Damocles 2017

[Jeff9650]

With my hands wrapped around the 4th edition, I plan to run Damocles. But as one of the people who is going to play that adventure pointed out, there would be a lot of changes since the war started in 2017. That got me thinking, and the more I think about it, there would be changes, not in just the base itself, but how Damocles is hooked up the defense network.

With that in mind, I turn to you, the forum, for ideas and suggestions. Again, not with just any upgrades, but with:

New equipment, would the underground portions of the base expand to accommodate more staff, would Damocles be hooked up to the network, when the first sightings of the asteroid approaching would they do anything different, would the American government put in some freeze tubes to store staff to help Damocles out or use them as a 'morrow-esx' type of base?

[ArmySGT.]

Damocles lacked good intelligence gathering capabilities on its own. The little recon units are weak and sending the large defense units out wasteful.

Aerial drones...... a catapult launch and net recovery system for Damocles to launch surveillance and over the horizon comms relay drones.

Would Damocles be hooked up to any networks? I think any DoD networks were test and evaluation networks testing capability. That said. The whole reason for the internet was to link research and development think tanks at various universities together and through DARPA. DARPAnet. So I would think that Damocles linked by satellite, microwave transmitter, and fiberoptic cable. The war though cut those connections. Satellites lasted longest....... six months to a year before failing........ Microwave transmitters and cable connections died when the major cities died. The only comms now would be a Defense Service Network phone switch. That could be working as those systems are hardwired and redundant. So maybe the hotlines to National Command Authority, Cheyenne Mountain, Raven Rock, Omaha SAC base, Greenbriar hotel, etc still work?

I think that the US Gov has assets in place for a "Deep Impact" scenario in the limestone cliff in Arkansas, salt mines in Kansas, the Black Hills of North Dakota, the deep mine complex in West Virginia, etc. The US govt would likely do the stupid and try to bunch as many cryotubes as they can in one place for security and convenience.

From the other threads, any tubes associated with Damocles would either be cryosleep researchers, a frozen security asset, or computer science personnel preserved to help out after the war.

[stormlion1]

Damocles I think wouldn't change much overall. Only real difference would be multiple connections to the outside rather than a few the original had. Buried landlines, satellite, etc. It would have a connection to the Internet and probably its own servers that could act as a backup to gov't farms elsewhere and probably a hidden automated hanger for several drones that could be controlled by remote. Probably not Predators or anything but more of the helicopter style ones as the need for a landing strip would be reduced. ground drones and automated defences would be relatively the same. I don't see there being cryotubes installed though as the facility would have the ability to communicate with other gov't installations via buried landlines, satellites, or whatever. Ones where people in charge could be sleeping. Damocles wasn't that big after all and shouldn't be made all that much larger.

[ArmySGT.]

The other thing is............ You don't want to give Damocles all that much. Damocles is already a sentient supercomputer capable of building semi-autonomous drones. Damocles is the system that wakes up the Team for "Operation Lucifer". That means that Damocles can begin waking Teams just by brute force sending Morrow recall codes until it gets a response. No control over who wakes up but, it does wake teams. If you get lucky, you wake a combined group leader such as "Operation Final Watch".

"Final Watch" is the "Kobyrashi Maru" scenario for the Morrow Project.

Damocles has the capability to tap into the Houston control center and operate the Morrow Sat. Once connections are established the computer sciences lab at the "Uni" in "Ruins of Chicago".

It makes the definition for power creep. Before you know it you are throwing tanks, stealth fighters, and godzilla at your MP teams because they can defeat anything.

Keep Damocles in check. He is a tool in the GMs tool box and not one for the players.

[stormlion1]

I'd limit Damocles capability's and reach by the fact it has no support personnel (Plus the finding of the last peoples remains and story's is fun to have in the scenario) and having Damocles have severe limits in its ability to scavenge and produce new equipment. Sure it can connect with Houston or Cheyenne Mountain, Raven Rock or the University in Chicago. But what if lines are cut, the bases are destroyed or just have no power? Is a Morrow Team going to lay USB cable all the way to Chicago? The most secure is buried landlines while satellite dishes probably wouldn't have survived a war very well much less the years that have gone by. If Houston has no power the connection is for nought and come on, Cheyenne isn't going to survive. Its a high priority target. Its going to get hit until its dead. Best bet really is the facility's to produce new drones are using stockpiled parts and Damocles lacks the ability to produce new ones. Something as simple as the facility being damaged could put Damocles behind easily enough. It would limit what it could salvage and what it could assemble. Heck, it would make for good backstory If a original Damocles developer did it to avoid having Damocles go Skynet on the survivors of Earth. He pulled something that Damocles cannot replace and hid it or destroyed limiting Damocles to simple, short ranged drones.

[RandyT0001]

IMO Damocles is a tool for the PD of the game to wake up other teams to work on new modules produced by Timeline in the 80's amd to wake up new teams that are close to where the current team in your game of MP for replacements as needed. The Damocles module really does not require extensive rewriting or changes itself. However, the local environment around the facility may have changed. Instead of nice Nordic people wanting you to join them in a hot tub the area is surrounded by Razers. Maybe the Kentucky Free State has control of the area. Maybe Damocles was targeted by Russian and Chinese cyber-attacks just before the bombs fell and now Damocles itself has lost some functionality because it "self-lobotomized" a portion of it's memory and CPU's to isolate "Virus" (Suicider). This loss of functionality might be why Damocles needs the Uni computer in Chicago. (Of course it's entirely up to Jeff in the end.)

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

I'd limit Damocles capability's and reach by the fact it has no support personnel (Plus the finding of the last peoples remains and story's is fun to have in the scenario) and having Damocles have severe limits in its ability to scavenge and produce new equipment. Sure it can connect with Houston or Cheyenne Mountain, Raven Rock or the University in Chicago. But what if lines are cut, the bases are destroyed or just have no power? Is a Morrow Team going to lay USB cable all the way to Chicago? The most secure is buried landlines while satellite dishes probably wouldn't have survived a war very well much less the years that have gone by. If Houston has no power the connection is for nought and come on, Cheyenne isn't going to survive. Its a high priority target. Its going to get hit until its dead. Best bet really is the facility's to produce new drones are using stockpiled parts and Damocles lacks the ability to produce new ones. Something as simple as the facility being damaged could put Damocles behind easily enough. It would limit what it could salvage and what it could assemble. Heck, it would make for good backstory If a original Damocles developer did it to avoid having Damocles go Skynet on the survivors of Earth. He pulled something that Damocles cannot replace and hid it or destroyed limiting Damocles to simple, short ranged drones.

According to the modules, Damocles once co-opted by the MP team will raise the comms tower and using brute force reactivate a team near a nuclear weapon that impacted without detonation. This is Operation Lucifer. Damocles will attempt often to contact National Command Authority to request new orders. Damocles will upon activation detect the operation of the Morrow Sat and use this to increase his range and opt for more signal capacity than AM wavelengths. That is from Operation Lonestar.

Damocles is the envisioned tool for the players to get the Project started without Prime Base.