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[Man of Paper]

Hello and welcome to Faction Alpha.
Core Thread

Before we get down to business we must first actually set it up.

Vote on a name for your team.

A region for our headquarters needs to be picked as well. We have the following choices:

United States: Provides a Maximum of 10 Field Agents, 10 Security Personnel, 3 Researchers, and 5 Class-D Personnel.
United Kingdom: Provides a Maximum of 10 Field Agents, 10 Security Personnel, 5 Researchers, and 3 Class-D Personnel.
Australia: Provides a Maximum of 5 Field Agents, 15 Security Personnel, 4 Researchers, and 4 Class-D Personnel.
Russia: Provides a Maximum of 15 Field Agents, 5 Security Personnel, 4 Researchers, and 4 Class-D Personnel.

Remember that the starting armory will be determined based on starting location.


Once we're set up we can being to work on operations for the following anomalous activities.

A spike in mysterious disappearances has occurred in Hong Kong's Causeway Bay. There's no clear pattern, and local authorities are baffled.
An island has appeared off the Chilean Coast. Since it's appearance all seismic activity in the area has stopped.
A woman was reportedly attacked by an inhuman creature in the Papal City. She has since disappeared, and she seems to have been washed out of every image or video taken of her throughout her life.

During the Deployment Phase you will be able to assign field agents to gather more information on these anomalies or attempt to contain or capture it. As time goes on knowledge of the anomalies will grow as they're allowed to act freely, however other powers may step in to deal with anomalies if you let them go for too long. Deploying agents to investigate will increase information on anomalous activity, and that tends to make containment procedures easier.

[Rockeater]

Maximum is maximum now or maximum to the end of time?

[Man of Paper]

Maximum now.

[Naturegirl1999]

This seems cool

United States

Investigate disappearances at Cassowaryy Bay

[Rockeater]

So the researchers and D-class are a bit confusing, for every experiment I spend 1 Researcher, but I don't get from that anything unless I spend a D-class on it, or is it just for every dice past the first one I need a D-class?

[Man of Paper]

Every dice past the first needs a D-Class, Researchers function to improve progress of Experiments while also aiding to prevent Containment Breaches.

[Rockeater]

In that case

Headquarters:
US:(2) Naturegirl, Rockeater

Investigation:
All agents to disappearances at Cassowaryy Bay:(2) Naturegirl, Rockeater

[Jilladilla]

Hello! I am joining you lot here.

My analysis on the starting choices:

US: Balanced Armed Personnel, Unarmed Personnel Biased towards D-Class.
Overall, we'll probably get the most Experiment progress rolls with the US.... But do remember that every 1 we roll on Experimentation causes Containment Breaches, so this may end up as a double-edged sword; more dice rolled = more 1's after all.

UK: Balanced Armed Personnel, Unarmed Personnel Biased towards Researchers.
Also focused on research, though this is more of a slow and steady approach, Researchers give rerolls, so we'll likely dodge a few containment breaches. That said, the small number of D-Class might hurt our progress (though this is alleviated a bit by all the rolling at advantage we'll be doing).

Australia: Armed Personnel Biased towards Security, Balanced Unarmed Personnel
Honestly, I like the 4/4 split on Researchers/D-Class that Australia and Russia have, balance between progress and security. Speaking of Security, Australia is likely to be the best at weathering those times when something does go horribly wrong. Thought this does come at a cost of our power projection.

Russia: Armed Personnel Biased towards Field Agents, Balanced Unarmed Personnel
We'll be most able to actually influence the world early on by basing in Russia, with 15 Field Agents. We can keep tabs on more things, and launch more operations to bring anomalies into our control. That being said though, if we suffer dangerous containment breaches or if someone/thing comes knocking on our doors we might be in trouble.


Hmm. What are your thoughts on the starting position? Your thoughts on my analysis?
Also, remember that we need a proper team name! Those of you who know me from other Arms Races know that I am terrible at names.

[Rockeater]

Hmm, rereading on containment breach, I am less sure abouy choice, I might change to Australia.

[Roboson]

General Roboson reporting for duty.

[Jilladilla]

Really, all of them have some flaw:

US is just asking for Containment Breaches if you leverage their strength.
UK will have issues with rushing out important experiments
Australia has severe power projection issues, scouting out and securing anomalies will be difficult
Russia, when things go wrong, they're more likely to go worse due to lack of security


Now, all the things can be rectified, we aren't forced to continue this Human Resource specialization, we can mitigate our weaknesses.
Personally leaning UK or Russia myself to be honest. Though it isn't a strong lean. The UK's slow and steady appeals to me and Russia might be able to somewhat compensate being a relatively leaky sieve by just outright grabbing more anomalies with their greater field manpower.

[Roboson]

Jilla I'm not sure your analysis of the US is correct. I'm on phone so quoting is hard, but from the human resources section:

[Of note, if more Researchers are assigned to a single anomaly than Class-D Personnel the highest total roll is always used (Ex. If a 4 rerolls to a 1 it is treated as the 4).]

So the US actually has less chance of containment breaches by using more scientists. Which seems to me, makes it a very strong option.

[Rockeater]

My probelom with the Russia approach of grab now think later is that all projects roll, even those not experementet on, so breaches can hardly be slowed.

I can see the UK as a good option, but more on the wide approach, benefiting from all the dice rolled, because if you don't you get just one extra reroll in exchange for a hule die.

Edit: the us has the least scientists.

[Roboson]

You are correct. My mistake. Let's be the UK, but specifically Irish and only Irish.

[Jilladilla]

Oh no, I wasn't saying that as a way to slow breaches, I was saying that as Russia we could afford to be a bit more callous with breaches; 'so what if a few anomalies broke out, we can just grab it back or get replacements'. Not that I advocate being *that* callous if we go with Russia, nor do I suggest trying to hoover up literally every anomaly.

The idea wasn't to stop the breaches, but to use our greater gathering capabilities as a bandage to blunt the escape of our SCP's. Also note that Safe Anomalies don't roll for containment breach, though granted we won't know if it is safe until we Secure it and start trying to Contain it. (We'd obviously have issues Protecting it with Russia, but that's beside the point.)