After foiling a vicious robbery, the Starfinder Society is hot on the trail of the Organization, a mysterious and violent criminal syndicate whose true name remains unknown. A team of clever Starfinders are dispatched to the planet Verces to investigate Dayside Inc., a shell corporation with suspected ties to the Organization. Your orders are simple: sneak in, snoop around, and don’t get caught! But intel uncovered at Dayside Inc. hints that the Organization is planning something that will threaten the lives of millions. Who is the Organization? What is Project Dawn? And most importantly, do the Starfinders have time to stop it?
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Freeman - 6
Jekcedo - 3
Twila-5 - 4
Arvoris Summertide - 5
Mystery guest - ?
Mystery guest - ?
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APL: 4.5 (for now)
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It’s not like Celita to meet with a team of Starfinders outside of the Archive’s Cortex in the Lorespire Complex, even rarer to schedule that meeting onboard the Ercinee, a small tramp freighter fueling up on the docks in Little Akiton. Inside the ship’s empty hold, Captain Argente places an encrypted datadrive on a table in front of Celita and leaves for the bridge. Moments later, the engines begin their startup sequence, drowning out any escaping sounds or possible electronic eavesdropping in sustained engine noise.
“Thank you for coming on such short notice, Starfinders,” Celita intones. “Captain Argente will be ferrying you to Verces. This mission is a silent operation, for reasons you’ll soon understand, and any discovery of this operation will be detrimental to the Society. Discretion and subtlety are integral.”
Celita pauses and gazes at each of the assembled Starfinders in turn, ensuring her words are being taken seriously.
“Last year, a team of Starfinders rescued four prisoners of the Adamantine Bastille from assassins hired to eliminate them. While we’ve endeavored to assist them in reclaiming their lives under Society protection, they’ve been assisting our investigation into the Organization, a powerful player opposing our interests from the shadows. Three of these former prisoners are scientists who worked for a company on Verces called Dayside Inc. You’ll find a portion of their interviews regarding their work at Dayside on the datadrive.”
She gestures at the datadrive on the table in front of her.
“Your job is simple: get into Dayside Inc., find the incriminating information these scientists talk about in their interviews, and bring it back to me. Operate secretly and avoid discovery. If you are discovered, avoid capture—get the intel and get out. Based on information the scientists have already provided, we fear that Dayside is shell corporation for the Organization—a public arm of a much larger resource network. Any clue we can find, any connection we can make, and any intel that can protect us from their next steps is more important that the debacle that would befall us should you fail.”
As the vessel pulls away from its moorings, Celita’s form shimmers and her voice cuts out for a half second, revealing that her presence is only a holographic representation—albeit a believable one. “The Ercinee is scheduled to pick up cargo in Drest, a major trade and shipbuilding center in Athalo, on Verces, close to Dayside Inc.’s headquarters. Captain Argente is prepared to delay her departure for up to a week to allow you time for your mission.”
Celita waits patiently for the group to look at the interviews.
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30 seconds before the meeting is supposed to start, a shirren host wearing a Bugspace concert t-shirt carrying travel bags runs into the room.
"Sorry I'm late I got the message to meet here right when as the transport from Songbird Station docked."/b]
Jek quickly looks around the room seeing who is on the team for the mission. Other then Celita, seeing all new faces Jek introduces themself. [b]Jekcedo combat medic reporting for duty, feel free to just call me Jek."
Listening to the mission briefing Jek's antenna perks up when Jek hears they will be traveling to Verces. "Athalo, that's not too far from where I grew up in Sanctuary, and went to combat medic school in Gekken. I'll do a quick search to try to find any local social media news on Dayside Inc"
HunterKiller 42-5 and Jekcedo come up with a treasure trove of information on Dayside Inc:
Dayside Inc. specializes in consumer-grade augmentations and electronics for household or personal use, with a focus on household, lifestyle, and leisure applications. Their name is ubiquitous with readily available cybertech and their products are found throughout the Pact Worlds.
