he wants to see, and asks for a meeting, saying he can help with a mutual problem. Gray says he'll see about the arrangements, and sends the player to get more info from Agent Pace. Pace says Carlyne is "a human from outside the pod system," like Halborn, and probably has access to the same override codes that Halborn does. She says they fought in Westview, and it's important that they find out if Carlyne is going to be cooperative, in contrast to his opponent. A computer in the area is tracking something along coordinates [that would be valid in Westview, if not elsewhere]. Gray meets Carlyne; Carlyne says he wants to "eliminate Halborn as a problem here," but that "we both know better" than to believe Carlyne is acting out of altruism alone. Talking things over afterwards, Gray says Carlyne means the intruder when he says "Halborn," and claims to have known him for a long time. Gray voices concerns about Carlyne potentially being as big a threat to the System as Halborn (when he was leaving the meeting in Halborn's presence, Gray acted fully satisfied with Carlyne's claim of being there just to help the Machines against Halborn). Pace says that they'd hoped the last meeting with the Architect would have persuaded Halborn to leave the Matrix, but that he's turned out to be very stubborn and unreasonable. She's afraid that as he keeps failing to find the program he wants, he'll get more and more desperate, and eventually have another anti-Machine freakout. An Agent patrolling the halls is mulling something about Agent Griffin and "the Murphey case" (dunno what, exactly; just wanted to throw in a mention).

Merv: Flood sends the player to ask the intruder about this second guy. After going through some Headless NPCs buffed by an Accelerator, they find him--still named "Intruder"--and some dead Machine redpills. He says he's busy, but agrees to meet the Merv, as long as it's something good. The intruder shows up at the meeting as "Halborn," and says the other one's named Carlyne, and that he must be after the same thing Halborn wants--that kind of snatch-and-grab tactic is typical of him. The Merv promises to help just as much as he can. Malphas, outside the meeting room with the Twins, says that it will be tricky to stay on good terms with both of them, but Carlyne, at least, is easy to locate. The player finds Carlyne searching for something on a computer (he's cleared the search just as the player enters), and Carlyne is delighted with the prospect of meeting the famous Merovingian. The Merv and the Twins appear in the outer room, and the player brings Carlyne to him. The Merv is charming, and assures Carlyne he wants to help him against Halborn. Carlyne says this is the beginning of a wonderful partnership.


2/25-2/27

Required Events:

Zion: meeting w/ Carlyne - admits he may be somewhat interested in what Halborn is after, but his first objective is to stop Halborn

Mach: meeting w/ Carlyne - tells players that Halborn wants the BIP because his own body in the Real is long since dead

Merv: meeting w/ Halborn - Halborn figures out that if the Machines were telling the truth about not having made the BIP themselves, and that the only one was taken, then he needs to find out who made it, and have them make him another one


2/28

Crit 9.3.2

Zion: (Assumed to come chronologically just after the Machine crit.) Tyndall is worried when Halborn shows up and starts pumping Colt for information on the Oracle. Colt plays dumb, frustrating Halborn, who says he'll just go find her on his own, and that Zion should stay out of his way. Halborn takes off, and following override use reports, the player finds overridden programs, a dead female bluepill, and a live male one who describes what sounds like Halborn demanding information about the Oracle. Ghost says they haven't found a connection between the dead woman and the Oracle, and they don't know if the intruder is striking randomly or following some kind of information trail. He also says that Zion has been trying to reach the Oracle without success. Carlyne has contacted Zion, though, so the player goes to meet him. Carlyne is polite and outgoing, and says that although he isn't very swift, with the overrides he has, Halborn is more than a match for any Machine-created program, even the Oracle. Carlyne says he can stop Halborn, and that he wants to help Zion save her, adding that he's known Halborn a long time, and that they probably have a few days before they really have to start worrying about him reaching the Oracle, during which time Carlyne will study the "lay of the land."

Mach: Gray sends the player after an override outbreak, and they find Accelerated Machines, as well as hostile Zionites. Gray didn't know who override those programs, and sends the player after another signal, which could be either Halborn or Carlyne. Gray mentions that both of them have met, separately, with Zion, but that they're still believed to be non-hostile to the Machines. The player finds Halborn among Accelerated Machines, and a dead "Red Eye" Agent--one of the General's old programs. Halborn bluntly says he wants to talk to "your boss' boss," implying that he'd wanted the Machines to track him down there so he could deliver this demand. Gray goes to see about it while the player goes after more override signals, coming across Carlyne, and a confused bluepill. Carlyne is surprised, but in a chipper mood, saying he's tracking down Halborn, and asks if the player has seen him. Gray says to say "no." Carlyne says ah, too bad. The player goes to see Gray, who says Halborn's probably asking for this meeting because he needs help with Carlyne, which gives the Machines a chance to get him to do what they want, before ushering them into a room containing Pace, the Architect, and Halborn. Halborn demands to know who made "it"; the Architect replies that "the program's author is known as the Oracle." This surprises Halborn a little, but seems to jibe with some things he remembers Zionites "jabbering" about. Gray thinks its likely that Halborn will go after the Oracle now, and says that Zion and EPN may try to stop him.

Merv: (Assumed to come chronologically just after the Machine crit.) Flood sends the player to check on some Exiles that may have been overridden, and the player finds a pile of dead Accelerated Exiles and Machines. The operator says there's no sign of forced entry, and says there are recently spend shell casings in there, and bullet and claw wounds on the bodies: were they fighting each other? Flood doesn't really care if they were from Carlyne or Halborn or both; he's just annoyed at the loss of their programs. He sends the player to help the survivors of an Exile pack that's been mostly overridden. One survivor says it was Halborn, and he was about to get them, too, but he suddenly stopped and ran off. Scans find Halborn nearby. He's about to tell the player to go away, but then stops and asks what they know about the Oracle. A meeting with the Merv is arranged; the player doesn't catch all the assumed dialog between the two, but Halborn now knows about the Oracle centering her activity around Debir Court, and it's implied that the Merv has provided him with other information about her as well. Flood says whatever happens in a Halborn/Oracle meeting, they'll make work in their favor.


2/28-3/5

Required Events:

Zion: Zion tries getting a warning to the Oracle, and are surprised when they can't get ahold of her. They do get Seraph, though, and he tells them that the Oracle suspected something like this would happen.

Mach: It won't be quite clear yet to players how the Machines feel about Halborn going after the Oracle. But they send operatives to try to locate her. They can't find her, but they do find strange code bits in her trademark intuitive style: she's got something in the oven, and it isn't just cookies.

Merv: The Merv again assures Carlyne that he's all for taking Halborn out, and that he's only pretending to help Halborn in order to get through his defenses, and "proves it" by leading Carlyne to some of Halborn's programs, which Carlyne helps terminate.


3/6

Crit 9.3.3

Zion: The player is dispatched to counter Halborn's program overrides in Mara, where Halborn has started looking for the Oracle. They come across Blackwoods and Accelerated programs, alive and dead, and Carlyne, who says that he thinks Halborn will get frustrated and give up this attack if they can keep eliminating his programs. He adds that Halborn's been avoiding him, and that he's been getting some "interference" from non-Zion operatives. The player comes across Machinists fighting (or as close as I can make it look like they've been fighting) Accelerated Machines. Tyndall sends the player to assist a Zion team that's just been taken out, and they find Halborn, who reminds them that he said to stay out of his way. He says she may have snuck off somewhere, but it doesn't matter, he'll find her.

