OOC Stuff

[Mel Grimson]

Yes it does. Thanks.

[Ante]

To: Grey, Samantha J.

Cc:

Subject: RE: Possible OpMail Format Suggestions?

Awesome! Glad you like it.

Also, I think I like your choice of Courier New font better than my own choice.

Thanks Samantha; anyone else have thoughts on this issue?

-Ante

[Ante]

Originally Posted By: S.J. Grey

She was somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of the rest of the team being unreachable, but excited at having been given the dubious honor of being on point for this mission. It was definitely an ego boost, and she was determined not to disappoint.

Hey, just to clarify, you guys are all issued cell phones that you can use to call each other with if need be. Of course, at the time that Samantha is thinking the above it is true that the rest of the team is still in the air (they arrive on the ground the day after Samantha), so it's a valid thought at that moment.

Just wanted to make sure you all were aware that you can call other members of Section 1. In fact, you could technically call Director Stefokowski or Lee if you wanted or needed to. (Just remember the huge time difference!)

[Mel Grimson]

Originally Posted By: Ante

To: Grey, Samantha J.
Cc:
Subject: RE: Possible OpMail Format Suggestions?

Awesome! Glad you like it.

Also, I think I like your choice of Courier New font better than my own choice.
Thanks Samantha; anyone else have thoughts on this issue?

-Ante

To: Ante
Cc:
Subject: RE: Possible OpMail Format Suggestions?

I think that with Samantha's choice of Courier New, everything is perfect now.

Mel

[Ante]

Hey guys, just wanted to let you all know that you're doing a great job (as always ), and that I won't be getting any updates done tonight, on account of having just gotten back in from a truckload of RL responsibilities that have left me pretty worn out. Sorry about that.

However, assuming that work is slow enough, I might be able to get some posts up tomorrow morning. If work isn't slow enough then I'll just have to get them up after work tomorrow. Either way, I'll be updating stuff tomorrow!

[Ante]

Hey BN, could you please stop changing your replies in Chicomoztoc to a Posting Icon of 'CH'?

'CH' means 'Character', and is supposed to designate the post as being a character profile. If you're going to change the Posting Icon change it to 'IC' which designates the post as being 'in context' or 'in character', which is generally understood to mean the thread is part of an ongoing PbP thread. Or you could just leave it alone, in which case it should default to 'GN', or 'general'.

Thanks!

[z-Carver]

Old Acquaintances – Who is next, Bannon or Truth?

Bloody Mess – Mel, can I please get a reply so that this can continue? If not, please let me know you’re done so that I can wrap it and get it done.

[Mel Grimson]

Mea Culpa. New post's up.

[z-Carver]

Thanks! I'll get you a reply when I can.

[Ante]

Hey guys, sorry about the lack of responses yesterday. Life caught up to me when I wasn't paying attention...

Anyway, I'll try to get some posts up today, provided that work is slow enough. Tonight and tomorrow night are both going to be busy for me, however, so if work isn't slow expect more delays. Again, I apologize - last night was supposed to have been a free night for posting - but I'm sure you all know just how much 'IRL' likes to laugh in the face of our best-laid plans.

[Mel Grimson]

Well, c'est la vie.

And btw, it's probably appropriate for Mel to fail the Linguistics roll. After all, it seems whenever he's in the Indo-Paskistani-Kahsmiri general region, something gets lost in communication somewhere, as Carver has discovered.

[Dawn OOC]

BN, question for you sir. In Wesson's email to Bannon, Carver and Lee, he references "the hiking" and "the waves". I'm asking OOC if the "the waves" is a reference to Carver and Lee's op.

[BlueNinja]

It was meant to be a vague reference to the other two operations going on, yes.

[Dawn OOC]

The problem is that Carver and Lee's mission is a need to know, and Wesson doesn't need to know. So he wouldn't have any idea of what they're doing.

I wanted to ask if it was a mistake rather than assume it was because Wesson may have gotten wind of it, in which case, we can have some fun RPing that out.

[BlueNinja]

Given his Backing, Clearance, and position as Team Leader, he's almost certainly going to have access to all the computer information you're bringing back, and should know at least roughly where you are even if he doesn't have the detailed battle plan.

[Dawn OOC]

I don't know about that. 'Need to know' implies that only those people who need to know what's going on are told. By my understanding, even Bannon wouldn't know where they were or what they had done. Wesson isn't on the mission, and probably wouldn't need to know until he's tapped to examine the data, if then. If he could evaluate it without knowing where it came from, perhaps then. And even then he wouldn't know until after the mission. But that's just my understanding of the situation and could be wrong.