Dayside’s CEO, a quorlu named Lubose, is a stately and dignified corporate leader, willing to put their image out in public to advocate for the legal use of necrotech in civilian personal technology. They brag about their company’s advancements and the profitability of that technological avenue on every program willing to interview them.
Like most of the business district in Drest, Dayside Inc. closes its doors for a short cleaning shift once every 24 hours. This cleaning shift is four hours long. During this shift, Dayside Inc. is staffed by only a handful of security and cleaning personnel, unless a researcher or two are working late.
All Dayside Inc. staff wear jumpsuits emblazoned with Dayside’s friendly and memorable mascot in colors denoting their position. As Dayside works with several local staffing and cleaning agencies, these uniforms aren’t difficult to acquire.
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Arvoris is an easy going ryphorian star shaman and pilot. He tends to be relaxed and calm even in stressful situations. He is wearing a flight suit that matches most of the Drake starships that the Society uses, but also has the holy symbol of Sarenrae emblazoned upon the front. He carries a laser rifle across his back. A holy symbol of Sarenrae is worn around his neck. Arvoris has light red skin, and darker red hair.
"Any chance we can get some of those Dayside jumpsuits?"
Ah, that's a clever way to infiltrate Celia says, you might be able to get some from local service companies, perhaps.
As Verces doesn’t experience day and night cycles, many corporations operate around the clock, in rotating work shifts. Dayside is no exception. However, they do have a short cleaning shift scheduled each day. During this time, only the cleaning crew and a skeleton crew of office workers are in the building—plus security, of course. I recommend you attempt your infiltration during that four-hour period. Whatever you do, don’t try to attack Dayside guns blazing. It’s a publicly traded company with a broad infosphere presence and our investigation is far from legal. While Athalo is less lawful than other nations in the Ring, that kind of action will still bring the Stewards down on you. It’s imperative you don’t get caught and that the name of the Starfinder Society is nowhere near this operation. Still, I trust you to find your own way in.”
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A stout dwarf with red hair and beard comes in perhaps 2 minute before the meeting actually starts.
"Hullo all. My name be Freeman. Engineer by trade."
A small floating drone follows him in, letting off a spurt of beeps, code and other electronic sounds. Freeman looks back it it. "Oh aye. I were gettin' to it! Keep your CPU cooled! He shakes his head and sighs. "This be Drone. He named himself, don't let him lie to ye."
Drone emits a raspberry sound at Freeman and.. the meeting starts..
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Emerging out of a shadowy corner is an android dressed head to toe in various dark purples, her skin covered in intricate scrollwork and floral tattoos that highlight her pale lavender glowing circuits. "Well, I'm only a passable pilot, but I have other skills. Twila-5. Nice to meet you."
"Hmm. Planetary surveys. Earthquakes. Chemical compounds. It's probably one big project, so how are these connected? Hmm... Maybe they're looking for a planet that has a naturally occurring compound that would react a certain way with polyecotane, and earthquakes have something to do with the catalyst?" Looks like Twila-5 is going to be doing some studying on the trip over there (which will probably be fruitless since the information she seeks is on lockdown at Dayside).
She shakes her head to get back to the briefing. "What do we know about the CEO, Lubose?" Aside from the fact that they want necrotech to be legal. Not sure what I think about that.
Twila-5 remebers that Dayside Inc. specializes in consumer-grade augmentations and electronics for household or personal use, with a focus on household, lifestyle, and leisure applications. Their name is ubiquitous with readily available cybertech and their products are found throughout the Pact Worlds.
Freeman recals Dayside’s CEO, a quorlu named Lubose, as a stately and dignified corporate leader, willing to put their image out in public to advocate for the legal use of necrotech in civilian personal technology. They brag about their company’s advancements and the profitability of that technological avenue on every program willing to interview them.
Celita can confirm this: Dayside’s CEO is a gregarious quorlu named Lubose who has appeared on dozens of vidfeeds talking about the benefits of necrotech for today’s consumer. We believe Lubose is a member of the Organization.