Mach: Gray says that the sooner Halborn finds the Oracle and either gets his program, or gets confirmation that she doesn't have it, the soon he'll leave the Matrix. Pace gives the player some redpill backup for going after Zionites who are trying to stop Halborn, and who are probably working with Carlyne. The player finds dead Accelerated Machines, a dead bluepill, and hostile Zionites. Gray reports that Halborn has been detected in the vicinity of Mara, as have hostile operatives, but there's no sign of the Oracle or Carlyne. The player comes across Zionites fighting their way to Halborn. Halborn tells the player to get lost. Finally, the player searches another area for reported hostile redpills, only to find the Oracle, who makes a joking surrender, apologizes for the misdirection, and promises that it's almost over; she says that if all this trouble is about her, maybe it's better if she's "removed from the picture." Seraph appears just then, looking imposing. The player has to leave; meanwhile, the operator's been struggling with it, but eventually decides he has no choice but to report that they've found the Oracle. Gray says that it isn't feasible to arrest her just now (he's mentioned earlier in the mission that they can't send programs into the Mara area, what with Carlyne and Halborn firing off overrides all over the place), but that they've got to do what they can do speed up Halborn getting to her, which mostly comes down to keeping Zion, and especially Carlyne, off of him. He says they'll report the Oracle sighting to Halborn "as soon as possible." [That comment, and his halfhearted congratulations on "the...promptness" of the operator/player's report, are intentionally ambiguous.]

Merv: Halborn isn't doing too well at finding the Oracle, so Flood sends the player to dig her up in Richland/Westview. Following some allegedly expensive leads, the player comes across 1) a pack of EPN swarming over a irrecoverably toasted computer, 2) two creepy Agents who have just arrested whoever the player was looking for, for involvement in a terrorist conspiracy, and 3) a dead bluepill contact surrounded by Accelerated Machines. Zionites and then Cypherites attack the player out-of-doors at various points. Finally, just as they find four Exiles (a Crusher, a Death Merchant, a female Hel Club Groupie, and a male Hel Club Guard) discussing something about "Ruhamah" sending a "signal," and "the sim," Carlyne pops in with a Terminator that strikes the four dead. He says he's suspected what the player's been up to for a while, but it's nice to have proof, and that they can tell the Merv that since he's clearly backing Halborn, he can consider their brunch date cancelled. Flood says they should've been working with Carlyne instead of that dummy Halborn.


3/6-3/12

Required Events:

Zion: Just some good old-fashioned fighting in Slums here, with override programs and either a hostile Halborn or assisting Carlyne involved.

Mach: Ditto, only the other way around for Halborn/Carlyne. (Summary: right now Zion <3 Carlyne, Merv & Mach <3 Halborn)

Merv: It seems like this would be a good time to let the Merv players run across the Oracle. We'll have to manage it in such a way that it's clear they can't take her out themselves, and have to settle for talking to her. Should probably do it somewhere exotic, where she isn't usually found, and where she could change the rules to be in control, like white hallways or a white room or Sakura or something. Ah, and we could do something like have Seraph whack any players who actually try to get her. Or Carlyne could show up and make things difficult for them. Anyway, she'll tell whoever survives that they will soon find something that is very important, but it will backfire on them if they try to use it selfishly.

3/13

Crit 9.3.4

Zion: In Richland or Westview, the player is sent to talk to Carlyne, who asks that he be contacted when the player runs across Halborn, since Halborn is putting more effort into avoiding Carlyne than he is into avoiding operatives. The player faces some Accelerated Machines backed up by a Decelerator while Tyndall gets Roland's permission to tip off Carlyne if they come across Halborn. And then they do find Halborn, who tells them very bluntly to get out, at which point he goes hostile and will counter-attack if attacked by the player; he's invulnerable here, and can't actually be hurt. Carlyne is tipped off, and moves to intercept Halborn. Tyndall starts encountering scan disruptions, and send the player in to report on what's happening. The player finds Carlyne and Halborn facing off in an under-construction interior, but they have to bail when the operator says that surges in his scan readings are starting to blow out their hovercraft's systems. Tyndall says that their scan routines are down across the entire sector now.

Mach: Halborn still hasn't managed to find the Oracle, and has called the Machines for a meeting in Richland/Westview to discuss it. He demands that the Machines tell him where she is. The Architect says that they've already given him all the information they have, and that her unpredictability was an intentional design choice necessary in order to maintain human genetic variety at acceptable levels. Halborn is ticked, calls the Architect/Machines incompetent, and says he knew all that already. Pace is there as well (no Gray), and orders the player to leave the area and stand by for immediate deployment. Gray sends the player to check up on what Halborn's gone off to do after the meeting. When they catch up to him, Halborn has just dispatched some Zionites and an EPN, complains that "your masters don't have the balls for this," and says well fine, forget them, he'll handle it himself. He adds that he means to have it out with the Architect after taking care of this current situation. Gray doesn't sound thrilled to hear that, but still has to send the player to keep Zionites (mingled with dead/wounded Accelerated Machines) off Halborn's tail. Then they pick up Carlyne, heading to intercept Halborn; interference is causing problems, and Gray sends the player in to investigate first-hand. They find Halborn and Carlyne facing off in an under-construction interior, but have to leave when feedback starts blowing out their operator's systems. The follow-up message from Gray is almost entirely garbled, but seems to be ordering the player to evacuate the area.

Merv: Flood sends the player to find Halborn in Richland/Westview so that they can come up with a working plan of action for him, since he still hasn't managed to find the Oracle, and is getting distracted by Carlyne. Some Accelerator-buffed Zionites get in the way, as does an EPN ambush, but Halborn is found, and is in a bad mood, saying the info the Merv gave him hasn't helped, and the Mervs don't stand a chance against Carlyne anyway; but he agrees to meet. The General and Malphas are waiting for Halborn to show for the strategic planning session, but it's crashed by Zionites. Afterwards, Malphas says that they'd spotted the intruder heading for the meeting, but then his signal changed course; maybe he was worried about the Zionites reporting his position to Carlyne. Flood thinks Halborn is silly for getting scared off by Zionites. The player is sent after him, and finds him and Carlyne facing off in an under-construction area, just before the player has to bail when override feedback starts to scramble their operator's systems. Flood says this "override radiation" is scrambling scans across the entire region.


3/13-3/19

Required Events:

Zion: (EPN) The Oracle meets with Shimada, giving her part of an encrypted program, and telling her to watch over Sati

Mach: (CYPH) The Oracle meets with Veil, giving her part of an encrypted program, and telling her to watch over Sati

Merv: Mervs wade through override programs in the Slums to find Halborn wounded and woozy. They pick him up and take him back to the Merv.


3/20

Crit 9.3.5

Zion: Ghost has some reports about Halborn surviving with the Merv's help, and the Oracle contacting EPN to give them some kind of encrypted program, and possibly making contact with Veil as well. Carlyne gets in touch to say that he's all right, and that Halborn only got away because the simulation started to break down around them. He says that he's heard the Frenchman's got him, but that will just make it easier to find him and finish him off. Tyndall's next instructions are cut off mid-sentence, and the player has to follow their mission marker with no instructions, only to find the Oracle at the end of it, just as the operator is cut off, too. The Oracle apologizes for crossing a few wires to get a chance to talk, but then realizes that she can't say what she wants to say yet. She thinks she's made the "right choice," though, and says the player will "do just fine." She adds that she doesn't know if they'll see each other again. Tyndall comes back online, and sends the player to report to Niobe. Niobe's annoyed that the Oracle's pulling strings yet again, and says that they've still at least got to try to secure her before Halborn reaches her.

Mach: Gray sends the player to clean up code overrides swamping Richland (and Westview, I guess) in the aftermath of the clash between Halborn and Carlyne; overrides are still screwing with Machine scans of the area, but Gray says they should assume that both survived, until they have proof to the contrary. The player encounters loads of Accelerated Machines and Exiles, accelerated Furies gang members, and a dead bluepill. Then Gray sends them after some code that appears somehow to have escaped any kind of damage from the override wave that covered Richland. They find a weirded-out bluepill (keeps saying "I'm fine," also mentions something about "she") in an apartment, and the mystery undamaged code in the form of Frags tucked in a desk. They take these off to Pace and some technicians in a lab (new variant Pace RSI: wearing a white lab coat and shirt--and no, I won't use this RSI in an event prior to this crit). The code in the frags is found to be similar to the Oracle-made stuff found earlier (Mach 9.3.2 event), and, put together, it's enough for them to establish that it's left over code from the process of writing a kill code. Pace is uneasy when she hears about this. A technician in the area mentions that they're having trouble re-writing core routines to protect against override codes (a tech earlier in chapter 9 mentioned they were starting work on this). Gray says they've suspected for a few months now that the Oracle's been up to some kind of plot with Exiles, and if a termination code is involved, this plot could be more dangerous than they'd thought. He's describing news from "our Cypherite sources" about the Oracle giving them some kind of encrypted code, and is in the middle of saying that the Cypherites haven't delivered a formal report on the incident, when he suddenly excuses himself, coming back to say that he's just received a report of Halborn and Carlyne meeting Merovingian operatives. He says that locating the two is the top priority.

