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[Parisbre56]

Hahaha, an arbiter. Oh, I wish I was down there. That's the kind of test of combat ability that rivals or even surpasses facing an avatar. And it's a robot so it doesn't break the "kill no humans" rule. Although it does make one wonder how it can use space magic.

[Nunzillor]

Oh shit, an arbiter of peace?  where's that reactor??

[Parisbre56]

Come on. Fight it. Win or lose, it will be awesome. Just need to think about their strengths and weaknesses and figure out a good strategy against them. Like the protagonists of an action/horror movie. Imagine you're Schwarzenegger and you've just encountered the Predator.

Unless you're the team of badasses that gets slaughtered in seconds to demonstrate how dangerous it is...

[Harry Baldman]

The Arbiter of Peace is all like "stop, you have violated the law!" A couple of days earlier it was ostensibly all like "by the gods, someone's been murdered!"

Maybe everyone should just point at Lars and say he did it (putting away their weapons before it sees them, preferably). Or surrender to it. It might not be a UWM plant in "kill everyone" mode set up to discourage would-be explorers (since the UWM would probably know that, as ex-HMRC, that's basically ARM's entire schtick). After all, the dead dudes probably knew about it, seeing as they probably tried to open it. Not that those dead dudes can't be UWM agents themselves.

[Parisbre56]

Come on, this is definitely an ambush. We already have one UWM supersoldier here. What makes you think we don't have more? Like, for example, a Shadow Walker, loitering around the surface, shooting shuttles with his LESHO rifle. Then again it might be more automated systems and robots, if the UWM doesn't have a way to protect its organics from the sound wave.

All we need to figure out now is what the ambush is for.
Is it a general, "in case of sympathizers, kill everyone" force? That doesn't make much sense, since the UWM would probably like others to know what happened here for propaganda purposes, unless they think that knowledge of the weapon will make it harder to deploy it in the future.
Is it a "let the robots deploy the weapon and guard it until we send someone to pick them up" force? The AA defences make that a but unlikely, especially because they seem to be trying to keep us here. If they just wanted to defend this thing and keep it out of our hands, they would had shot at our shuttles. So they want to maintain the element of surprise and they want to kill us or at least stall us.

So the question becomes, do they just want to cripple or kill our special forces and don't care very much about the fact that they'll lose powerful troops and equipment because it's cheap and easy for them to replace it, but harder for us to find good troops? Or are they simply trying to stall us and keep the Sword in orbit so that they can do something horrible to it?

[Egan_BW]

Sound like they noticed we were PCs and set up an ambush to kill us.

[Parisbre56]

Sound like they noticed we were PCs and set up an ambush to kill us.

Can we accuse an NCP of metagaming and have the GM ban him?

[Nunzillor]

So, Arbiter of Peace.  Fire or ice?  Target the eye sockets doing the scanning or the chest doing the clicking?  Or run?

[Nikitian]

Manip overload, and run. And hope-hope-hope he wouldn't be able to outrun/dodge the explosion as well.

Seriously, these things can kill Avatars. How do you fight Avatars? Pouring out all you can, and hoping for the best. Same with Amp Specialists. Same with Arbiters of Peace.

[swordsmith04]

You can't really aim at or run from an Arbiter. I'd say the best tactic for trying to fight one would be attacking the entire room at once, else it'll just dodge whatever you attack it with.

[Harry Baldman]

-snip-

Best part is, they could probably just stall ARM operatives with the Arbiter of Peace and, say, an appropriately immunized Shadow Walker to the point where they don't even need to kill everyone themselves - just let the leavening song take care of them via attrition after an initial strike. Not that the Arbiter can't wipe the floor with most ARM detachments without breaking a sweat, of course.

All in all, seems like the UWM is starting to take things seriously! Great news for ARM, that. Especially if that leavening agent is their invention (or, rather, something they had on hand in all likelihood, perhaps since the Altered Wars) and not some local coincidence.

