How to go forward

[srl51676]

I am very new to spycraft and have just finished running the judas protocol my first adventure. I am now working on writing my own. The Gates of Perdition and I am a little stuck. So I am posting the plot out line looking for good ideas.  I would be very greatful to you more experienced GC's for some help.




*****IF YOU ARE MIAH, MARIE, MATT, MOLLY, OR DAN IN SPOKANE, WA STOP READING THIS POST********





The Gates of Perdition
Overplot: in 1989 the first President Bush and the Project for the New American Century realized that all Economic, national security, and military information was stored on windows systems. Developing an independent system would be time consuming and expensive. Then Sec Def Dick Cheney proposed an elegant solution. Bill Gates founder of Microsoft would be eliminated and replaced with a double Steve Sires who’s death would be faked using gates body. This would give the Gov. control of the Windows tech. As well as all the power and finacial infuence of Gates’ Fortune.

Plot Summary:   
Chapter 1: “Bill Gates” is kidnapped from his home on Lake Washington. Gather clues and discover the identity of the kidnapers. The kidnapers are identified as a sleeper cell of Al'Qaeda who plan to torture gates for his knowledge of windows security and then ransom him for billions.   

Chapter 2: Clues lead the team to Virginia Mason Medical Center and Dr. Farah.  The Dr. lives on a small yacht in Bell Harbor Marina which is discovered missing.  Gates has been spirited out of the country.   

Chapter 3: The yacht is discovered at a marina in Portland, Or. Naseer Abd-al-Ali is still on board with 4 members of a Portland Cell prepping the ship with explosives to blow up the Marquam Bridge at rushhour. The bomb it self is attached to the hull of the ship under the water. There is scuba gear on the ship.  A shipping receipt on Ali leads to Frontier Air Fright one of the kidnappers shipped a large box weighing about 200 lbs. to an address in Kampala, Uganda and insisted on traveling with the package.  Flight Time 30 hrs   
Chapter 4:  From Kampala, Uganda the box is moved by truck from the air port at Entebbe to Moyo on the border with Sudan. The party has 2 days to get to the warehouse In moyo before the Sudanese militia takes delivery.  Random encounters with “Lords Resistance Army” Team must assault the warehouse where Gates is being held. Gates weeps as the team carries him to their vehicle “Fuck this, Dick can blow me I fucking quit I gotta tell you guys something...BANG!  (long range sniper well trained well equiped not Militia)   
Chapter 5: Team is ordered back to Entebbe for extraction. On the way they are attacked by fake “LRA” troops  Knowledge (tactics) DC 18: troop are too coordinated and well trained to be LRA   

Chapter 6: 

The Idea is that the team discovers that the agency is a melevolent organization and goes on the run (not easy with a team) then either gets picked up by another Org. or goes A-team.  Thanks alot for the ideas

[famine]

Welcome to the boards!  I'll throw a few things atcha! #1, why is the Agency sending this team to investigate if they are in on it?  Or is your team acting on their own/under a different person in the agency? 

Chapter 1:  Let the agents use Gates' own security system to determine how the kidnapping took place.  A hack to get into it, and then possibly an analysis check of the media to gather some clues about what they are seeing.  Possibly a cultures check of the audio file, your language guy can then determine what part of the world they are from.  Possibly have terrorists looking for/interrogating Gates about his doctor. 

Chapter 2:  An investigation of the doctor's office shows an autopsy report dated ahead for when Gates' body will be found?  Check out Trigger's Agency database download, he's got a good autopsy report in one of the patches.  The doctor called in sick, so the agents would get his home address from the secretary and go check it out.  She could also mention that he has a cell phone with GPS for his fishing trips, they could try triangulation of the signal to pinpoint the location of the boat.

Chapter 3:  You can also leave one of the terrorists alive and have an interrogation here.  Good stuff for role-playing, as he insults their country and spits at them before (hopefully) caving into their fear tactics.

Chapter 4:  Another good point for an explorer language type to thrive, dealing with the locals to find out about the truck and its route. 

I don't know if you guys use minis at all, but a battle mat with squares and a predrawn layout of the warehouse will do wonders when it comes to combat for measuring distances and movement.

Chapter 5 & 6:  Again, why did the agency send this team?  Were they giving a token show of trying to stop the terrorists and planning on the pc team to fail miserably, then burn them?  Not a bad idea, but it could expose them too much.  Now I could see the government doing this, then when the pc's cut and run they find the secret agency to work for.  Just a thought.  Let us know how it turns out!