If Ante could clarify which of our views are correct, I'd appreciate it. I'd like to reply to the email, but want to be sure I know what Carver knows before I do.

[Ante]

Carver's view is correct. Technically, Wesson has a high enough clearance rating to be cleared for viewing information related to the Li Shang mission. The reason he hasn't been is because it is, as Carver has already pointed out, need to know.

Has anyone told him about this operation? No. But could he find out about it? Probably, yeah.

Should he, though? Well, now, that's the question and in the end, that's largely up to Wesson (and thus BN). If Wesson does know about it, though, it means he's been sticking his nose where it doesn't belong and I hope I don't have to actually clarify whether or not his superiors might have a problem with that.

This is one of those situations where I will leave it up to the player to decide what's what. Speaking as realistically as one can about a game setting like this, if there are people who don't 'need to know' about the Li Shang op but who could find out about it anyway, Wesson would almost certainly be one of them. The only question is whether he's the sort of person who can be trusted by those who have given him authority and security clearance within Project Prometheus, or if he's the sort of person who will use his giant brain and nova-class computer skills to abuse that trust. If he's the latter, then Wesson had better make sure his giant brain will also be enough to ensure his own secrets never become known by those whose trust he's broken, because if it's not then there will almost certainly be consequences...

[Dawn OOC]

Thanks for the clarification, Ante. I'll give BN time to decide to edit or not, then reply as appropriate.

[Ante]

Does anyone know when Jaunt and/or S.J. Grey might be making coming back around?

I'm a little hesitant to start RPing either of their PCs as NPCs, but if IRL is going to be keeping them away for some time, that might become necessary...

[BlueNinja]

Really slow internet, so any changes might have to wait until tomorrow for me. However, I'd also like to point out that his e-mail is going out ~10 hours after the briefing. If they're moving on the floating ship right away, which was my impression, then Carver and company would be done before the e-mail goes out.

[S.J. Grey]

I posted in the shoutbox a couple of days ago saying I'd be out for a few days. I apologize for not having done so in this thread, but I was a little pressed for time. You should have a post from me in the next 48.

[Ante]

Awesome, S.J.! Glad to hear it, and I'm sorry that I missed your shout. As always, IRL takes precedence over gaming, so take the time you need; I just wanted to figure out whether the gap in posting was likely to be a matter of days or a matter of weeks/months.

[S.J. Grey]

I apologize, little more of a delay than I'd hoped. Will try to have something up tonight.

[Ante]

S.J. -- Glad to hear that!

Does anyone have any word on when Jaunt will return? I know he said something in the shoutbox about being MIA as well, but I'm wondering if I should just press ahead with the Shi Lang mission or if I should continue to wait for him...

[Ante]

I've begun PMing experience point awards for the month of September to folks, but I haven't gotten to everyone yet.

If you look in your PM box and don't see anything from me yet, don't panic! It just means I haven't written yours up yet. I'll get them sent out tomorrow - hopefully in the morning.

I will, barring unusual circumstances, be trying to get you guys your monthly xp-awards on the 5th or 6th of each month. Sometimes I might get them out earlier than that, and it might periodically happen that they're not out until the 7th, but if it gets passed the 7th and you still haven't seen any xp for the previous month, feel free to come and hassle me about it.

EDIT: Also, a note: Work has suddenly picked up and so I'm finding that I don't generally have the time to post during the day like I did for a while there. As long as this is the case, expect my posting rate across the forums to slow down somewhat, though hopefully not too much. Just FYI (hopefully this trend doesn't continue).

[Ante]

Alright guys, everyone should have received their monthly xp awards. If anyone hasn't yet, please let me know! (Also, feel free to respond with any questions/comments you might have about your xp awards, should you feel that's necessary.)

[Mel Grimson]

Ante: Please address your XP thread PM to Mel Grimson instead of Mel Ganker. If it weren't for the fact that the Ganker account (based on EON) forwarded to my email, I might never have gotten the PM. Just a note of information.

[BlueNinja]

I can't load the site right now about non-American aircraft carriers; however, usually there are catwalks around the sides of the flight deck - anywhere aircraft will not be passing directly over. These are sunken so that it would be fairly simple for a nova to jump/fly up to the edge of the catwalk and sneak on board. On the level of the hangar bay are 'sponsons' (a fancy Navy term for decks exposed to the outside) which would provide even easier access, since most of them grant access to passageways and ladderwells rather than the open area of the hangar bay.

Except that sponsons are also normally where various watches are posted.

