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    1. Capra 10 yrs ago

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Cold be hand and heart and bone, and cold be my sleep under stone...

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Now correct me if I'm wrong, but doesnt the Haolam Haba, resemble mother base from MGSV?


I don't know if you played that game, but it actually looks more like the Big Shell from MGS 2: Sons of Liberty.
If you view my crude map above, I do not know if the platform is square, rectangular or some other unconventional shape. I also do not know if the edges are along the cardinal points of the compass or if the platform is angled in such a way that it would appear as a diamond if you were view it from the sky. I made the assumption it was square in shape.


Miller answered your question in the first IC:

A new image appears on the screen, which appears to be a drawing of one hexagon, surrounded by six smaller hexagons.

"This is a crude map of Haolam Haba; as you can see, the facility is composed of one core structure, surrounded by six smaller platforms, connected to each other and to the core with bridges
Khan


I considered making a map, but it would have come out kind of shit considering my poor skills at image editing, which is why I tried to keep the structure as simple as possible in shape. In other words, imagine a hexagon, with six other smaller hexagons around it: there are bridges connecting the big hexagon to the small hexagons, as well as other bridges connecting the smaller hexagons, forming an hexagonal ring around the bigger hexagon.

I was surprised to learn that a distance of 10 Kilometers could be achieved by walking from one location in the interior to another location within the interior of the platform. I was expecting a platform that may have been half a kilometer long at its widest point. This sucker is much larger than I anticipated. With that said, I intended for the team to drop in the northwest corner of Delta, rather than the southeast-central region. See this quote below, written based on the principle, that I as an author had no prior knowledge to what the Halaom Haba platforms looked like.


Haolam Haba is very, very big. As for the Northwest-southeast, for some bloody reason my brain can't remember cardinal directions. Sorry, a few days passed between me reading your post and writing the second IC, so I genuinely thought you dropped in the southeastern corner. My mistake, I should have checked again. By the way, the map is pretty close to what I had in mind, and thanks for doing it. If this was a tabletop RP group, I would anoint you as co-GM with the highest honors.
Second IC post is up.

Also, as a long time GM, I would like to thank you for being players who can actually discuss with each other and decide things without me having to give you input on literally everything. That's a surprisingly rare but much appreciated quality.
A few seconds after you touch land, Miller's voice buzzes into your ears.

"Greyhound, this is Khan, can you hear me?"

Chapter 1: Peace



After the explosion, the whole area seems immersed in an eerie silence, with the only noises being occasional distant gunfire and Khan's voice. The Sun has fully set, with light being provided by the numerous streelights of Haolam Haba; clouds cover most of the sky, with the full Moon being visible behind them, staring down. "According to our satellite you landed in the middle of a residential zone, near the southeastern corner of platform Delta. The building you are standing on is an administration office, while the platform to your southeast is a half constructed heliport." Looking down below, you can see what resembles a city district, with perpendicular roads intersecting between each building, all fitted with sidewalks, streetlights, and signs written in English, French and Arabic. The building themselves are squarish and tall, all identical to each other in their vaguely cubical shape, painted in various colours: the bottom floor of these buildings appear to be housing shops, offices, and most of the commodities offered by any ordinary city. The roads are cluttered with a few abandoned cars, some fallen streelights and signs, and other such debris; pieces of paper glide across the air, moved by gusts of wind. No living thing appears to be moving. "The area has been evacuated by the HH authorities immediately after the terrorist attack, but there might be some civilians still around. Stay sharp."

Scanning the area around you, you see some buildings that stand out among the others, having a different shape or being larger than the others. "Most of the southern part of the Delta platform is made up of residential districts: most you'll find there are houses, with the occasional police or firefighter stations, churches and mosques, and so on; there's a hospital near the centre of the platform and a military base near the northern corner, while the rest of the place, the northern half of Delta, is made up of factories and other industrial buildings. All around the platform there's a ring of manutention walkways and passages, that lead to Delta's subterranean level: here you can find most of the platform's infrastructure, including power plants, a subway, and the sewer network. Seth's last known position is approximately ten kilometers to your northwest, in a building of the industrial zone."

To the west of your position, you can see many columns of smoke rising from buildings, as well as occasional explosions. "According to our intel, the fighting is most intense near the southern and southwestern corners of the platform. One viable strategy would be to sneak through this area, hoping that the HH soldiers are too busy getting shot at to notice you. Otherwise you can try moving through the eastern zone, which is more firmly under HH control: perhaps they'll be too busy paying attention to the western zone, and you'll get through undetected. You might also try moving through the subterranean level, but we'll probably lose radio contact, and orienting yourself will be way harder. The choice is yours. We don't have a fix on the strenght of the unknown attackers or their goals, but we have no interest in fighting them right now: only shoot if they shoot you first."

