Rich people usually shake out into two kinds: Twits and sharks. The problem about killing off some of the sharks is that they tend to have family and friends that are vindictive and also sharks. The ones that would have closed door meetings like that at a party are typically of the shark variety. Putting that together: The question is not if we killed Sosa's supporters so much as how many people are now pissed off at the Bureau that weren't before and wouldn't have been.
Plus there's the bad optics of making that execution look like successful class warfare mob-violence: Rich people get scared and the downtrodden get excited when it looks like the revolution is closer to coming true.

>>92883
I am not yet prepared to say there was no Tai to begin with. It's certainly possible, but the evidence is a little weak. She said from the start that Sosa would know immediately what was going on if we worked together, and the conversation we had was in a Bureau meeting room.

38-3 is also completely capable of jumping to conclusions (or possibly monitoring us in a way we don't yet realize), and maybe not the best at keeping what he knows in character and out of character separate. We told him Sosa's guy started talking, he was talking about Margolis running her mouth. So do watch for people knowing things they shouldn't. But my point is, there's nothing he said here that couldn't be the result of standard information gathering and extrapolation.

I figure he didn't show up in person because his disguise shell is hardlight, and not, you know, flesh and cloth.

>>92894
>I figure he didn't show up in person because his disguise shell is hardlight, and not, you know, flesh and cloth.
Or because he is still a day away from Outpost Jericho.

Brom actually stated outright that Tai was dead for a long time. It makes sense really. Sosa would not have allowed her to gain any power at all.

>>92896
Was this in the IRC?

>>92899
Yeah.

>>92899
Jul 06 22:04:17 <Brom>SotW Update
Jul 06 22:06:01 <Myconid>well shit, this means Tai's dead doesn't it
Jul 06 22:06:29 <Brom>it does
Jul 06 22:06:33 <Brom>she's been dead for a long time
Jul 06 22:07:44 <Brom>e7ef85 really fucking nailed it

Ah, a variant on the 'unsigned letter' stratagem. Anonymously offer your most ambitious subordinates a vague opportunity for treason, then kill any who fail to promptly and accurately report the incident.

>>92896
>>92902
This wasn't responded to/reposted since I didn't address Brom directly in IRC but:

I'd bet Tai wasn't completely lying.

And that 38-0 and Tai were the same person.

>>92909
That'd be... very depressing, actually.

>>92914
What genre do you think this is, high fantasy? Here in cyberpunk the world is depressing because we humans let our biggest assholes ruin everything. It's pretty much the same as reality that way.

>>92920
Hey, I know we're in the grim orangeness of Greater Boston TM. But you gotta admit that at some points the tone has been fairly light for a cyberpunk story. We've only hit, like, two genuinely dark episodes: one with 88-11 going auto and the dialogue between 73-6 and Sara on his way back from the co-op mission with 38-3.
The rest has been more of like super-agent/heist movie in a cyberpunk setting. The "overthrowing the Corporation" plotline has surfaced very recently.

>The "overthrowing the Corporation" plotline has surfaced very recently.
Yeah, but we started on it way back when, in the early threads, when we made the call to listen to 14-1 and start holding money back. We had the chance to be loyal and stick with the machine (more than one, really), and we made our choice.

>>92909
I thought something similar.

We were fucked the minute we thought Tai's offer was somewhat genuine, and if we went with the machine but still wanted to be on Tai's side, we would have been double fucked. Worst ending.

We gotta go full hog on this or die (and have the people we care about die), pretty much.

I just had the best idea.

If we actually manage to kill 38-3, we pop him in the moldie making pod, hack the heck out of it like we did for 88-1, and raise a newly loyal slash brain-hacked to us 38-4.

We make sure he has the memories he needs to convincingly pose as himself, and then send him back to Sosa to report mission success. And then he proceeds to follow Sosa's orders and do his dirty work completely as normal... until the next time they're alone.

>>92968
I like your idea and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

>>92968
Alternatively, we could hack him to gain emotions and free will that will make him want to escape.

It would be ironic if that's why 14-1 hacked us.

>>92968
Unfortunately he won't have the shell upgrades 38-3 did, so he proooobably won't pass.

>>92984
I suppose we could hit up the stalls for a pile of illegal shell upgrades while he's cooking.

>>92968
Sosa seems like the sort to have already thought of that. If I were Sosa, and I had as my right-hand a reconstituted asset who is geared up for assassination and impersonation, AND is granted a noticeable degree of autonomy and some power even over outpost heads. Yeah, I'm sticking in failsafes for both rebellion AND subversion. Internal bomb, virus payload, maybe even some remote surveillance.

