Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Toaster]

Lars nods.  "Glorious Steve is correct.  Haste was important beforehand, and it's even more important now.  We should go through."

Go straight through the lasers as soon as Jim ascertains they won't screw us up.  Throw something big through if there's anything available, to test the later ones.

[GreatWyrmGold]

((Those guys were preparing the planet to hold out against an invasion by a superior force or a worker uprising. Of course they have some comms. Once you consider what they were preparing for and that those guys are SpecOps, the best of the best, trained to pursue victory at any cost, this all makes more sense.))

((Tying civilians to shields?))

((I kinda think that, if this was what they were going for, there would be easier and less elaborate ways to do it. Remember, there are still hostile aliens that humanity is fighting, like the Heabi or something like that.

((No, I didn't. I'm new, remember?))

((Besides, that latest transmission made me think less "invoked threat" and more "inside job". This was too fast, too much of a gamble from the data they should have had, for them to have not had some idea beforehand...seriously, where did they even get the binding supplies? Do they keep bondage equipment next to the rifles and above the grenades in the armory?))

(Roof could collapse and injure the team, or block our progress. :\)

((Safer than leaving three random HMRC members in a locked room for an hour.))

[Zako]

((Have you taken into account that they may have another AI on their side to help them with analysing and planning?))

Bishop silently swears and grabs Auron. Shit was about to get messy. He flicked on his radio to Miyamoto as he dragged Auron.

"If you do not kill those sods right now, I WILL hose down that line! After they are dead, we're taking the direct route with you punching through the roof for each floor until we get to that control room. We can't trust any of the normal routes now, so we'll make our own!"

He then switched to Auron's radio.

"Listen. You're being attacked by an amp user. I have to put you under guard until the attack lets up, and if you try anything then I'll have to stop you as fast as possible. Just stay still, stay calm and try your best to stay in control. Keep reminding me on how you're doing and let me know when something changes.

And don't look at us! They could use your eyes to see where we are for more amp attacks!"

Quickly drag Auron into cover, disarm him and pin him to the wall and keep my razor at his throat while Miyamoto does his thing. Slice and dice if he tries anything to kill or hurt me that's not in his control. If Miya doesn't succeed, pin Auron to the ground face down with his arms behind his back with my exoskeleton strength to hold him there with a foot, and hose down the line of sods with my rocket rifle, shields or not.

Make sure Auron doesn't look at us! If he breaks free, yell for Steve to zap him!

[GreatWyrmGold]

((Have you taken into account that they may have another AI on their side to help them with analysing and planning?))

((An AI which knew what Steve's orders for civilians would be before it knew he was going to attack, or one that determined that during the attack and despite communications being down managed to organize an extraordinarily rapid tie-civilians-to-shields movement?))

[Lenglon]

How did they tie the civvies to the shields in time?

ACK! IM BEING MINDRAPED! THE CIVVIES ARE A LIE! KILL THEM! KILL THEM NOW!

((I think you're forgetting something))

[GreatWyrmGold]

((Either that, or it's late and I'm not good at subtext past holy carp it's tomorrow.))

[Parisbre56]

((Those guys were preparing the planet to hold out against an invasion by a superior force or a worker uprising. Of course they have some comms. Once you consider what they were preparing for and that those guys are SpecOps, the best of the best, trained to pursue victory at any cost, this all makes more sense.))

((Tying civilians to shields?))

((With the time it would take a MK3 to fly a mining exosuit to the other side of the bridge, I think they'd have at least a minute to tie them up, if not more considering that the civilians from the gangway could have informed them that one of us said something about "minimazing civilian casualties" (check the first few gangway posts). And their commanders are smart and ruthless, so I don't see a problem with them deciding tying civilians up is a good tactic.))

[GreatWyrmGold]

((Again, how log would it take for them to decide that it is an acceptable risk for a sufficient benefit, then round up the civilians and tying-to-shields equipment--which had to be improvised--and finally tie them to shields and distribute them. All without communications. Somewhere along the line, something is...off.))

[Sean Mirrsen]

((Again, how log would it take for them to decide that it is an acceptable risk for a sufficient benefit, then round up the civilians and tying-to-shields equipment--which had to be improvised--and finally tie them to shields and distribute them. All without communications. Somewhere along the line, something is...off.))

