S&V - The Outfit (IC thread)

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"Hmm, that 'accident' could have someone making a play for the arms business. That's worth checking out. I dont know about the biometrics thing though, it might be more profitable to sell the info to someone else " Yoster chews his lip. " I don't see any great smoking gun here though. Unless the set of boxes is all people that work for the Yak. That would be bad."
 
"Well, there are ways of tricking biometrics, not easy to do. Probably better for someone in electronics than a patch-up man. On the other hand, how long ago did this man die? Did he go for traditional military internment?" Bishop asks.
 
"Well, there are ways of tricking biometrics, not easy to do. Probably better for someone in electronics than a patch-up man. On the other hand, how long ago did this man die? Did he go for traditional military internment?" Bishop asks.
According to the article his funeral takes place in a few days. The body has been embalmed and is now on display at his country home near Tonami. If you think about it, that's impressively quick; quite likely there's some additive printing involved in the embalming process.
 
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Sam strokes his formidable chin. "Hmm, thanks, Syd. We owe you for sure. Hey, you heard of this guy? Ever come across him or his pals while conducting 'business' or any sort?"
 
Sam strokes his formidable chin. "Hmm, thanks, Syd. We owe you for sure. Hey, you heard of this guy? Ever come across him or his pals while conducting 'business' or any sort?"
The name is vaguely familiar - he was a minor war hero, famously in the Battle of New Scunthorpe. You also recall seeing him on advertisements panhandling for money for veterans charities. He's a Tandrapratna, a distant cousin to Prince Remakan, so way too posh to be hanging out with riffraff like you.
:grin: I'll stand right next to Sam, in the same pose, also stroking my chin while making important thinking noises.
Syd briefly looks at you, then turns his attention back to Sam. He says "Whaddya think - maybe you could get a bit of blackmail money off the documents or use them to ingratiate yourselves with one of his relatives. One of the beneficiaries might pay for the will, probably his brother as he's the only one likely to have any money of his own. Some of that other paperwork looks like it might be an arms deal in progress; maybe there's an angle there. Maybe find out if anyone else has authority on that bank account."
You swear you could feel a breeze like the fourth wall closing up behind you.
 
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"Seem like we have a couple of options," muses Sam. "Short con: quick payoff for the documents. Long con: worm our way into this arms deal, get a big score, but bigger risk. Thoughts?"
 
"The other boxes probably won't have anything as good as this arms dealer's one. Still though they might just have a ton of cash.

Maybe we open them all, stage somebody else stealing and see what we can do about that arms dealer stuff. I'm thinking the long con might be fun Sam"
 
"The bank account seems like a bad idea. That info could only have come from one place, the box, which puts us in the frame and it's easy to monitor. But there are lots of ways we might have found out about the arms thing" says Yoster. "Arms is a good gig, there's always a war on. I like the long con."
 
"So yeah, I say let's raid the boxes and then pawn the blame off on someone else while we get into the arms business."
 
"Seem like we have a couple of options," muses Sam. "Short con: quick payoff for the documents. Long con: worm our way into this arms deal, get a big score, but bigger risk. Thoughts?"
These certainly aren't mutually exclusive.
"The other boxes probably won't have anything as good as this arms dealer's one. Still though they might just have a ton of cash.

Maybe we open them all, stage somebody else stealing and see what we can do about that arms dealer stuff. I'm thinking the long con might be fun Sam"
Who knows what might be in the other boxes . . .
"The bank account seems like a bad idea. That info could only have come from one place, the box, which puts us in the frame and it's easy to monitor. But there are lots of ways we might have found out about the arms thing" says Yoster. "Arms is a good gig, there's always a war on. I like the long con."
From what you folks understand about this type of account, it's a quasi-anonymous banking service mainly aimed at providing tax evasion services to one percenters. The late brigadier may or may not have been the only person with authority on the account, and under the Sansha Banking Covenant the bank is under no obligation to report transactions on the account to anybody.

"So yeah, I say let's raid the boxes and then pawn the blame off on someone else while we get into the arms business."
Smith Smith, Voros Voros, Silverlion Silverlion -
You communicate this to Syd and he starts on another box. A few days later he calls and says he's got something.

This one has a couple of diaries and an envelope of cash amounting to a few thousand credits, along with a flechette pistol.

The first diary has pages marked with a date and a word at the top, along with a list of names down the side. Some of the pages are filled out with amounts, typically a few hundred credits each. You notice that the word changes each date, and some weeks have dates in the future and code words filled out. Putting your heads together, you realise that these are the names of drinking establishments in downtown Vetawa. From the look of this, it's a ledger keeping accounts for a protection racket.

