Finding Prime Base

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

You have to step carefully with Damocles. If you make it too smart and too far-reaching then it becomes a literal Deus ex Machina. If it can find Prime Base, the proverbial needle in the haystack, how much must it know of the KFS? Or Krell? Or any other vaguely technologically-advanced society? If the team can befriend Damocles, do they need to do anything else at all in the game?

It is a good question about what Damocles was netted into when the war happened. However as you stated most if not all of the sensor networks will be down within days of the war, so his ability to gather SIGINT even a few years later will be very much minimized. His operational mode will prevent him from being able to reach out very much. So he may catch occasional signs of the return of technological society, but how much will he really get of the short ranged coms being used?

That being said if he is not isolated from the many and varied military networks when the balloon goes up he will potentially have a huge storehouse of knowledge about the war. This, and the data he collected after the war COULD point players who ask the right questions in the direction of Prime Base. He may know that during the war and until his nets went down there were no warheads delivered to where Prime Base is. He will almost certainly have a data base of where every nuclear detonation was during and after the conflict. His on site sensors would be able to detect ground burst nuclear weapons fairly readily. The huge number impacting during large scale strikes might be tough to sort into individual impacts but a stand alone one should be clear as a bell.

Any SIGINT from the period leading up to the nuclear detonation at Prime might have additional clues.

Damocles doesn't have all the data, and data only works if you ask the right questions. He won't. It will be up to the Players to do that.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by tsofian

That being said if he is not isolated from the many and varied military networks when the balloon goes up he will potentially have a huge storehouse of knowledge about the war. This, and the data he collected after the war COULD point players who ask the right questions in the direction of Prime Base.

During the time in which Damocles is collecting with significant ability, Prime Base isn't radiating. If Damocles is detecting Prime Base during its active period, then it must possess radio intercept capabilities that would also mean it could spy on Krell and the KFS and others. So it's one or the other - either Damocles has nothing on the Project or it also has info on the other players. It is the same gear, same processes, there is no reason for it to intercept only Morrow transmissions.

Originally Posted by tsofian

He may know that during the war and until his nets went down there were no warheads delivered to where Prime Base is. He will almost certainly have a data base of where every nuclear detonation was during and after the conflict. His on site sensors would be able to detect ground burst nuclear weapons fairly readily. The huge number impacting during large scale strikes might be tough to sort into individual impacts but a stand alone one should be clear as a bell.

I am not disputing Damocles' ability to detect the detonation, just the ability to know that the Project exists and then associate that detonation with the headquarters.

Originally Posted by tsofian

Any SIGINT from the period leading up to the nuclear detonation at Prime might have additional clues.

And there should not be any significant SIGINT from that period. By the time Prime Base starts radiating, Damocles should be operating using only its own on-site antennas and computers, trying to detect low power, LPI radio transmissions from 1500 miles away. Even in the low-noise post-war environment they would probably not be able to detect more than a few sparse transmissions with poor directionality and insufficient data to make any kind of real determination.

Damocles might know that there were a few coded transmissions along a cone that includes a late nuclear detonation, but that doesn't correlate to knowing that Prime Base is there and may not correlate with anything at all - there may have been a variety of radio sources still working that late, including military and intelligence, there may have been a variety of late detonations, and regardless the information is simply going to be too slim to characterize.

Originally Posted by tsofian

Damocles doesn't have all the data, and data only works if you ask the right questions. He won't. It will be up to the Players to do that.

And what would those questions need to look like? Damocles is intelligent, if it has <insert adequate information here>, what questions do the players need to ask to discover that (a) Prime Base is located at site XYZ and that (b) although it was hit by a nuclear detonation there is still something there worth traversing a post-apocalyptic country to investigate?

[Project_Sardonicus]

Why would Damocles neccasairly help?


Remember Damoclese is an experimental aritificial intelligence and not some sort of obedient slave bot.

Damocles may have some interesting views e.g.;

1 Wake up a few teams they can help keep me secure until I build some more robots (and they weren't so great).
As well as help me learn more and explore the world.

2 Take advantage of Project's facilities like holes in the ground full of useful stuff or power plants for when my batteries run flat.

3 Wake up a big hole with hundreds of people in it, who'll boss me around and make me do all the work? Nah maybe later.

Damocles as a sort of super powerful, ageless, stroppy teen ager could be fun.

[Project_Sardonicus]

Also now I think about it, maybe whilst he's been on his lonesome all those years Damocles watched Terminator or maybe Colossus the Forbin Project.

Knows where some remaining nukes are and thinks "hmm these humans really are a nuisance with their demands, time to break out the nuclear bug sprayer?"

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by Project_Sardonicus

Also now I think about it, maybe whilst he's been on his lonesome all those years Damocles watched Terminator or maybe Colossus the Forbin Project.

I hadn't thought of that. Is there a Russian or Chinese equivalent to Damocles and did they have an opportunity to exchange math?

[tsofian]

"There is another system"

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

I hadn't thought of that. Is there a Russian or Chinese equivalent to Damocles and did they have an opportunity to exchange math?

Dead Hand.... Your option to add Artificial Intelligence to this system.

Dead Hand (Gizmodo)

Dead Hand (Business Insider)

Dead Hand (Wired)