Famine

[Krensky]

The Gates of Perdition
Overplot: in 1989 the first President Bush and the Project for the New American Century realized that all Economic, national security, and military information was stored on windows systems. Developing an independent system would be time consuming and expensive. Then Sec Def Dick Cheney proposed an elegant solution. Bill Gates founder of Microsoft would be eliminated and replaced with a double Steve Sires who’s death would be faked using gates body. This would give the Gov. control of the Windows tech. As well as all the power and finacial infuence of Gates’ Fortune.

Well, let's get some general constructive criticism out of the way first.  There's some suspension of disbelief issues in this plot (at least there would be for my players).

• Despite all the noise, computer and data security for the government is either very very good, to the point the system it's running on is unimportant, or it's completely horrible.
• Windows was not usable in 1989, it didn't really become so until 1990, and the networked version wasn't around in usable fashion until the end of 1993.  It's easy to forget, but computing in the late 1980s and early 1990s was nothing like today.  Government systems were typically terminals connecting to a mainframe or mini computer, the internet did not really exist and the most important form of computer security was physical.
  
• A bit of a nitpick, but this is not an elegant solution, it's too complex and baroque.
• Replacing Gates would get the conspiracy nothing.  Gates was wealthy, but nowhere near what he is today and Microsoft's systems and software were not really in use or do anything important at the time. OS/2, various Unix, and VMS were the order of the day, along with several other things you'll never hear of outside a computer history course.

Is Gates important to your long ranging plot, or is this solely a mission to get the players burned and go rogue?

That said, let's see what we can do to make what you have work.

Plot Summary:   
Chapter 1: “Bill Gates” is kidnapped from his home on Lake Washington. Gather clues and discover the identity of the kidnapers. The kidnapers are identified as a sleeper cell of Al'Qaeda who plan to torture gates for his knowledge of windows security and then ransom him for billions.   

Any flaws in Windows security could be purchased far cheaper and easier for the cracker community and Russian mob, and ransom isn't part of Al'Qaeda's MO.  They'll torture him ot transfer money, perhaps use his credentials to try and cause some havoc and plant some booby traps and time bombs at Microsoft, and then publicly kill him.

Chapter 2: Clues lead the team to Virginia Mason Medical Center and Dr. Farah.  The Dr. lives on a small yacht in Bell Harbor Marina which is discovered missing.  Gates has been spirited out of the country.   

Chapter 3: The yacht is discovered at a marina in Portland, Or. Naseer Abd-al-Ali is still on board with 4 members of a Portland Cell prepping the ship with explosives to blow up the Marquam Bridge at rushhour. The bomb it self is attached to the hull of the ship under the water. There is scuba gear on the ship.  A shipping receipt on Ali leads to Frontier Air Fright one of the kidnappers shipped a large box weighing about 200 lbs. to an address in Kampala, Uganda and insisted on traveling with the package.  Flight Time 30 hrs

I'm not familiar with the bridge in question, but I don't think enough explosives could be attached to the hull so have them fill the ship with ANFO and some plastique.  Provide some clues so the team knows this.  Has the benefit of making the firefight tense.   Hand out stress damage like candy.

Chapter 4:  From Kampala, Uganda the box is moved by truck from the air port at Entebbe to Moyo on the border with Sudan. The party has 2 days to get to the warehouse In moyo before the Sudanese militia takes delivery.  Random encounters with “Lords Resistance Army” Team must assault the warehouse where Gates is being held. Gates weeps as the team carries him to their vehicle “Fuck this, Dick can blow me I fucking quit I gotta tell you guys something...BANG!  (long range sniper well trained well equiped not Militia)   
Chapter 5: Team is ordered back to Entebbe for extraction. On the way they are attacked by fake “LRA” troops  Knowledge (tactics) DC 18: troop are too coordinated and well trained to be LRA   

Chapter 6: 

The Idea is that the team discovers that the agency is a melevolent organization and goes on the run (not easy with a team) then either gets picked up by another Org. or goes A-team.  Thanks alot for the ideas

[srl51676]

First of all I want to say thats for the quick replys and the constructive crit. its great to have someone to bounce ideas off of.

Famin- The part of the plot that I did not get across is that the actual kidnap victim is the replacement and not the real Gates. The team is sent to stop that secret from getting out. The Agency plans to liquidate the team as well so that no one who could have learned about the switch is left alive. Your sugesttions however were great and very helpful.

