Europareich 2057 - A Cyberpunk CYOA

[Bohr]

a2

 

[oscar]

Damn I'm getting tempted into flopping to non-lethal. Hell even our governments wouldn't flinch at forcibly dispersing and subduing protesters who were threatening to kill and charge into a building.

But PR is everything here, the mostly hostile world media will likely spin this as 'lol totalitarian nazis oppressing people' even when it's quite reasonable and likely how they themselves would react. Then again, they'll probably cry foul no matter what we do but this at least would dampen ammunition for them to use as it's pretty hard to spin a police officer trying to calm down a crowd chanting death and revolution.

In any case, C seems the best choice for location. Annoying a Polish Museum isn't quite as bad for the Reich as pissing off Megacorps and businessmen. Not too mention the fact that why the hell do we want to detain all these protesters anyway? Just more chance for unfortunate accidents to occur in the cells and bad PR.

 

[Seerix]

IMO, option A is the most efficient one:

For A you direct the riot trough the area with least chance to damage anything important(beside glass, some furniture, crap like that) and you set up your soldiers trough all the spacious lobbies of the buildings there, evacuate civilians and engage any rioters that get inside. This is probably the fast and dangerous way to deal with the situation. Also, you have the highest chance to take out/arrest Żuławska. If she's planning on becoming a star of this "revolution", better remove her before she causes any more unrest.

For B you let rioters trough a street full of expensive shops and banks. And apparently you can't easily engage anybody who decide to plunder any of those buildings, not to mention what they may do to the people inside. That means not only worse than bad rep in the media but also that Europareich will have to pay much more for all the damage.

And for C, it's just a fucking cop out. You let the rioters get away and risk that some of them decide to damage those museum ships. Probably less crap in the media and less damages to pay for but you won't really impress anybody with such display of inaction.

In both B and C media will get 100% legitimate reasons to shit on Europareich. And in A, none. Afterall, only rioters get arrested/injured/killed, maybe even some of our soldiers get hurt and most of the damage is just some moderate(even if widespread) damage to buildings of the corporations those media hate.

 

[oscar]

The media hates us anyway. They're going to spin this against us even if we behave like saints. Pissing off the corporations is far, far worse (this is cyberpunk for Pete's sake, megacorps eat government and media for breakfast).

What do you do with 10,000 protesters anyway? Put them in an internment camp? That's not going to remind anybody of anything.

 

[Monty]

Good point. We need more internment camps.

 

[Erebus]

Also, you have the highest chance to take out/arrest Żuławska. If she's planning on becoming a star of this "revolution", better remove her before she causes any more unrest.

We know who she is and where she lives. Arresting her in the next few days shouldn't be much of a problem. Zuul is dangerous as a mob leader, but it doesn't seem that she has the resources necessary to hide from us (and if she does, we're not going to catch her in the middle of 12,000 protesters anyway).

I think our superiors would want us to defuse the situation with as few casualties as possible. C seems like the best way of accomplishing that. The museum ships might get damaged, but the Reich won't bear the blame as much as in the other options (after all, nobody forced the rioters to get on those ships).

 

[Zwist]

And if they go on the ships:
Patriots? What patriot would rape the history of his own country? Hoodlums, all of them. Is that what people want? Wanton destruction? Anarchy?
No, better stay with the Reich. They are different this time around.
And they dress snazzy.

In before:

 

[Seerix]

Ah fuck it, flopping to C3. Unless Ida's gonna rant about how she hates all of them it should work out fine.

C3

 

[Bohr]

Ah fuck it, flopping to C3. Unless Ida's gonna rant about how she hates all of them it should work out fine.

C3

That's quite a comprehensive flop, even Baltika9 would be impressed.

 

[Smashing Axe]

C2​

​

I don't want to try and talk the crowd down. We don't want fame and attention from the media directed personally at us.​

 

[Seerix]

Unless we go extreme renegade on the crowd, we probably won't get much besides small mention in the news. That shouldn't have any serious consequences, maybe a random encounter with some right wingers during a patrol. Besides, media showing Europareich officer trying to talk down a riot will actually help our country's image, opposite to violence.

