7/10

Crit 10.3.3

Zion: Utley says that P-A is getting a little too much legal heat from Wright, and asks Niobe to look for clues on Mauser at Ouroboros instead. Niobe isn't happy about it, but it isn't as though the Wright thing was going great for Zion so far anyway. An aide to Utley mentions that since the whole Wright case hinges on Mauser, and the Machines probably don't want a lot of facts about Mauser coming to light, there's a good chance that Wright will have a hard time putting their case through anyway. The player goes to meet an informant of Utley's at Ouroboros, who tells them he's heard rumors of a security incident about four weeks about at Ouroboros. He directs them to a female Ouroboros security guard he trusts, and she says that the attack was a hack attempt that came in over the internet, going right through the Ouroboros corporate firewall. She points the player to Ouroboros' firewall server, where the server's logs are captured, and it is found that a lot of data went in and out during the time when the attack was supposed to have taken place, using encryption somewhat similar in design to the encryption on the red pill program rewritten for Zion by Danielle Wright; the suggestion is that the thief--probably Mauser--used stolen Wright technology to hack into Ouroboros.

Mach: Gray says they've known Ouroboros is an Oligarch front, and that the Machines have to make sure that the Oligarchs are not called into the Matrix as a result of the security problems Ouroboros is having. He gives the player some Agents and asks them to go make one last attempt to get Ouroboros to let the Machines handle the Merv's attacks. At the Ouroboros office, a rep says that they appreciate the offer, but they can handle "a few latter-day gangsters" with their own security force. Gray says that the only recourse now is to cut their communication connection to the Real, whose location they know. The player raises alarms in an office nearby as a distraction, then goes to the Ouroboros communication linkup. Gray says that they'll re-route outgoing messages to a spoofed receiver; they can't replace the actual encrypted outgoing data, but he thinks they can work out the Merv problem before the Oligarchs are alerted by a missing status report or two. But, when the player tries accessing the communication terminal, it goes into lockdown, and an Accelerator and Ouroboros security (who should then get Accelerated by the Accelerator) appear. Gray is worried.

Merv: An irritable Flood will hear no excuses, and send the player back to Ouroboros, armed with passwords. An alarm has already been raised; there are a lot of guards, and the passwords won't work. Trying again (Flood feels a headache coming on), they find their target computer has a bullet through it, with an OR guard and a Machinist next to it, arguing: the OR guard says the Machinist can't just go in there, and the Machinist is arguing that they have to take measures to protect "consumer data" since OR is under assault by "a major criminal syndicate." The player reports these events to the Merv, who thinks it's interesting that OR isn't cooperating with the Machines. He gives the player a letter for OR, which he says details Machine/Cypherite tampering at OR. (Mr. Black is in the room with the Merv here, but says nothing; like Kalt w/ Utley in Mach 10.3.4, I just wanted to add a hint of other business dealings going on in the background.) At OR, a receptionist, telling an Agent that they'll have to wait, ushers the player through to meet with the OR rep. The rep seems interested when they read the letter, but are tight-lipped, and say only that they'll "check into it."


7/10-7/16

Required Events:

Zion: (Zion only) Utley/Zion help each other find info about a means of accessing OR's internal network access records (which will be used in the following crit): the name of the Ouroboros employee who has access to a virtual blueprint of the company's internal network, [secret name x]. As PA chair, Utley has lots of pull in and knowledge of the city's corporate world, so it might be nice to incorporate that aspect into the search.

Mach: (CYPH only) Cyphs tipped off by the Machines intercept and kill an OR security chief who was about to send data out to the OG network; the concern was that this might have been an alert going out to the OG that would have caused more overrides to be brought in. How this sending mechanism would work, I'm not quite sure--could just be a computer the chief is using. As with most corporate characters, it will generally be implied that the person is a more or less talented bluepill, rather than a redpill or program.

Merv: (after Zion event) Merv, possibly calling in favors from other Exiles around the city, manufactures a scandal implicating WR, and possibly PA as well, in order to take some of the spotlight off OR while he's trying to hack there. It could be stuff like accusations or frame-ups of patent fraud, corporate sabotage, industrial espionage, intellectual property violations, dumping poisonous industrial wastes in poor people's groundwater, and so forth. (PA is a mega-corporation who does just about everything, including military contracts, but makes most of their $$$ from popular consumer products (cigarettes, sports drinks, etc), while WR is a top tech research firm, specializing particularly in computer network technology.)


7/17

Crit 10.3.4

Zion: [secret name x] is quickly located: a friendly Ouroboros IS worker. He acts normally, but the operator detects a "second data channel" on his coppertop signal: there's an extra information feed coming into the simulation from something physically planted in the man's brain at his pod. After mentioning that there's concern any blueprint [x] has may have limited usefulness due to the extremely individualized, segmented way in which the Ouroboros network is put together, Tyndall uploads a modified red pill program to the player that will trace [x]'s signal back to his pod, without actually initiating the extraction procedure (since that would probably kill him at his age and in his modified condition). The player finds [x] at home; [x] becomes suspicious, but the player succeeds in knocking him out and forcing the pill down his throat (:o). The trace runs, the pod is located in the supercluster just next to the Machine city, and a Zion hovercraft is dispatched there. In the meantime, the player follows feedback from the red pill program--unexpectedly showing up inside the Matrix--to what Tyndall says is probably the spot where the data from [x]'s brain implant is dumped into the Matrix. Ouroboros security is working to disable the terminal there, but the player beats them to it, the hovercraft crew finds [x]'s pod and initiates a data dump, and the player pulls the resulting data from the computer; it is in fact the Ouroboros network blueprint. Checking up on [x]'s condition, he's found to be under Ouroboros guard at a private hospital facility. The operator suggests that housing the data in a poddy's brain in the real was a great way to hide it from pretty much everyone other than the Machines; and it is of course pretty obvious that someone at Ouroboros knows a thing or two about the Real.

Mach: A WR rep meeting w/ Pace says that WR can provide footage of Mauser breaking into their facility, and that they have information demonstrating Mauser's ties to the Zion mercenary group; also they know Zion has worked for P-A, and that they've been meeting w/ P-A a lot in recent weeks; WR feels they have a solid case against P-A about the break-in. Pace says that since they're determined, and this suit will involve a terrorist group, it'll need a lot of federal oversight--notify Agent Gray. The player goes to see Gray, who gives them a subpoena to serve to Brenda Utley, calling her to a federal hearing to answer questions about P-A's involvement with Zion and the theft from WR. At the player's first attempt to find Utley, though, they run into Zion operatives in an Ouroboros office, and fight. After that altercation, P-A gives Gray Brenda's actual location, where the player interrupts a meeting between her and Kalt (no details are given on what they're doing, except that Kalt seems ticked that Brenda didn't warn her about the feds coming by; I just wanted to toss Kalt in there to show Brenda involved in business deals, and Kalt was the one major corp not mentioned elsewhere in this subchapter) and the player gives Utley the subpoena, which she says seems to be in order.

Merv: With business scandals and so forth distracting attention from OR, the Mervs go back to hacking OR's network. The player is tracking network links around computers Mauser (or whoever) hacked, but things take a particularly odd turn when an obvious and active connection between two sections of the network is just plain not there. The Effectuator is called in, but can't make heads or tails out of it, and starts to get weirded out. Skipping that for now, the player enters an area of the OR network that doesn't show any hits in the captured security record of Mauser's attack. They find some corporate finance data that doesn't seem very exciting, but Flood says that parsing through mountains of numbers is how real analysis gets done.


7/17-7/23

Required Events:

Zion: Zion uses the captured network blueprint to obtain the OR network records of the Wright tech break-in there. It would be a little boring if their break-in went as smoothly as Mauser's must have, though... Hm in fact we could have them get caught on their way out by some sort of unexpected and nasty security double-check system that makes them wonder just how Mauser'd got in and out of there by himself in the first place----doesn't go smoothly because individual nodes must be accessed independently, and there's variation from what's shown on the global map

Mach: (Machines only) Utley appears at her hearing and is grilled by the Machines, who end up threatening to crush PA's productivity with a hellacious audit or something if she keeps working with those sociopathic Zion mercenaries

Merv: Could be a little tricky, but in this event the key to accessing the "missing" part of the network noticed in the last crit (an empty room between two rooms with computers) is found to be an emotion: strong physical attraction--this has to be exuded in the proximity of the "missing" network link, at which point the hidden data stream will be detectable. The only hint of this dropped in the mission is the Effectuator (who always feels strong physical attractions...) saying he's "getting goosebumps" and feeling "all tingly" when he's in the empty room. I resisted bringing Persephone in for the crit, because I thought we might want to save her involvement for this event, but neither of them necessarily have to be involved in finding the solution. At any rate, when the solution is found and put to use, accelerated OR Security appear. Nevertheless, access to the hidden subnet has been obtained.


7/24

Crit 10.3.5

Zion: The player uses the network addresses from the security log to hunt up and hack into the Ouroboros computers previously attacked by (probably) Mauser. The player encounters a great deal of trouble in their initial attempts: numerous Ouroboros Security teams, data they can't parse, security barriers they can't pass, and so forth. Finally, they come across something that looks like partial Machine-format surface coordinates, indicating a position the operator calls "about a thousand miles north" of the Machine city (longitude is missing), and information about power ratings and network links. Just at that point the data is cut off, and the player finds themselves face to face with Seraph, who apologetically asks them to stop investigating the data, saying (vaguely) that it will cause harm if they do. Niobe is not happy about that, but admits she still trusts Seraph--although the Council might take some convincing.