((What do you mean, without communications? Didn't we recently become aware of a potential Shadow Walker presence? An organochemistry overrider (I think that's what it was called) is a ways beyond the conventional radio and landline communications that we've severed. Plus, I am fairly certain that Sod Commanders don't command the sods by radio. Issue instructions, maybe, but not boost their intelligence. Same space magic at work. Decisions and actions made at the speed of thought.))

[Parisbre56]

((Again, how log would it take for them to decide that it is an acceptable risk for a sufficient benefit, then round up the civilians and tying-to-shields equipment--which had to be improvised--and finally tie them to shields and distribute them. All without communications. Somewhere along the line, something is...off.))

((Let's look at this from the commander's perspective.

First, let's do some background:
You are a ruthless UWM bastard trained in all forms of combat, espionage and unconventional warfare. You were sent here with a Shadow Ship along with what was described as a guerrilla warfare kit which includes things such as

demolition charges, long range sensors and microphones, cameras, some weapons, the general guerrilla warfare kit. Over all, it's strange. They can't have been expecting us to do anything, so either these were just improvements made at a time very unhelpful to us, or they were expecting something else...Not sure what though.

Your mission is to protect this planet from attack by a superior force or from a worker uprising, when said workers could have knowledge about the workings of the base and its weaknesses. For that, you've distributed new equipment, installed several new traps and security measures and trained Sods as well as civilians to suit your needs.

Now, what has happened so far:
You were probably sitting around in your command center or maybe doing your rounds around the command section, training sods or inspecting equipment or secretly crying about how much your life sucks or whatever a UWM bastard would do during his day. Suddenly, all security systems and communications across the compound are shut down. Luckily, this is just the kind of thing you were trained for. So you get your radio out, contact your other UWM shadow buddies with your radio, organize yourselves and make a crude battle plan. From the civilians running away from the gangway, you learn where the source of the problem is and maybe also learn some things about their goals, their probable equipment and that they want to try to minimize civilian casualties, assuming you interrogated the right civvie.

You are lucky enough to be asked to defend the bridge to the  Command Section. You are standing there when you see an avatar of war crossing the bridge. "No problem" you say. "I'll just use my reasonable pre-installed defensive measure to destroy the bridge." Then that avatar of war comes crashing into the building. "No problem." you say. "I have those handy civilians around to provide cover for me while i retreat." However while retreating you notice that the avatar stops because it doesn't want to hurt civilians. So while the avatar of war is standing around waiting for its friends to fly across and then seemingly standing around doing nothing (actually talking to Steve) you consider what you've learned: a. The Avatar is an unstoppable death machine. b. They don't like to hurt civilians. c. The avatar has squishy allies. d. You're a ruthless UWM bastard surrounded by civvies you just used as cover, probably by mind controlling them and destroying their brain.
So by using that info and ordering each of your newly arrived batch of sods that conveniently carry shields to tie one completely obedient civilian up to their shield, you've managed to stall your enemy or maybe even hurt those squishy guys if you're lucky. Tying them up shouldn't take more than a minute or two. And carrying an exosuit across a bridge and then debating which way to go should have taken at least two minutes.

And about the rope: rope is one of the most useful things to carry around. Flint is always carrying lots of rope and he has a shield. Does that make him a sod?

Why I'm carrying rope? Because like any adventurer can tell you, rope is the thing with a million uses, one of which is tying stuff. If those shadow guys know what they're doing, they're probably carrying rope amongst other things. Or hell, this is the future and this is a manufacturing world, they're probably hundreds of things around they could use. Some kind of super adhesive they maybe carry around or just wires they ripped from the walls with a monorazor.

But since you defense team guys aren't doing anything, you could ask Steve how things are going with the other UWM ships. If the UWM knew something would happen, then the other ships would be having trouble as well.))

[Zako]

((I can tell you one things that's even more useful than rope: Duct Tape. You can MAKE a rope out of duct tape, and that's only the beginning. Honestly, it's like the force: It's got a light side, a dark side and it holds the universe together.

Also, chill out dudes and gals. The seriously bad guys are here to mess up our collective day and we have to kill them now. Seems pretty straight forward to me.))

[piecewise]

((I find it funny how they're just like 'eh, can't harm that guy anyway, let's shoot those other dudes'.