I gotta be honest, knowing that 88-1 wants to be buddies with Sev and Pen because Sev reprogrammed him... it's kinda creepy.

yeah, but better than wanting to be friends with the burea.

>>655942
This worries me greatly.

This could mean a few things, and i will probably miss a possibility or two but what comes to mind is:

1.
Sosa has heavy links to the stalls (Maybe Hoxton) and as informed them of sev being rogue. This is totally plausible because Sosa would be wise to cut a deal/threaten his way into working with the stalls to purchase information or have informants in the stalls about what his agents are buying and how much they spent, and who they talked to down there and what was said. The stalls may have a neutral policy but not everyone in the stalls may be willing to stick to that policy and may well have cut a deal with Sosa.

2.
Sosa has informed other parts of the bureau about us being rogue, and hoxton knows through an informant or has connections to the bureau database. How much of the bureau is informed in this instance would probably affect our 'heat' of sorts. In any case, it's just a matter of whether the whole bureau wants us, or just a sector tightly controlled by Sosa, such as to keep our going rogue a secret as not to give any other moldies ideas. Whether we fail or succeed the bureau is gonna want to cover things up unless we dismantle it or take over.

3.
Hoxton is no fool and knows that buying a shit ton of upgrades at once means we are going rogue, or he knows we purchased the black shell upgrade and assumed we wanted out.

4.
Hoxton is Sosa in disguise. Unlikely.

Any way it's bad news, because it seems our going rogue is more public than we thought. At this point i think we need to step things up and be more aggressive about our departure from the bureau, and i think we need to find a way into Jericho's main database and hack the shit out of it when we get back...

>>93101
Hoxton is the one who pointed you the way to Holden, who sells illegal souped-up black market shells.

That's how he knows

Yeah our cover isn't blown yet. Now, what I'm wondering is... how are we gonna stuff those shell upgrades into Pen and 88 without tripping red flags?

>>93102
Well i know he pointed us there, i was wondering how he found out we actually bought it. Either way, option 3 is much less dangerous than other possibilities, it means that he found out through the stalls and not an outside source, which was a worrying thought.

>>93106
We have master hacking and silent running, why not just grab one and shut off it's internal signal, or better yet program the signal to constantly show that it is unused and make it they won't send a notification of it being used or what the upgrade was, (If shells can even do that) this way anyone tracking our shells just think we are holding on to them for later, because no one outside Dartline knows we have silent capabilities.

(Speaking of we need to spend the last bit of time getting using our modded board to talk to Deneb and other us about getting rid of his claws without letting him know it.)

I wonder how Pen's glide upgrade is going to work

Does she get, like, a floofy skirt that flares out and turns her descent into a graceful float downward

>>93136
Magnets. Put enough current through a coil and you can push off against the same thing that makes compass needles point north. It's at least as silly as a jetpack for sustained flight, but if 73-6 can generate enough short-burst power with his cyberware to stop bullets, Pen could plausibly hover or glide with a similar mechanism.

>>93136
Wushu wire-fu

I have a strange suspicion that when we finally confront Sosa, he's actually been dead for a long time. IDK if he's moldified or maybe a stand-in AI, but I just got this feel that Sosa might not be what he seems he is. In multiple ways.

>>93182
DA is Sosa :^))

>>93186
I will flip three tits if that happens.

<mageykun> Do the forgotten shell upgrades moldie, Brom.
<Brom> i havent forgotten her
<Brom> even if yall have
<Brom> at ur peril

<Brom> yall missed basically a whole character


WELL FIDDLE MY BOYHOLE WE FUKT UP
like that is a dangerous character for us to have forgotten about, considering they have presumably free access to all the shell upgrades they'd ever need :v

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

>>93248
All assets at the base are what the forged orders from a superior will be for.

>>93278
Assuming Sosa / 38-3 doesn't give orders first. Things to the effect of "ur base has been compromised, do this, don't accept countermands or new orders without this proof of authenticity".

honestly I'm lowkey terrified that the dude is getting away as we speak

>88 can read text off of Sev's hud
Okay, so we have a two step means to check if any of our teammates are 38-3.

Sev texts dubs. If Dubs responds right, he's him. If he's not, he's 38-3.

Once we know Dubs is Dubs, he can discretely check if he has eyeballs on everyone else. He shouldn't on 38-3.

This depends on 88 having open permissions set with everyone until 38-3 is dealt with. If Dubs had to ask for permission for a connection, 38-3 posing as someone else could grant it. A permission prompt even appearing should be a red flag.

+Mess with the audio logs, rerouting his over-the-wire voice to the recorder so that what he says and what his handler hears are two separate things

I'm wondering if this is useful at all. What's the point exactly? Isn't the handler the only one who hears anything sent to them over the wire, anyway? Or could this be used to speak privately over a public wire?