Mach: "Sources" having alerted the Machines to the Merv getting into the OR sub-network, Gray sends the player in pursuit. First, they "steal a headset" from an OR guard so they can listen in on OR's security channel. They use this info to locate some of the invading Merv redpills, and maybe some surviving, hostile OR guards; but they also run into a Decelerator. Gray says they aren't sure what the Merv expects to find, but based on what's been seen so far, it could have something to do with override programs. As the player closes in on another security hotspot, the OR security channel goes dead, and the player picks their way past dead OR guards and Merv redpills to find Seraph, who says that the player's path has to end there. Gray says well great, with the security channel down we're out of immediate ways to track the Merv inside Ouroboros; darn Ouroboros, the Merv, Seraph, and that Morph sim too, for good measure.

Merv: It's slow going through the subnet, since they no longer have the map of Mauser's attack to guide them, the passwords they captured earlier don't work, and there are Machines and Ouroboros security to contend with, but the Mervs get a break when all the hostiles at one location turn up dead (one Merv support program there gasps "It was Wingless" before keeling over), and the target computer is unprotected. It leads to a location swarming with Accelerators, Decelerators, and Ouroboros security, plus a wicked firewall, but taking down the firewall proves surprisingly easy, and they find: [typical Merv cliffhanger x]




[secret name x] = Sheldon Brewer

[typical Merv cliffhanger x] = the biological interface program



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?

[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
BIP: biological interface program

I've added generic "Visit" missions that will let us get the usual six-person mission teams into mission areas inside Ouroboros' Creston Heights building, and Pendhurst-Amaranth's Hampton Green building, just in case we wanted to send teams into those buildings for event purposes. The missions can only be started by an admin. We already have a mission like that for Wright Research (we also have one for "The Oracle's apartment"--ie a random apartment somewhere in Mara--and the Hel Club). Oh and I also added one for Jakubaitus while I was at it.]


EPN/CYPH
The "Zion" events are mostly specified for just Zion or EPN this time. Cyphs do not have specific events called out for them here, but the "Machine" events in this subchapter almost all have to do with bluepill situations, pretty in-line with Cypherite aims, and should be suited just as well to either group.


8/7

Chapter image: Just the Merv chatting pleasantly in the chateau while Ookami watches over his shoulder


Crit 11.1.1

Zion: Zion tells Utley that Mauser has cleared out; she says if that's the case then the Wright lawsuit will collapse. After going to meet with WR's legal reps, she calls Zion back, saying that the WR reps didn't show, and that the WR people who reported this seemed evasive and agitated. Zion checks into it and finds the WR reps being pushed around by Exiles, whom they had evidently been trying to bribe. Brenda says that with the lawsuit, and attention from the feds, she can't help directly, but she's been hearing rumors of internal troubles at WR.

Mach: The Machines send the player into OR to get as close as they can to the terminal where the BIP is supposed to have been stolen by the Merv. Based on the readings obtained, the Machines say it looks like it could really have been the BIP. The player is sent to notify OR that Merv attacks on their company are probably over, and that the Machines will take care of any remaining problems. The OR rep is kind of a jerk, and says that they're back to business as usual anyway. Next, it's time to start getting the BIP from the Merv, and the operative is sent to roll a few Exiles and swipe their computer's data, part of a larger operation aimed at grabbing and analyzing as much Exile data as possible to turn up the BIP ASAP.

Merv: Merv sets to work trying to analyze the captured BIP, but it's a baffling mix of linked Machine functions and "intuitive" routines. Several outside experts are brought in to look over a sample: the dungeon Exile leader Ethereal 2, and the Historic District mission contact, Madame T. They offer a few comments on it, but don't come up with anything definite. The Merv seems more intrigued than ever. (A Wright Research official and security guard are leaving when the player goes to meet the Merv; they were digging for dirt on Mauser (reference to data on Mauser that Merv stole from the Machines in Merv 8.3.1, and to the WR/Exile spat in Zion's mission this week), [but the Merv wasn't interested in dealing with them (he's suspicious of WR, and feels they've got too many problems of their own right now to be of much profit to him].)


8/7-8/13

Required Events:

Zion: (EPN only) Departure of the EPN expedition to the no-fly zone (Shimada talked about having to start preparations back in 10.3). Could possibly have players....hmm, well they can't really go themselves, since that would require that they stay out of the game for months, but maybe with a little advance prep they could "call up" one "crew member" or something like that; ie, they'd designate the name of an alt character---wonder if it would be possible to explain that---and then we'd have all those new alts assemble in the event and jack out together. Eh and then if one of them did jack in before the expedition completes (we'd have to make it clear that this job would very likely keep them out of the simulation for months--because it will), we'd just have to say they went AWOL, and hold the EPN who registered them responsible for the defection. And I suppose since these would just be "alts" we could open it up to EPN from all servers, provided they could produce their named "crew member" on whatever server is actually going to host the send-off event. Of course, names of characters who are actually frequently active in the game wouldn't be allowed; eh, maybe we'd have to tell them that trained *Matrix* operatives would be needed in the simulation, and we're only accepting operatives of neurokinetic level five (?) or lower for the expedition.

Mach: Machines go to get the BIP from the Merv. They actually do get it, but then the program removes itself from their possession just as the Mervs counter-attack, and the Mervs make off with it. (I wouldn't be disguising anyone as a jumping computer disk or anything like that :p, so the details of the program's escape would probably be mostly RP.)

Merv: (after Mach event) After its strange escape from the Machines, the Mervs realize that part of the problem in analyzing the program is that it is at least to some extent self-aware, and can modify its own code structures. Some highly experimental means of analysis is called for (maybe we could even just throw this out to the players to brainstorm on) and is attempted, but whatever it is, it ends in near-catastrophic failure, and the Mervs realize that some more informed approach is going to be necessary.


8/14

Crit 11.1.2

Zion: An enthusiastic reporter tips Zion off to something weird going on at a WR office (in exchange for an "exclusive interview," but there may be an Agent who wants to interview him first...). The player finds the office abandoned, with a chat session left in mid-chat, saying something about a break-in at another office. That office is empty except for two WR security, who get a call about a network attack as you happen to enter the room. The player follows to the scene and finds this office already under security lockdown; they interrupt the team leader, who was filing a report saying that they'd still found no evidence of an on-site intruder, and indicating that they're watching for Mauser particularly.

Mach: The player is sent to go check out reports of rioting. They find some SWAT members who had inflicted a few civilian casualties while defending themselves from a mob. The SWAT teams says they don't know what set off the mob. The player is sent in ahead of SWAT to the next trouble spot, to try to avoid violence. They find that these bluepills are upset about cable television being out of service; a second group of blues is going crazy because their Internet access is down. Gray says that it looks like a case of mass malfunction among cable boxes and home network routers, almost all of which are manufactured by OR. He adds that media streams are important in keeping the bluepills distracted, and that OR has been successful in large part because their OG backing pretty much gives them unlimited funds and technology, which the Machines didn't want to try to mess with, since that might have brought intruders into the Matrix.

Merv: The Merv determines that the answer to cracking the BIP is to enlist the knowledge of the Exile scientist Silver, who has significant experience in biological research, and advanced knowledge of interface tech that he picked up in the past from working with Wright (although at least some of this was lost when he was terminated and had to be restored from backup). But Silver's gone into hiding, as Zion discovered in 10.3. Flood has the player intimidate a certain Exile lickspittle of Silver's in Camon, who leads them to a hotel room peopled by weird bluepill simulacra, one of whom has a strain of a rare disease, which is traced to a particular lab, where Silver is found, along with a few Exile bodyguards, and some dead scientists. He is marched before the Merv, and agrees to help research the BIP, but very grudgingly; he thinks it's too dangerous, with the Machines after it.


8/14-8/20

Required Events:

Zion: Now that Silver's been rousted out, Zion wonders if he's the one behind the WR problems, since he was Danielle Wright's secret co-researcher for a time. They manage to locate him when he *isn't* working on the BIP (which would be extremely heavily guarded), dispose of whatever Exile guards he has on hand, and ask him about the WR thing. He says it wasn't him, and he can prove it: they just have to go examine the hideaway he was using (in the 11.1.2 crit, the Mervs found him in a Richland/Westview lab room--those are usually in slum apartment buildings, I think), and a code scan will show that he was there with minimal outside contact for the past several months. Some players may not be totally convinced even after Silver has waited for them to complete this inspection, and they may want to keep him prisoner anyway, due to the whole BIP thing some of them will probably be aware of, but if pressed, Silver could call in Exile guards and run off in the ensuing melee.

Mach: Ouroboros is not handling complaints of malfunctioning consumer electronics efficiently, and Machinists are called in to quell a civilian riot. This could involve LESIG-controlled bluepills, or we could try something like having players cast non-damaging stuns/roots and so forth on hostile Bluepill NPCs to keep them occupied and alive; after a certain amount of time we say the Machines have been able to inject enough happy juice into their pods to remove the danger (at which point the NPCs would vanish, since that's what happens to spawns any time I change a setting--such as org alignment--on their sequence). Of course, something like that *could* potentially turn into a massacre if a player with an itchy trigger finger got within firing range.

Merv: Silver, perhaps just a tad vindictive after being pulled out of hiding, decides on a particularly ghoulish first experiment for the BIP, involving human bodies (of the Matrix simulation variety, I mean). Various attempted combinations of the BIP and the bodies do not produce visible results, although Silver claims that he's getting some highly interesting readings. One of the Merv higher-ups calls a halt to the experiment, declaring that a different line of research will be needed, and implying that Silver had better start demonstrating that he can be useful, or else.


8/21

Crit 11.1.3

Zion: Wright network equipment prototypes have gone missing. Investigation into the nature of the stolen equipment reveals that it was based on research headed by Wright herself. The player tracks down the manager of one of the prototype projects, now retired, who says that the project dried up without her, because nobody else could understand it.