[Ante]

Oh sure, you turn back up now, after I've already got the thread up and running! I had questions for you!

I'm (mostly) kidding. Seriously, though, feel free to PM me any useful info that you have on such things, since you are in the Navy and I'm not (and therefore don't know half as much about this stuff as I'm sure you do).

Having said that, bear in mind that, firstly, the Varyag is an Admiral Kuznetsov class aircraft carrier - or at least started out its long life that way - and there is only one other ship of its class or kind in the entire world (the Admiral Kuznetsov, actually, for which this ship-class was named), meaning it's somewhat unique. Secondly, the Kuznetsov class carriers are not built on quite the same lines as most other aircraft carriers (in fact, it's only even designated as an 'aircraft carrier' in the West). It's been pointed out that this was probably so that the Kuznetsov class ships would 'comply' with the Montreux Convention, thus allowing it to pass through the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits without violating any international conventions.

The Kuznetsov ships use a 'ski jump' style deck design, which I understand is not all that uncommon outside of US-style carriers (though I don't pretend to know that for sure ) and the Admiral Kuznetsov, which is still in service, apparently carries a rather more heavy payload of 'organic armament' than most Western carriers do. Of course, in this game, the Shi Lang (remember that this is what the Chinese renamed the Varyag to), would not be carrying any such armaments (or at least, not as much) since being retrofitted as a highly secure, floating prison.

One last note, the hangar bay in this vessel has been converted into the 'prison' for the aberrants contained there (or so the Section 2 schematics would seem to indicate, anyway), and as such, the aircraft elevators (of which the Varyag only ever had two to begin with) and the loading bays for them have been sealed off/removed. Obviously, this would have required extensive modifications to this area of the vessel, both internally and externally, and has led to the arrangement of the catwalks and decks ('Sponsons' huh? I did not know that's what they were called!) looking rather different than they would have originally. The point being that the hangar bay is no longer an 'open area', really - though it's probably still less cramped than much of the rest of the ship is.

BN is right, though: security gets a lot tighter closer up towards the level of (what used to be) the hangar bay and the tower.

[Mel Grimson]

Max... the Devi knows English... and you just said the P-word in front of her. I hope you weren't speaking loud enough to be heard.

[SalmonMax]

He is talking quietly...but that's a good point. Max the player is a bit tired, and perhaps wasn't posting very intelligently. Is that something I should edit?

[Mel Grimson]

Just to be safe. If you take 'Prometheus' and replace it with 'the Project', and it's clear that Bannon knows you mean Prometheus, then I think that's enough to misdirect the Devi.

[Mel Grimson]

Also, I should just get this off my chest. I'm sorry about the Mel SNAFU in Lotus Born, guys. Part of it was, I think some misintepretation of the information presented. The other part, more importantly is that part of Mel's character is that major deficency in social graces and such. It's a bit of tightrope-walking trying to keep that character aspect, but not mess things up by going too far. I admit to social communication issues myself, which complicates this task further.

To sum it up, I apologize again, I'm not trying to say 'There's gonna be more where that came from.' But it's going to take a bit of effort to keep clear of the shoals, that's what.

[SalmonMax]

Hey, no worries, man! You were playing your guy!

No one's mad at you OOC...or if they are, they shouldn't be. It's not like Mel was completely unreasonable, and refused to listen to Bannon and ranted and raged, and ruined the whole mission, or even came close.

He's just a suspicious guy who had an 'oops' moment.

[Ante]

I don't think anyone's mad at you, Mel. I'm not anyway. Actually, I very much enjoyed the way things played out between you and Bannon and I had honestly wondered whether you two had coordinated that ahead of time.

I hope my clarification concerning the 'dust and grime' didn't provoke your apology. I put that in because I was worried that I hadn't been as clear as I'd thought I was and wanted to avoid any further misunderstandings. As I said in my spoiler box, if I wasn't clear enough then I apologize to you (and anyone else who was confused by my previous post).

[Bannon]

Don't worry about it, Jer. Mel came across as exactly who he's supposed to be: a suspicious merc. He also came across as someone who's smart enough to know when he's overstepped a mark. Like Max said, you didn't ruin anything.

I enjoyed the interplay, and look forward to more.

[S.J. Grey]

Sorry, things are really not good right now. Very sorry for all the delays, will do my best to be around this weekend.

[BlueNinja]

Did everyone else have an internet loss when I did?

[Bannon]

Nope. Just Cent/Ante, looks like.

[SalmonMax]

Doom. My internets have been fine. Tubes are all intact.