Sabotage At Tech Services!"Troubleshooters, as the most elite, expendable fighting force of Alpha Complex, we need your help dealing with a
grave threat to our great complex.
Tech Services has indicated that their cloning vats are failing.
This is bad. Really bad. People die all the time in Alpha Complex, but this is no big deal, because...they come back to life, thanks to the power of cloning. But if the cloning vats fail, then the Communists will win by sheer attrition. We have to counter this sabotage, now!
But we don't want people to panic. If they panic, they might do rash actions, which will further the attrition rate. So, you must act like everything is going okay, and that people's deaths are no big deal, like they always have been. Calm and soothe the masses like you always have done.
Okay, so this is what we know about the Communist cell that is sabotaging the cloning vats:
- No one can predict when the Communists are attacking these cloning vats. This implies that they must have access to a complex and intricate plan that is indistinguishable from pure randomness.
- No one has ever seen this Communist cell. This implies that they have to access to stealth technology.
- The sabotage is total, requiring Tech Services to create brand new clone vats to replace the ones that have been destroyed. This implies that the Communists are technologically advanced, and thus a force to be reckoned with.
How do you counter a menace that cannot be seen and whose sabotage is total? I don't know. That's why we are sending you guys in. Good luck!"
GM Note: The cloning vats are breaking down from wear and tear and Tech Services incompetence. Tech Services doesn't want to blamed though, and is thus trying to pin the blame on Communist sabotage. The catch though is that they forgot to actually pin the blame on an individual scapegoat.
This leads to an interesting situation. Communists are sabotaging Tech Services' cloning vats, but since no specific Communist has been offered up, nothing can be done to
stop the sabotage. Extrapolation of current trends is enough to cause a panic among the higher-ups, leading to the current Troubleshooter mission. If the Troubleshooters fail, The Computer will simply destroy the cloning vats outright (to prevent further sabotage) and then rebuild all the vats in a "safer" location. This will simply 'delay' the Communist sabotage, but long enough for everyone involved to declare victory and move onto other crises.
Internal Security believes that the attacks are being done by Communists because every time a clone vat is "sabotaged", there's a post-it note attached to the sabotaged clone vat that says, "LONG LIVE COMMUNISM!" The handwriting appears to match that of high-ranking Tech Services agents. However, the agents in question says they've been brainwashed to spontaneously attach this post-it note every time the Communists sabotaged the cloning vats, and Internal Security interrogation (and hefty bribes) proved that these high-ranking Tech Services agent can't actually be Communists, just brainwashed lackyes.
Troubleshooters could claim that the brainwashed lackeys are also being brainwashed into the sabotage on behalf of the "Communist menace", but the Tech Services agents would not be happy with such allegations (why are their minds so weak as to get brainwashed so easily?). Blaming the whole incident on brainwashing would also mean R&D gets involved, which may be a good thing (researching how "Communist brainwashing" works will take a long time, so it's no longer the Troubleshooters' responsibility). Or it may be a bad thing (because this means that R&D will bring along their latest "inventions" to field-test).
The high-ranking Tech Service agents, meanwhile, are trying to frame the Troubleshooters, claiming that they are the ones causing the cloning vat sabotage. This may be slightly problematic, as the Troubleshooters never even walked into the cloning vats until
after the sabotage was reported. The solution? Label a bunch of random machines as "TIME MACHINE - DO NOT MESS WITH" (ideally with post-it notes), and then try to convince the Troubleshooters to mess with them. Once the Troubleshooters mess with "time machine", accuse the Troubleshooters of creating a "stable time loop": the Troubleshooters messing with the time machine caused the sabotage in the past...which leads to the Troubleshooter being summoned to the cloning vats in the past....which causes the Troubleshooters to mess with the machine machine...which caused the sabotage in the past....etc., etc.
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