>>93509
This is to hide possibly treasonous discourse from his boss. I believe we already used it during our talk with Moneybags. In addition to Monica, who isn't informed yet of the plan, her superiors can probably listen to mission recordings after the operation.

How long was it since Sevs "birth"? I mean, long enough for (presumably) DA to remember him (the flash drive 14 stuffed in + "I made you, I can unmake you" leads me to assume its DA), right, but had it been years or months?

>>93321
And we've already got code phrases to exchange:

"Nice dubs."
"Check 'em."

im like 60% convinced the quest is presenting us with short-term badassery that might bite us in the ass longterm (lost the grenade making the best entry ever, losing time while the dude evacuates by having a miniboss battle) but im honestly having so much fun i cant be bothered to care

Oh look, someone made a game about Penelope: http://store.steampowered.com/app/357070/

>>94200
You sure you don't mean this one? http://store.steampowered.com/app/274230/

Sorry all but this is the official Penelope game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RElfXigIe4c

Fun idea:

There's another out besides running for Monica. If we actually manage to regicide Sosa with a loyalty-programmed 38-4, meaning we then control Sosa's and/or Tai's identities, we can just promote her up the chain to an exec.

Hey sorry we fucked things up, here, the bureau is yours now.

May need to rez her as a non-memory wiped moldie, depends on if 38-3 has gotten in and killed her yet. (Which is not unlikely).

Hmm, did my suggestion get deleted yesterday (or was it last night)? I don't recall deleting it. Or did I post it in the wrong thread?

I was asking Monica philosophical questions about Moldies and stuff to distract her from the fact we have a crazy ass plan and basically change the subject.

>>94496
The server only saved & posted half of it due to an error this morning and a mod deleted the incomplete post.

>>94497
Darn, thank you.

Reminder to everyone that there are other agents still on base that could jeopardize any plans we come up with. 63 we can bribe with cookies. 90-2, I'm not so sure about. We could try asking nicely. Or, perhaps 90-3 will be more open-minded. If we do end up recruiting her, though, there's no room on the lifeboat for her.

There's a high enough odds that there will be a complete purge of Jericho, human AND moldy. Abusing that fact, we can get a lot of people on our side from that alone.

The brainwashing stuff will probably be wrecked to shit, since I don't know what classifies as the Bureau for their brain programming, since they were all brainwashed. If Jericho succeeds from the Bureau proper, but still just calls themselves the New Bureau 2, will that really fuck with their heads? Is the programming actually to Sosa primarily? What IS the Bureau when it comes to their brainwashing programming, and how affective is it?

14-1 did something to Sev during his 3rd rez, I don't know what exacty he used or where he got it from, or if we'll EVER learn what it is, but it's weird. I wonder if we can fuck with the brainwashing machine to wash the minds of the other moldies without having to rez them?

>>94510
Its DA. He said he gave us more than well know or something and that he can easily take it away. 14 also used "guy" referring to the person who gave him the melty stick, which isn't proof on its own but backed by what DA said that I cant dig up on mobile but was in our last interaction with him, its a solid chance.

At risk of sounding like a dumbass...what upgrade shell technician? In which thread was she mentioned?

>>94619
90-2. The moldie with the cyber eye.

She first shows up for escort duty, at the end of thread 2, when we brought Keesh and Sara back to base. >>/questarch/529792
Then in thread 5 she's in the background >>/questarch/585178 and gives us a shell upgrade >>/questarch/586057
In thread 6 she does Penny >>/questarch/614013

Honestly, I was expecting it to be a bigger problem we'd completely forgot about one of the base's reconstructed assets when planning our treason. I expected, say, 38-3 or Sosa or someone to wire ahead on a secure line so she'd be ready to shoot us in the back while we were watching for the external threat coming. Or just for her to notice something and not be cool with what we were doing.

Oh well. At least we didn't have to shoot her. Although we stuck her with an annoying idiot, which is maybe worse.

>>94624
thank you!

Brom how much of DA's backstory did you make up right on the spot? I need to know.

A round of applause, man. Marvellously done. Its rare to have an element like that done with taste and gravity such a subject deserves, and you have.

>>94779
DA was actually planned to have this backstory from the moment he was introduced, if you'll believe it. Most of the shit i put into this quest has a gestation period of like an hour tops but I've been sitting on this reveal for years.
FEELS GOOD MAN
>>94782
Thank you!

So DA teaches computer science the way "Heisenberg" teaches chemistry?

So Dartline Alchemist's best skill is computer science too.
Tgchan *does* make good decisions.

I hope the Puppet Government's leader figure was a literal sock puppet.

