Tuning Towers expedition planning post

[healspec]

WHAT WE ARE DOING:
Forming an expedition to explore the sewers beneath Tuning Towers and the tower basements, in the hopes of locating the source of the buzzing and stopping it.

Since this post Ravi's spent some time mapping out routes through the sewers and subways around Tuning Towers and trying to put together a plan. He is a very organized person so there would be a second IC post to announce the actual expedition meet-up and discuss the plan, so you need not have commented to the first post to be involved. I'd prefer to handwave that, but I'll make a note of it when I put up the event.

Here are my general ideas for how things are going to go, but I would definitely like to get some discussion going to solidify plans and roles. These ideas are all very flexible so if you have something that works better please do not hesitate to add it to the discussion!

Participants are going to be split into three teams. These are:

Interference

• The Interference team will remain above-ground to act as lookouts.
• They are responsible for distracting police as necessary and reporting changes in the situation to Mission Control.
• This is probably the most dangerous team to be on. Ideal members: people with good spy qualities and good 'lose the cops' skills

Mission Control

• This team is not involved in the immediate action and will most likely be set up a fair distance away at a network safehouse.
• They possess copies of maps for the following: the city's sewer system, subway tunnels, and the floorplans for Tuning Towers.
• They will be responsible for consolidating information from the other teams, using it to mark their progress on the maps, and providing real-time guidance.
• This is the safest team to be on, but they also have the most responsibility. Ideal members: Planners, analysts, people who are good at thinking on their feet, and people who can read maps. We also need a volunteer to provide the safehouse.

Exploration

• The exploration team will be descending into the subways and sewers to carry out the mission objective.
• They will probably be split into sub-groups because I expect the bulk of the participants to be on this team.
• They are responsible for exploring the tunnels and reporting their findings--and lack thereof--to mission control.
• Ideal members: pretty much anybody who wants to participate but doesn't fit on the other teams. Each subgroup would have a designated leader with a radio and copies of the maps, and at least one person capable of emergency first aid.

There will be radios passed out to all the teams. Realistically only team leaders would get one but that's kind of boring so you can handwave it. They'd be instructed to tune the radio frequency to their network number, because that's a communication means that can't be intercepted. (That means there will be a publicly audible thread on the network for radio chatter, which characters who aren't present will be able to chime in on.)

The (tentative) plan is this:

• This will be happening very late night (2~4am or so). Exact date undecided but we can do it this weekend if nobody has any objections.
• The interference team runs a distraction to get the cops away from sewer/subway entrances, allowing the exploration teams to get down there.
• Planning for subway tunnels is really hard because I've never lived in an area that had subways??? Is this even a good idea? plz advise
• The interference team keeps an eye on the above-ground situation, acting as lookouts, while the exploration team...explores.
• Both teams report relevant information to the mission control team by way of radio comms, mission control takes note and makes adjustments as necessary.
• THEY WILL NOT FIND THE SOURCE OF THE BUZZING IN THE SUBWAYS OR SEWERS. Also the buzzing and phantom tremors will be incredibly strong down there so have fun w/that. Earplugs don't block it out, either 8|b
• They will, however, be able to access the Tuning Towers basements (which are occupied by Thunder Corp) because the sewers pass within a few yards of the basement walls. They'd need to phase or dig through to do this.
• The source of the buzzing is about a mile underground, with no ready-made route to it. Digging that far down is not possible, but if any character possesses the ability to phase that far down, they will be able to locate the source of the buzzing.
• I have been informed that our cast is unfortunately not yet powerful enough to destroy the source, so the buzzing will persist. Sadly.

So, the outcome of the stated mission will be failure.

However! Our characters will be able to discover new information, and if you were looking for a way for your character to attract police attention/get taken into custody, something could always go terribly wrong while running interference!

Questions? Anything to add? Discuss which team your character would be on? The floor is open!

UPDATES:

- Word of mod: "all participants in this venture will receive one (1) plot Echo."
- The interference team WILL attract police attention. You can volunteer OOCly to have your character arrested (or avoid it if you prefer)! - As per Julien's suggestion, they will be encouraged to carry small mirrors or buttons with most of their network number pre-written on them, to allow for them to easily add the last number and provide a visual for the network/mission control.
- As per Luci's suggestion, they will be splitting up and entering the tunnels at different points, with several distractions splitting up the police threat, to minimize the risk of getting caught.
- Mission control will be stationed at Barnaby's apartment. Subject to change if the team gets larger than 10 people.

Here is a spreadsheet of the teams. Feel free to add yourself in! You can also sign up for a specific exploration squad if you like.

Comments

[ladyofluminosity]

What kind of maps are they going to be looking at? Also means of communication between groups?

[healspec]

City development maps for the sewers/subways, architectural layout for the Tuning Towers building plans.

Means of communication will be by 2-way radio, but network numbers will be used as the frequency instead of an actual radio frequency, so any audio network communication would work.

[ladyofluminosity]

Void and I were talking about this last night, since there's no real good established way to figure out where the expedition team is in relation to the maps themselves. Ez (who is on the expedition team) is a highly skilled cartographer and could, on a paper with the number on it, be drawing a live map. There was also the thought of placing cameras on a few of the people moving around, so that the control room can get a live visual.

The means of communication also concerns me a little bit, since 2-way radios probably wouldn't work at certain depths/can be meddled with/basically they would prove a way to easily lose signal or be intercepted in some way. I'm digging the mirror idea for everyone, but there should probably be one person with a more reliable means of communication reporting back. Luci's main objective (personally, at least) will be getting as accurate of a read on the underground as possible, even if they don't manage to find anything. Something easy to conceal, much like the mirrors, would be ideal.

Phones and 2-ways work on high frequency, which have a hard time passing through rock; this affects voice, text and being able to connect to WiFi. Ideally, she would want to find a way to use a low-frequency radio device and wireless ear pieces, but I wouldn't even begin to know if anyone in the Numbers would have a hold of that kind of stuff. TTE-receivers are usually used for mining purposes, so I don't know that they would have any kind of civilian application.

Again, it's possible that it's something Ez's dad might have given his career, but that one's a hard stretch. Also yes, she would know most of this (and probably researched the stuff she doesn't), because teenage genius.

[healspec]

These are some good points and I appreciate the thought you're putting into this!

Ez drawing a live map is a good plan.

I don't think we need to place cameras on people if we're going with Julien's idea to use mirrors to provide a live feed. People are still free to use cameras ofc, but I'd recommend network for those too, since it's a bad idea to keep any hard evidence of this.

Your concerns about radio signals are valid, but that's why they're going to be using network numbers instead of a real radio frequency. The supernatural aspect of the network connection bypasses those issues; the signal can't be intercepted by non-network means and afaik network comms scoff at earthly interference. We can confirm that w/the mods though if you're not sold on it.

If we want to go with wireless earpieces, bluetooth headsets are an option, but those run pretty pricey, so it'd be more a matter of people who own one anyway opting to use it. Earbuds with a speaker in the wire aren't that expensive though. Both those options work better for phones than radios but since it's all over network anyway that'd still work.