Trinity RPG - Assignment - Hostage Hub

[KingOfDreams]

I remember reading in one of the books that the Opnet was made much more secure after the war. It mentioned that the Opnet was divided and quartered off into sections for each country or region of influence. These sections were run by "network" hubs or nodes. The nodes are heavily guarded as they are critical to each region's Opnet service. I want to use the idea presented in the book about someone attempting to hijack or take out one of these nodes. The cool part was that the article suggested rigging the node administrator's life to the node itself. If the administrator dies, the node goes up in a big explosion! I presume this is to deter individuals from using the nodes for their own nefarious purposes.

Any ideas on a location or setup to this idea?

[Rorx]

Each region probably has 3-4 nodes including the uplink/downlink one. However taking one out or over is no trivial task. From what I can remember they are protected in bunkers with companies of troops, mechanized and VARG support, possible EK surveillance/netguards, and as you said a willingness for it to be destroyed rather than captured. They are also the obvious places to trial the prototype hardtech Psi detectors that the FSA and Nhijon (amongst others) have been working on.

[KingOfDreams]

I agree that is a very difficult task to accomplish. I was either thinking of the antagonists having a large enough force to overcome the defenses, or maybe it will be an inside job. If just a small force was able to have someone already working in the hub it would be easier to compromise security. Of course, either route I go still requires a way for the players to get in as well. The hub-takers will need to defend themselves, and what better way than to use the nodes defenses that are in place already.

I'm still trying to work out a reason as to why they are taking the node. I want it to be something that isn't quite obvious at first. Maybe they don't want it for communication reasons at all.

Any suggestions?

[Rorx]

I'm really not sure this one is a goer. If the force is large/powerful enough to get through the defense forces outside would be seen coming and reinforcements scrambled. This makes the likelyhood of the Node being blown up quite high.

Infiltration is difficult as they monitor all staff all the time, have armed guards watching them inside an what checks they can against psions and mental influence.

[KingOfDreams]

I'm really not sure this one is a goer. If the force is large/powerful enough to get through the defense forces outside would be seen coming and reinforcements scrambled. This makes the likelyhood of the Node being blown up quite high.

Infiltration is difficult as they monitor all staff all the time, have armed guards watching them inside an what checks they can against psions and mental influence.

This means that the people trying to take the node have some serious backing. Maybe an opposing country or large organization is secretly supporting the endeavor. This could make it interesting for the players to discover who is really behind the attack and why.

[Rorx]

That's part of the problem. It is just too big to hit with overwhelming force, if they have companies of infantry and tanks and VARG's defending the place it is going to take more of the same to hit the place. This is tantamount to all-out war for another country to do that - and damn hard to raise those kinds of forces without using national scale assets. Added to which an attack on a Node is an attack on the OpNet, a world resource, and as such would call in the UN both in forces to protect it (if they can get there in time) and in the subsequent tracking down of the people involved/behind it. All in all not something that someone is likely to do.

Infiltration is thus the recommended route, but that is not going to be much easier. The sysadmins for the Node are going to have been thoroughly vetted, and probably watched 24/7 to make sure they don't make any inappropriate contacts. In addition their families (if any) will pobably be under some surveilance as well, to guard against possible blackmail and/or kidnap demands. While they are at work the sysadmins are under surveillance and any suspicious activity would have them pulled off the net and the work/actions checked by at least one other randomly assigned sysadmin.

The only practical way I can think of getting something done at a Node is for an Aberrant or Telepath to briefly encounter the target sysadmin(s) and to leave a post-hypnotic suggestion to do something when a certain flag comes up during a work cycle. A shapeshifter of some kind could try to replace a sysadmin as well, but is unlikely to be able to pull it off without the sort of information that only a Telepath is going to be able to extract from someone. Added to which a shifter would have to run the gauntlet of the Psi detectors in several countries, assuming that they don't have their own psions assigned to protect the nodes from such tactics.

As to what they could want done at a Node that can't be down elsewhere I'm not sure. Perhaps put a temporay block on all traffic from a certain company/organisation/location or copy all traffic to another location/opnet address.