The second diary has a bunch of names with dates and amounts. It looks like it might be a ledger for a loan sharking operation.
 
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From what you folks understand about this type of account, it's a quasi-anonymous banking service mainly aimed at providing tax evasion services to one percenters. The late brigadier may or may not have been the only person with authority on the account, and under the Sansha Banking Covenant the bank is under no obligation to report transactions on the account to anybody.
[OOC] My concern is that if I were the criminal enterprise concerned here, I would definitely have at least one person in the bank to monitor things. If I didn't have one before the robbery, it would one of my first priorities. So 'official' really isn't my concern on the bank side, but 'professional' on the syndicate side is. Could be a canary trap at this point.

"More criminal details huh? This is sounding more and more like someone lifted the boxes of people working for another outfit" says Yoster. "Maybe part of planning a move against them. We should all put out feelers to see what's shaking on the Yak front. There are probably not too many crews that are in a position to make this move, and it probably doesn't come out of nowhere, there must be rumblings. The business in Vetawa should help give us a picture of who's involved there, and that could help us identify the players. If the big boys are going to play rough that could be good for us, but I'd prefer not to get squished like a bug."
 
[OOC] My concern is that if I were the criminal enterprise concerned here, I would definitely have at least one person in the bank to monitor things. If I didn't have one before the robbery, it would one of my first priorities. So 'official' really isn't my concern on the bank side, but 'professional' on the syndicate side is. Could be a canary trap at this point.
OOC: Methinks thou art being a little too paranoid and misplacing thy remaining justifiable paranoia. The account is quasi-anonymous, and held in a bank on another planet, with its passcard in a safety deposit box. Neither Bayeux-Linden nor their lords and masters have any reason to even know about the existence of the account - Confidentiality and anonymity are the raison d'etre of that type of banking service. If it got out that Bayeux-Linden were snooping on the contents of the safety deposit boxes their client base of criminals and high net-worth individuals would evaporate and (in some cases) sue faster than you could say '9a.2: Guarantee of Confidentiality.'

There is no gang in the universe more vicious than old money making sure it keeps its old money - and they're the successful ones with generations of practice in doing so. If you're selling services to old money you don't go poking your nose where it doesn't belong, especially if you've signed a contract saying you're not going to.
 
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OOC: Yup, I was leaning into the paranoia on purpose. Good humored with a undercurrent of Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory or Gene Hackman in Eagle Eye. was what I was going for. I'm quite happy to be talked out of it in character, and it isn't something I'm going to lean into far enough that it will cause friction. When I said 'my' above, I was talking about Yoster, not me personally. If it were me personally, I'd probably address it in the OOC thread. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
 
OOC: Yup, I was leaning into the paranoia on purpose. Good humored with a undercurrent of Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory or Gene Hackman in Eagle Eye. was what I was going for. I'm quite happy to be talked out of it in character, and it isn't something I'm going to lean into far enough that it will cause friction. When I said 'my' above, I was talking about Yoster, not me personally. If it were me personally, I'd probably address it in the OOC thread. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
You did say [OOC].
 
OOC: Just to be clear, Yoster has a deep seated distrust of, bordering on paranoia about, big corps. It wasn't something I thought of during char gen, but it makes sense for the character, so I'm rolling with with. My apologies for any confusion.
 
OOC: Just to be clear, Yoster has a deep seated distrust of, bordering on paranoia about, big corps. It wasn't something I thought of during char gen, but it makes sense for the character, so I'm rolling with with. My apologies for any confusion.
OOC: I can dig that. Given that this game is substantially about evolving a story of Nusantaran organised crime, evolving a character is an entirely legitimate pursuit.
 
"He's famous enough, but no, I know what you'd know about him." He pauses for a moment. "But if those documents are ledgers, in the wrong hands they could cripple a criminal racket, or put someone on alert you don't want coming down on you. I would imagine his body is under heavy military security, if not scrutiny."
 
"He's famous enough, but no, I know what you'd know about him." He pauses for a moment. "But if those documents are ledgers, in the wrong hands they could cripple a criminal racket, or put someone on alert you don't want coming down on you. I would imagine his body is under heavy military security, if not scrutiny."
OOC: Just to be clear, there are two boxes open now. One with the will and other items from the late Brigadier, and one from someone who appears to be a small time racketeer.
 
The first diary has pages marked with a date and a word at the top, along with a list of names down the side. Some of the pages are filled out with amounts, typically a few hundred credits each. You notice that the word changes each date, and some weeks have dates in the future and code words filled out. Putting your heads together, you realise that these are the names of drinking establishments in downtown Vetawa. From the look of this, it's a ledger keeping accounts for a protection racket.