Mach: The service outage isn't being handled by OR, and it's time to go tell them something needs to be done. But the OR rep the player was supposed to meet isn't there, and the few OR staff at the office are acting pretty flighty. Gray sends the player to make an unscheduled visit to another office to find out what's up, and the player finds that OR internal mail and paging services are offline. Checking up on that outage, the player finds the guys in the OR IS department completely baffled by the problems. Gray says that there's got to be some scheme behind it, and adds that they'll have to find "a more...reliable company" to pick up OR's failed public service contracts (Internet, cable devices).

Merv: The BIP is missing from its secure mainframe server, and the guards have no idea how it vanished. Silver, in the midst of some other unspeakable experiment, says he isn't surprised; he'd noticed that the BIP's unique code allows it to circumvent security routines with ease. The program is found circulating the Merv's network: first scaring a commando squad (feedback from one terminal kills a commando), then wandering around computers owned by a couple succubi, although by that time the Machines have got wind of it, and try to snatch it, but the player manages to beat them off, and the BIP settles down. Flood says they'll put it in a server with doubled firewalls cycling at irregular intervals, to prevent it from breaking out again.


8/21-8/27

Required Events:

Zion: (EPN only) The OR malfunctions and subsequent disruptions in the public sector, due to the loss of home TV and Internet access, are a fine illustration of a system of Machine control breaking down. We could have some young bluepills, adrift at an anti-OR rally, and shocked when OR security takes down a particularly rowdy rioter or something, become candidates for awakening; some sticking it to the OR security at the scene once the bluepills are evacuated might be appropriate, too.

Mach: The Machines snatch some key Ouroboros execs (could be an armed operation, or a little pill in their coffee, so to speak--or a variety), and question them about the situation at the company--what's happened to cause this corporation-wide breakdown? The execs hem and haw, but finally one confesses that they really don't know how this could have happened. The Machines verify that the exec is telling the truth.

Merv: Mervs are called in to defend the BIP against a raid by the Machines. The Mervs are hard-pressed during the attack, and fighting around the BIP's secured server is fierce. When there's a good skirmish going right next to the computer we've designated as the BIP's location, Silver or a Merv story character (probably one of the scientifically-inclined ones, although Ookami would work, too) will announce that the BIP has jumped into one of the nearby operatives (we'd pick one who seems reliable--if they crash or jack out or run away or something we'll just say the BIP has now jumped into someone else). The Mervs fight free of the attacking Machines and regroup at a new location, where the BIP-inhabited operative is sat down next to a computer, and the BIP is coaxed out into a new secure server.

8/28

Crit 11.1.4

Zion: Raiding a WR network lab where they're analyzing the attacks, the player finds they've compiled a list of employee passwords used in the attacks, and that the employees were out of town when their passwords were used. The player beats WR security to the next attacked site, and captures the on-site security camera footage. It's just showing WR employees going about their business, but one of them is a clerk that the player ran into on their way out of the security lab--at the same time the footage from the attack site was recorded. They go back to check the clerk, and find him being grilled by WR security, but he seems like a normal bluepill, and it isn't clear how he was apparently in two spots at once. (Not described by Tyndall, but a computer at one of the break-in sites has notes by "W" [Danielle Wright] about "Argent" ["Argent Biometrics" was the company name Silver used when working with Wright previously].)

Mach: Gray sends the player to check into the OR network outages specifically, and also to start taking the rest of their network offline, so they can try to isolate whatever might be causing the problems. They detect an error-free data stream in/out of OR; checking it out, they find a female OR office worker who's been hacking into the OR network to try to figure out for herself what's going on, since nobody else there seems to have any idea (oh, earlier in the mission, one of the frenzied technicians is heard saying "Where the HELL is Brewer," which is a reference to that brain-hacked OR network assistant from the last subchapter). Following a tip from the helpful hacker, the player finds a heavily guarded OR site with a bunch of computers. They shut them down, but not before an outgoing signal of some sort is detected. They also find a data connection similar to the one they used to track down the helpful hacker earlier; this leads to an abandoned hacking station, with a data dump of what looks like a copy of a message routed to a downtown address, with commands that would trigger a power plant like the one in OR's Creston HQ to overload in a runaway reaction that could destroy the whole area. Gray adds that the helpful hacker has disappeared [I mean to imply here that someone got to her].

Merv: Silver has the player go to the BIP's server, and it hops into the player's RSI. Flood is ticked. Silver, by himself this time (I keep characters as isolated as possible for the rest of this, and Flood make snarky remarks about avoiding HLs), sends the player to meet up with a particular operative; the BIP jumps into that operative, just before they're ambushed by Machines. The player and the operative fight free and get the BIP to another secure mainframe, where it settles back down. Flood calls to report that Silver's claiming the success of this experiment shows that the BIP can "interface perfectly with human broadcast signals," and semi-sarcastically suggests that next Silver will be wanting to use it to insert programs into real human bodies, or something ridiculous like that.


8/28-9/3

Required Events:

Zion: (Zion only) Mysterious WR culprit located, switches form to escape; operatives locate it again, and can attack it, although they are told not to. If they do attack and kill it, we can say it will be harder to get answers now (also, the terminated infiltrator's body disappears (reconstructs) almost immediately); if they don't kill it, it escapes.

Mach: meltdown of OR's Creston HQ power plant narrowly averted

Merv: (I'd like to run this event on Tuesday the 2nd.) Carlyne (!) appears in front of the Merovingian, asking that the BIP be handed over to him. I might have Carlyne flagged, and we'll see if any Merv operatives decide to attack him. The Merv stalls, saying that the BIP is of course being kept in a scrambled network to keep it secure, and it will take some time to prepare it safely. He asks Carlyne to name a time and place for delivery. Carlyne says just have it ready by tomorrow. On his way out he leaves some hostile overrides nearby as a "reminder."


9/4

Crit 11.1.5

Zion: (The operator mentions: Indications of increased Sentinel activity around no-fly zone; Kid's heading out with additional ships to reinforce no-fly zone exploration team [this means he won't be available for Live Events for a while after this date].) Following up on WR security reports, and scanning for a jack-in signal that can vary its encoded appearance, the player tracks the culprit to a hidden lab equipped w/ a highly sophisticated network interface system built partly from the stolen Wright equipment. Its exact purpose is unclear, and Zion decides to confiscate it for study. [A computer in the lab has a coded message that will give a clue to something...] Accessing a computer in the lab shuts down the culprit, who was evidently some kind of scripted "spider" program, equipped with WR access codes, and the likenesses of WR employees. Could it have been set up by Mauser?

Mach: Gray says it's time to shut down OR; the problems caused are just too dangerous. The Machines freeze OR's assets, and send the player in to notify staff of the federal takeover. Staff are worried, but not terribly so--except for some OR security members, who don't want any part of it, and have to be given a beat-down. The next step is going around to worker terminals and dumping all OR data to a Machine database for analysis, to find the source of the problems. This isolates the source of "suspect directives and programs, disseminated through a network of employees" to a single computer in an OR office, not actually connected to their network: it's connected to the Oligarch Network. Gray says they have to assume that the OGs know what's been going on, and could be on their way to the Matrix.

Merv: Flood calls the player in to help him argue with Silver, who wants out since learning of Carlyne's return; he says he doesn't intend to stick around waiting for Carlyne to terminate him when he comes for the BIP. But there's no time for Flood to report Silver's wussiness to the Merv, because the Machines are having their operatives (not their programs--they're keeping them back like they did the last time the intruders were around) make an all-out attempt to get the BIP. After some fighting against Machine operatives, the player comes to a Merv site with dead Exiles, a fried computer, and no sign of a struggle. The operator gets a bad feeling about this. Flood rings up to say that their programs are falling left and right, and the wave of destruction looks like it's heading right for the Merv. The player arrives to find the Merv guarded by worried Exiles, just as Carlyne appears, testily asking for the BIP. Some of the Exile guards die. The Merv seems confident in his ability to negotiate with the stressed intruder, when suddenly "???" appears beside them. Carlyne crumples to the floor, and "???" says they've come for the BIP. The rest of the Exile guards die. The Merv quickly directs the player to open the ports on the computer storing the BIP (he had it there in the room with him) to the "primary network." This is done in an instant, and the Merv and player beat a hasty retreat while "???" is still figuring out what just happened. The Merv says they've allowed the BIP to escape "into the wide network of the Matrix." He seems excited at the thought of facing this new adversary, and beating them to the BIP.







~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


"???" = Actually Danielle Wright in "Oligarch"-style shell, but I'm not going to positively ID her here, just leave hints like her behavior, and the alphadecimal code found in Zion 11.1.5.

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


Reference:


Danielle Wright's event appearances as a redpill:

8.2.2 Zion Syntax
http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300016515
8.2.2 Mach Syntax
http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300016581
8.2.3 Cyph Syntax
http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300016600
8.2.3 Zion Vector
http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300016791

Wright in her intruder guise as "???":

11.1.5 Syntax
http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300025329




9/18

Chapter image: Wright in intruder form floating in a bubble of code


Crit 11.2.1

Zion: Intel is pretty convinced it really is Wright, and she's after the BIP. The device Zion found with the culprit stealing from Wright Research is giving out numeric sequences, which under analysis are revealed to be a series of updating coordinates. Thinking these might have something to do with Wright or the BIP, the player starts following them, finding a) a bluepill and their computer who seem to steal each other's lines, much to the bluepill's confusion, and b) a dead Exile, and live Accelerated Exiles. These encounters are reported to Niobe, who thinks maybe the device can be used to locate the BIP before Wright gets it. Niobe's also wondering if Wright wasn't quite the martyr she made herself out to be when the Machines were after her before. An EPN has just told Niobe that the EPN expedition reached the no-fly zone, but couldn't enter because of heavy Machine patrols around the perimeter, and that the Kid has already left for the zone with reinforcements.