Dayside Inc. itself is a large corporation offering consumergrade cybertech available to the public at affordable prices—primarily household, lifestyle, and leisure applications. They cater to civilian populace rather than military or security organizations and have earned some goodwill for their advancements in necrotechnology and its civilian applications.
I'd want you to be very careful There’s a small hesitation in Celita’s answer, either due to transmission lag or quiet thought. “We know less about the Organisatio than we’d like to. Some of our investigations into the Organization have yielded that they’ve acted in opposition to us for some time, and that some of their members once hid within our ranks. We know little of their makeup, methodology, or capabilities. We lack even the basic timeline of their actions to date. We do know, however, that they are more than willing to burn their assets to remain in the shadows—another reason for secrecy in this mission.”
Don't get caught she finally says, just before she breaks the transmission.
The Ercinee arrives at Verces after four days of flying and lands in the riverside city of Drest. From the air, the industrial sprawl can be seen as the Ercinee approaches the spaceport. Various shipbuilding sites and corporate headquarters can be seen during the approach. Next to Athalo’s floating capital, Threq, it is arguably the largest and wealthiest of Athalo’s cities.
You'd think captain Argente says that such a wealthy city, and its notoriousness for having no-nosense regulations would make the place quite safe.
He leaves a pause for effect Athalo has pirate roots, though, it was founded by seafaring pirates. If you happen to be gullible enough to get stripped of your riches, you wouldn't be the first newcomer to whom that happens.
As the ship lands, a holographic billboard featuring the cheerful sun mascot of Dayside Inc. is waving cheerfully at the arrivals, almost as if it is inviting them.
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Freeman laughs. "Pirate roots? Probably a whole damn bush o' em still around here.
Drone blurts out a few quick notes. Freeman turns to him with one eyebrow raised.
"Once. And YOU were supposed ta be watching my back. Anyway... what be our plan? We gots uniforms to try to talk our way in, we could sneak in or try ta' hack in but i'm bettin' that last one's gonna be a doozy.."
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"It would help to have more than just uniforms to get in, and if we are discovered, we need new identities or at least a cover story. I'm thinking of finding a local record store and getting some local music to listen to. Cleaning is pretty boring work, and it's done after hours, a lot of the workers like to bring their own music, I would know I pick up odd maintenance jobs between missions to make a few extra credits.
Jek pull out and holds up his trusty wrench.
" It's likely they hired an outside cleaning crew. It would be good if we knew who that was. Maybe I can try to apply for a job. That way, we'll have the names of our supposed bosses if we get stopped."
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Jek turns to Rattus "I got the credentials for the job but could use some help if we need to negotiate anything if you want to come along. I'll try to see if I can get us in the door for an interview" Jek holds up his trusty wrench.
or after the interview, if we can get one, Jek would like to find some local music and a t-shirt from a local band, to try to look more like a local.[/ooc]
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Not expecting to see anything truly intriguing, Twila-5 cannot fathom doing such a job without first doing a thorough stakeout. She does her best to convince each of her teammates to take up a station with a different vantage point of the building. She keeps detailed notes on everyone who enters and exits, narrowing down the ideal time frame for the infiltration and identifying the name(s) of the cleaning crew company(s), as well as identifying all the visible points of entry.
Later, she does her own data searching in the hopes that Dayside provides tours of their building or if the blueprints are archived somewhere accessible.
Freeman does a search on the infosphere, and finds an ad for cleaning services mentioning Dayside as one of their clients. He quickly confirms this by finding some social media posts of the cleaning shop's employees posting picture of their interior, which clearly sport some Dayside uniforms.
Jekedo sends in a resume for maintenance worker, but gets a standard reply from Human Resources.
We appreciate your interest in the maintenance worker position at Dayside Inc and the time you invested in submitting your application. After carefully reviewing your qualifications and considering the needs of our organization, we regret to inform you that we have selected another candidate who more closely matches our requirements.