Krensky- Damn you found a flaw in my basic premise I totaly forgot that windows was not even close to Viable in 1989 first major version was call win95 for christ sake damn I suck. My Geek powers have failed me. I'm 31 I was in college then and should have remembered. 

Ok well back to the drawing board.  I got this idea from two places

1) A Ludlam book called "The Janson Directive" Agent sent to rescue a famous philanthropist then is framed for his murder********Spoiler***** who turns out to be a creation of the US Gov.

2) and this web site http://www.billgatesisdead.com/

The feel I was going for is to have the agents discover that the agency they have been working for is using very immoral methods to achive its goals. a very machiavellian organization. Ala Ludlams "Bancroft strategy" blowing up the National soccer team of Chile while they are on the plane of a popular but anti-US politician so that a shadow is cast on his reelection. you get the idea. This forces the team to go off the reservation and hide from their former masters.


OK So any ideas on how to change my basic premis I already have the mechanics for scenes 1-4 compleated so I would like to be able to maintain them what I'm going to need is a new over plot (I know I'm not asking much  ) Keep in mind the mission takes place between March and May of 2001 and that the AGENCY is covert linked to the U.S. Gov. only through being under the controll of the VP and his friends. The players belive that the group has secret Government aproval.

Would a simple change in backstory and motivation help

[TheTSKoala]

Did someone ask for gov't conspiracies?  Ripe with Terrorist activity?  *plays a theme song that would be appropriate for a Top Secret Koala.*  Have no fair!  TS Koala is here!  ...I've had a slow day at work, can you tell?

The Gates of Perdition

Overplot: in 1989 the first President Bush and the Project for the New American Century realized that all Economic, national security, and military information was stored on Windows systems.

First recommendation.  Advance your story by 16 years.  President Bush 2.  SecDef Don Rumsfield and UsecDef(I) James R. Clapper.  These three make for a more believed clandestine trio. 

Developing an independent system would be time consuming and expensive. Then Sec Def ******* proposed an elegant solution. Bill Gates founder of Microsoft would be eliminated and replaced with a double Steve Sires who’s death would be faked using gates body. This would give the Gov. control of the Windows tech. As well as all the power and finacial infuence of Gates’ Fortune.

Possible Problem 1.  Bill Gates, inventor of "DOS", had a heavy handed development staff for Windows by the time they even attempted Windows 95.  At best, he'd be the controller programmer, but realistically, I would see him as CEO / designer and not trench coder.  Also, the DN (Defense Network) would probably use a combination of Unix, Linux, and Windows Interfaces to run.  (I'm saying *PROBABLY*.  Simply because, that's what I can say.)

Proposed Solution 1.  Hate to be the guy who says "Hollywood got it right, doods." but your best bet is Die Hard 4.  An elite hacker, for kicks.. make the hacker female, is the next Copernicus.  Programmer of legend... and just smart enough to be dumb enough to get caught trying to hack something stupid.  Which puts her on the radar of the NSA, CIA, USDoD(I).

Plot Summary:   
Chapter 1: “***************” is kidnapped from his home on Lake Washington. Gather clues and discover the identity of the kidnapers. The kidnapers are identified as a sleeper cell of Al'Qaeda who plan to torture gates for his knowledge of windows security and then ransom him for billions.   

Problem 2.  Al'Qaeda are mujahiddin.  More or less the type of people who plan ambushes and blow themselves up.  Kidnapping for intel... not exactly their MO.  The fact is even more 'issue-causing' on American soil where the sleeper cell would be heavily removed from the core, at best.  At that point, even if they were to do an Op of this magnitude, it wouldn't be done without at least like 3 or 4 degrees of seperation, with a suicidal gatekeeper on degree 2 and / or 3. 
Solution 2.  Russians.  Russians love this stuff.  Or even a throw back to the 3rd Reich Germany.  Now.. don't lose the Al'Qaeda idea.  I'm just pushing it back a few twists.  (Have the Russians do the grunt work for the actual bad guy.. Al'Qaeda / Middle East mastermind guy).

Chapter 2: Clues lead the team to Virginia Mason Medical Center and Dr. Farah.  The Dr. lives on a small yacht in Bell Harbor Marina which is discovered missing.  ******* has been spirited out of the country.   

No issues.  Moving on.