Oh wait, did I say funny? I meant distressing. They are clearly smarter than we were led to believe, or they have a competent but ruthless commander guiding them.
I find it weird they're trying to use civvies as a shield. One wouldn't expect a bunch of hardened convicts to give a rats ass about civilians or collateral damage. The fact that we very much do care shouldn't be something they can know. Unless those people from before on the gangway, when we first engaged the sods, told them, which i find unlikely.

This situation requires tact. Miyamoto is in a giant robotic killing machine bred for war, aided by a veteran battle mechanic and an electricity shooting looter. This can not go wrong in any way.))

(What ever happened to the two other people on your team anyways? I forget who they are.)

((There are no other people. Assault team was 8 men, Miya's squad is him, Bishop and Auron, other team is Jim, Flint, Mesk, Lukas and Lars. That's eight people.
We split them unevenly because it seemed like the most even distribution of 'power'.))


"Oh crap, this is just so wrong. A squad of sods I can handle, but this?
Auron, you ok back there?

Bishop, quickly check him over. And keep an eye on him in case he starts acting weird, that nosebleed might indicate his brain's been tampered with, don't get caught off-guard. They might have a specialist or something with them, this reeks of amp tampering."

He looked at his downed teammate, then at the helpless civilians on the shields. This wasn't going good. Not at all.

Ok then, Miyamoto, think. Options.

Shooting won't work, no way we can hit them without hitting those people. Unless they're testing us with this, in which case we're giving them invaluable info they'll use against us later. No, can't risk it, we're no monsters just yet. Let's hope those civs aren't already dead yet, or worse, some kind of trap...

He started to imagine the civs were filled with explosives somehow and would blast his teammates to bits once close. Or that they would break free with immense power and start attacking too. No, that would be ridiculous. Certainly it would be possible, he knew the doc could easily do it, but it didn't seem plausible. He hoped.

We could engage in close quarters. Hmm, small chance we won't just smash the civvies in the ensuing melee. And they'll shoot right past me once they have the chance.
We don't have smoke nades or other special equipment either. So all that's left is amps or manips then.
Hmm. Could force the shields out of their hands, then shoot. Or just shove them all over. Could increase gravity to push them all to the floor and incapacitate them. No, damn it, I'm not experienced enough with it for such complex maneuvers. And without a decomp I'll probably just overdo it and kill them all anyways.

Hey, wait a minute. They're all going in a neat line. I might be able to heatblade them all at once like that. Auron is ok with manips, he could help. Yeah, this might work.

After relaying his plan to his teammates, he gets into position, ready to use his weapon of potential mass destruction.

((@ pariah: does auron have a microwave manip? If not he can borrow Miya's for a moment.))

Use manip to make a single heatblade, in the shape of a box, make it about 20 cm wide, a centimeter high and as long as needed to be to take out the line of sods. Position it at about the base of the neck, increase temperature as high as needed for substantial tissue damage (something like 100-150 °C increase). Use universal manip and give microwave manip to Auron if he asks to. If he doesn't use microwave manip myself (since that one is more specialized and stuff).

If the sods aren't taken out by this, charge forward and go into hand-to-hand with them.

[Uncon:4+1+1+1]

You feel something surge within the avatar as you type in the final calculations. It raises it's arm and points at the sods, drawing its finger across their ranks. A white hot gash in the air appears where its finger travels and hovers there for a moment. Then it moves. The blade of heat exceeds the speed of sound in about 3 inches after it begins moving, and expands to over 200 feet in width. It cuts a wound less then a millimeter thick through the sods, their shields, the civies, the walls , the support beams, the information kiosks and banks of chairs, through everything within several hundred yards of it's origin, until it finally slices straight through the outer window of the concourse and screams off, slowly approaching the upper atmosphere as it skims off into space, ignoring the planet's curve.

Windows shatter as the sonic boom reverberates around the concourse and metal support beams settle back into place, just a tiny bit shorter, and their molten edges harden. Anything organic that was in the path of the cut was reduced, at least partially, into charcoal.

Well...thats one way to remove a threat.

((Hax I say! If only we had a universal manipulator. Well, at least Miyamoto can easily kill those sods with his. Or just run away. No such luck for us.))

