Project Hiding Places

[Owen E Oulton]

Cache was a word in the Special Operations Community long before the Morrow Project was envisioned.

Hate to bust your bubble, Sarge, but cache has been a common vocabulary word for centuries, long, long before the Special Operations Community was even a gleam in the eye, meaning exactly what is meant in this context, that of a (usually) concealed storage space.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by Owen E Oulton

Cache was a word in the Special Operations Community long before the Morrow Project was envisioned.

Hate to bust your bubble, Sarge, but cache has been a common vocabulary word for centuries, long, long before the Special Operations Community was even a gleam in the eye, meaning exactly what is meant in this context, that of a (usually) concealed storage space.

Well, that was rather obvious wasn't it?

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Special Perks (a wholly own subsidiary of Morrow Industries)

From an operational security standpoint, this is pretty risky. It ONLY makes sense if you are presuming the complete breakdown of the chain of command - admittedly what happened but hardly something to plan for! All it takes is Krell or the US government or the Rich Five or someone else to notice that a couple of these places housed Morrow caches and soon every such facility in reach has been plundered. If a team needs supplies, they should be able to contact their chain of command and get directed to a facility.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

From an operational security standpoint, this is pretty risky. It ONLY makes sense if you are presuming the complete breakdown of the chain of command - admittedly what happened but hardly something to plan for! All it takes is Krell or the US government or the Rich Five or someone else to notice that a couple of these places housed Morrow caches and soon every such facility in reach has been plundered. If a team needs supplies, they should be able to contact their chain of command and get directed to a facility.

What are you talking about?

Teams don't operate out of or with one of these facilities......... The assigned personnel can spy on local government after the activation of Recon teams in the start up phase of the project..... If the above ground portion doesn't survive the destruction the psyops personell can still use the secret facility below to make pamphlets and letters.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

What are you talking about?

Perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying. If you are saying that Special Perks was a strictly pre-war intelligence-gathering operation, then I see no problem with that other than the potential issue of efficiency, which is solved if the company is financially self-sufficient as an above-board business. I took the inclusion of on-site facilities, in particular the fusion plant, as indication that the Special Special Perks facilities would in some way be used post-war. And if that is the case I don't see the point - any significant opposition (Krell, whoever) is likely to notice that Morrow teams are frequenting former coffee houses and at that point you have a bunch of identified facilities and/or caches that you cannot realistically protect.

As a note, I also never liked that Morrow facilities were marked as such - like the warehouse in Starnaman, for example. Same problem, only bigger! But those at least had some capacity to be defended, either through automatic systems and/or residential staff.

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Teams don't operate out of or with one of these facilities......... The assigned personnel can spy on local government after the activation of Recon teams in the start up phase of the project..... If the above ground portion doesn't survive the destruction the psyops personell can still use the secret facility below to make pamphlets and letters.

Why does the secret facility need to be below a Special Perks in the first place? If you are assigned to it then you don't need it to be under something so consistent, and if you are NOT assigned to it then you STILL don't need it to be under something so consistent. It can be anywhere within miles and be just as effective, and if new personnel need access then they can request the location through their chain of command.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying. If you are saying that Special Perks was a strictly pre-war intelligence-gathering operation, then I see no problem with that other than the potential issue of efficiency, which is solved if the company is financially self-sufficient as an above-board business. I took the inclusion of on-site facilities, in particular the fusion plant, as indication that the Special Special Perks facilities would in some way be used post-war. And if that is the case I don't see the point - any significant opposition (Krell, whoever) is likely to notice that Morrow teams are frequenting former coffee houses and at that point you have a bunch of identified facilities and/or caches that you cannot realistically protect.

As a note, I also never liked that Morrow facilities were marked as such - like the warehouse in Starnaman, for example. Same problem, only bigger! But those at least had some capacity to be defended, either through automatic systems and/or residential staff.

This is a post- War intelligence gathering operation, similar to those run by the Maquis; French Resistance, in WW2 Paris, France.