Suddendly, you see movement ahead of you, approximately three hundred metres away. Two IFVs, colored khaki, moving towards the western part of the platforms. Zooming on them with your binoculars, you see they are adorned with the black cross, symbol of Haolam Haba. "Huh, those look like LAV III. Wonder where they've got those toys from. They don't seem to have spotted you, but watch out for more reinforcements. Haolam Haba soldiers aren't your average illiterate, rag-head goat herders; they've got military training, and they're probably pretty jumpy right now, so they're likely to shoot on sight. Be careful. Out."
Good posts, folks! I like the way this is going so far. I'll wait until @thecircus posts his stuff, then we'll continue.

Just a couple of heads up for @cpldingo: the aircraft you're launching out of is an Airbus A400M Atlas, as described in the Weapons and Vehicles of the OOC, should have made it clearer in the first IC. Secondly, you are not performing a HALO, but a HAHO jump.
@thecircus

Good, but now please remove the post you made in the IC section: that's supposed to be for roleplaying only.
@thecircus

Hello and welcome! I'll be glad to have you on board, just send me your CS as soon as you have it ready.
December 14th, 2016, 17:43
Circa 160 km SW of the coast of Cyprus, Eastern Mediterranean


The roar of the airplane's engines and propellers is barely audible inside the cargo box, almost like a hum, the only sound breaking the silence. The doors leading to the cockpit are sealed shut, painted with the Cygnus logo, a stylized swan opening its wings, and the words: "Cygnus Military Solutions Air Force". Next to the doors, a white screen had been set up, with a mini projector on a table a few metres from it, a chair on its side. Suddendly, the door slams open, and sergeant Leonard Miller steps out of it into the cargo box, a grin barely visible on his lips. "Good evening, gentlemen."

Miller's deep voice echoes in the cargo box. "Stand down soldiers. I didn't become a hired gun for more pointless ceremonies." The man wears a pair of aviator shades concealing his eyes; Miller's mullet is also partially hidden by his black beret, adorned with the Cygnus logo with two crossed bones beneath it. Khan's clothes consist of a pair of dark green trousers and an olive green blouse, the sleeves rolled up above the elbows, unbuttoned and with a black shirt underneath it; the blouse's right shoulder is adorned with three black chevrons, surmounted by the pirate flag symbol of the Blackbeards unit, while on the left there's an oval patch you don't recognize, depicting a stylized fox facing left. Miller walks toward the table, the crutch he holds in his right hand rythmically stomping against the metallic floor, as he hums a song you don't recognize, and sits down on the chair besides the table, facing you, with his crutch resting against the side of the chair. Miller produces a small leather pouch from one of his pockets, and takes a pinch of tobacco out of the pouch. While rolling a cigarette, Khan says: "Now, I think you have already been throughly briefed about your mission. But a bit of revising has never hurt anybody, right?" As Miller puts the cigarette between his lips and lights it with a gray metal Zippo, the projector flickers to life, and an image appears on the white screen, depicting what could be described as an offshore plant, only much, much bigger.

"This is Haolam Haba, the Nation of Refugees." A puff of smoke exits Miller's mouth as he starts speaking, putting away the tobacco pouch and the lighter in his blouse. "Unless you spent the last few years living in a cave, you probably know most of the stuff you have to know about it already, and probably more. You also probably know these guys are not as good and saintly as they seem." The projector flickers and shows more pictures, taken from battlefields across the world, depicting soldiers fighting, crates of guns and ammunitions, prisoners of war, trucks full of migrants, cocaine and opium plantations, as Miller uses his crutch, held in his right hand, as a pointer, moving it towards different pictures. "Eritrea. Iraq. Lybia. Rwanda. Venezuela. Syria. These folks have been everywhere, acting as mercenaries for those who could not afford it: militias, rebel groups, cartels, insurgents, terrorists. Normally, only sovereign countries could deploy PMCs: not anymore, thanks to Haolam Haba. And that's not all: HH has been implied to be massively involved in worldwide illegal weapons trade, as well as drug and human trafficking. Thanks to their consistent military and intelligence forces they have been able to move guns everywhere, and drugs from countries like Afghanistan and Colombia into the whole wide world, opening up new markets for themselves in places like Africa and India, and let's not even get into their slave and prostitution trafficking."

"Nobody really gave too much of a damn about all this in the international opinion, because according to the United Nations HH are literally Jesus incarnate, because they offer a good and permanent solution to the migrant crisis: they actively help and shelter migrants from the whole world, offering them a safe haven at no price, and hell, they give 'em a job too. The whole thing is three times the size of Manhattan and was created specifically for housing as many people as possible: I have no idea how many are there, but it's probably above two millions and counting. Also, these people are damn good at keeping secrets and also seem to have comptent lawyers, since no international court could rule that they were guilty of any major crime." Miller lets some ash from his cigarette fall into the ashtray, then puts it back in his mouth. "Still, as you can imagine, HH attracted attention. And I'll let you guess, who's the most curious cat out there in the world?" The projector flickers again, showing a picture displaying information about CIA operations in Haolam Haba, as Miller grins and points down his crutch, resting both his hands on it. "Too late, you lose."