Ask Steve: "Are you sure? No way you can hack them or replicate their wireless signals via our suit radios?
No handy kill switch or design flaw?
Any way for an amp user or tech to modify their internal mechanisms?
How would an enemy pass through them without triggering them?
How come those clouds of cold air and humidity aren't affecting them? Could we gradually increase the humidity until they're blinded?
Where would those sensors be monitored from?
Do those guys have working radios?
Would destroying a single sensor make them think it's a malfunction and maybe cause them to send someone to check?
What about the building schematics? Any nearby hallways we could tunnel to with an amp-laser combo? Or any alternate access points from higher floors? Or any way we could tunell down to the end of this hallway from above?
Where are those stairs you talked about?"

Check for any points the lasers are few enough for a non-giant robot to crawl through them. If I can create such a point with a bit of lasering, do so after asking Jim's permission.

Consider if I could dismantle Jim (remove arms/legs/etc) and push him through a gap in the lasers. ((I'm thinking Jim could scout and begin amp sniping them or even disable their security station.))

Search for any points explosives or other dangers trigered by the beams could be hidden.

Consider if I could pass a drone through the gaps in the lasers.

>Not unless you can figure out what all their signals are and start broadcasting the instant they go offline.

Only if they can modify them to continuously broadcast the "All clear" signal regardless of what the laser picks up.

The person who placed them probably has a tuner set to broadcast an off signal to all of them at once. Or if it's just a sensor to see if anyone is coming, they probably just walk straight through it.

Not something you want to do. The only way it would really effect them is by causing them to trigger.

Who knows? Thats the problem.

Yep. They'd have radios like yours. So while the base's radio system isn't working, theirs is.

Probably not. I'd just trigger it as though the beam was broken.

This is the only access point. It's designed like that. The only other hallways are several stories up or down through solid rock and rebar reenforced concrete.

If you go back to the elevator you'll find a maintenance door that leads back to them. They only got you to this point. This is the only way to the dang thing that doesn't involve tunneling through solid rock.


You could probably dig a trench of sorts into the ground that would let someone crawl under the laser grid. But you'd have to be very careful.

Nope.

You don't see any.

Probably, if you were really careful.

"...They already know we're here and we have to move quickly. Fuck caution."

Jim pokes his mace into the lasers to see if they'll cut it apart or merely sense it. If the former, there will be an order to tunnel around them. If the latter, time to advance. But stay at least a little cautious.

You poke your mace into one of the lasers. That laser deactivates. You examine your mace for a few seconds to make sure it hasn't been damaged. It looks fine, so you scrape the remaining sensors off the wall with your mace and move forward, taking your team with you until you finally come across a hatch labeled  "EMERGENCY ACCESS". It's too small for Flint or Lukas, but you, lars, and Mesk could use it.

ACK! IM BEING MINDRAPED! THE CIVVIES ARE A LIE! KILL THEM! KILL THEM NOW!

begin screaming at the top of my lungs, set gungnirs output levels down to more taserlike levels then set it to automatically fire indiscriminately at the metal of the shields while i use miyamoto's amp to create large blade of pure heat at ankle height thats angled to cause the sods to fall over backwards

Edit: actually lets not play with a murder amp so soon after a mental intrusion.

Miyamoto seems to have handled that particular problem in a very succinct way.

Well, since we aren't bypassing the sensors... Use shield to cover team when Jim triggers sensors. Assuming no explosion, take point and run full speed towards our objective while keeping an eye out for threats (and a cameye too), make sure the team keeps their distance from me and from each other so that no trap can take all of us out.

As the team comes up to the Emergency Hatch, you do notice something. A camera, not unlike the sticky spy cams that one of your teammates stuck up on the gangway. It's stuck to the wall near the sealed hatch, staring down at the team.

Lars nods.  "Glorious Steve is correct.  Haste was important beforehand, and it's even more important now.  We should go through."

Go straight through the lasers as soon as Jim ascertains they won't screw us up.  Throw something big through if there's anything available, to test the later ones.

You follow the milno school of testing the path via swinging debris around. The Debris being mesk's arm, which you wiggle around in the lasers until you're satisfied they won't kill you.

((Have you taken into account that they may have another AI on their side to help them with analysing and planning?))

Bishop silently swears and grabs Auron. Shit was about to get messy. He flicked on his radio to Miyamoto as he dragged Auron.

"If you do not kill those sods right now, I WILL hose down that line! After they are dead, we're taking the direct route with you punching through the roof for each floor until we get to that control room. We can't trust any of the normal routes now, so we'll make our own!"