That's quite a comprehensive flop, even Baltika9 would be impressed.

More like a total flop, and definitely not the last in this CYOA.

 

[Bohr]

m
o
a
r

 

[Hellraiser]

The votes:

AAAAAAAA
B
CCCCCCCC

222222222222
33333

A had the earlier last vote so that's the tiebreaker as usual. The next chapter should be up on Monday at the latest unless I get swamped with work or something.

 

[Erebus]

A had the earlier vote

I'm joining the riot.

 

[Hellraiser]

A had the earlier vote

I'm joining the riot.

I meant that the last vote for it was made earlier.

 

[Erebus]

Oh, okay, I'd forgotten that was how you decided to settle ties.

 

[snoek]

Just wanted to brofist you on this let's play. Don't plan on influencing it but I've been lurking here every now and then and really enjoying where you're taking this.

 

[Hellraiser]

No you didn’t fail don’t panic, just read the damn thing.

Chapter XX

It is one of those moments where everything seems to have almost frozen, where time has slowed down to this certain near-still calmness. And yet you know that this instant of time is anything but calm. The sight before you is troubling, unnerving in a way really. Panic, people running for their lives. A scene of absolute terror partially obscured by an opaque curtain of smoke and snow. The only thing penetrating this mist of tear gas and smoke is a radiant red glare emanating from the flares and fires hidden somewhere within it.

At times like these you ask yourself, why are you even here? Is it because of Elise? No. What does her fate have to do with this after all?

Another flare gets lit, another gun is fired. Somebody screams.

Were you young and stupid, blinded by your rage over what happened to her? Possibly, now that you think about it.

The turbulent cloud before gets swept away by the wind coming from the bay.

Is this your fight? No, these people did nothing to you, at least not all of them. This is not what you signed up for.

There’s blood running down the streets, that of innocent bystanders who just wanted to voice their opinion. Little did they know that someone else planned a slaughter. The second you moved in to disperse the crowd their armed teams responded. Chaos ensued, people got hurt.

They ran out of their cars and vans where they hid with their heavier weapons. Not many of them, it appears they were still in the process of gathering in the area. Did Żuławska mess up their plans? If it was not for her aggressive speech perhaps you wouldn’t need to intervene. You find it amusing, the irony of the possibility that she messed up something that she would want to succeed.

Every thud made with every shot of their weapons echoes in the urban maze of Gdingen’s Zentrum. The crowd runs down 10 Februar Strasse dispersing into the streets that intersect it. Among them are the self-proclaimed defenders of Gdingen and the TSZ, a ragtag revolutionary army of a few dozen. All of them eager to fight the *fascists* and *volksdeutsche*.

“They’re pulling back!” Thomerson yells over the comm channel.

“Don’t let them get away!” You shout nervously.

Bullets keep flying, however the fleeing *freedom fighters* seem to be more interested in running rather than fighting. Cars along the street glimmer with a hellish glow as they become victims of molotov cocktails.

“Well we’ve got most of them, what is your status Frau Westgard?” Skorzeny asks over the comms.

“We’re chasing a group of about twenty of them.” You reply calmly as the gunfire seems to have subsided for now. “They just stormed into one of the towers.”

“Which tower?” He asks.

You turn your head upwards and gaze upon the corporate monolith before you. It rises defiantly above the smoke produced by the burning wrecks on the street. Its lights shine in the darkness like a lighthouse, cutting through the screen of falling snow. Its heart – a pulsating blue and yellow shape with a corporate name inscribed below upon its glass and steel body.

“It’s the one used by Gazimperiya,” you reply, “I think we’ll need backup to flush them out of there. The cops are already surrounding it as we speak.”

The squads regroups, all that is left is this one group hiding inside this single tower. You have them surrounded, they have nowhere to run. They even stopped trying to shoot you.

“This is quite a mess.” Skorzeny tells you. “I just got word they’ve got hostages.”

Suddenly you notice an incoming call indicator flashing. You answer it, McKay appears on your screen.

“Gazimperiya granted us remote access into their security network. Visual data is available.”