Mach: The player is sent to help confirm the identity of the female intruder. They find a panicky bluepill and a dead Agent. The bluepill manages to point out a direction, and override use over that way is narrowed down to Wright herself, and a computer. The computer seems to be tracking something, but Wright blanks it out when the player tries to check it. Wright says she "did make a mistake": "the Matrix was more than I had thought it was"; the "mistake" line is a reference to her last event appearance as a redpill, Zion 8.2.3 ( http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300016791 ), where she said that if anyone saw her again, she'd "have made a great mistake." Gray says it's time to talk about this person. He says the data scanned off her looks reasonably close to what they know of Wright; how she survived termination by Sentinels, whose sensors confirmed the destruction of her body (in 8.2), is unknown. Gray also says that Wright is not an Oligarch, even if she seems to have "adopted their jack-in protocol"; the old termination order for her still applies. The player is packed off with operative reinforcements to take care of this, but they just run into a bunch of overrides, without finding Wright. Gray says well okay, she's got the Oligarch overrides too, this could be tricky.

Merv: Exiles scanning for signs of the BIP get a report from the white hallways of an access violation, with no detected source. Going to check on the hallway control center, the player finds a glitching computer. As they examine it, the Effectuator appears, surprised to find himself there. Suddenly nine more Effectuators appear, confused. The tenth seems woozy, and all collapse. Flood reports Malphas made it out of the chateau, and may have a report; Flood is then cut off. Malphas says that there have been system failures throughout the chateau, but they couldn't find the source, although it seemed to be internal. He thinks it could have been the BIP. He adds that he can't figure how Flood didn't notice the system failures happening all around him.


9/18-9/24

Required Events:

Zion: (Zion only) Zion comes close to the BIP, runs across Wright. Wright tracks them back to the device and destroys it. Wright has the usual intruder abilities, plus a couple new ones: "Compress," a meatwaddy one with Firewall's metallic skin effect, and "Signal Jamming," an AOE that lays a heavy debuff on everyone's damage resistances.

Mach: Machines want to locate Wright's broadcast position. They find her and scan her signal, but find no data at all that they can trace. Wright made no attempt to avoid the scan.

Merv: The BIP is found having taken over the training sim in a chateau org area. It attacks at first, gradually stops, looks around, says "[bip message 1]," then falls over dead. If players killed the "sim" first, "[bip message 1]" is found on a computer.


9/25

Crit 11.2.2

Zion: Using information provided by an acquaintance of a chateau guard, the player locates the guard, hoping to get a lead that will get them into the chateau to look for data on the BIP. They find the guard being killed by a fellow guard, however, who is yelling frantically about how a program "won't get" him. Another, wounded guard mentions that one of their members ran off. A scan is run, and a guard is found, dead or unconscious, in the middle of a large corporate network center. It is suspected that this may have been the work of the BIP, jumping from guard to guard. The computers at the center are inspected, and evidence of infiltration and data transfer are found in one of them. This leads to a home computer, with a strange message on it: "[bip message 2]." Also, Tyndall informs the player that EPN has been in touch to say that the Kid has met the expedition, and gone into the no-fly zone.

Mach: Since they can't find her vulnerable jack-in point, the Machines decide to try getting Wright to talk. The player checks up on some chateau Exiles for Wright activity. They get one who says there was some report earlier about a problem. The player comes upon dead and dying Exiles, and Wright, who pretty much refuses to say anything to them. Then the player has to go check on some big override signal that pops up nearby, and this turns out to be Wright again, who says she just thought of something, and wants to meet the Machines after all, with the player there as a "witness." Gray tells Wright that the Machines would like to know how she survived her body. Wright wants to know why the Oracle made the BIP, but she doesn't want to have the discussion there, and she wants more operatives present. Gray says okay, he'll see about getting it arranged.

Merv: Flood sends the player off to kill what he says was a traitorous chateau guard; that done, the player goes after Zionites who've been hounding the guards. A few Zionites are found dead, along with another chateau guard, badly wounded, who coughs out nothing helpful before dying. After a tongue-lashing from Flood, the main group of Zionites are found, apparently looking for something in a room with a dead Accelerated Exile. Once the Zionites are dispatched, Wright appears, possibly there with the intention of ambushing the Zionites who've just been handled. She mentions to the Merv player that it's her understanding the Zionites helped Carlyne, although they probably feel that was a mistake, now. Still, she says, Carlyne did turn out to be way more useful than he'd intended. The Merv ponders this, and decides there's a good chance Wright found Carlyne in the Real and did something to him there to make him fall over dead in the simulation (in Merv 11.1.5). The no-fly zone was supposed to be Carlyne's abode, or something, according to a comment Halborn made a while back, so it's possible Wright ran into him somewhere around there. The Merv decides to send some of the General's Sentinels (which he's kept lurking around) back into the zone to check into this. Persephone is there with the Merv, in some kind of bad mood.


9/25-10/1

Required Events:

Zion: (EPN only) EPN captures Ouroboros data revealed by the expedition's team tapping into a Oligarch Network line found in the no-fly zone, and begins mapping the layout of the Oligarch Network in the Real.

Mach: (Machines only) Wright meets Machines in One Zero. Gray says the BIP was created to help control/monitor unplugged humans in the Real. Wright says she survived the death of her body by entering the Matrix as a complete consciousness, rather than a broadcast.

Merv: Flood is attacked by Exiles in the Hel Club. Operatives arriving at the scene take out some hostile Exiles, then find the "Francine" cake vendor in the club acting oddly. This is the BIP. It says "[bip message 3]," then Wright appears. A battle follows, sort of tailing off as Francines multiply throughout the club, crowding out everyone else. The BIP has disappeared.


10/2

Crit 11.2.3

Zion: Override activity in the slums leads to overrides and overridden programs, and a guy whose watch has stopped keeping correct time next to a Decelerator. Tyndall reports that EPN contacts have said the expedition was attacked by advanced fighter craft in the no-fly zone; the Kid's hovercraft damaged one of the attackers, but was then shot down, and the Kid was injured. The expeditionary force retreated from the zone after heavy losses. The ships were observed to be similar to the type used by Halborn and Carlyne. In the central Richland area, the player finds more overrides, and trouble from Machine and Merovingian redpills. Override activity moves into Magog/Achan, where the player finds Seraph, who tells them that what they're looking for is in an apartment the Oracle used to live in, and whose location he'll provide to the operator. The apartment is in Mara--although now occupied by bluepills--and includes a computer with a strange message: "[bip message 4]."

Mach: The BIP has moved into Richland, and Wright's after it again. The player is sent to take care of the pesky overrides she's kicking up. They run into Merv redpills fighting Accelerated Exiles, and a computer that's been disconnected from some remote source. This leads to an apartment in the central Richland area, where a computer has crashed, and a bluepill says their (black) cat started acting weird and ran off. Gray says to get back on task, and sends the player to Mara, where overrides are getting pretty bad, and Zionites; and there are reports of Wright being in the area. The player finds Zionites talking about having run into Seraph nearby, but they can't get any more information. Then they find a big override source in Mara, which is Wright, some dead Zionites, and a blanked out computer. Wright says the program's already left, and "Its movements appear to be getting less erratic. In the right hands, it could be a truly elegant control mechanism--not like these Oligarch routines." Gray thinks she's "under some misapprehension" about the program. He also mentions that their sensors can't detect the program, which makes things difficult. Finally, he adds that the cat was located in an alley in Mara, and was returned to its owner.

Merv: The player is sent into the slums to see about override reports there. They encounter Machinists. Flood says they've lost contact with some of their programs who were in the area (central Richland) on Hel Club business; these are found, being dominated by an Accelerator, poor things. Flood mentions that the General's Sentinels were attacked by advanced fighter craft and forced to retreat (Flood: again! haha) from the no-fly zone. With override activity increasing in the Achan/Magog area, the player finds Zionites there, talking about Seraph being in the vicinity. The player finds him in Mara, trapped by an Accelerator.


10/2-10/8

Required Events:

Zion: (Zion only) See Merv event.

Mach: (Cyph only) Before Zion/Merv events: fighting overrides around Mara with the help of Cryptos' prototype anti-override routines (these are new consumable items). These will make the user immune to a random type of override for a short period of time.

Merv: This is a two-day (back to back), single-server Zion/Merv event.

Day 1: We lock down a Mara apartment building and get Mervs and Zionites into it by teleport at separate, locked locations. Then we let them loose for PVP domination, and see which side survives. If beginning numbers aren't balanced we could either limit the larger side to matching numbers (I'd prefer this I think), or I could try to balance a bit with NPCs.

Day 2:

- If Mervs won: Merv faces Seraph, wants to know where the BIP is. Seraph says only that it is "[seraph message]." He's suddenly covered by a Firewall FX (I made a Firewalled Seraph disguise for this) as the area goes FFA PVP. Seraph, fighting furiously and not talking to anyone, makes his way free of the building.

- If Zion won: Zion fights their way out of Mara--still packed with override spawns, Exile programs, probably hostile operatives--with Seraph. Once clear, Seraph tells them that he doesn't know where the BIP will surface next, but it is "[seraph message]."