Also, the leavening song reminds me of this, even if only superficially. Maybe it wasn't picked up by sound recorders because it happens to be ultrasound.

[Nunzillor]

Well, I'm going for the overload.  This can only go well.

[Twinwolf]

Well, I'm going for the overload.  This can only go well.

I am suddenly about 20 times more glad Petra is not on that mission.

[Xantalos]

Did you think you could get away with it forever?

Come on, this is definitely an ambush. We already have one UWM supersoldier here. What makes you think we don't have more? Like, for example, a Shadow Walker, loitering around the surface, shooting shuttles with his LESHO rifle. Then again it might be more automated systems and robots, if the UWM doesn't have a way to protect its organics from the sound wave.

All we need to figure out now is what the ambush is for.
Is it a general, "in case of sympathizers, kill everyone" force? That doesn't make much sense, since the UWM would probably like others to know what happened here for propaganda purposes, unless they think that knowledge of the weapon will make it harder to deploy it in the future.
Is it a "let the robots deploy the weapon and guard it until we send someone to pick them up" force? The AA defences make that a but unlikely, especially because they seem to be trying to keep us here. If they just wanted to defend this thing and keep it out of our hands, they would had shot at our shuttles. So they want to maintain the element of surprise and they want to kill us or at least stall us.

So the question becomes, do they just want to cripple or kill our special forces and don't care very much about the fact that they'll lose powerful troops and equipment because it's cheap and easy for them to replace it, but harder for us to find good troops? Or are they simply trying to stall us and keep the Sword in orbit so that they can do something horrible to it?

Manip overload, and run. And hope-hope-hope he wouldn't be able to outrun/dodge the explosion as well.

Seriously, these things can kill Avatars. How do you fight Avatars? Pouring out all you can, and hoping for the best. Same with Amp Specialists. Same with Arbiters of Peace.

Well, I'm going for the overload.  This can only go well.

These encapsulate my (and thus Xan's) reaction to this turn of events.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja6NCAav6pQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FjWe31S_0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo-KmOd3i7s

[Radio Controlled]

Dangit, wish I had gone myself after all.

EDIT: to clarify that M22 is not, in fact, in a happy place:

He-if gender can even apply to such a thing- is a 10 foot tall monstrosity almost completely obscured from view by a heavy black cloak that flows down from his shoulders and hangs just a half a foot from the floor. Everything on him is ebony black, accented with a sparse sprinkling of gleaming silver swirling patterns which emphasize the sunken cheeks and hollow eye sockets of a face like horse's skull wrapped in tight, wet leather. His feet, like hooves but split into a dozen freely flexing spikes, click quietly against the hard wood floor as it tilts its head to examine you. A great boney arm, nearly long enough to scrape the ground with it's 8 taloned fingers, slides out from under the cloak, holding what looks like an enormous black, metal club covered in dozens of square silver studs. You see his chest rise and a horrible insect like hissing and clicking fills the room.

You summon up two avatars on either side of the Arbiter. They both extend their tesla sabres and swing at their smaller opponent, attempting to hack it into pieces from either direction. The arbiter drops down, it's huge, emaciated form somehow pressing itself so close to the ground as to appear flat as the blow fly past him. And then it moves, like a fluid puddle of black mercury, slipping through the legs of the giant on its right. For an instant you can make out the glint of a wire and then the right avatar is yanks off it's feet, falling face first to the ground. The Arbiter steps up onto its prone form as the second avatar swings at it again.

The Kinetic Cudgel lashes out and strikes the upright avatars wrist as it swings, sending the arm jerking backwards, armor breaking and white blood spraying. It takes a moment to look at the downed avatar, and suddenly the prone creatures screeches and claws madly at nothing before becoming completely still. Then it moves toward the survivor, just starting to recover from the parry. The air seems to grown darker around the avatar, the ground cracks and breaks and then the great creature falls to it's knees before being crushed into the ground.

The Arbiter observes it for a moment before returning to where it had been standing.

It also once fought the armory master to a draw.