Storyline - The Drunk in the Corner

[Cdnwolf]

Your characters are back home and heading to do one of the other modules when you stop at a bar in a non descript town. The locals are too friendly and ignore you so you decide to drink up and move on. Just as you are leaving a drunk in the corner starts getting boisterous and loud and suddenly you hear him say....

"I swear on everything holy and sacred to y'all. I was one of the survivors from Airforce One and I really know what happen that night to President Tanner!"

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I do like this sort of encounter, gives the PCs an opportunity to run into something out of the ordinary.

[Cdnwolf]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I do like this sort of encounter, gives the PCs an opportunity to run into something out of the ordinary.

Hmmmm maybe MilGov was prepared for something like this and planted someone on the Presidents Secret Service detachment to make sure the plane never took off...

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Or maybe the drunk guy is a plant to identify people who are interested in finding out what happened?

[Jason Weiser]

I always had a small issue with the idea of NECAP having mechanical failure. Not saying it is impossible, but...unlikely if there is increased alert levels.

Now, here is a possibility, some KGB sleepers who weren't caught in the initial sweeps when the war broke out, were activated shortly before the exchange broke out. Their orders were to wreak some havoc, but not to attack any members of the Administration, as they didn't want to provoke the Americans into going after members of the Defense Council (Not to mention the potential for escalation).

Well, our intrepid heroes of the Soviet Union screwed up...they seeded the grounds around Andrews with Strela-Blok, the day before the Thanksgiving Massacre...they thought they'd bag a general in a VC-20, or the like (They had no idea the Soviets were about to cross the Strategic Nuclear threshold, and thought the President had already relocated to Camp David or elsewhere within the Federal Arc).

They were of course, wrong. The Bloks worked perfectly, blowing 2 out of 4 engines off of the 747 while it was climbing out from the runway. The flight crew had no time to activate countermeasures, and the sudden loss of power stalled the airplane some 1000 feet off of the ground, it was non recoverable and smashed into the ground, nose first, with the President and most of his staff being killed on impact.

Our drunk is a former member of the President's Secret Service detail who had the good fortune to be using the aft lavatory when the missiles hit...

So, what do you guys think?

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I like it. Perfectly workable and feasible. I'd add though, that even if the flight crew did activate the countermeasures it wouldn't help. They've lost two engines and are in a stall - too late to close the gate after the horse has bolted sort of thing. Given what you've said Jason, even a birdstrike from a flock of geese/ducks fouling one or two of the engines is more likely than the mechanical failure given in the book.

Your idea for the crash can also more easily lead into a follow up adventure. With the crash location known and the possibility that any crash investigation was hurried due to the war crisis (and the discovery of the empty Strela launchers would provide immediate & obvious clues as to what happened), it may be worth MilGov and/or CivGov sending a team to more comprehensively search the area once they had the resources available.

I know this is well after the fact but I'm working from the position that with the chaos of the war and the confusion following the loss of the nation's leaders, there would be more important concerns than a long term investigation of the crash (considering the Strela launchers provide an immediate answer to the question). A more thorough investigation might be put onto the back burner, something to do later when things calm down. But things never clam down and eventually the investigation, shoved to the back of the list all the time is either forgotten or deemed irrelevant... until someone realizes that something of value may still lie within the wreckage.

More importantly than anything I've babbled on about here, it's a great example of brainstorming adventure ideas. Jason's post built on Cdnwolf's post and I've thrown my 0.02c worth in, we're fleshing out another potential scenario for the PCs.

[mikeo80]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Or maybe the drunk guy is a plant to identify people who are interested in finding out what happened?

Or this guy is the equivalent of "The Man with the umbrella" at Dallas in 1963. According to some conspiracy theories, TMWTU was the go ahead signal to the shooters. Notice in the Zapruder Film, as the Presidential Limo approaches, TMWTU has the umbrella up. After the gunshots, you see him walking away with the umbrella down.

My $0.02

Mike

[unkated]

Or he's a drunk who had a buddy who flew on AF 1 as a crewman, and told the drunk enough to make a story good enough, hopefully, to dine and drink out on.

So, he tells an intriguing and almost implausible tale...

And if the PCs begin to investigate, he disappears. If the PCs are hooked on the tale, this may concern them all the more.

Uncle Ted