10/9

Crit 11.2.4

Zion: Bluepills are dropping dead across the city, sometimes with override use nearby. The player checks out an override signal and comes across Wright and a bluepill. Wright refers to the bluepill by a "pod" serial number--0026:05:0149:032--and says they weren't "the one that program's chosen to call home," and maybe it's someone else "in 149," as the bluepill drops dead. It looks like Wright's going hunting for bluepills, so the player gets ready to follow her, tracks an override reading, and finds a dead bluepill. Intel doesn't know of a connection between the two dead bluepills, but maybe Wright's reference to a pod was significant. The second bluepill's body is collected, and a red pill trace is forced through them. Their body doesn't seem to have been flushed by the Machines yet, and the trace returns a pod location--fortunately at a pretty nearby pod cluster. Zion dispatches a ship there, which finds mostly empty pods in a ring around one of the towers. They begin running back-traces on the remaining people in that ring. The player goes to check up on one of these, but is stopped by Machines guarding the bluepill's apartment. Tyndall calls to report that they've lost contact with the hovercraft at the tower, and another ship in the area reported heavy Sentinel activity there.

Mach: The Machines have the bluepill (see Zion crit), who is currently inhabited by the BIP, acting erratically. Pace says they're going to take the woman, Imelda Kroller, to a lab where they'll extract the BIP, and asks the player to help hold off nearby overrides while they transfer Imelda. This is accomplished, but extraction is taking too long, and Wright is closing in. The player evacs Kroller from the lab as overrides appear, killing some of the Machines there. Pace is in a back room, and seems to be okay. She says that the BIP took control of Kroller's "somatic nervous system, resisting external stimuli." As the player gets Kroller outside, Gray says her pod routines have stopped reporting, and asks the player to check her status. Kroller says "[bip message 5]", then goes blank. This ends the mission, and Kroller disappears. Gray reports "Unrequested reinitialization of subject's image by the pod hardware... Signal is active. Unable to resolve location. Status unknown. P0026:05:0149:081 is not responding."

Merv: The Mervs have learned the Machines have Kroller (see Mach crit), and set about tracking down her pod ID, first finding the serial number Zionites heard from Wright (see Zion crit). Flood says this is Machine pod serial number format, with the third number being the number of the ring in which the pod is situated on the tower, so Wright was looking for someone plugged into the 149th ring of pods. The Merv is formulating a plan for hacking into Machine systems and locating the pod caretaker, like they did when they wanted to find MacHenry (Merv 8.3.4), but he's interrupted by Persephone, who says that just getting activity reports from the caretaker won't save Kroller, or the BIP. Persephone says she can do it, if the Merv can get her a connection to the right part of the Machine network. The Merv makes a show of worrying about his wife's safety in such a venture, but says he'll make it happen, since she's so concerned about it. The player secures a particular Machine terminal, and gets Persephone to it. She collapses, barely alive, but says she's saved them; the operator says that defensive routines kicked in as soon as Persephone sent her commands into the pod system--they must have been watching for trouble there. The player goes to give the Merv the news, and finds the General's hologram, reporting that his men found a wrecked, advanced craft on their way back from the zone, and salvaged an android of an unknown type from it; they're bringing the android back with them now. The Merv is annoyed with Persephone for almost getting herself killed in a way that would have reflected badly on him; and what was she doing, anyway, not mentioning those defensive routines, which she must have known would be there? Flood says Persephone restarted Kroller's RSI at a random point in the simulation.


10/9-10/15

Required Events:

Zion: Try to stop Wright from getting at a bluepill. Turns out this is not a BIP-inhabited bluepill, just one in an adjacent pod, but Zion will at least have a chance of saving them from Wright's brutal process of elimination. This is complicated, of course, because that pod cluster is now surrounded by Sentinels, and there'd be no chance of saving the person if they were flushed by a red pill. I think it might be interesting to leave it to operatives to try to figure out what to do (might end up being moot if Wright beats them to the more immediate goal of securing the bluepill in the simulation).

Mach: (After Zion and Merv events) Machines able to re-establish control over Kroller's pod, track them to [Kroller location]. Wright appears and tries to grab Kroller. Machinists must keep Wright occupied (interlock, root) while evacuating Kroller. Get some distance away but Kroller collapses, Wright catches up, kills Kroller just after Kroller says "[bip message 6]."

Merv: Deathly Persephone (first appearance of her black-dress/pale-skin RSI) tries to access Kroller's pod again, fails, barely survives Machine counter-attack. Bitter words between her and the Merv; both are disappointed, for different reasons.


10/16

Crit 11.2.5

Zion: The BIP's trail leads back into the slums. [Morpheus (sim) and [bip message 7] will be involved here, but I don't want to say more about it just now.]

Mach: The player is sent after more trouble in Richland. They find overrides, and Zionites apparently looking for Persephone. Gray says Wright and the Morpheus sim have been reported around there, too. The player is working on some Accelerated Machines when more appear, but are taken down by Cypherites who've arrived on the scene. The Cyphs say Cryptos has a way to stop the overrides. The player meets Cryptos, who says he's got a good start, and he's willing to share his progress, but he needs more information about the overrides to continue to improve his prototype. Cryptos and Gray meet. Cryptos says that the overrides use a root command layer that he can't really access, and he needs more info about it. Gray says info like that is pretty restricted, but since the anti-overrides could be useful, he'll see what he can do. Players get a prototype anti-override consumable when they complete the mission.

Merv: Persephone insists on meeting Wright. Flood doesn't sound like he's inclined to help her get herself killed, but when he starts talking about locating Wright, who's apparently in Mannsdale, in order to find the BIP, a click on the line reveals that someone was eavesdropping: Persephone. The player races off to Mannsdale to find Persephone asking Wright to stop the killing. Wright is cold--calls Persephone "program"--and says she won't stop until the Matrix is run by humans. Flood reports that that ill-advised little meeting actually gave them a chance to take some scans of the region, and they've found Zionites homing in on a particular location. There they find Wright again, having apparently just removed something that she won't say anything about. A frustrated Flood sends the player to explain their failure to the Merv. As the Merv greets the player, a strange message, "[bip message 8]" appears on his computer screen. The Merv is annoyed that his high-priced network security failed to protect him from this spam.






~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Wright abs:
"Compress" (metal meatwad?)
"Signal Jamming" (AOE massive def res debuff)

Anti-override prototype:
orbiting gold code fx
gives random of one imm: Accel, Decel, Run


Visiting places from Trinity's past:

The Chateau (mission/event: Merv 1)

The Hel Club (event - Merv 2)

Mara (apartment; mission: Seraph - Zion 3)

Westview (event: Club Kaos, Rogers Way--right by Ascension - mach 4)

Slums (slum apartment, room 101; mission: Morpheus Zion 5)


BIP messages (in white font, no caps or punc until later):

1: where
2: this isn't
3: i'm not
4: not here
5: impossible
6: oh god
7: Knock, knock.
8: Wake up.

Seraph message: "remembering"

Kroller location: Club Kaos, Rogers Way


Zion 11.2.5

Tracking BIP in Slums, but lose it. Come across Morpheus, who says that the Machines changed things, but he remembers the telephone exchange, which they didn't change. Come to room 101, Neo's apartment, find [bip message 7].




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wright
- OG overrides are crude; need program capable of penetrating to the heart of the Machine systems and reconfiguring them carefully--she could make use of the BIP to do that
- Human control...but must be the right humans
- Doesn't know what BIP really is (only Architect, Oracle, Sati, Morpheus, Gray, Carlyne, Halborn know that)
- Brag somewhere to Machines that she survived death of her body by entering the Matrix as an independent consciousness
- When she did that w/ OG overrides, she detonated ship containing jack-in device and Mauser's body

cinematic:

scene 1
- close up of computer screen: bip message from merv 11.2.5
- Merv is looking at it in annoyance
- Gen hologram phases in, says they've got the android thing
- Merv has him put it up on the holographic display
- Merv looks at it, grins slowly--"impressive..."

scene 2
- shimada, hovercraft deck, looking at face on transmitter screen
- s: how is he?
- f: he won't be winning any beauty pageants, but he'll make it.
we'll be in broadcast range in a few days. do you want me to--?
- s: no. I'll do it

scene 3
- hovercraft, shimada jacked in
- door opens, crafty looking woman creeps up to the chair
- w: they're all off in no-man's land...
- w: nobody to watch over you while you sleep
- w: now where would you hide that code the Oracle gave you...
- crewman appears in doorway, startled: you!
- w grins
- c: stop!
- w yanks shimada's jack out, slices its cable
- w: kept it warm for you, dearie
- w hurls the jack into the crewman's forehead
- crewman collapses as more crew members arrive: veil!
- veil (w) laughs as she vanishes back through the opposite doorway

scene 4
- wright floats between skyscrapers, moving slowly over downtown
- gray is watching grimly from a rooftop with another agent, or maybe an operative
- g: the program?
- o: we're picking up blips all over the city. still trying to isolate it, sir.
- g scowls
- o: sir, should we--
- wright floats toward the wall of a skyscraper, it warps inward, making way for her to pass through
- g: no. keep your men back.
- wright floats out the other side and continues across the city at the same slow, steady speed
- gray scowls even grimmerlerlier
- g: find the program...