Merv: The player is sent to visit Halborn at a Merv hideout in Midian Park (or Eshean/Lemone if Midian Park mission areas are full), and tell him that he's got to stick around at a certain spot as bait so they can get Carlyne out of his way. The wounded and impatient Halborn agrees in his usual surly manner, obviously concerned that Carlyne will find him if he stays there too long. Flood sends the player to meet Carlyne in Mara, to get his attention. Carlyne knows the Mervs have Halborn, and tells the player to run along back to Halborn. Flood sends the player to Kedemoth to check on Halborn, saying that the plan won't work if he moves early and makes it obvious to Carlyne that the "artificial override signal we're generating nearby" is a fake. The player finds him in his requisite bait position. He's made some hostile Accelerated Exiles to protect himself, but kills them with a Terminator once the player talks to him. He mutters about being able to "feel" the "old woman" nearby. Flood hurries the player off to another Kedemoth location, where they find Carlyne. When they talk to him, four "Special Agents" appear and order him to come with them for questioning, but when the player talks to them, it's clear that these are disguised Merv operatives. Carlyne is momentarily fooled, and about to dispatch them, or so he thinks, with override codes. Flood says this distraction has got Halborn past Carlyne [on his way to Mara to get the Oracle], although Flood is darned if he knows why Halborn thinks he'll succeed this time. [Like a lot of things so far with Halborn's "search" for the program, I don't really spell that out, but just leave it implied that he has ways of obtaining information, although obviously this information isn't always reliable.]

[Square brackets below surround information that will not be revealed to players directly, possibly not at all, during this subchapter.]

On 4/2, Halborn found the Oracle waiting for him in Debir Court. She refused to help him get the program he wanted, and he killed her, then left. Carlyne arrived minutes later, saw the dead Oracle, and snorted in disgust before jumping away.


4/3

Crit 10.1.1

Zion: After taking out some Accelerated programs with Colt, the player encounters Carlyne, who says that he's working on a more direct means of getting rid of Halborn, and that since Halborn has decided to stay in the Matrix, the Machines probably won't be helping him (Halborn) out anymore.

Mach: Gray and Pace say it's time to set up a meeting with Halborn, and ask him to leave the Matrix. The player has to get through some nasty accelerated programs, but finds Halborn, and he gruffly agrees that he'll come along, since he wants to fill the Machines in on something, anyway. In a meeting with Pace, Halborn insists that he won't leave without the program, but he says that he's figured out what he needs to do, although he hadn't wanted to have to deal with it (he doesn't specify). Pace says he'll have to be watched very carefully.

Merv: Flood thinks it's time to review what's been going on, and has the player face off against EPN, Cypherites, and Accelerated Exiles, keeping up a running commentary of his own along the way. He's questioning why the Oracle would have given apparently important codes to EPN and the Cypherites, and points out that she did this--and according to the Machines was working on a kill-code--after the intruders came around and it was revealed that she was the one who wrote the program they're so interested in. The mission ends with Flood haranguing the player in person, saying that this has all been some sort of plan arranged by the Oracle, and it's something to do with the program, or with the intruders.


4/3-4/9

Required Events:

Zion: Halborn ambushes Carlyne, tries to ram a trace program through his RSI, but Carlyne rescued by Zion

Mach: tea with the Architect and a small group of operatives in the Oracle's apartment, and musing upon the current situation

Merv: Merv looks for Seraph, Sati, and the Morpheus simulacrum, but finds they've vanished, apparently without a trace (confrontation with Lo Ruhamah?)


4/10

Crit 10.1.2

Zion: Carlyne theorizes that Halborn is determined to get rid of him so he can stay in the Matrix long-term, and to do it by attacking him in his hovercraft; this was what Carlyne was planning to do to Halborn, in fact, but he hasn't been able to get a fix on Halborn's ship; Carlyne adds that Halborn runs off outside resources, and thus needs to maintain a ship near the Machine city as a relay point, but it's more difficult to locate his ship in the Real than it is to find his code signal in the Matrix. Shimada has a new message from Commander Lock, in which he says that he's close to fully recovered, and looking forward to some kind of arrangement being made for transferring him to New Zion in a few weeks. Just then Tyndall gets in touch to say that one of Zion's broadcast control clusters in the Matrix is under attack. Shimada loans a few EPN, and the player finds the place overrun by accelerated programs; one of the survivors says it was Halborn, trying to access their computers; they think they got their network connections shut down before he could get anything, but they aren't sure. Niobe says it's time to put Halborn on ice; she thinks he might have been trying to get hovercraft positions, or crack their broadcast protocol.

Mach: Carlyne meets with Pace, and says that once Halborn's been removed, he'll see to it that "the [secret name zetas] restrict his access." He adds that "Nobody wants the simulation to have operating difficulties." Pace tells the player that they'll monitor the situation, but that it seems like it's being handled, so they can concentrate on other things that had been put on the back burner. The player is sent to get a report from Veil on the encrypted file the Oracle gave her. Veil says they haven't been able to decrypt it, and that the Oracle told her it could be dangerous to lose it, so she's going to keep it safe outside of the Matrix (ie, she doesn't intend to hand it over). She suggests checking up on EPN and their own encrypted file. Gray is annoyed. Nevertheless, he considers the EPN side, and figures that they're probably keeping their file outside of the Matrix as well: either on a hovercraft, or inside old Zion. To test this, he has the player plant a fake message on an EPN network, of Shimada saying that their Oracle file's been stolen from their hovercraft. Then the player eavesdrops on some EPN reading the message, and they're clearly surprised that the message says the file was on a hovercraft, so Gray concludes they're probably keeping it in old Zion.

Merv: Thinking Halborn may be more forthcoming about the program now that his back's against the wall, Flood sends the player to find him. First they come across Zionites and an Accelerator. The Accelerator is friendly to the player. An access card is found on one of the Zionites, and it's traced back to an apartment, which the player ransacks, and finds some data that turns out to be Zion intelligence reports about a search for Halborn that Zion is conducting. Correlating Zion's findings with their own, Halborn is located, in his usual foul mood. He agrees to meet the Merv, but when asked for info on the program, says there's no way he can give out any more info about it with Carlyne around trying to use anything he can against him. He says he'll have to take Carlyne down, and he knows how to do it, but he has to find Carlyne's ship. He says Carlyne isn't so smart; the only reason Carlyne got "the jump on me in the first place" was because "he was just 800 miles away from here"; later he adds impatiently that this was northwest. The Merv promises Halborn that they'll leave it to him to deal with Carlyne and his ship, but is clearly interested in the "800 miles" remark.