Chapter 3: The yacht is discovered at a marina in Portland, Or. Naseer Abd-al-Ali is still on board with 4 members of a Portland Cell prepping the ship with explosives to blow up the Marquam Bridge at rushhour. The bomb it self is attached to the hull of the ship under the water. There is scuba gear on the ship.  A shipping receipt on Ali leads to Frontier Air Fright one of the kidnappers shipped a large box weighing about 200 lbs. to an address in Kampala, Uganda and insisted on traveling with the package.  Flight Time 30 hrs   

I LOVE this idea.  You have the good guys chasing down the bad guys, when they bump into a completely different bad guy.
The only issue I have is... the story seems to be moving a little too quickly after this.  So, I'd suggest sending the package to Siberia.  Maybe Uzbekistan or Georgia.  Plus, what terrorist would send something directly to their hide out?  Insert a few chapters to keep your players guessing.  Have them have a shoot out with the Georgian Anti-Terrorist Police unit.  (Nasty little buggers.)  And maybe even do some dealings with the Russian mob to learn what is going on.. and where it's going.
Insert a second air lift by a "private plane" to Uganda.  Makes it a little harder to track down.

Chapter 4:  From Kampala, Uganda the box is moved by truck from the air port at Entebbe to Moyo on the border with Sudan. The party has 2 days to get to the warehouse In moyo before the Sudanese militia takes delivery.  Random encounters with “Lords Resistance Army” Team must assault the warehouse where Gates is being held. ****** weeps as the team carries him to their vehicle “Fuck this, *******  can blow me I fucking quit I gotta tell you guys something...BANG!  (long range sniper well trained well equiped not Militia)

I like it.  Toss in a tank, just to screw with them.

Chapter 5: Team is ordered back to Entebbe for extraction. On the way they are attacked by fake “LRA” troops  Knowledge (tactics) DC 18: troop are too coordinated and well trained to be LRA.

Tactics is good.  Also, maybe have them heavily equipped with perhaps FA2000s, HK G36Es, Styr AUGs, FN P90s, heavily modded M16s or even some disgarded, thought to be trashed but someone bought them OICWs.  Give a tech guy a chance to make a Knowledge (mechanics?) roll to be like.. "Hey!  How'd they afford those??"

Chapter 6: 

The Idea is that the team discovers that the agency is a melevolent organization and goes on the run (not easy with a team) then either gets picked up by another Org. or goes A-team.  Thanks alot for the ideas

May I suggest Her Majesty's SIS?  Canadian Security Intelligence Service?  Maybe even the Bundesnachrichtendienst?  Or hell, the NSA who has an idea of what's going on and wants to stop it.

I tend to go more the realistic route in my thinking.. so.. if you want, scrap everything I just wrote.  LOL.  In my head, James Bond would have died 23 times in his first film.  He was too dumb to be a Secret Agent. 

[Krensky]

Well... there always is U.N.I.T.A.S.

However, pick up Conspiracies if you can.  There's some useful write ups on various conspiracy theories in there that might be useful in writing up a shadow civil war.  Which does sound kind of cool for a SC game. Thanks for the kernel Koala, I might use that later.

[srl51676]

OK here is my idea for a rewrite of  the background for my adventure. It is important to note that this is the Overplot (taking place 3 years befor the current adventure) that will only be revealed to players as they discover it. The idea is that the agency will become the antagonist for later adventures. the players will have a long term goal of exposing the PNAC and the true motive of Microsoft and the Gates Foundation.

The Gates of Perdition
Over-plot: in 1998 The Project for the New American Century realized that an increasing percentage of the world’s data was stored on windows based systems. Gaining control of these systems would give U.S. government and corporate interest unrivaled control over the world economy and unprecedented access to information. The approached Bill Gates with a plan to insert back door code into all windows updates and new software that would allow easy access to any network connected systems. Gates refused more out of a desire to retain control than from any sense of fair play.  Stymied former Sec Def Dick Cheney proposed an elegant alternate plan. Gates would be eliminated and replaced with a double Steve Sires whose death would be faked using gates body. This would give the government control of the Windows technology.

Also the fact that gates himself would have little or no knowlege of the innerworkings of the Windows code does not realy matter. it represents a fundamental missunderstanding of the corprate structure by the kidnappers. Gates is the public face of the organization. If he does not have what they need he should be able to get it in exchange for his life.


Does this make more sense than the previous version?
Thanks for your help