scene 5
- close up of bip message from zion 11.2.5 on a computer screen
- niobe is watching it, with ghost behind her
- n: the interface program?
- the message, which had paused, continues briefly
- n: jesus christ
- the message suddenly floods the entire screen
- n: ghost--
- ghost is already hyperjumping high above the city, his face set in a determined mask

map zooms in on spot in some city neighborhood

~~~~~~~~~



11.3

Cinematic:

- The General shows the android body to the Merovingian, says they've completed retrieval, and that it isn't a Machine mechanism.

- Shimada is told that the Kid will be back from the no-fly zone soon; he was injured but will recover.

- Veil sneaks up on Shimada while she's jacked in, muttering something to herself about looking for the program the Oracle gave Shimada. When surprised by an EPN crew member, Veil pulls Shimada's jack, killing her, and escapes.

- Gray monitors Wright as she continues her disruptive search through the city for the interface program. Gray tells another Agent to avoid Wright, and to find the program.

- Niobe gets a "Wake up" message like the one from the 11.2 crits. This turns "Wake up, Neo," and then a constant stream of "Wake up Wake up Wake up..." Niobe is alarmed, and Ghost speeds away.

The action indicator points to a spot in west Hampton Green.

Quests:

Quests take place in Downtown, mostly around Hampton Green.

Machines

1) The Machines can't detect the program themselves, but Wright seems to have some means of doing so, so they follow her, running into a disrupted computer, dead bluepill, Accelerated Suits (Hampton gang), and finally Wright in Maribeau, where she says she'll have it soon, and the Machines had better stay out of her way until then. She adds "The Machines left a gaping security hole in their core programming a long time ago. They were only as perfect as the people who made them."

2) Talk to Veil about newfangled Wright Accelerated Programs (tough Exiles/Machines with wireframe overlays). Veil points the player to a Cypherite in Morrell, Neglect (visible on the map, 13th floor of the building just S of Cyclo), who is distributing anti-override routines the Cyphs, led by Cryptos' research, have been cooking up. Gray says that being able to resist overrides will be necessary if Wright's going to be dealt with. The anti-override routines are consumables protect against override abilities like Deceleration (speed/acc debuff), Runtime (spawns), and Signal Jamming (resistance debuff) for a limited time.

3) With Wright closing in on the program in Hampton, the player battles a tough Wright Accelerated Program, then talks to Cryptos, who speculates on how Wright could be disabled:

"As for what may happen if critical damage can be inflicted on her RSI, that I cannot predict. We know that she has co-opted the jack-in protocol utilized by the Oligarchs, and we know, from Halborn's example, that they were to some extent vulnerable both within and without the simulation. Wright, on the other hand, has claimed to be able to enter the Matrix without maintaining an exterior connection. How that could affect the outcome remains unclear."

Gray comes through with the coordinates of Wright's position on a rooftop in Hampton (98 131 -216), saying that she's been staying around there, which probably means the interface program is in the vicinity.


Merovingian

1) The player scouts Wright activity in Hampton, where she's been disrupting things. With help from Nicky G., they find Accelerated Suits, and track down Manager, the Suits boss, in the Historic District, who mentions hearing about a Cypherite in Morrell who's got override countermeasures.

2) The android's been found to have "data structures similar to what we've found on the Oligarch network," so Flood sends the player to hunt for a data match at an Ouroboros office in Vauxton. The Machines took over Ouroboros a while back, and the player runs into Ouroboros Security and Machines there. Flood says the Machines must have confiscated the data, and sends the player to raid a Machine facility in Maribeau to track it down. The player is ambushed by a Wright Accelerated Program on their way. They capture the data from the Machines, and it does have similarities to the android's hardware. Flood figures the Oligarchs built it. He also mentions that Cypherites think the Wright Accelerated Programs carry valuable data.

3) The player goes hunting a Machine mainframe in the Park East Gov Building to get real data on the android. There's a tough battle, and they get some help on the mainframe from the Effectuator. In Center Park, the Merv says the data was interesting, as it shows the android was designed to be controlled by a human consciousness--for the Oligarchs to control themselves as a surrogate body? He also wonders what destroyed the ship carrying the android, and speculates that foul play was involved. Persephone is there, still in black and very pale.


Zion

1) In Chelsea, a scarred Kid has news of suddenly losing contact with a transmitter they'd left monitoring the Oligarch network line in the no-fly zone. He says the Oligarchs could be on their way to the Machine city and the Matrix. He's also determined not to let Shimada down. The Council thinks the interface program has some central role in all this, and wants it kept out of Wright's hands, to the player catches her trail in Hampton. The operator mentions that the program has used Trinity quotes. They run into Accelerated Suits and then Wright, who says that Zion should be helping her, since she's doing this to put the Matrix in mankind's hands.

2) Still trying for the program in Hampton, the player gets some static from a Decelerator and Machinists. They're also ambushed by one of Wright's new Accelerated Programs, and run into more of them around a dead Cypherite. Tyndall mentions rumors of a Cypherite in Morrell, wondering if it's related.

3) Overrides are keeping the Machines busy, which gives Zion a shot at checking out a burst of override activity in Park East, normally heavily guarded. They find a message ("Soon") which the operator thinks is from the interface program, but while tracing it, they're interrupted by a tough Agent, and the trace is lost. The operative is sent to Ghost in Hampton, who says that he thinks Wright's around there, probably high up, and probably with the program. He's determined to look for her. Tyndall says taking on Wright may be the only option left.


Wright

Wright (level 100) is on the Hampton rooftop where Gray said she was, with some tough Accelerated Programs around her. She uses AOE overrides, and a nasty zap. When her health has been worn down, she dies (System message says she was killed by herself), and a floating gold code ghost figure, "???," appears. Its details say "'It's beautiful...'"

 

Cinematic


bit of a wrap on wright? arch & gray?

ghost finds trinity, brief convo making clear it's her, pace shows up, then Helian and Tesarova show up, pace leaves ("Acknowledged"), trinity is gone, h/t leave, ghost leaves, ookami spying



scene 0 - 15 seconds
- chapter caption, pan over to dead Wright

>The Matrix Online_
>Chapter 12.1_


scene 1 - 30 seconds
- zoom out from inert Wright to Architect viewing in his monitoring room
2
- a: Where is thy humanity now...?
5
- a: Agent Gray.
6
- gray appears on monitor
7
- g: Sir?
9
- a: Have you located the program?
12
- g: No, sir; not since it terminated Wright.
15
- g: We have found Zion operatives conducting their own search.
18
- a: ...
20
- g: Sir?
22
- a: Prepare for our visitors.
25
- clicks screen off
30

scene 2 - 120 seconds total

2a - 50 seconds
- ghost lands on a slum building rooftop
4
- looks around
8
- opens a door
10
- goes down a dark stairway
12
- enters a large darkened storage room
16
- doesn't see anything
20
- turns to leave
21
- screen flicks on behind him
22
- s: Ghost_
24
- ghost turns and looks at it, face blank
25
- code shimmers in the air
26
- falls down
28
- forming around
30
- a standing female body
32
- ghost stands frozen
33
- trinity takes a step toward him
35
- stops
37
- t: Ghost...
40
- ghost flinches
42
- trinity looks pained
44
- g: We...
47
- t: I...didn't know.
50

2b - 45 seconds
- p: Freeze.
2
- pace steps from the doorway into the glow of the monitor/trinity, gun levelled at g
4
- p looks at g
5
- p: Predictable.
7
- p: Hmh.
9
- p put her gun up
11
- half turns away
13
- p: Your program...friend cannot survive here.
15
- g looks at p
17

19
- p: She will be removed.
A code lock is already--
21
- h & ts appear in midair,
24
- float down to the floor
28
- p puts her gun back on g
30
- ts: Ooh.
32
- This looks fun.
34
- p touches her earpiece
35
- listens
37
- looks frustrated
39
- p: ...
- p: Acknowledged.
41
- pace stalks out
45

2c - 30 seconds+
- h: And you?
2
- h: Will you offer resistance?
5
- g: No need.
7
- h looks around; trinity has vanished
- t: Huh! The program's gone.
10
- h: Is this your--
12
- ghost has vanished
13
- ts: Hah!
14
- This *will* be fun.
16
- h & ts vanish
19
- room goes dark
22
- a shadow
24
hops
25
up
26
to a high window:
27
ookami
30 (may need to hold here an extra second or two)

scene 3 + map - 15 seconds
- ghost
2
- is standing on the roof,
4
- looking out
6
- over the Ikebukuro docks
8
- g: Trinity...
10
map
15

12.1


[] Stuff in square brackets is not mentioned directly to players in the 12.1 quests, and shouldn't be given out unless specifically cleared with me first.

() Other stuff is mostly fair game, although in general you shouldn't just go around dropping tons of the details to players, but rather let them work things out themselves--this includes a lot of what appears in parentheses below, for instance. I mention certain details and quotes here because I figure they might be things you have questions about, or may be interested in developing further.


Cinematic

- The Architect is in his TV room, with Wright, dead on a Hampton rooftop, on the monitor. He asks Gray if the (biological interface) program has been found; Gray says no, but they found Zion looking for it, too. The Architect frowns, then tells him to "prepare for our visitors."

- Ghost lands on a rooftop (supposed to be the rooftop pointed out in the coordinates at the end of the cinematic, Ikebukuro 630 9 -180), looks around, opens a door, goes down dark stairs, opens a door into a dark, mostly empty storage room. Looks around, doesn't see anything, and is just turning to leave as a monitor in a dark corner of the room flicks on and prints out "Ghost."

- Code falls down into a female form next to the monitor. This is the golden code "???" character who appeared when Wright was killed. A halting conversation begins, in which Trinity (which is the name that appears above this character in this subchapter) says "I...didn't know," by which she meant that she didn't know she was a program.

- Agent Pace interrupts the conversation, her gun on Ghost, who steps between her and Trinity. Pace says the program (Trinity) can't survive there, and will be removed, but then she in her turn is interrupted by a bright flash, out of which gleaming male and female forms appear, descending to the ground. They have no clothes, wires, eyeballs, or hair. In missions, it will be found that the male (red) is "Helian," and the female (purple) is "Tesarova," and that they are Oligarchs. Helian is fairly straightforward and serious, although not as blunt as Halborn; Tesarova is usually in a playful vamp mode in this subchapter.

- Pace touches her earpiece, looks frustrated, reluctantly lowers her gun from Ghost's head, and stalks out. Helian looks at Ghost, and asks if he's going to resist, but Ghost says there's no need; H&T realize that Trinity has vanished, and while they look around to find her, Ghost makes a sudden unseen exit as well.

- H&T leave, and the room goes dark. A pause, then Ookami creeps out of the shadows--she's observed the entire scene.

- Ghost stands on the rooftop, looks up at the moon, and finally says Trinity's name.

The idea was that he hadn't allowed himself to believe 100% that it was her until just now when he was able to meet her for himself. The small Live Event I ran with him during 11.3 ( http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300026820 ) where he "remembered" "something" after reviewing the BIP's progress through the Matrix, and realizing that it roughly corresponded to Trinity's progress through the Matrix (from the movies, starting with contacting Neo in his apartment), reminded him of this Ikebukuro spot where he and Trinity had met each other at some unspecified time(s) in the old days--this is briefly mentioned by Tyndall at the beginning of Zion 12.1.1 [but I probably won't dwell on it any more than that, as the choice was fairly arbitrary--I wanted somewhere with a large interior room and a nice view from the rooftop, and preferably elsewhere than DT, since all of 11.3 took place in that district].


Quests

The 12.1 org contacts are spaced within about a half-block of the Ikebukuro rooftop location.

Machines

1) Gray sends the player to Akasaka, scene of the latest sighting of the program. He implies a need to find it before either the Oligarch representatives (H&T) or Zion do. Gray doesn't refer to the program as "Trinity," but the operator discusses it a bit. They find Zionites and a blank computer entry in her recent style (">_"), but nothing else, and are re-routed to head off H&T, who have arrived in the area, along with Pace.

H&T are slightly bemused--although not really surprised--by a human operative working for the Machines. [The Oligarchs have been aware the Machines have managed things this way, but they haven't seen it much directly, and find it odd, since they (Oligarchs, who are human) view the Machines as their own servants.]