4/10-4/16

Required Events:

Zion: Carlyne wants to try on Halborn what Halborn tried on him--operatives tackle Halborn, but when Carlyne scans him, he finds that Halborn's already running an advanced counter to the trace routine; lots of overrides spawned by Halborn to try to free himself, maybe a little scuffle between the two, who knows

Mach: Small Sentinel attack on EPN hovercraft and old Zion coordinated with attack on the EPN crew in the Matrix: Machines determine that EPN has reinforced Zion's defenses, but does not maintain a central mainframe there; this would, for instance, mean that capturing data stored in the city would require at least either an extremely skilled spy, or a full assault on the city

Merv: steal map data of the area 800 miles NW of the Machine city from the Machines: unmarked area


4/17

Crit 10.1.3

Zion: Niobe asks Carlyne for more information on their ships. He says he's only caught a glimpse of Halborn's once, not long before Halborn appeared in the Matrix, and it looked roughly similar to his own, except built heavier for firepower over speed. He describes his own ship as having "the advantage of a streamlined unibody construction whose dark composite surface provides superior protection against kinetic and electro-magnetic weapons, and detection. The repulsion units are internal rather than external, and capable of quite a bit more velocity and altitude than your own. The overall profile is smaller, and much more maneuverable." All he'll say about the weapons systems is warning Zion they'll need to be prepared to face "multiple intelligent missiles simultaneously." He also sends them a detailed external schematic of his own craft (not actually shown). Zion wants confirmation from another source, though, so they blackmail one of the General's veteran commando officers (who's involved in some sort of relationship with a female Hel Club Guard) into giving them the address to a network entry point for a Machine real-world surveillance database. The database is raided, and in the data they loot from it, Zion finds records of a ship matching the description of Halborn's, that approached the Machine city a few weeks before Halborn appeared in the Matrix. Ghost says this will probably be enough evidence for Roland to go ahead and formulate plans for tracking down the ship. The data also contained a reference to a record of a ship matching Carlyne's, located in a two-year-old data archive, which seems to suggest that Carlyne visited the city two or more years ago.

Mach: Hunting down the topographic data the Merv stole, the player runs into Halborn, who wipes out the computers the player was using to hunt down the data, and demands a meeting with the Machines. Pace tells Halborn to go look up the Cypherites if he wants to find Carlyne's ship, because "our own ability to give out such information is restricted." She tells the player to tell Veil to treat Halborn "as he deserves." Gray instructs the player not to mention Cryptos to Halborn, because they'd prefer that Halborn deal with Veil. Veil says they'll take good care of him, and that they have plenty of places to take him; she also invites the player along. Halborn is skeptical.

Merv: The player picks up a copy of the stolen Machine topographic data from Malphas (the Twins are puzzling over the "[secret name zetas]" term one of them came across in Machine intel reports--see Mach 10.1.2), who says that it's almost as though the Machines have an information blackout in effect around that area 800 miles NW. The Merv wonders if the Machines themselves avoid the area, and tells the player to take the data to the General. The player hands the data to a commando, who patches the General's hologram through; the General says that the area is a no-fly zone, and even Machine Sentinels won't be allowed there. He says to tell the Merv that he'll be leaving right away, and to make the necessary arrangements. Flood says they'll have to disrupt Sentinel systems in order for the General to get on his way without being caught. Using data from the General, the player goes after a Machine terminal, but can't get anywhere with it; the General's hologram beams in and says that the Machines have changed the interface to foil his intel, but he and his men can get updated data by capturing a Machine Sentinel. (A hackable computer in this Machine area has some details about EPN's upgrades and repairs to old Zion; the Machines would have got this info in the Mach 10.1.3 event:

Fortification analysis:
- High EMP mine density in approach tunnels
- EMP mines placed in bedrock around main dock
- Dock hull repaired and reinforced
- Dock gun turrets replaced and supplemented
- Infantry strength unknown
)
New coordinates are supplied by the General, and this time the Mervs find a machine they can hijack to disrupt some of the Machine Sentinels for the General. Flood says the General is on his way to the blackout zone.

4/17-4/23

Required Events:

Zion: Zion ship that was following signal possibly corresponding to Halborn's ship configuration has stopped responding; crew member jacks in to say their ship is crippled and being pursued by Halborn; Zion uses the message relay they'd set up with Halborn before to send him an emergency message saying they have the program he wants; he jacks in and they have to keep him distracted somehow while the crippled ship gets away (some kind of time limit, maybe); also, it looks like Halborn may have been hoping to exploit the crippled ship in order to access New Zion somehow

Mach: Cyph operation to steal info on the Lock ship transfer from EPN or Zion; Veil gives info to Halborn

Merv: Sentinel activity is a little heavier than anticipated (most had been recalled since Halborn appeared in the Matrix), and the Merv wants their systems bothered again to buy the General additional time: disrupting a computer system, or something like that, or even creating some sort of distraction for the Sentinels


Also: Hovercraft battle (after Mach and Merv events)

Following the coordinate data given him by Veil, Halborn finds only the EPN/Zion convoy taking Lock to New Zion. Cyphs come along to make a battle of it and blow Halborn's cover, may bring Machines. Hovercraft battle to determine where Lock ends up:
a) Cyph win (EPN/Zion beaten and Cyphs have more ships left than Machines): Lock is on the run with EPN/Zion survivors somewhere in the tunnels between old and new Zion
b) EPN win (Cyphs/Machs beaten and EPN have more ships left than Zion): EPN takes Lock back to Zion until they can be sure of getting to New Zion safely
c) Mach win (EPN/Zion beaten and Machines have more ships left than Cyphs): Machines capture Lock
d) Zion win (Cyphs/Mach beaten and Zion has more ships than EPN): Lock is taken to New Zion


4/24

Crit 10.1.4

Zion: A Zion hovercraft is tailing a ship that might be Halborn's, found skulking not too far from the spot of the hovercraft battle over Lock (see above). Colt has the player go get Carlyne, since he might have some ideas of how this lone ship can handle Halborn. The player finds Carlyne in the midst of some dead accelerated programs. He says if they can scan a "certain spectrum band" at close range, they could get some useful information about Halborn's Matrix broadcast frequency, and he suggests they try luring Halborn in by landing and activating their emergency beacon, to make it look like they're disabled, since Halborn may be trying to capture a Zion craft (see previous Zion event). The ship reaches broadcast depth and one crew member jacks in; they're given Carlyne's information, and their captain decides to go for it; they aren't sure he's still near, as he isn't showing up on radar, but they're getting "some weird lidar scatter." The player escorts the crew member to Carlyne and Ghost. As they get there, the crew member says they're starting the scan, but then they suddenly seem scared, and drop dead. Carlyne is concerned about the scan, but relieved to find they did get some data back before the scan was terminated. He says he'll be able to use it to finalize a new program he's been working on, that Halborn won't have a counter to. He adds his regrets about the lost crew, and his surprise that Halborn attacked them, but it may sound a little insincere. Ghost says they have other ships on their way to the scene, but he doesn't expect they'll get there before Halborn has made himself scarce.

Mach: Halborn is ticked off about being led into the Zion/EPN hovercraft by the Cypherites, and demands to see the Machines again. The player meets Pace, as if there's going to be another meeting between her and Halborn, but she says that Halborn won't be coming, because there's no point in him asking them for the location of Carlyne's ship again. She adds that fortunately, an outlet for his anger has "been arranged." Override programs are popping up at Cypherite installations, and the player finds some Cyphs who say Halborn tore through their place, and chased off the rest of the Cyphs there. They go along with the player to this other Cypherite location, where there are a bunch of override programs, dead Cypherites, and Halborn, who's still mad, and says they're being manipulated (it isn't clear if he is thinking the player is a Machine or a Cypherite here) by someone who knows all about the program.

Merv: The General's latest progress update hasn't come through, and the player is sent to find out what the holdup is. They find the commando communication squad dead, and their Merv-net computer locked out. Flood says that the Machines are on the player's tail now, probably over the whole Sentinel system hacking thing, and grudgingly shows the player a spot they can hide out for a while. This doesn't work, and the player is ambushed repeatedly by Machines. Flood sends the player to a spot where they've seen one of Halborn's Accelerators; some Machines get too close and get accelerated (friendly); the player finishes off the rest. The player reports to the Merv, who admits that Halborn has had his uses, but those have run out, and they can consider their business with him at an end. Persephone is there, and comments that Halborn is just another of the people the Merv has used up and spit out over the centuries--people who were willing to sell their souls to try to get what they wanted.