We received a large number of applications for this position, which made our decision even more challenging. We value the effort you put into your application and your enthusiasm for joining our team. Although we are unable to offer you a position at this time, we encourage you to monitor our company's career page for future job openings that align with your skills and experience.
We would like to thank you once again for considering Dayside Inc as a potential employer. We wish you the best of luck in your job search and much success in your future endeavors. If you have any questions or would like feedback on your application, please feel free to reach out to us.
Thank you for your understanding.
Jekcedo has no trouble locating a local music apparel store, and scores a neat shirt by Top Down and the Strange Quarks that reads 'I fought the Big Cheese out of office'
Arvoris tries to pick some other interesting pieces of information, and actually finds a flyer for tours of the Dayside building, including our panorama restaurant on the fifth floor!, which is a bit strange given that the tower has about ninenty floors.
Ninety floor exactly as Twila confirms by hacking into the Dayside mainframe and cyber-conjuring a floor plan: server rooms on the 20th floor, chem labs on the 40th floor and Big Cheese CEO office on the 90th floor.
Strangely though, the building’s architect and head contractors are unavailable — a bit of digging indicates the architect died in a car accident shortly after completing their design, and the head contractors all died of “natural causes” within weeks of the building’s completion.
Twila's stakeout yields a lot of information: the security contingent consists of two dozen security personnel, operating in groups of 2-4, with noticeable lower occupation durign off-hours. The main lobby is always guarded, by four guards during office hours, two during after hours. The whole building is overwatched by security cameras, and the access systems seem to work in two ways: security guards have a cylinder-like access key that opens main areas, while employees use badges that open the doors to which they have access. It might be possible to forge such a badge with the right tools and codes.
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Looking at the information gathered by its comrades, HK says in its robotic voice.
I could hack from a short distance the camera once we are in the building. I need some time to create in advance some loop that will make us looks like we're working at moping the floor.
HK sensors starts scanning his comrade's frame and builds to start working on a CGI image of them working, using the promotional video to recreate a standard corridor of Dayside's building.
Then it loads the makeshift data into its exocortex, ready to be sent to the camera.
With this base I will be able to modify it on the fly to better represent the location we will be in. it adds once its work is done.
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Jek returns wearing a Top Down and the Strange Quarks t-shirt singing and hopping along to their songs playing on his com unit. Jek suddenly stops and looks distressed as Jek is reading on his com unit. The music stops.
"I can't believe this. I got turned down for the job! Not even an interview first! Have you seen my maintenance credentials? I didn't even have to fake them. This just got personal." Jek points to the caption on his new T-shirt "I fought the Big Cheese out of office"
"HK, I got 2 holo grenades do you think you could program them to look like empty hallways, too? That might help if we need to sneak by some real guards. If you got a better idea from them we can try that too."
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Strangely though, the building’s architect and head contractors are unavailable — a bit of digging indicates the architect died in a car accident shortly after completing their design, and the head contractors all died of “natural causes” within weeks of the building’s completion.
"Now that...is genius. I guess their HR department doesn't know how to spot a superior mind. ... So I'm willing to bet there's going to be a ton of surprises in that building. Why else would they make sure everyone who knew the whole design died shortly after its completion? Look for lethal traps and hidden doors, at least."
"So, we didn't get jobs in the cleaning crew. Huh. Can we source the uniforms elsewhere and just show up? We don't have a lot of time to plan this..." An old saying pops into Twila-5's head: "We can do three kinds of jobs: Quick, Cheap, and Good. Choose two." It's gotta be quick and good, but I don't think we have enough money to manage.
The stakeout took a couple of hours, everything else was rather quick.
HunterKiller prepares his hacks of the camera, while Jek makes sure his hologrenades are set up to duplicate empty hallways.
Twila ponders getting cleaner's uniforms from the dry cleaner shop. I would possibly take a ruse to get them, but it doesn't look like security is very high.