H says they're there for the BIP (he uses "biological interface program" as a quote from operatives or Machines; H&T generally just call it "the program"), and won't be needing any help getting it.

T says something odd about "the exciting ones" (operatives) "escaping" from the pods, and that this explains "why our entertainment's been so dull lately."

H mentions they know what happened to Halborn and Carlyne, and that those two were operating independently. He says they (the Oligarchs) have "made adjustments that will ensure our safety from the compromises they allowed to our security" [partially an explanation for the difference in their appearance from H&C: H&T are less transparent, and have no wires].

Pace seems a little relieved to have the player there to talk to the Oligarchs, and purposefully speaks aloud (in italics) to the player so that H&T will overhear, saying that they'll leave their guest in peace.

On the way out, the player encounters Satiate, a shoeless female Cypherite boss who appeared previously in a few Live Events:

http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300024639
http://forums.station.sony.com/mxo/..._id=36300026073

She's now fixed at level 55 (I think in LEs I had her at 60). She says it would be nice to pop "those pretty new bubbles of theirs" (the Oligarchs), and suggests that the Machines might even have something that could do it, but they probably wouldn't tell the (Machinist) player even if they did, and wouldn't use it themselves.

Gray summons the player for their report, concluding that H&T are operating as agents for the Oligarchs, rather than independently like Halborn and Carlyne. He thinks this might cause them to behave a little more levelheadedly, but says it also means the Oligarchs will be watching developments closely. After saying this, he very deliberately states that the Machines do not consider them a threat.

Between missions, Machine operatives are sent to "patrol" the International District for more signs of activity (ie get gang tokens from Murasaki, Furihata, and Kowloon).

2) Still in International, the player deals with some searching Zionites, and is then sent to answer a summons from Helian, who's got a couple of his "Override Function" NPCs with him (whitish-skinned forms similar to H&T, with a mixture of hacker and MA abilities, pretty good accuracy and damage, and high viral defense), and he loans these two NPCs to the player, suggesting that he's doing this to help the Machine operative deal with the Zionites (he refers to Zionites here as 'the other "Awakened"'), although the operator and Gray hint that H has found he actually needs help from the player. The Override Functions don't talk; H refers to them as "basic" combat programs.

The player checks for enemy activity and finds Merovingian redpills. One of them rather obviously pretends to be a Zionite (sort of a play on the Merv knowing that what he's doing is probably going to cheese the Machines off, although he isn't so worried about it as to halt his Oligarch power grab). Gray says a Merv Exile named Azuna is known to have obtained sensitive information on the Oligarch's Matrix activities.

Between missions, the player has to go find Azuna, following the mission's hint "northwest Downtown." Azuna is a female lupine with a teal mohawk, and she's placed as a collector NPC on the second sublevel of the Museum dungeon in Creston. The player has to kill some of the Merv-aligned lupines around Azuna (a little farther away from her are some Machine-aligned Override Functions).

3) Gray says the Merv's found H&T have a "virtual space," and is planning to invade it; this should be stopped so that the Oligarchs aren't "aggravated." The operator mentions that the Merv tried hitting on Tesarova to get OG programs, but wasn't successful in his advances. The player takes out some Exiles and gets a trace running through their computer.

In this same area, a certain unspecified and optional sequence of actions will cause Trinity to appear in a side room. She appears upset, even angry, at the situation she's in, doing /talknegative as she says

"I don't--

I didn't choose this. This can't be--

..."

(The progress of her appearances across the missions of the three orgs (counting the second mission of any org as happening after the first mission of any other org, etc, and even the second phase of mission x for one org happening after the first phase of mission x for another org, etc) goes sorta: surprise -> dismay -> frustration -> anger.)

Following the trace, the player runs into heavy Dire Lupine resistance, but in the end gets data that Gray says is about access routes "through 'white hallway' systems." He doesn't have exact coords, but says there seems to be an entry point somewhere high up in north Union Hill.

A dead Override Executable NPC was in the room with the lupines/computer. Executables are dark grey humanoids in the same bubble-skin way as Functions and H&T.


Merovingian

1) Flood sends the player into Stamos to find the program (like Gray, he doesn't refer to it as "Trinity," but the operator talks about the identity possibility). They don't find anything besides a computer with ">_," but Ookami arrives, and "leads" (ie is escorted by the player) to a Manssen location, where they find Tesarova.

Tesarova coos over Ookami, calling her the player's "pet," then gets down to business, saying that she just thought she'd mention that there seem to be others nearby who are also trying to find the program; while sort of playing her ditzy blond act, what she says shows that she's aware of a lot of what's going on: what the player's after, what the other orgs are doing around there--and she even takes a veiled swipe at the player's operator.

With coordinates from Tesarova, the operator guides the player to a Guinness Lake location, while Flood mentions that there's also this "Helian" Oligarch around, and saying that they'll play Tesarova's "little game," since they don't want to show that they're on to her. Flood also refers to their names as "barbaric." ["Tesarova" is a Czech name, and "Helian" is a Chinese name.]

T's "game" in this case was sending the player to intercept Machinists, who appear, from their comments, to have been trying to keep tabs on her. Flood wraps up by asking the player to find four groups of programs they've lost in South Vauxton.

Between missions, the player has to locate and kill members of four separate groups of Accelerated Exiles around South Vauxton.

2) Flood says the Merv thinks "exploiting the Oligarch Tesarova's softer side" might get them some juicy override info, and sends the player to collect data from a contact, Azuna, for whom they'd spared no expense and skullduggery to get into a spot where she could get some dirt on Tesarova's Matrix activities. The player heads to the Downtown rendezvous, but Azuna isn't there; instead, there are a couple dead Machines.

Flood is annoyed, and sends the player to look for Azuna in her spying location. She isn't there either, but some hostile Override Functions are.

In a separate part of this same area, a certain optional and unspecified series of actions will cause Trinity to appear. She does /talkscared, saying

"I'm not. I'm not what--

God! What have they done?"

Flood says that some checking has shown Azuna has taken cover in the second sublevel of the Creston Heights Museum.

Between missions, the player has to kill Machine-aligned Override Functions near Azuna, and trade the tokens they drop to Azuna, who then hands over her intel.

["Azuna" is a corruption of "Asena," a "she-wolf with a sky-blue mane" in Turkic mythology, according to good old Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asena . I just needed a cool lupinish name.]

3) Flood says that thanks to the info (from Azuna), the Merv has been able to meet Tesarova. Hints indicate that the meeting has not gone well, possibly because Persephone found out about it. The player finds Persephone and Tesarova together. Persephone is still in her "dark" outfit, but her skin is back to its normal healthy hue. Tesarova says the Merv's been showing her interesting things, including the android, which she identifies as "Carlyne's android body." She almost seems genuinely surprised about the Merv having it, saying she didn't think she'd see it again "after Carlyne let the podling woman steal his signal." ("The podling woman" was Wright--she jacked Carlyne's signal / android body when Carlyne crumpled just before she appeared as the wireframed "???" in Merv 11.1.5, which forced the Merv to dump the BIP/Trinity.)

All Persephone says is "Only a human can be 'inhuman.'"

Past them, the player finds the Merv, who rants a bit about Tesarova laughing at his offers of power in the simulation. He sends the player to contact Flood for a plan B, which involves getting a trace through an Oligarch-occupied computer in order to locate H&T's Matrix power base. The player runs into some of their Functions, and then a hostile Override Executable, who can spawn a small swarm of additional, higher-level Functions to attack the player. Executables have a constant blur FX over their dark bubble body (this sorta causes them to flicker light/dark), and boosted defense and speed, but no actual combat loadout or weapons.

Success results in coordinates of an entry point to the Oligarch hideout: 129 223 789, Union Hill. (This is a doorway at the top of one of those skyscrapers with the flying buttresses.)


Zion

1) Tyndall mentions that Ghost found "the program" by "checking places he'd been with Trinity when they operated together in the Matrix." She sends the player to get more details on the Trinity thing from Ghost, who is in an International District room with a computer (">"), convinced that Trinity was just there. He says he doesn't understand how Trinity is the program, but insists that she really is. He guesses that the two strangers he encountered (in the cinematic) were Oligarchs, and says he isn't going to let them or the Machines get Trinity.

Tyndall says she trusts Ghost's instinct about "whatever Trinity or the program is now," and reminds the player that the Council had already decided (mentioned in Zion 11.3.1) to do what it could to ensure the program's safety. She sends the player to check a reading in Murasaki, where they find a message on a computer:

"How well do you know yourself?
Are you sure?
I thought I knew. But this_"

(The dangling cursor at the end there is a hint that this is probably from Trinity, although the operator doesn't make anything out of it.)

Inbound hostiles are reported nearby, and the player finds Machines and Machine redpills. Tyndall mentions that intel shows the Machines are cooperating with the two Oligarch representatives. After the hostiles are taken care of, Tyndall says that they could use the player's help in Shirakaba, where their teams have been hit by Machines while looking for the program; they've also started picking up override signals there.

Between missions, the player has to hunt down Accelerated Machines in Shirakaba.

2) Tyndall sends the player into Downtown, following the trail of data that they think may have come from Trinity (Tyndall is still hedging a bit on the name, and here says "from the interface program--from Trinity"). She gives the names of H&S, saying they found them out from "our sources within the Machines" [aren't those convenient?].

The player finds a computer, activates it (it says ">Yes._"), and Trinity appears. She says

"I don't have much time. I don't know what...this means.

Before... I thought I died. I was with him... I said goodbye. I don't remember...until--

I don't know how to make it make sense.

... They're getting close. I have to go."

Tyndall gives the player the location of the intruders, and although she thinks they're Machines on Trinity's tail, they turn out to be Merv Exiles. Tyndally thinks this is an indication that the Merv is trying to get in on the Trinity action, and hopes that his machinations with Halborn and Carlyne, which ended up causing a good deal of trouble for the Machines, will at least give the Machines some incentive to act against him. She ends by asking the player to look into an "unusual signal" and override activity in Baldwin Heights.

Between missions, the player has to take down Override Functions scattered around Baldwin Heights.

3) The player responds to an alert from Ghost, who's still been combing International for Trinity. They find him facing Helian and Tesarova, with Helian asking Ghost why he's going after the program. Tesarova coyly interjects that she thinks she knows (wink wink). Ghost doesn't respond to them, and whispers to the player to make sure that Trinity's safe, saying Sparks will have info for them.

Tyndall gets the info from Sparks, which is a location where Trinity might have been hiding "from the Oligarch scans." They find an Override Executable there, as well as some Override Functions, but no sign of Trinity. Tyndall, who feels able to refer to her as simply "Trinity" by now, says she thinks they stopped those programs from finding her, but that stopping H&S is going to be tough. She mentions reports of the Merv having got access to some kind of area the Oligarchs have set up, and that they're picking up activity from his operatives on rooftops "at the extreme northeast end of Downtown."


Extra Credit

A teleport from the area referred to in the last missions takes the player into some white hallways, which eventually may spit them out into an interior office space [that is pretty similar to floor 77 of the Government Building in Park East--I liked the layout of that one, and I wanted to use something that would feel very elevated]. It's full of nasty Overrides and Executables with special prizes. The only exit is a rotary telephone on a desk in one of the offices, which teleports the user to a public phone on the north side of the base of the SE tower in Park East.