4/24-4/30

Required Events:

Zion: Carlyne confronts Halborn, Zionite hits him with Carlyne-given program, Halborn crumples lifeless to the ground shortly thereafter

Mach: (Before Zion event) Machines warn Halborn that his ship has probably been compromised, suggest that he leave, as his security cannot be guaranteed; he's ticked; Pace/Gray hyperjumps away

Merv: (After Zion event) Mervs sent to see what Carlyne intends to do now; after getting past some of this programs, they (I guess the only Merv character I could take along would be Beirn, since the others would be vulnerable to overrides) ask him what's up, he says he's leaving, Mervs get orders to try to convince him to stay (how, I dunno--I wouldn't want to repeat some of the stuff already tried by the Merv on Halborn in the previous subchapters, though); ultimately this doesn't work, Carlyne's still determined to leave


5/1

Crit 10.1.5

Zion: Carlyne thanks Zion, and says he's leaving the Matrix now that his job of removing Halborn is done. He adds that he doesn't think Halborn's dead, but his ship has been disabled, so he can't jack in. Maybe he could given time, but Carlyne will be taking steps to make sure that doesn't happen, which--he says--is another reason he's got to dash off. Tyndall says some overrides are still cropping up, and send the player to one site, but all they find there are a couple embarrassed bluepills. They try another spot, and find accelerated programs, but dead ones, and some Machines show up and chase them off (or at least put up a good fight--a level 100 spawns after the first normal Machine is killed). Niobe says she's glad Halborn and Carlyne are out of the picture, but the Machines showing up around those dead overrides is probably a sign that they're stepping their activity back up now that the intruders are gone, and that Zion has had time to get prepared (New Zion finished and so forth), but it's going to be tough facing the full force of the Machines again.

Mach: Sent to investigate possible lingering override programs, the player finds that Carlyne's already killed them. Carlyne says he's leaving the Matrix, as he'd promised to do once Halborn was removed. He says he hopes there are no hard feelings over the times they ended up on opposite sides. Gray calls the player in to discuss priorities in light of Carlyne's departure. Gray says that with the intruders gone, they'll be able to deploy their Sentinels and Agents in full strength again, and take on the terrorists. Pace names EPN and the Merv as recent offenders who need to be dealt with. The player is sent back out to finish scrubbing up override codes, and finds some Merv operatives who've lured Machines into an override field where they got accelerated, and then Cypherites examining dead accelerated programs with Cryptos, who says that he thinks the overrides were tapping into something fundamental in the simulation, that's not likely to go away just because the intruders are leaving. He says that he wasn't vulnerable to overrides, despite being partly Machine code himself, so he's going to try coding something to resist override programs, using his own operating code as a starting point.

Merv: The General beams a slightly choppy holographic broadcast through to say that he's reached the blackout area, and they found a heavily fortified facility, whose defenses they couldn't penetrate. Nearby they found a data conduit that wasn't as heavily defended, and they've managed to tap into it, but the protocols are unusual, only partly matching Machine formats. He sends a sample along. Flood has the player hack into a Sentinel system to look for some kind of match, but they don't find anything. The Effectuator pops in to say that they'll have to go way deeper, since this is something nobody they know has seen before. He gives the player a couple dire lupine defenders, and the player tries a heavily secured Machine database the Merv hasn't been able to access before. After getting past a lot of Machines and ambushes, the player gets matching data from the site and uploads it. (A hackable computer at this Machine site has text systematically describing how [Halborn] found himself in a position to be scanned by Zion twice, and says information from the scans was probably used against him.) It's beamed to the General, who tries using it to work his way through the strange data protocols. The player has to fight off Machines to get to the comm terminal where the General's data feed is coming in, and it looks like he's found some kind of massive network: the "[secret name zeta] Network," but that's about all that's returned before his session is terminated.

[Square brackets below surround information that will not be revealed to players directly, possibly not at all, during this subchapter.]



5/15

Chapter image: Mauser at a telephone in Tabor Park


Crit 10.2.1

Zion: While investigating an increase in network glitches, and finding a computer that checks out clean, although a Machine operative was encountered nearby, the player is called in to talk to Colt, who tells them that his old crewmate (he's later called "head mechanic" and "a highly skilled technician") Mauser, supposedly killed by Sentinels after rescuing Lock from the Machine attack on Zion, has been seen in the Matrix--this is doubly strange, since Mauser didn't have jacks. (A Zionite guard here talks about the successful hovercraft battle and Lock's return.) A bit of fruitless searching for him is done based off the initial sighting reports and "disconnected blips at public hardlines," but these are fruitless until his picture comes up on an ID scanner at a nearby internet café. But by the time the player gets there, Mauser is gone, and the security guard confirms he didn't stay very long. A staff member is puzzled that someone managed to wipe the secured cache on one of the terminals.

Mach: The player is going around messing with Zionites who've gotten a little slack with their security after all these months of the Machines playing it cool while the intruders were around. This spree includes beating up Zionites, disabling their computers, and interrupting an awakening procedure right after the bluepill swallowed the red pill. Finally they get to a surprisingly large pack of Zionites headed by Niobe, who says that Zion isn't just going to roll over for the Machines.

Merv: The General tries to get in contact from the no-fly zone, but his signal is too weak. Malphas introduces a scheme for using the humans in pods dotted around the Earth's surface as a wide array broadcast method for reaching the General by taking advantage of the signal generation capability of electroencephalographic (EEG) wiring and human bodies. All operatives have to do is go around shaking hands with bluepills to fire Malphas' program back into their pods. This goes on for a while with various reactions from the bluepills encountered, some of the later ones reacting a little suspiciously (sort of Machine-like, you could say). In the end the signal generated just isn't powerful enough to get anything to or from the General, giving Flood an opportunity to go on about the weakness of the human mind and body.


5/15-5/21

Required Events:

Zion: [Zion only] Colt leads a hunt for Mauser that has operatives spread out to cover every hardline in the city; Mauser is spotted and pursued, but when Colt catches up to him, Mauser makes no sign of recognizing him, and vanishes through an uncharted line (some non-hardline phone or other somewhere in the city)

Mach: Hm, maybe we could swipe some juicy Zion info on what Lock's been talking to the Council about since he got back (this would be something just read off, and would illustrate that the Council isn't too hot to kick Roland out of the Commander position just because Lock's back)

Merv: The Merv tries getting a crew to establish a broadcast relay to the General in the Real, but although the coordination and setup goes well, and a connection is established, the crew is brutally slaughtered by Sentinels who find their position. Ouch!


5/22

Crit 10.2.2

Zion: The line Mauser escaped through is found to be part of a pre-Truce restricted access Zion network, whose documentation was mostly lost when the Machines zapped Zion's old mainframe. Old operatives like Colt and Roland know a little bit about some of the network, but while Zion can track down some of the old phone terminals, they can't navigate through them--how Mauser is doing it is a mystery. The player's operator tries mapping some of the network by sending tracking packets through it, which works to a certain extent, although they also run into some Machines along the way, and a few puzzled bluepills who say they haven't received a phone bill in years. After these false starts, though, they come across Mauser, standing next to yet another phone. He calmly says he's doing what he can do win the war; he adds that the Machines will be there soon [not actually :p], and he's prepared to leave through the restricted line he's just "spliced."

Mach: The player works with police to check into possible Mauser activity, finding some computers with their access logs wiped (and a dead Night Watchman at one location), and fingerprints. This leads to a bank that just reported a break-in. No money was taken, but a computer was tampered with. There was an attempt to delete the access log, but it was preserved by the bank's backup system. The log is analyzed, and Gray reports that it shows the user connected to a remote system using network tunneling and an unknown, encrypted connection protocol. Gray adds that the way the perp is skipping around indicates that he isn't travelling by usual means. The Machines still aren't sure if this is actually Mauser, but by the end of the mission Gray says they're giving him that designation, at least temporarily.