Any Morrow Teams frequenting this establishment with the exception of a CG Leader would be unaware of its actual purpose. Though that is has electrical power and clean water might cause them to investigate (good!). The assigned PsyOps and CA teams would operate in Contact kit and influence events indirectly.

As far as Krell or other enemies, OK.... this is usually operated in the center of a former urban or suburban area and part of a community. The locals might not appreciate someone coming to burn down their coffee shop. Thus we have a departure point for adventure.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Why does the secret facility need to be below a Special Perks in the first place? If you are assigned to it then you don't need it to be under something so consistent, and if you are NOT assigned to it then you STILL don't need it to be under something so consistent. It can be anywhere within miles and be just as effective, and if new personnel need access then they can request the location through their chain of command.

Because in this way it can be identified for story purposes without expressly writing "Morrow Industries" in bold letters on the front door. A CG Leader or higher may know from preWar briefings and smart PCs probably have some knowledge of the many MI corporate holdings.

This sort of facility allows the PD to engineer a Spy game in the Morrow Project setting.

Before you get yourself worked up and write a long reply......

Produce some original content of your own.

Critiques are welcome, but some POSITIVE feedback would be a welcome change.

Until you produce some original content of your own, I am not going to respond to your posts any longer.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

This sort of facility allows the PD to engineer a Spy game in the Morrow Project setting.

Before you get yourself worked up and write a long reply......

Produce some original content of your own.

Critiques are welcome, but some POSITIVE feedback would be a welcome change.

Until you produce some original content of your own, I am not going to respond to your posts any longer.

I have on many posts indicated how I would do things, does that not count as "original content"? I have largely avoided posting large sections of "content" because I have not seen many people running the game the way I run it, but here is how I would engineer a spy game in Morrow:

I wouldn't.

Here's why:

MORROW ARGUS TEAM

The Morrow Project had substantial pre- and post-war intelligence gathering needs that required a dedicated organization distinct from the regular RECON teams. Thus Argus was born, recruited from organizations like the CIA, NSA, DIA, and military intelligence units. Where a RECON team or Morrow recruiter would eventually, often immediately, identify themselves as members of the Project, Argus operatives would do so only as a last resort.

Argus as an organization never had many permanent members - most of the work was done by hired help ignorant of Morrow and perhaps even of what they were doing, while most of what was left was gleaned using Morrow recruits, destined for other areas of the Project and on the way out the door of their old lives. Ultimately, there was only so much effort that could be diverted from the more central mission areas, and Argus made do with what they had. For reasons of practicality and security, Argus made no effort to directly penetrate any foreign military or intelligence organizations - their data gathering was entirely secondhand.

While many supposed such an organization had to exist, it was not acknowledged within the Project at any but the highest levels - among other things, Argus, like Phoenix, occasionally had to do things that did not fit with the morality of most of the Project staff...

For convenience, I will break Argus down by it's activities before, during, and after the "shutdown" during which the bulk of the Project was in suspended animation.

Pre-shutdown:

Argus had three primary pre-war missions, in order: First, to protect the Project from discovery. Second, to gather information on how the war would play out, particularly in regards to protecting Project assets. Third, to identify and if possible move useful assets to where the Project could protect or recover them.

The first was the most difficult and most important, and largely fell to the permanent Argus core. Project leaks and compromises were identified by Argus agents in key positions in the "alphabet agencies", assisted by the Project's technological advantages. Once a compromise was identified, the records could be altered or destroyed, the compromised individuals or resources could be moved or disguised as something non-harmful to the Project, and individuals could be convinced of error, recruited into the Project or, in a few unpleasant but necessary cases, eliminated. All of this needed to occur in the brief time between the initial reports being filed and any real follow-up investigation being implemented. The task was never completely successful, as evidenced by the existence of the Snake Eaters and the Rich Five, but Argus was largely able to keep "Morrow" from being associated with majority of compromises, and was able to make most of them look innocuous to the investigating agencies. It was only in the last few years before the war that Argus had to shift into real damage control mode and focus on concealing the extent and resources that the Project was concealing from a government that was now aware of its existence.