~~~~~~~~

LIVE EVENTS


EPN (event) - meeting w/ unknown pedestrian (pseudo Oracle)

Merv hitting on Tesarova?

Oh wow more than expected I thought that last thread was it

through jumping around reading snipits here and there this clears up some past things I didn't fully understand, especially the part about Mauser and the death of Wrigt which went right over my head while it happened or I had little understanding of. This is also great for finding out what zion was doing (since i never did zion crits) or just parts of the story I sort of spaced on. another awesome post and THANK YOU AGAIN for not just leaving us hanging but sharing what would have been your future work with us.

(you sure are up late posting these, course I'm up late reading them and not getting any homework done at all. rare I'm guessing you must have kept these documents at home or something did you write these partially in the off hours or atleast think it up?)

Wow.  Thank you very much for this, Rarebit!

2 things:

1.  OMGWTFBBQ MAUSER WAS WRIGHT?

2.  Wasn't Mauser a freeborn with no jacks?  How did Wright get in there in the first place?  Plot hole?

Cervacius wrote:

2.  Wasn't Mauser a freeborn with no jacks?  How did Wright get in there in the first place?  Plot hole?

Mauser having jacks was the largest continuity error I made that I'm aware of to date. I assumed he had jacks when I wrote up the part about Wright getting into him, and in the Merv crit where Merv operatives investigate the sack of Zion, in which Mauser was caught on Sentinel cam sneaking through the rubble with Lock, Flood described the footage as showing a man with jacks in his skin, and both Flood and Malphas referred to Mauser as an "operative."

Later, when I was re-watching the Colt/Mauser/Roland scenes in preparation for bringing Mauser (actually Wright) in as an actual game character, I finally noticed that he didn't have jacks in his film scenes. :o I don't think anyone had pointed it out on the forums. I did a stealth edit of the archived version of the mission, Merv 8.3.1, "Among the Missing," in May 2008, changing three lines:

Flood 1, original:
Ugh, now the General is uploading his dirty pictures to me... Yes, well... All I can make out from this is a tall, muscular, dark-skinned, and disgracefully dressed man with jacks in him stumbling through debris. I've certainly never seen him before; he can't be that important.

Flood 1, revised:
Ugh, now the General is uploading his dirty pictures to me... Yes, well... All I can make out from this is a tall, muscular, dark-skinned, and disgracefully dressed man stumbling through debris. I've certainly never seen him before; he can't be that important.

Flood 2, original:
It seems I can't count on competence from anyone; no, not you, [playername]--I gave up on you long ago. But usually Zion's systems work well enough to run a decent data query after you've hacked them. It's a sad state of affairs...

Very well, I can see the way the wind is blowing. We'll try for what we need from the Machines; the jacks in his skin indicate that the man was an operative, and the Machines will have surveillance records of which Zionite ships were around the old city when they sacked it. That should narrow things down considerably.

Flood 2, revised:
It seems I can't count on competence from anyone; no, not you, [playername]--I gave up on you long ago. But usually Zion's systems work well enough to run a decent data query after you've hacked them. It's a sad state of affairs...

Very well, I can see the way the wind is blowing. We'll try for what we need from the Machines; they'll have surveillance records of which Zionite ships were around the old city when they sacked it. That should narrow things down considerably.

Malphas, original:
... Machine records of ship movements around Zion at the time of its destruction were minutely precise. The human with Zion's Commander was a crew member of the Mjolnir II, also known as "The Hammer": a large hovercraft that crashed near the main gate of the city's dock, although the Machines do not record having inflicted significant damage on it themselves. According to our records, his operative name is "Mauser."

Malphas, revised:
... Machine records of ship movements around Zion at the time of its destruction were minutely precise. The human with Zion's Commander was a crew member of the Mjolnir II, also known as "The Hammer": a large hovercraft that crashed near the main gate of the city's dock, although the Machines do not record having inflicted significant damage on it themselves. According to our records, his name is "Mauser."

After that fix, Mauser showed up in the Matrix, and a lot of the story characters took great enjoyment in pointing out that he didn't have jacks. In the initial shock of realizing that he didn't have jacks, after I'd thought he had and included it in that one chapter 8 Merv crit, I was worried that it ruined the Wright-in-Mauser story. But a jack is merely a physical interface that facilitates an electrical current, and in the massive short in the Mjolnir II's jack-in systems caused by the simultaneous viral destruction of Zion's systems, to which the Mjolnir II was connected, and the entry of Wright's consciousness into their ship, the intensity of current involved could have just as well have conducted through human flesh, which isn't all that bad a conductor anyway. Whew. >_> While I'm not at all pleased that I made the error initially and had to revise the mission text, in the end I think I like her going into someone without holes better, since it's more unexpected...at least, it certainly isn't something I'd have thought of if I hadn't made that mistake and then had to fix it.

The way that Wright's end came about ended up making it more difficult to have someone in the story give the full explanation for the Wright/Mauser sequences; Wright ended up being a much more secretive character than I'd imagined initially, and she wasn't about to offer up the explanation, so I would have had to have found ways to have people find clues that would eventually piece it together--could have been very long running as a backstory puzzle, if I'd ended up doing it that way. Wright had covered her tracks by completely incinerating Mauser's body when she (still in Mauser's body) hoverjacked Carlyne, rode his Oligarch interface into the Matrix, and let his ship crash on the surface.

You sly devil, you.

Wow, her complete disregard for Mauser's life is pretty creepy. Makes her a much darker character than I'd imagined.

Couldnt've been fun being ol' Mauser, forcefully overwritten then discarded like a play thing when he'd outlived his usefullness. Wonder if he regained control before the end as the hovercraft plummited to his death? Not nice.

*frantically writes fan fiction where he regains control of the craft and lives happily ever after with Android Wright*

Rarebit wrote:

"???" = Actually Danielle Wright in "Oligarch"-style shell, but I'm not going to positively ID her here, just leave hints like her behavior, and the alphadecimal code found in Zion 11.1.5.

 

Computer
24810219.
>

Though I can't seem to crack it.