“Do we know where they are and how many hostages they have?” You ask the transhuman hacker. “Also can you plug me into the security feed?”

“The camera datastreams are being probed by me as we speak. An uplink can be established. Done.”

Your field of view is blocked with a vidstream window, it rapidly switches between various cameras in the Gazimperiya tower. Eventually you see the *revolutionaries* barricading themselves with hostages on one of the upper floors. It looks like they took a dozen employees.

“Access the cameras from the same floor, look for entrance paths.” You order the SysOp.

The video window splits into several smaller ones, each with its own point of view. It is clear these terrorists prepared themselves for such a situation, they’re wearing gas masks which means gassing them is out of the question. Each of them carries an assault rifles, it looks like Cod helped them get those as they’re similar to what his goons were using. Some have grenades as well along with flak vests or better types of protection.

“Well this won’t be easy.” You comment after a moment of thinking about what you just saw.

“I am not efficient in matters of tactical analysis therefore I cannot confirm your hypothesis.” The ECK hacker tells you.

“Hold on,” you say as an indicator on your HUD starts flashing, “I’ve got another call.”

The image of the Major himself appears before you.

“Frau Westgard, you are to storm the place and capture or kill every one of those terrorists.” Major Schobel orders you.

“What about the hostages Herr Major? Also shouldn’t the counter-terrorism police unit handle this?” You ask, his orders were rather unexpected.

“They will assist you if you want to. However the General made it clear your squad is to assault the building.”

“With all due respect Herr Major I wasn’t trained for this.”

“You did help with rescuing people from terrorists back in France have you not? That experience should be sufficient. Schobel out.” The comm channel's window closes.

The order from the General arrived a mere second later. Just like the Major said, your orders are to engage the terrorists and free the hostages. You may cooperate with the Counter-Terrorism squad but don’t need to. This makes no sense, why doesn’t he just send in the cops to do this alone?

You gather near the police's field command post to discuss the plan. The TSZ Counter-Terrorism Police officer in charge is Helmut Dockweiler, a former GSG 9 member. He is a mean-looking guy with an outright menacing stone-faced visage, for the moment his petrifying gaze is pointed directly at a display surface showing the layout of the floor where the terrorists are.

“Twelve hostages in one room with one entrance.” Dockweiler says angrily. “Pairs of elevators in the corners of the building, two stairwells on opposites sides of the building. Hostiles spread out across the floor ready to ambush us when their sentries spot anything. Another day in hell and the devil himself decided to spice things up.”

“Well, they’re nothing if not prepared.” You tell him.

“Tell me Westgard, how are *you* supposed to help me with this?”

“Probably with fire support, we’re not trained for operations like this. We should let you handle the hostages while we draw their fire.”

“A distraction? That’s actually a solid idea, didn’t expect that much from a grunt who should be wearing a skirt.” Helmut grumbles sarcastically.

“Pardon?”

“Consider that a compliment lady. Now, how do we handle this? I’ve got only six men as the rest is busy babysitting sites across the TSZ.”

“Well I’ve got eight.”

“Gott in Himmel, then we might as well start carving our tombstones!” He complains. “Two grunts who want to play CT and a bunch of rookies that probably can’t even shoot straight. Your superiors must really hate you or God wants to remind you why you should go to Church every Sunday.”

“Then we have to defeat them using superior tactics and equipment. I’ll divide my squad into two teams, one lead by me the other by the Unteroffizier. We draw them away and you move in to flank them. My people may not be able to shoot straight but they do know how to draw fire.”

“That’s all fine and dandy on paper lady, just how do you intend to get there?”

“Well the elevators are suicide for the first wave, but we can use them to deploy the second team or your team. We could also send empty ones as a distraction, the ECK SysOp McKay has full control over the security network so they won’t know how many people are aboard one.”

“Elevators? Surely you are joking lady. Why use elevators when we can bust in through the windows.”

“Right, forgot you were trained in doing that. Although you can only access the four outermost rooms with that or the outer corridor.”

“If you want to use the stairs you need to go from the top, we’ll need to get a VTOL or chopper to drop us off. These guys are on the 26th floor, they’ve got another ten floors above them.”