"According to the intel they gave us, Langley had a SAD SOG team undercover in HH, codename Gray Fox. They told us they were there to monitor HH activities and they got caught, but I think you can smell the bullshit from here as well. The CIA knows better than send guys on top secret assignments just to keep an eye on things, and most of all, they usually don't get caught in missions as simple as this. They had a task, something went wrong, and now they're probably all dead, since contacts stopped around a month ago. Of course, since the CIA doesn't want us to smell their dirty laundry, they fed us a fake story: and we don't ask questions. Your mission is very simple, and has barely anything to do with the CIA's task." Another picture is displayed on the screen, depicting a bald caucasian man in his forties, from the front and from the side; with his right hand, Miller smacks the bottom of his crutch right between the man's eyes. "This handsome gentleman is Seth, one of the Gray Fox members. No idea if that's a codename or his real name. Anyway, one week ago, the CIA received a radio transmission from Haolam Haba: apparently, it was Seth, who claimed he had been taken hostage and needed immediate rescue, and also gave out his location. Yes, I know, it's a trap. That's also one of the reasons Langley sent us instead of their own guys to investigate. Your orders are to infiltrate Haolam Haba, locate Seth, and free him if necessary; you'll get more orders once that is done." Miller blows out a stream of smoke from his nostrils, once again resting his hands on his crutch. "You think that's all? Well, you think wrong." New images appears on the screen, depicting what looks like a well-manned and equipped military base in the middle of the desert.

"These photographs were taken by one of our spy drones in Syria. Five days ago, we noticed a spike in activity in Soviet bases in the region. This is the Khmeimim base, south-east of Latakia. Lots of trucks, cargo airplanes and choppers, tanks, gunships, troop movements...they're planning on something big. And then, three days ago we get this." Another picture appears on the screen, resembling the Haolam Haba photos at the beginning; only, there are evident signs of fighting, with fires and smoke rising from the structures. "The authorities of Haolam Haba announced that a terrorist attack, led by unknown forces, had taken place in one of their platforms. And guess what, it's in the same area where our CIA guy, Seth, was located when he sent his call for rescue. We have no idea if the Reds have any involvement in this: our spy drone was spotted and shot down before it could get any closer, and we couldn't risk send another or our operation could have been compromised." A new image appears on the screen, which appears to be a drawing of one hexagon, surrounded by six smaller hexagons.

"This is a crude map of Haolam Haba; as you can see, the facility is composed of one core structure, surrounded by six smaller platforms, connected to each other and to the core with bridges. The platforms are named from Alpha to Zeta, clockwise, starting from the northernmost one: so the northern platform is named Alpha, the north-eastern one is Beta, the south-eastern is Gamma, and so on. Seth last made contact in Delta, the soutern platform, and that's where the recent attack took place too. You will perform a HAHO jump landing in this platform, reach Seth's last known location, and report back. There's probably fighting going on down there, so watch out, and shoot only if someone shoots at you. The microcameras mounted in your helmet will send me a live feed of your mission, and I will keep contact with you through the transceivers headsets you are equipped with, as your mission control, from the Cygnus air base of Halfaya, Egypt. My codename for this mission will be Khan. Your codename as a squad is Greyhound; private Morse will be the squad leader. In case communications with mission control is interrupted, he's the one who gives orders." Miller's cigarette, or what remains of it, flies into the ashtray, thrown with a swift movement of his fingers. Khan stands up, holding his crutch. "Remember, this is a top secret infiltration mission. Don't expect any official support from Cygnus. If you run out of ammo or supplies, all replacement gear must be procured on-site. Once you're out there, you're on your own." The projector shuts itself off, and Miller stands up and begins to walk towards the door he entered through. Openining it, he turns towards you. "Good luck, soldiers."

Circa 30 minutes later

The airplane speakers buzz to life, as Miller's voice echoes inside the cargo box. "Gentlemen, this is your stop. Thank you for flying with Cygnus Airlines, we hope you had a pleasant flight. Don't forget to grab your free parachute on the way out. Ramp opening in 3...2...1..." The cargo ramp slowly begins to open with a loud hiss, allowing the roar of the engines to be fully heard inside the plane, and letting a blade of light cut through the dim inside of the cargo box. Soon, the clouds and the sea below are visible on the outside of the plane; the Sun is setting on the horizon, bathing the sky in a deep orange hue, reflecting on the clouds, of a bright pastel colour, and the sea, shining below. "Begin Operation Dog Shelter."

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