The second task was accomplished using some of the same Argus core and technologies as the first task, greatly aided by new Morrow recruits. Argus tried very hard to avoid "traditional" HUMINT not involving Project recruits, as it would leave the organization vulnerable not only to discovery but to labeling as an enemy of the United States. Much of the information about the war that was really relevant to the Project was gained through SIGINT, as well as through recruit interviews and data recovered by military and intelligence recruits. Indeed, some Project members were recruited more for the information they could access than for their inherent value in the actual recovery. The task met with mixed success, as Argus was largely able to provide enough pre-war information to protect Project assets and plan for recovery, but Argus, like the US government it was so dependent upon, failed to identify the seeds of what would become the post-apocalyptic powerhouses known as the Rich Five and the Warriors of Krell.

Much of the third task was accomplished in a similar manner to the second, combined with careful manipulation of some thoroughly Byzantine bureaucracies, but much more was enacted quite openly. Argus operatives advocated in their overt occupations openly, if carefully, for safety measures against nuclear war. Many spent time as safety or procurement officers, ensuring that key (to the Project) resources received premium placement in protected spaces, with ample spares purchased. Others made sure that key personnel were convinced to leave positions of high scrutiny to jobs where they could be safely recruited. The success of this task was made largely irrelevant by the loss of Prime Base - with few exceptions, the bulk of the assets they strove to identify and protect have been destroyed or claimed in the decades since the war.

Shutdown:

The shutdown led to a reorganization of Argus, from a body operating within the US government's intelligence apparatus to one that would be operating on its own with an expectation of dominance. Argus grew slightly, obtaining some technical and support personnel, but no new operatives or analysts were brought in. Argus headquarters, in Prime Base, stayed active during the shutdown, but most of the remaining assets were frozen to protect them from the war.

The exceptions were jokingly called "the Exiles". A relative handful of operatives volunteered to stay outside Prime Base in their original positions - some were embedded within government and military agencies directly gathering intelligence, others were operating under civilian cover and serving as middlemen to headquarters. Most of the volunteers were ordered into protection, but some, judged to be "safer", were permitted to remain active and reporting during the war. The nature of their jobs meant that they were sending much more information to Prime Base than they were getting in return, and their exposed positions were vulnerable enough that no one knowing the location of any major Morrow facilities was allowed to join the Exiles. Exiles were carefully positioned in "halos", close enough to major cities to be useful in gathering information but far enough out to stand a good chance of surviving the inevitable attack.

Post-shutdown (planned):

When the Project began recovery operations, Argus was intended to form a light and highly mobile intelligence organization, divided into three tiers.

Tier 1 was those assets located in Prime Base and the regional commands. Their protected positions meant that they could handle the full spectrum of intelligence products and resources with minimal fear of compromise, analogous to Langley for the CIA. Prime Base of course stayed active during the war, while the regional commands lay dormant.

Tier 2 was made up of a series of mobile bases, crates of computers, communications equipment, and supplies that could be loaded onto trucks and discretely unpacked by a couple of people in days or even hours to form a discrete center of operations anywhere in the rapidly-changing post-apocalyptic political landscape. These small teams, typically just 2 or 3 people, were to serve as coordinators bridging the gap between the immobile but vast Tier 1 resources and the highly mobile but exposed Tier 3 assets. Tier 2 personnel were to try to keep themselves isolated from the population, blending in without engaging.

Tier 3 were operatives directly engaging with the population, operating generally with minimal or no special equipment. They all had initial covers they would maintain in the military, intelligence organizations, civilian government, or the general populace. Depending on the dynamics of the post-apocalyptic society, they could maintain those covers in place, move with their covers to new positions or locations, or abandon their covers entirely and attempt to infiltrate new areas with the assistance of their Tier 2 handlers.

Post-shutdown (actual):

"Why don't things ever go smooth?"

Most of the Exiles survived the war and reported all the way through it - their positions at the time did not require more than the occasional terse instruction from command. As the majority of the delay in activating the Project was due to the physical environment, Argus during this time was mostly just positioning itself for the time when the Project would activate, but they were severely inhibited by the Exiles few numbers and uncovered only vague rumors about those groups that would turn out to be the major obstacles to the Project. Although they requested the opportunity to take those steps (admittedly risky) to follow up on those rumors, they were ordered by Prime Base to stay in place, as it was preferred instead to activate new teams that had no covers to risk or abandon. Tier 1 began the process of identifying Argus Tier 2 and 3 assets that needed to be awakened and positioned in the weeks before Prime Base fell, but only a portion had been activated prior to the assault on the base.