Merv: The Merovingian wants to investigate using the power generated by the storm to help contact the General somehow. (The Twins are here discussing Lock's transfer to New Zion.) Flood has the player borrow a bluepill phone and call "the popular radio meteorological call-in show, 'Rainy Day Dan,'" to see if there's an easy answer. The ebullient host says he doesn't know of a way lightning would help, but a temperature inversion, that can happen in storms, has the possibility of causing a phenomenon called "tropospheric ducting" capable of boosting radio signal range significantly. Flood thinks this sounds simple and sends the player to ask commandos for details about the storm. They talk about various things like avoiding lightning, the slow process of atmospheric oxygen decay, and the human "Operation Dark Storm" that started the storm, although they have no idea how the humans actually did it, and suggest that maybe the Machines don't even know how it worked, or else they'd have stopped it already. Flood says that isn't much to go on, and sends the player to try to get anything on Operation Dark Storm that Zion might have. They dig up an old newspaper article from about a week before the operation was kicked off (the government is releasing some info to the public about what to expect, it will be perfectly safe and temporary, victory is assured, free flashlights for everyone in the mean time, etc), but that's about it. Flood says if the atmosphere is still relatively similar to the pre-storm atmosphere, they'll just have to have some of the General's Sentinels try various time-tested cloud seeding techniques such as dispersing silver iodide, dry ice, salt mixtures, and so forth.


5/22-5/28

Required Events:

Zion: Could be hectic, but I was thinking of trying a contest where we say that we're trying to track Mauser bouncing around hidden lines, so we have players split into mission teams and find non-hardline exterior phones in the city within a certain time limit. The team leader would have to be at the phone, they /tell an LO, the LO gives me their name, I teleport to their location (invisible), drop a smoke cloud ("message cloud") on the phone to mark it, and an LO keeping score tallies one point for that team. We'd probably have a backlog of reports at first, but eventually I think it would slow down as players would be spreading farther and farther afield to find unmarked phones. Might need a backup plan if we couldn't keep up with the reports.

Mach: Machine crack-down on hardlines in Downtown; maybe something like putting small pvp zones up on various hardlines, and having Machinists try to defend a Mechanic there while he operates on the line, if it's successful, a platoon of level 255 Agents pops out and surrounds the hardline

Merv: I want to dwell on the Dark Storm thing a little while we're on the topic. Mervs follow up some of the leads they found in the previous mission and find an old program, who looks like a Zero One robot (he might have to be extracted and instantiated or something first), and talks about the old times when the humans created the storm.


5/29

Crit 10.2.3

Zion: Colt provides a program that will shut down part of the restricted access network--Zion still can't utilize the lines, and they're concerned that the Machines may have captured data on the system from the old Zion mainframe. Colt is confused by Mauser's behavior, and thinks "something happened out there with him and Lock." The player shuts the network section down without trouble, and goes to investigate a new line found from the terminal they accessed. They find a bluepill office, with a restricted line in a back room. A clerk says they aren't supposed to use it. Another clerk, however, whispers "it's about time they sent someone," and gives the player an access code for the phone. A locked desk in the area contains a filefolder that the operator says holds a handwritten note saying "Your contact's name is Soren. any changes to your standing orders will come from him." This phone leads to another, but when the player reaches it, they find a Decelerator program, which has scrambled the line. Machine redpills appear at the scene as well. Tyndall says they thought the override programs had been removed weeks ago.

Mach: The Machines have found some data on the old restricted hardline network among the mainframe data captured from old Zion, and start using it to investigate the network. They run smack into Zionites, and a line with strange protocols. The Machines realize they don't have the necessary information to be able to use the network, and Zion seems to know things about it that they don't, so they decide to concentrate on following Zion instead. They find a Zionite questioning bluepills about strange accesses on what the office workers describe as "some kind of old dial-up data line" that they don't really use anymore. Snooping that Zionite's comm tips the Machines off to the location of a Zionite team who thinks they're closing in on Mauser. The player ambushes the team, and the Machines scan the restricted line at their location. This picks up traces of an unusual broadcast signal, and a match at another phone terminal on the restricted network. The player meets Pace there, and she says that Mauser wasn't around, but they got a better reading of the broadcast signal, and were able to determine that it's coming from the vicinity of old Zion. Pace thinks it could be Mauser's signal.

Merv: The tropospheric ducting is working (and the storm seeding worked better than expected, kicking up a pretty heavy tempest), so the player is sent to find unencrypted Machine data of the type the General is encountering in the Oligarch Network, to help the General decrypt it or navigate through it or whatnot. The mainframe they're sent to capture turns out to be in the form of a female office clerk, who seems pretty surprised. The Machines try to stop them, but the player clubs her over the head and drags her off to have her brain downloaded by Merv technicians. The data flow looks good, so the player goes to check with the General to see how he's doing, but the conversation with his holographic broadcast is broken off when his forces are hit by what he calls "incoming missiles." Flood says that the data from the captured mainframe just got cut off. The player finds the mainframe, technician, and Exile guards dead. Flood takes solace in the thought that the General might be dead, too.


5/29-6/4

Required Events:

Zion: Pursuit of Mauser through a few remaining uncharted hardlines (I could teleport players from one phone to another, then they chase Mauser to another phone, where he teleports again--then we'd have to hack the line to find the phone he went to--maybe we could ask players to load hacker and do Write Code at the line, which would reduce the time) ends when he spawns a Runtime and vanishes into a phone near the Hel Club

Mach: Operation against EPN crews/computers to help Sentinels triangulate the Mauser transmission source near old Zion; they're close to pinpointing it when disabled security routines on the EPN systems suddenly reactivate and cut the trace; the reactivated security routines resist Machine efforts to crack--but we should find some way to show that EPN themselves are surprised by the security routines kicking back on

Merv: The seeded, intensified Dark Storm is still allowing communication with the General and his surviving men. Players help a commando program upload into a restored Sentinel, and protect his RSI while he uses it to scavenge flight recorders from other Sentinels that were taken out by the missile barrage--maybe these spawn in as dead Sentinels in the city, and players have to go track down the body and "loot" it somehow, fighting off Machines; anyway, when the data is added up, it's found that a few of the Sentinels had recorded long-range readings that fit the profile of the ship type Carlyne and Halborn used

6/5

Crit 10.2.4

Zion: Following the line Mauser had escaped through near the Hel Club, the player finds an Exile, who says they can help, if the player makes sure that a computer nearby is put offline. Tyndall says they may as well give it a shot, and the player disables a computer owned by some Dire Lupines, but when they go back to meet the mysterious Exile (a Nightmare), they find him dead, with a dead Machine next to him, and some ticked-off Exiles. The player manages to find a phone there that turns out to be another of the restricted lines. This one leads to a bunch of Exiles, and Flood, who says that the player is trespassing in the Merv's domain. Tyndall is concerned that Mauser might be walking into a Merovingian trap.

Mach: The Machines go after EPN systems in the Matrix, to capture the scan information that they weren't able to capture in the Real. They get to the right EPN computer, but it reports a strange error when trying to connect to EPN's systems on the surface. Pace shows off a sim of an EPN talking about Mauser's rescue and defense of Lock after the Machine attack on Zion. She points out that although Lock said Mauser was killed by Sentinels, no Machine Sentinels are known to have encountered Mauser, and also, Lock didn't say he'd actually seen it: he'd only heard it from the safe spot where Mauser had hidden him. She says it's important to identity Lock's rescue location and check the place out for themselves, since it had to do with Mauser's last reported location in the Real. The Machines have the player assassinate a well-known user of internet black markets, and log into one with his account. A brief browse turns up someone selling what they claim is hard data on the rescue operation. The player meets the seller's courier and makes the buy. Gray says the data looks legit, and they identify the wrecked facility Lock was hidden in as Danielle Wright's lab, where she was killed by Sentinels shortly before the Machines wiped out old Zion. Gray says that Mauser may be able to do some of the things he's been doing by taking utilizing technology salvaged from the lab. The Machines modify their surface search to cover the area between the lab and the rough area to which they'd tracked his signal previously.

Merv: An attempt to contact the General doesn't even get off the ground, and the commando says that they can't raise him at all after they received reports of a second missile strike. Flood thinks the General is faking it. He also says that someone has stolen the topographic data on the no-fly zone; the General has a separate copy, but of course they can't reach him. The player is sent to investigate the crime and finds three dire lupines around the victimized computer, who say that its only them lupines who are there, and they haven't smelled anyone else around. Flood sends the player to check on a call they just got from some of their people nearby about a suspicious character, and the player finds dead Exiles and a phone. The General's hologram beams in and says he'll send along his copy of the data. This is used to track down the stolen version, and they find a dire lupine, who doesn't talk much like a lupine, standing next to a phone. The lupine says the data's been uploaded, and to thank the Frenchman for making it easy to get the data, because it would've been harder to go through the Machines. Then the lupine falls over dead. Flood says he's pretty sure that was Mauser, and now he's really crossed the line by stealing from the Merv.