“Makes sense, we’ll grab some flash bangs and smoke grenades. Now, about the directions of attack…”

*

The map once again:

Red tiles – elevators
Brown tiles – stairs
Yellow tiles – rooms (they have one door at the center tile connected to the corridor)
Blue tiles – corridor

The yellow numbers represents the hostages and red the amount of hostiles at the location. The top of the map is north, left is west, east is right and south is the bottom.

Team 1 is: Westgard, Osterhagen, Bosch, Beauvais
Team 2 is: Muller, Mazowiecka, Smith, Richter

The first wave will engage from the:
F1) northern stairwell.
F2) southern stairwell.
F3) north-west elevators.
F4) north-east elevators.
F5) south-west elevators.
F6) south-east elevators.

The second wave will engage from the:
S1) northern stairwell.
S2) southern stairwell.
S3) north-west elevators.
S4) north-east elevators.
S5) south-west elevators.
S6) south-east elevators.

The CT Police team will enter through the windows of the:
P1) western corridor.
P2) eastern corridor.
P3) north-west room.
P4) north-east room.
P5) south-west room.
P6) south-east room.

The first wave team will be:
A) Team 1.
B) Team 2.

Vote on the options listed above.

Elevator teams will arrive after decoy elevators on the opposite side of the floor. That gives you the initiative and a free round of firing before hostiles react, also some hostiles will waste time checking on those elevators delaying them. Hostiles can move at a pace of five tiles per round for reinforcement purposes, you can be flanked negating any cover you have so keep that in mind.

The corridors are bare apart from the occasional potted plant, only the corners of the walls can serve as proper cover. The rooms are filled with typical office equipment which can be used as cover. The hostiles however are too dumb to move them out into the corridor and make barricades there.

If the police team suffers no casualties you get a fate point, it pays to be a bullet magnet. Well unless somebody gets killed, but you’ll get new meat shields after that. I’m just going to say that because you’re fighting on the 26th floor proper medical aid will come late (even if it will come by chopper, fucking stairs/elevators man) so people may end up dying.

If Ida gets unlucky she may end up in a body bag as well, although you still have 1 fate point so combined with your past combat experience dying is rather unlikely if you plan the assault right.

The good news is you would face more and better equipped terrorists if you didn’t break up the protest early. The police team is better equipped than your squad in general, also they're more experienced and better trained, so they’ll do most of the killing probably. These guys *terrorists* overall better armed than the thugs you faced in the warehouse. Remember that.

 

[Azira]

Votes in order:
F2
S6
P1
B

 

[Hellraiser]

Votes in order:
F2
S6
S1
B

Derp, just noticed I forgot to change the second row of "S" letters into "P" for the cop team choices. That's fixed now. I assume that by S1 you mean the choice that is now P1.

 

[Azira]

Yep, that's what I meant. It was also the reason I did them in order.
I have changed my original votes post.

Reasoning for those votes: The first two teams act as bullet sponges, they need to draw attention without exposing themselves too much. Keeping them together maximises this. Having the police enter from the other side through the windows should give us a nice advantage of taking the enemy unawares, and the western corridor is closest to where the hostages are kept.

Now, feel free to poke holes in my plan.

 

[Storyfag]

F2
S6
P1
B

 

[eklektyk]

F2
S6
P1
B

i hope that by first wave it means stairwell guys poke heads aroynd the corner to drow tangos from elevator that ida will use...otherwise this sound plan will get real messy real quick ...

 

[Seerix]

It's interesting how we suddenly get very decisive orders when some rioters terrorized the tower of the Russian energy corporation.

As for the voting, I'll wait until all the master tacticians and strategists of the Codex voice theirs, I'm horrible at this stuff.

 

[oscar]

F2
S6 S4
P1
B

Plan seems solid enough. Envelop them in the south while the experts smash through in the west. I'm less sure about having the CTs coming in from the west. Would it be better to let them gain their bearings in an undefended location than enter right next to the defended hostages?

Changed to Monty's plan: This one will take a lot more heat off of the CTs.