The Exiles, due to their exposed positions, received only the barest of instruction from Prime Base, and only that which was directly related to their own operations. Even when Prime Base fell, they received no word, as command was fearful that such a communication would be intercepted and confirm the important role of the facility. One day, the Exiles simply lost communication with command and never got it back.

Argus used a classic cell structure, but even the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cell leaders lacked even the level of information and resources available to typical Morrow teams - no autonavs, no fusion-powered MPV's, nothing that would be identifiable as Project. Even their MPID's were disguised as credit cards and driver's licenses. The Tier 2 units had no way to contact each other, and no knowledge of any facilities beyond their own caches and (for some) boltholes. All of the Tier 2 units made attempts to activate Project assets, but none succeeded at doing anything more than waking a few field teams, no one with command authority or knowledge of even a regional command center was recovered.

Bereft of support, the Exiles plugged away as long as they could. Lacking the recovery training and resources of most teams, they mostly tried to help through social methods, pushing leaders and communities all while maintaining their covers and eventually integrating into them. Several of those communities still survive, with a few descendants practicing some minor level of handed-down tradecraft, with one or two people in each passing on a little remembered information about the Project to the next generation.

There are still buried Argus assets, both personnel and materiel, but they are disguised even more thoroughly than usual Morrow assets - other than strictly necessarily Morrow items like the freeze tubes, everything else is non-issue, like the Contact Packs squared. They do not show up on standard autonavs, to prevent a compromised Team from accidentally opening access to Argus. Commanders at various levels do have some contact information that allows them to activate and access Argus assets at their own level or below, and also have access to protocols and information that allow them (slowly, and with great difficulty) to activate even higher levels, but no such commanders have been awoken.

Final comments

A Morrow spy campaign could certainly be run in the years immediately after the war, and a recognizable shell might exist even a couple of decades out (i.e., outside the usual timeframe), but any spy organization able to survive longer than that would also be able to reactivate the Project, and that canonically cannot happen. Intelligence and command are tied too closely together for the former to survive long without the latter.

Likewise, assets for an actual spy campaign would have to be concealed from even regular Morrow units for fear of compromise. Even if they did put a bunker under a 100 coffee shops, they wouldn't tell the rest of the Project that they had done so. But they wouldn't, any more than the Project would do so with conventional assets.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Any Morrow Teams frequenting this establishment with the exception of a CG Leader would be unaware of its actual purpose. Though that is has electrical power and clean water might cause them to investigate (good!). The assigned PsyOps and CA teams would operate in Contact kit and influence events indirectly.

Are you suggesting that they would break cover when they identified another Project team? If not, there isn't any meaningful interaction!

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

As far as Krell or other enemies, OK.... this is usually operated in the center of a former urban or suburban area and part of a community. The locals might not appreciate someone coming to burn down their coffee shop. Thus we have a departure point for adventure.

Maybe I missed something still, but 150 years post-war that isn't going to be a coffee shop, and if the community is able to hold off a concerted Krell assault then they are a previously-unidentified national power!

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Because in this way it can be identified for story purposes without expressly writing "Morrow Industries" in bold letters on the front door. A CG Leader or higher may know from preWar briefings and smart PCs probably have some knowledge of the many MI corporate holdings.

All of which goes against anything vaguely resembling standard practices in intelligence. You and I both know that the CIA exists, but even the NSA doesn't know how to identify CIA field assets!

Here is my attempt at being constructive: Intelligence assets should be identifiable only by the conscious decision of the intelligence operatives. If you want a regular Morrow team to get involved with Morrow Intel, then it will be the other side that recognizes them and initiates contact. Even police undercover officers operate that way. If regular teams can identify you then you have to assume that enemy operatives can identify you. And that is not constructive.