The second diary has a bunch of names with dates and amounts. It looks like it might be a ledger for a loan sharking operation
Espa turns to the rest of the crew.

"Now that seems easy to get in on. Just head around to the venues on the dates listed and pick up the money

However the deeper problem here is not only does having all these safes put us on the bank's enemy list, but the individual box owners seem to be a nasty characters. Depending on how much we pull here I'd say we're in for an early grave.

How about we open some more boxes and see how many are regular people. Just savings and things like that. I say we take a bit off the top of the richer folks and then return all the regular joe boxes to the bank to appease them in some way.

The criminal ones we can decide based on what they contain"
 
Voros Voros, Séadna Séadna, Smith Smith, Fenris-77 Fenris-77, TheophilusCarter TheophilusCarter, Silverlion Silverlion -

Over the next couple of weeks, Syd gets another four boxes open. Three contain a bit of cash - another few thousand credits in total, and various personal documents like title deeds to property, correspondence and various legal documents. Nothing terribly noteworthy.

The fourth one is a bit more interesting. It has a two polyguns, a burner and a gauss pistol with an optical sight, plus several sets of false identities with photos of the same person. There is some other kit - a couple of hand comps, some binocs, various bits of minor personal equipment and a couple of ceramic switchblades. From what you can tell, it looks like the owner comes from Zeos, a water world that's nominally Federation territory.

There are also some documents that look like they might implicate various parties in arranging hits, perhaps kept by the owner as insurance.

You're left to ponder this for a couple of days and then Sam gets a call from one of Syd's employees, Taalik.

TheophilusCarter TheophilusCarter - You know Syd trusts Taalik and views him as his right hand man.

Taalik says that there there's been a fire in the dead room and Syd has been injured. He's in hospital and asked Taalik to relay a message: "The cage is OK but you'll need move and store it so I can get the dead room repaired."
 
"Ah, hell," says Sam. He relates the info to the rest of the crew. "Can you guys take care of moving things? I should go check on Syd. Mainly 'cuz he's my pal, but I should also see if this was an accident or not ... "
 
Flexing her muscles, and cracking her neck, Brun grins. "Finally, something I can be useful at. Where we shifting it to, though? If we take it out of the dead room aren't we on a timer for the prior owners cracking down on our numbskulls?"

"I am all for closing back up the small time locker boxes and 'returning' them as a goodwill gesture. Maybe close 'em back up and dump the van somewhere and leave a 'tip' about it's location to the authorities, that sorta thing. Keep the weirder shit. I had my eye on those polyguns, that's some fancy shit. Not to mention the blackmail docs."
 
Flexing her muscles, and cracking her neck, Brun grins. "Finally, something I can be useful at. Where we shifting it to, though? If we take it out of the dead room aren't we on a timer for the prior owners cracking down on our numbskulls?"

"I am all for closing back up the small time locker boxes and 'returning' them as a goodwill gesture. Maybe close 'em back up and dump the van somewhere and leave a 'tip' about it's location to the authorities, that sorta thing. Keep the weirder shit. I had my eye on those polyguns, that's some fancy shit. Not to mention the blackmail docs."
OOC: The cage will screen RF signals but you need to ensure the navsat spoofing continues to work. You'll need a van or truck to move the cage, and then somewhere big and discreet enough to move it to.
"Ah, hell," says Sam. He relates the info to the rest of the crew. "Can you guys take care of moving things? I should go check on Syd. Mainly 'cuz he's my pal, but I should also see if this was an accident or not ... "
You go and visit Syd in the hospital. He's got some growpads covering a fair bit of his chest, lower face and arms, but he seems in good spirits.

Syd says "Sorry guys - I managed to set one of the self-destruct devices off and it got out of hand. The cage is OK but the dead room and ground floor are pretty badly damaged." He moves, draws a breath in pain, indicates the bandages covering the growpads and says "Got it under control but I'll be out of circulation for a while with these."

"Sam," he asks, leaning forward and wincing a bit, "I'm going to need quite a bit for the repairs and to keep the boys going until I'm back up. Can you do an old soldier a favour ... please stop fucking about and make some money off the boxes you've got?"
 
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OOC: As someone who grew up near Scunthorpe aka SCUMthorpe to us locals, I found it very entertaining that it has an infamous battle for it's space colony version
 
"Sam," he asks, leaning forward and wincing a bit, "I'm going to need quite a bit for the repairs and to keep the boys going until I'm back up. Can you do an old soldier a favour ... please stop fucking about and make some money off the boxes you've got?"
"You got it, pal," responds Sam. "I'm just glad to hear this wasn't an attack. I'd hate to think I put you in danger ... or that anyone knew what we were up to already ... "

To the crew: "You heard the man! Let's make, I mean "steal" some money!"
 