He then switched to Auron's radio.

"Listen. You're being attacked by an amp user. I have to put you under guard until the attack lets up, and if you try anything then I'll have to stop you as fast as possible. Just stay still, stay calm and try your best to stay in control. Keep reminding me on how you're doing and let me know when something changes.

And don't look at us! They could use your eyes to see where we are for more amp attacks!"

Quickly drag Auron into cover, disarm him and pin him to the wall and keep my razor at his throat while Miyamoto does his thing. Slice and dice if he tries anything to kill or hurt me that's not in his control. If Miya doesn't succeed, pin Auron to the ground face down with his arms behind his back with my exoskeleton strength to hold him there with a foot, and hose down the line of sods with my rocket rifle, shields or not.

Make sure Auron doesn't look at us! If he breaks free, yell for Steve to zap him!

(Auron's exoskeleton is stronger then your own. Not by a lot, but by some.)

You keep Auron pinned to the ground with a razor against his throat. He doesn't seem to be going murder crazy or even resisting, beyond squirming around a bit and groaning that his head hurts.

((Again, how log would it take for them to decide that it is an acceptable risk for a sufficient benefit, then round up the civilians and tying-to-shields equipment--which had to be improvised--and finally tie them to shields and distribute them. All without communications. Somewhere along the line, something is...off.))

In terms of time spans, remember: It's not like the defense team is sitting around and waiting until they see you. Every turn, they're moving, acting, planing and executing actions as well. Even if you just stood still, they'd still be preparing and acting.

[GreatWyrmGold]

((Again, how log would it take for them to decide that it is an acceptable risk for a sufficient benefit, then round up the civilians and tying-to-shields equipment--which had to be improvised--and finally tie them to shields and distribute them. All without communications. Somewhere along the line, something is...off.))

((What do you mean, without communications? Didn't we recently become aware of a potential Shadow Walker presence? An organochemistry overrider (I think that's what it was called) is a ways beyond the conventional radio and landline communications that we've severed.

((1. What is an organochemistry overrider?
2. Weren't the Urban Executors the things we knew were here?
3. And these allow communication between sods in the field and the commanders?

Plus, I am fairly certain that Sod Commanders don't command the sods by radio. Issue instructions, maybe, but not boost their intelligence. Same space magic at work. Decisions and actions made at the speed of thought.))

((And this thing somehow lets the commanders know all about our orders and actions, and organize a group to pick up civilians, tying equipment, and shields before arranging them into civilian shields, all in the space of mere minutes? Still seems pretty darn fishy.))

((Again, how log would it take for them to decide that it is an acceptable risk for a sufficient benefit, then round up the civilians and tying-to-shields equipment--which had to be improvised--and finally tie them to shields and distribute them. All without communications. Somewhere along the line, something is...off.))

((Let's look at this from the commander's perspective.

First, let's do some background:
You are a ruthless UWM bastard trained in all forms of combat, espionage and unconventional warfare. You were sent here with a Shadow Ship along with what was described as a guerrilla warfare kit which includes things such as

demolition charges, long range sensors and microphones, cameras, some weapons, the general guerrilla warfare kit. Over all, it's strange. They can't have been expecting us to do anything, so either these were just improvements made at a time very unhelpful to us, or they were expecting something else...Not sure what though.

Your mission is to protect this planet from attack by a superior force or from a worker uprising, when said workers could have knowledge about the workings of the base and its weaknesses. For that, you've distributed new equipment, installed several new traps and security measures and trained Sods as well as civilians to suit your needs.

Now, what has happened so far:
You were probably sitting around in your command center or maybe doing your rounds around the command section, training sods or inspecting equipment or secretly crying about how much your life sucks or whatever a UWM bastard would do during his day. Suddenly, all security systems and communications across the compound are shut down. Luckily, this is just the kind of thing you were trained for. So you get your radio out, contact your other UWM shadow buddies with your radio, organize yourselves and make a crude battle plan.

((Problem 1: Didn't we do something to radio? Or am I remembering wrong?))

From the civilians running away from the gangway, you learn where the source of the problem is and maybe also learn some things about their goals, their probable equipment and that they want to try to minimize civilian casualties, assuming you interrogated the right civvie.