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Accompanying Rattus, Twila-5 makes a point to glance at the garment ticket of the person in front of them in line to see what it looks like. Then she surreptitiously takes a photo of the uniforms with her datapad, zooming in on the tag peeking out of the side to get the appropriate number. She quickly creates an image to look like a photo of the ticket they need. Logging into a dummy account, she sends it to herself.
"Hey, is this the ticket?" She shows what appears to be a photo of the correct ticket on a table.
Ah, yeah the cleaner says with a degree of disinterest, Here's your batch. Next time bring the paper ticket, please. My boss is giving me a hard time enough already, ok? Let me just take a picture of that screeenshot, ok?
And without further complication, Twila is now the proud possessor of several Dayside uniforms. It looks like these uniforms are color-coded:
Security guards wear green uniforms with the Dayside mascot on their shoulder, often adding armor plates as needed; researchers wear purple uniforms with the mascot on the shoulder; tech staff and programmers wear pink uniforms with the mascot on the shoulder; industrial and manufacturing employees wear orange uniforms with the mascot on the back panel; and custodians and maintenance workers wear yellow uniforms with the mascot on the back panel. Executives, PR, and media staff instead wear professional attire and a branded name tag.
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After the team leaves with the uniforms, Arvoris says:
"Great work! Looks like we have choices. If we use the security guard uniforms, it might be easier to explain why we'll be looking around several areas. We'll be additional security hired to bolster the existing guards. What do the rest of you think? Security? Something different? Should we all wear the same uniform or a few different ones?"
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"Well, we be needin' ta get into tha front door, any o' these and an ID should do that. Harder to get to tha 20th floor for the server rooms. Even harder if'n we need ta get to tha 40th floor for labs. Gettin' the tha 90th floor probably be damn near impossible. We planning ta go 'round as a group? Might be suspicious. I hate splittin that' party but..."
He looks to his team mates, waiting for some synapses to fire.
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" We could have whoever is best at bluffing wear the researchers uniform and the rest of in security uniforms. If we need to talk our way through something, we could say we were sent to find a missing test subject that is dangerous. Might be good to have one of us wearing the tech staff uniform to help get computer access."
Questions I need answered:
- How will you get into the building?
- When will you get into the building?
- How will you make sure you don't get noticed when in the building?
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From my understanding, this is the plan: (Team, feel free to add to, subtract from, change, or clarify)
1. Dressed as security, with 1 tech and 1 researcher, we open the doors with forged ID cards.
2. We will go during the off-hours, when there is less people in the building.
3. We will avoid notice by using holo-grenades to create an illusion of an empty room. Before we enter (if possible) we would like to hack into security to feed a video loop of empty rooms to the cameras. If we have to enter the building first, we act like we are accompanying our tech and researcher to a computer, where we will hack in and create the video loops. We'll stealth around, and if we are questioned, Solo will explain that we are trying to locate a missing test subject, that will be very dangerous unless located soon.
How does that sound, team?
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Clarification on the holo grenades there set as empty hallways I'm thinking their main use is in case we hear guars to other people coming towards us. But can all so be a backup to block a camera if we can't hack it.
Was thinking might be harder to get by the front door security dressed as security guards because they're likely to know the other guards. So might be best if we can forge ID cards using the names of guards that work for the company but at other locations. That could work out with our cover story of being sent to deal with the special situation. If they question us about the special mission, we say it's special ops over their pay grade. Would be good to have some forged document saying so.
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The off-hours lobby is empty, save for two security guard and a bored-looking janitor mopping the floor. During the cleaning shift, the front door is a single, shuttered gate that requires a code cylinder to open
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Confident after her recent success at the dry cleaner's, Twila-5 helps forge the ID cards.
If only she'd managed to find a good enough quality image of an actual Dayside ID card to copy, her attempt would've been much better. Oh, well. This should be good enough, right?
Once everyone queues up to enter Dayside, Twila-5 puts on her security guard outfit and is prepared to state the name on her badge: Asic-427. She tries to put a superior look on her face as if she ranks these guards by quite a bit.