OOC: As someone who grew up near Scunthorpe aka SCUMthorpe to us locals, I found it very entertaining that it has an infamous battle for it's space colony version
OOC: It's been a running easter egg in my sci-fi 'verses since the latter part of the 1980s. If you look closely you'll find a few others such as the Leyland-Futanari corporation.
It takes balls to build new worlds. I hope that doesn't count as transphobic.
 
"I am all for closing back up the small time locker boxes and 'returning' them as a goodwill gesture. Maybe close 'em back up and dump the van somewhere and leave a 'tip' about it's location to the authorities, that sorta thing. Keep the weirder shit. I had my eye on those polyguns, that's some fancy shit. Not to mention the blackmail docs."
"Sounds like a good idea. Small timers wouldn't have enough to interest us, both financially and for the fun of the job, and keeps the bank off our back"
 
"Blackmail sounds good, as does the arms stuff. Did anyone find anything out about which crews these Docs might expose? I feel like we should have some idea who were messing with here"
 
Brun shrugs. "Does it matter who did the legwork for us? They're shit outta luck ain't they?" She grins.
 
Lola checks in with her contacts to see if who was behind the heist (or suspected of the same) is known.

'Perhaps we can make sure the pikers who pulled off the job are the ones held responsible for it,' I say.
 
"Ah, hell," says Sam. He relates the info to the rest of the crew. "Can you guys take care of moving things? I should go check on Syd. Mainly 'cuz he's my pal, but I should also see if this was an accident or not ... "
Flexing her muscles, and cracking her neck, Brun grins. "Finally, something I can be useful at. Where we shifting it to, though? If we take it out of the dead room aren't we on a timer for the prior owners cracking down on our numbskulls?"

"I am all for closing back up the small time locker boxes and 'returning' them as a goodwill gesture. Maybe close 'em back up and dump the van somewhere and leave a 'tip' about it's location to the authorities, that sorta thing. Keep the weirder shit. I had my eye on those polyguns, that's some fancy shit. Not to mention the blackmail docs."
You will need to find a place to stash it first; repairs on Syd's workshop can't get underway until you've moved the cage.
"You got it, pal," responds Sam. "I'm just glad to hear this wasn't an attack. I'd hate to think I put you in danger ... or that anyone knew what we were up to already ... "

To the crew: "You heard the man! Let's make, I mean "steal" some money!"
"Sounds like a good idea. Small timers wouldn't have enough to interest us, both financially and for the fun of the job, and keeps the bank off our back"
"Blackmail sounds good, as does the arms stuff. Did anyone find anything out about which crews these Docs might expose? I feel like we should have some idea who were messing with here"
OOC: You can probably do some homework and find out who's running the sharking and protection racket. Maybe you could shake him down, or maybe having someone in Vetawa who owes you a favour might be quite useful.
Brun shrugs. "Does it matter who did the legwork for us? They're shit outta luck ain't they?" She grins.
Lola checks in with her contacts to see if who was behind the heist (or suspected of the same) is known.

'Perhaps we can make sure the pikers who pulled off the job are the ones held responsible for it,' I say.
The closest thing to word on the street is that the cops have arrested someone on suspicion of being involved on the robbery, but the odds the off-register bookies are giving on a conviction suggest he's probably not. The main thrust of the gossip is that the perps were out-of-towners who've covered their tracks, but you're a bit skeptical about that as nobody's naming names that sound credible. Whoever it was, they've gone to ground.
 
"I can stash the van and cage under a tarp at my place for the short term. Easier to monitor the power supply that way."
 
"I'll just make sure the nav shit is still working and I'll move it over", says Yoster.

If possible I'll wire the electronics into steady power so theres less worry about battery life.
 
"I'll just make sure the nav shit is still working and I'll move it over", says Yoster.

If possible I'll wire the electronics into steady power so theres less worry about battery life.
OOC: You can plug the APS-24 into ordinary mains power or most of the odd ones like 28v/400Hz used in aerospace circles.
 
OOC: You can plug the APS-24 into ordinary mains power or most of the odd ones like 28v/400Hz used in aerospace circles.
That should be doable at the yard. I'll make it happen. I'll cover the van in tarps and disguise it with some random junk.
 
"Probably better to keep it in our circle anyway, so it makes sense. We're already giving out a share on some unknown payday. So our current avenues: Blackmail some poor sod over a will, get into the arms race, and find out who wants their insurance slash go bag back?"
 
"Plus some bigger issues of who's moving on who. There's opportunity in conflict."
 
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