((Problem 2: How and why would they interrogate random civilians near the scene of the attack, instead of organizing the counterattack?
Problem 3: Who could tell the commanders that we weren't to harm civilians?
Problem 4: Why would the commander believe one stray report enough to not only counter mountains of evidence AND the bad PR it would generate regardless of success, just for getting a slight advantage if it was true? That commander would have to be pretty confident...))

You are lucky enough to be asked to defend the bridge to the  Command Section. You are standing there when you see an avatar of war crossing the bridge. "No problem" you say. "I'll just use my reasonable pre-installed defensive measure to destroy the bridge." Then that avatar of war comes crashing into the building. "No problem." you say. "I have those handy civilians around to provide cover for me while i retreat." However while retreating you notice that the avatar stops because it doesn't want to hurt civilians. So while the avatar of war is standing around waiting for its friends to fly across and then seemingly standing around doing nothing (actually talking to Steve) you consider what you've learned: a. The Avatar is an unstoppable death machine. b. They don't like to hurt civilians. c. The avatar has squishy allies. d. You're a ruthless UWM bastard surrounded by civvies you just used as cover, probably by mind controlling them and destroying their brain.

((Problem 5: Weren't there only the sods and civilians in the area?))

So by using that info and ordering each of your newly arrived batch of sods that conveniently carry shields to tie one completely obedient civilian up to their shield, you've managed to stall your enemy or maybe even hurt those squishy guys if you're lucky. Tying them up shouldn't take more than a minute or two. And carrying an exosuit across a bridge and then debating which way to go should have taken at least two minutes.

((Problem 6: The tying isn't the big time-sink. The big one would be either rounding up the civilians or getting the tying equipment, assuming of course that the plan of action was decided on.))

And about the rope: rope is one of the most useful things to carry around. Flint is always carrying lots of rope and he has a shield. Does that make him a sod?

((Rope has virtually no combat applications unless you are Pecos Bill or fighting an AT-AT. Why would sods have rope? And rope isn't even a very good way to secure civilians; tape would probably be better. But it has even less in the way of combat applications! There is no reason for sods to be carrying around stuff for binding civilians to shields.))

If those shadow guys know what they're doing,

((Shadow guys who are not the sods and have no influence over them?))

((Ninja'd by a turn.))

[Parisbre56]

((Have I said Miyamoto is awesome? Good news, he probably killed one or even more UEs along with a bunch of sods. Bad news, he probably killed every civvie that was in front of him and on this level too.))

If the camera hasn't spotted me yet, shoot it. Else, just go and crush it before it spots anyone else. If it has spotted all of us, just crush it anyway. Comment about damn paparazzis.
Open hatch with mine and Lukas' robostrength if necessary. Or just amp punch it or laser it if strength alone doesn't work.
Give Jim three of my grenades and spy cams, since there's a higher chance he'll need them. Remind him that he can use the first to block the line of sight the Executors need for their mind control amp and the second to extend his own.
Ask Steve and Jim: "What do us giant robots do now? Dig down? Guard this point? Go up and help the others? Something else?"

Edit:((@GWG: Some of your problems seem to stem from lack info that I unfortunately can't write from my phone in a reasonable timeframe. Perhaps one of the others can enlighten you.))

[Empiricist]

((Again, how log would it take for them to decide that it is an acceptable risk for a sufficient benefit, then round up the civilians and tying-to-shields equipment--which had to be improvised--and finally tie them to shields and distribute them. All without communications. Somewhere along the line, something is...off.))

((What do you mean, without communications? Didn't we recently become aware of a potential Shadow Walker presence? An organochemistry overrider (I think that's what it was called) is a ways beyond the conventional radio and landline communications that we've severed.

((1. What is an organochemistry overrider?
2. Weren't the Urban Executors the things we knew were here?
3. And these allow communication between sods in the field and the commanders?

Plus, I am fairly certain that Sod Commanders don't command the sods by radio. Issue instructions, maybe, but not boost their intelligence. Same space magic at work. Decisions and actions made at the speed of thought.))

((And this thing somehow lets the commanders know all about our orders and actions, and organize a group to pick up civilians, tying equipment, and shields before arranging them into civilian shields, all in the space of mere minutes? Still seems pretty darn fishy.))

((Mind control amp basically. They aren't ordering the sods, they're outright controlling the sods. It also allows them to take sensory information form them.))