6/5-6/11

Required Events:

Zion: Zionites looking for Mauser pursue reports of a hyper-jumping, bald, muscular black male skulking around abandoned buildings in Westview. They find Joshua Maston, who says it wasn't Mauser, but the Morpheus simulacrum, who has returned to the simulation.

Mach: Fallout from the Merv's cloud seeding is causing increased lightning storm activity in the area being searched for Mauser, making Sentinel and hovercraft activity in the area impossible. This would take a significant amount of preliminary work, but I was thinking we have some of the Machinists "on foot" in the Real. We'd give out URLs to web-hosted images containing their visual transmissions from the surface--a first-person "photo" view. Each would have a few visual reference points the team could choose to go to--a distant ledge, or ruined structure, etc. Machinists not on the team could help advise the others. Maybe there could be some random chance of one of the team being incapacitated by a lightning strike each "turn" (searching a location would also take a turn--similar to old text adventures, basically). If they don't waste too much time exploring dead ends (or if they just get lucky on lightning strike chances) they'll find a discarded Zion lightning gun on a small ledge just below the rim of a massive canyon. Wind is whipping through the chasm, preventing descent, but the Machines think they'll be able to get a shielded scanning system trucked out there.

Merv: Ookami's tracking the thief Mauser and runs into interference from Zionites led by Colt. Hm... We could do phone-hopping, too, although Ookami can't hardline so she'd have to be recalled, or just hoof it. Eventually they find Mauser just as he's jacking out in Creston Heights.


6/12

Crit 10.2.5

Zion: Niobe says they need to figure out who's been over there in Westview. Colt adds some details/rumors about Mauser possibly leaving, and the Machines hunting close to where Lock was found. Tyndall sends the player to check an old sim haunt in Gracy Heights, where they find some semi-hostile Crushers, and a disconnected phone from "an old coppertop network." The operator pulls up some old utility records, and they follow the network to a switchbox in Guinness Lake, where they find Cypherites outside a locked door. The door mysteriously unlocks as soon as the Cypherites are disposed of, the operator reports a burst of network activity as the player steps through the doorway, and in the next room they find a computer with a very cryptic message [it is in fact an extremely vague puzzle whose solution will come along in Zion 10.3.1]. Tyndall has the player go meet with Shimada, who describes a strange find made by EPN. They'd detected a blip heading north from a deep tunnel location around old Zion. It got out of range before they could follow, but backtracking along its path, they found a recently vacated area at the end of an old maintenance tunnel, covered with pieces from Sentinels and hovercraft, some badly damaged. One of the hovercraft terminals was still functional, and contained encrypted data, although the encryption is a familiar type, so they expect to be able to crack it eventually. She adds that the blip wasn't larger than a mid-sized hovercraft, and was moving at roughly hovercraft cruising speed, only they weren't able to catch up to it before it moved out of range, because of twists in the tunnel system.

Mach: Thanks to having narrowed down the search area, the Machines are able to pick up Mauser's broadcast. The player fights off Zionites and tracks Mauser through a phone hop. They find him alone, cut the line of the phone next to him, and start scanning his RSI to lock the signal, but Gray reports a problem with the scan, and orders the player to report to the operations room to have a diagnostic run on them. They get there just as the Morpheus Signal (static-covered version of Morpheus that the Morpheus sim used to try to fool Zion back during the Red Sky) pops in, disrupting the scan operation, which results in the loss of Mauser's signal. The Machines try to find it again, but can't detect it. Gray says that the coincidence of the involvement of four parties who have all been pro-Zion (Mauser, the Morpheus sim, Danielle Wright, the Oracle) in recent illicit activities could point to a larger threat. Pace says Mauser had surprise on his side, but they'll get him if he jacks in again.

Merv: The General, on his way back from the no-fly zone, finishes transmitting the data he pulled out of the Oligarch network line. Analysis of the data finds that part of it consists of data packets carrying traditional 1999 human network headers. Another technician mentions that the Oligarch data is extremely complex, and could take years to understand. The headers are tracked to a "private corporate provider," and upon investigation with some Ookami-provided werewolf reinforcements, the player finds [secret stuff y].






[cryptic message x] = Follow her eyes in the dark binary of the golden prime.

Follow her eyes
golden prime
binary nights
Reference to Tennyson poem, "argent-lidded eyes" -> Argent Biometrics and then Wright Research in 10.3.

[secret location y] = The Ouroboros Corporation

RSI pills for mauser (also going to need two RSIs: t-shirt, and later black long coat version):

rsimbody003
rsimskin010
rsimhair001
rsimhaircolor001
rsimface001
rsimfacecolor001
rsimtat001
rsimhead013
anniv08tshirtmwhite
1101 (mclothing_pants a10_c1) - gray barrelhead cargo pants
mclothing_shoes_a3_c1
emglasses_a6_c2_1 - enhanced brown sector sunglasses
 and later:
mclothing_coat_a6_c1 - brown jayne collarless half-duster
 probably skip the hat:
mclothing_hat_a5_c1


(level 50 char)


Ouroboros:

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/...061#36300351996

Yasamuu pointed out that Ouroboros was reported as buying MetaCortex (that was in the Sentinel, during the lead up to the first anniversary with Decius Wadsworth, Blue Sky, and all that: http://mxoresource.com/sentinel/033006/ ) which is sort of annoying because I don't see any point in reducing the already small number of our in-game corporations. I'd like Ouroboros to be independent so I can do stuff with them without involving MetaCortex. When asked, the tour guide responded that Ouroboros has no affiliation with MetaCortex. I suppose if I have to go into it at some point I'll put in something somewhere about the two going their separate ways at some point after Wadsworth's mysterious disappearance.

founded in 1953--"researchers and investors"


Security:

- silver and black
- long shotguns
- personal firewall and hyper-deflect
- tattoo?


tropospheric ducting references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_...ves#Propagation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_...pospheric_modes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropos...spheric_ducting

[Square brackets below surround information that will not be revealed to players directly, possibly not at all, during this subchapter.]

[Abbreviations (just for summary convenience--don't use this as terminology with players):

OG: Oligarchy/Oligarchs
OR: Ouroboros Corporation
WR: Wright Research
PA: Pendhurst-Amaranth


Ouroboros Corporation

The only thing I've really done with Ouroboros before the 10.2.5 Merv crit (in which Mervs run into silver-and-black SWAT-style, shotgun-wielding "Ouroboros Security" NPCs) was this live event

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300018389

in chapter 8. If I need some Ouroboros employees for LE's I'd probably just dress a normal RSI similarly to the Tour Guide from that LE: pink dress shirt, black striped pants, that sun or heart or whichever it was tattoo, leggings, and black pumps for women, and a red dress shirt, plain black slacks, and black formal shoes for men.

In that event, the Tour Guide said they were founded in 1953 by "forward thinking researchers and investors." During the old Blue Sky event for MXO's first anniversary, one of Paul's Sentinel articles said that Ouroboros had bought Metacortex, but the Tour Guide said here that the companies weren't related, and I'm not really interested in having them stuck together, so if the question does come up at some point I'll just have to say that Metacortex regained their independence.

Ouroboros specializes in the manufacture of electronic devices. Their corporate culture is famously secretive and clannish, with internal divisions who rarely share information between each other. Their headquarters is a marked skyscraper in Creston Heights (Binary Boy is standing in their plaza).


Wright Research

Aside from the background legal wrangling, Wright Research doesn't feature all that largely in this subchapter. Zion gets a very vague hint from P-A's Brenda Utley that she--Utley is supposedly a bluepill--may know about dead WR founder's Danielle Wright's redpill past.