>>94783
DAMN, SON.

sev three dropped the ball and its fucking hilarious oh my god

IT'S HAPPENING!

THREADS IN THE GHOST HOUSE

Should we be concerned?

Nah, Brom's a mod and can just gank it from the ghost house's slavering maw at any point.

>>97872
*r e l i e f*

Riotmode 2016/03/30(Wed)00:19 No. 98741 ID: f56624
File 145932234926.gif - (9.14KB , 495x369 , neh.gif )

Brom posted a WIP shot of the update on irc
that was a mistake

>>98741
>2% MAD

i keep listening to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY9eTihrKM0 and it reminds me of SotW for some reason and idk if its the Aesthetic of the video or what
(it starts strobe flashing red-white around the 3:00 mark jsyk)
double-o sev three's also gonna die

COMING UP:

More updates to this and maybe, god willing, a conclusion.
In the mean time I'm getting back in the swing of drawing these characters the best way I know how in my drawthread, which is Not Safe for Work: http://tgchan.org/kusaba/draw/res/17869.html

>>108995
>a conclusion
One that doesn't involve our heroes getting blown to itty, bitty pieces, please.

>>108997
Chunky pieces would be acceptable however.

OK i got it out of my system http://imgur.com/a/XvxvS
^nsfw^
Quest update either tonight or tomorrow

>>109007
Sweet.

>>109009
I wanted to match the number of pics Toxoglossa had drawn of the Sunfish characters doing it.

Then he told me exactly how many he had drawn, so that plan is out the window.

>>109012
Toxoglossa is a dirty critter.

>Manlymoldy

I am somehow entirely unsurprised there's a cyberzombie porno site.

i know i said i got it out of my system and then i made a miniature comedy porn odyssey

http://imgur.com/a/0mKYC

Update tonight I promise

>>109069
Clearly, Sevra was meant to be.

>>109070
Well I mean he CAN hack her nervous system

>>109071
Meant to be.

If this thread were a reconstituted asset, it'd be a drone by now.

I hope anyone wanting to give 38-4 a "sweet, lovable personality" doesn't feel too bad when our bullet-taker takes too many bullets and we aren't left with enough of him to make a 38-5.
I'm mostly concerned for the OOC reason that this might encourage a hasty attempt to rescue 38-4 from a doomed situation, to the harm of someone else in our very large harem group.

I am squealing happily at the sight of a new Static thread.

...Also, it's not like we haven't done infinitely more unethical things, but damn we're getting good at this resurrection thing. We are almost distressingly skilled at bringing people back as superintelligent cyberzombies.

I miss updates.

Are you doing alright dude? I'm worried about you.

>>122862
Brom goes walkabout every now and again. He could be busy with work or has to deal with other RL stuff. The best thing to do is keep his quests fed and watered until he gets back.

>>122863
Seems to be quite the walkabout.

>>128932

Brom has a tiny version of himself that needs attention.

Brom's fine, just busy with life. Wife, new baby, playing D&D with work friends.

>>128934
So regardless of how he is doing, is this quest dead or on hiatus? Has he forgotten about it or does he still check in occasionally to say he still doesnt have time?

>>128949
Taking care of a baby is a huge drain on your time and sanity. Wait like 5 more years and he might come back.

>looks at imgur link from 2017
>63 views
>Makes me think of some of the greatest and creative writing projects I know of are on this board and how few people have actually experienced them.
I hope we see an end to 73 and everyone's story, but I regardless I know I am lucky to have experienced this wonderfulness at all. As with all the work of great QMs like Brom. I personally never even played many quests, I've only read.

>>135431
Aye. It's a damn shame we never saw an end to this, but far as reasons to stop go "raising a kid" is pretty up there.

Every time I think of this quest, I see a tiny glimmer of hope.
'Soon, Brom's kid will have school to go to, and he might finally have time to finish Static on the Line and Enemy Quest."

But then I remember it's been half a decade, and he's probably moved on with his life.
C'est la vie.

>>135433
this is one of the most depressing things you could have posted on this imageboard

>>135548
Also yes he said on the Discord in January that he has no interest in finishing EQ and that probably goes for SotW too. Gave his blessing for someone else to pick up the torch.

>>135549
well i gave my blessing if someone beat my WPM on that typing test thing and nobody did

so for now no successor has revealed themself

So sense the torch that is the quest...who will take it up? The torch is still hot, so it wouldn't be easy at all to do. Maybe one would need to make a few small torches to start out with, so one could warm up the to the heat before trying to bear it. Or maybe one should instead start their own fire with torches own flame? So that they can make their own torch that can burn bright, if not brighter then the original? All I know for sure is, if we let this fire sit for long enough, it will go out...