Danielle was a pre-Truce Zion operative/scientist, specializing in network interfaces, developing most notably the emergency jack-out system, just after the Truce was made. Danielle became disillusioned with Zion's leadership at that point, and went off on her own, using her skills and abilities to make herself a life inside the Matrix as founder of what became a successful R&D company, Wright Research. More recently, Zion approached her to help them revamp the red pill program, which the Machines had compromised shortly after the war restarted (chapter 8.2). Wright completed the work, not seeming all that pleased about Zion, but was then killed by the Machines, who used her hidden connection to Zion's mainframe to help destroy the old city.

Since Danielle's death, it has more or less been business as usual for her company, although there are mentions (an Ouroboros worker says something in a late Merv crit in this subchapter, for instance, and there was one somewhere in an earlier subchapter, I think) that Wright Research hasn't done anything new or interesting lately; still, they continue to be regarded as one of the foremost tech think-tanks. Their corporate headquarters is a skyscraper in Vauxton, marked on the game map.


Pendhurst-Amaranth

Brenda Utley was a PR rep at mega-consumer-products corporation P-A back in chapter 5.3, when she contacted Zion, approaching them through their coppertop "private investigator" front, about weird security problems at the company. This turned out to be attacks by Niobe's ex-controller, Anome, and Utley worked with Zion to get rid of his Unlimit goons through chapter 6.2, when the day was won, and she was promoted to a position on P-A's board of directors. At the current time, chapter 10.3, she has worked her way up to chairwoman of the board.

P-A's corporate HQ is a campus of large buildings, marked on the Hampton Green map.


- Hm, I didn't think of it in time for this update, but I should have made generic missions that would open interior floors inside Ouroboros and Pendhurst-Amaranth, like I did for Wright Research back around chapter 6. I do have old test missions that can probably get interior access at those company headquarters now, but they're full of debug text, can be finished prematurely by talking to an inappropriately placed test NPC inside, and so forth--not what I'd like to use if I can avoid it. I'll have to get decent missions in (not 'til 11.1 I suppose).


Because of the detailed interaction with specific agencies in this subchapter, most of the Zion/EPN & Machine/CYPH events are pre-assigned to just one of the two groups in each pair.]



6/26

[Release pushed back a day or so from the 26th due to build issues.]

Ouroboros tour guide Judie Lahler in uniform in front of the Ouroboros sculpture in their HQ's plaza, with watchful Ouroboros security on either side.


Crit 10.3.1

Zion: Niobe sends players to find out if the cryptic message found in 10.2.5 ("Follow her eyes in the dark binary of the golden prime") means anything. The player searches the simulation's internet, and comes across some information that makes them think it could have something to do with the Camon Heights Exile, Silver. Silver has apparently gone into hiding already, so they go on to check out Wright Research, since Silver had previously worked with Danielle Wright. Talking to an employee there, the player is told that an internal bulletin alerted Wright workers to a break-in attempt several weeks ago by a man closely matching Mauser's description.

Mach: Gray send the player to ambush an EPN team that is supposedly searching for the Morpheus sim; The player doesn't find the sim, but they do find an EPN mention of the "blip" EPN reported to Zion in 10.2.5. Gray mentions that they'd heard of the EPN report, and that the EPN reading was supposed to have been taken just after Mauser's last known appearance in the Matrix, several weeks ago. Mauser hasn't been located in the Real, either. Next, the player is sent to rescue a mechanic program charged with shutting down part of the old Zion restricted line network. The player saves the mechanic from some Zionites. Gray says that Zion and their new city is of course still the main problem, and with the intruders gone they'd like to get back to work on destroying the new city, but the darn storm is making those arrangements--Sentinel movements in particular--much more difficult than they'd normally be. The player asks a bluepill meteorologist for their "intuitive" analysis of the storm (they tell the meteorologist the data they're showing him is a hypothetical scenario), and the meteorologist says that they think the storm will last for a while, and is probably going to get worse before it gets better. Gray says that in light of not being able to find the sim, storm problems, etc, the best course of action at present is to put a stop to the Frenchman's shenanigans (breaking into the no-fly zone and so forth).

Merv: The player is sent to spy on an OR network manager, and at his office overhears talk of a party some of the employees are holding at one of their apartments. The party is duly crashed, and the manager kidnapped, although if they're looking carefully, the player may notice that one drunk clerk at the party is level 5. The player delivers the manager to Ookami and some assistants for rigorous questioning. That done, Flood has the player check up on the clerk from the party, and they find him reporting to a Cypherite that "they're after Ouroboros."


6/26-7/2

Required Events:

Zion: (EPN only) EPN decrypt the data retrieved from the maintenance tunnel site, and find it's a copy of the same topographic data on the no-fly zone that the Merv stole from the Machines. Decrypting it might require busting some Machine (or less likely, Merv) skulls. The conclusion is that EPN decide to send hovercraft of their own to that area, to see what's going on. [They'll arrive in 11.1.]

Mach: (CYPH only) Cyphs sneak past some Mervs, capture OG data feeding into OR (see also Merv event details)

Merv: (after Mach event) Merv counter-attacks Cyphs, confronts Cryptos about the Cyphs who've been around his OR activity lately, and Cryptos explains felt he needed the data to advance the research he's doing for creating a counter to override codes


7/3

Crit 10.3.2

Zion: The player breaks into the Wright facility where Mauser is supposed to have broken in weeks earlier, but they find only an alarm-rigged computer and security guards waiting for them. Just then Pendhurst-Amaranth chairwoman Brenda Utley gets in touch, after making the player go through some hoops to make sure no Wright spies are on their tail (officially, P-A deals with Zion as if Zion is a firm of private investigators--actually more like mercenaries, but that doesn't sound as civilized). Meeting in secret, Utley tells the player that Wright Research is threatening to sue Pendhurst-Amaranth, alleging that P-A hired a hacker, Mauser, to steal data from Wright Research, and basing that connection off of known ties between Mauser and Zion, and P-A and Zion (Zion worked with P-A back during the Unlimit affair, when Anome tried to take over the corporation). Utley adds that WR's Mauser story is only an excuse: Wright Research thinks she possesses damaging information about their company [she drops what *could* be taken as a hint that WR thinks Utley knows something about Danielle Wright's redpill activities].

Mach: The player is in the process of roughing up some Exiles for info on the Merv when Veil calls and invites them to come see Cryptos, who has "news." Gray says that the Cyphs have been conducting their own investigation of the Merv. Cryptos says that the Mervs are after info inside the Ouroboros Corporation that the Merv believes to be related to the intruders; Cryptos says he doesn't want someone like the Merv, who doesn't really care about human lives except as power/pleasure sources, getting their hands on something like that. Pace briefs the player on Ouroboros, and marches them off with reinforcements. They find Mervs attacking an Ouroboros building. Gray directs them to eliminate the Mervs, without hurting any surviving Ouroboros guards. He says that Ouroboros had failed to notify the authorities of the attack.

Merv: Using info Ookami got out of the OR network manager, the player, after difficulty with a server that suddenly went out while they were trying to hack it, and some hostile OR security (not to mention their snotty office workers), gets their hands on a bunch of OR network passwords. They're about to put these to use at another OR terminal, when they're rudely interrupted by Machines. They try again, but this time Pace is there to greet them, with two Agents by her side. She warns them that they'd better cease their activity at the Ouroboros Corporation.


7/3-7/9

Required Events:

Zion: (Zion only) WR vs PA pre-courtroom hearing w/ court-appointed mediator; small Zion group backs Utley & PA against WR's claim of PA/Zion involvement in the break-in (hm...I suppose I might dual-client to handle the WR rep and the mediator)

Mach: (Machines only) machinists chasing Mervs also run into OR security; Agent appears and calls machinists off; Gray explains to the Machinists that the Machines have been aware OR was a front set up by the OG, and that now it is causing a problem in the Matrix, but the Machines cannot risk attacking OR directly, lest the OG be notified about it and bring more overrides into the Matrix

Merv: Mervs posing as Agents go into OR and confiscate some data, but are stopped by OR security who "pull rank" and tell the disguised Mervs that their "Federal jurisdiction" doesn't apply inside OR