Hawk Holds A Briefing

Hawk Holds A Briefing Characters: Surefire, Sgt. Sideswipe, General Hawk, Poise Location: The Pit

Date: February 15, 2019

TP: America Burning TP Summary: After achieving a victory against Cobra, Hawk discusses a bold plan with the Joe team to bring Cobra's occupation to an end once and for all. As logged by  General Hawk

Briefing Room - The Pit

A large auditorium, with track lighting, plentiful seating, and powerful projection equipment to illuminate the stage in front of the room with 3D images, charts, and maps.

General Hawk stands near the presentation equipment, typing some commands into the laptop hooked up to the projection system while he waits for the Joes to arrive.

Sgt. Sideswipe walks in, he's not quite a Joe yet, but he's far enough in the process to be granted access to these meetings. He stuffs his study materials in his backpack and finds a place to sit.

Security Chief Surefire limps into the room. Under one arm is a crutch. Under the other is a collection of carefully-labelled manila folders. He's in uniform aside from a high-tech boot covering his wounded ankle post-surgery. Surefire makes his way to a free spot, settling in slowly and placing his crutch carefully out of the way. He meticulously arranges his folders in front of him, placing two on top, labelled "Intelligence" and "Security." Both are marked "Top Secret." He doesn't make eye-contact yet with the other Joes.

Poise has had just a few issues with military timing and subordination, but she's also seven eons old, so there might be a reason for that. She /has/ been nothing but cooperative until someone decides they can just bark orders. Still, she's accepted her penalty laps in good enough graces, it was worth it to punish her for being unable to suppress a snicker. She's sort of accessorized her military fatigues that she's been issued with a green and brown surcoat that sort of helps define her look, well that and her NebTech forearm computer. Short and curvy, the Nebulan seems otherwise to be blending in with Earth, except for the whole green skin and hair thing. She enters sort of casually, having not gained the military cadence that Boot tends to deliver, yet.

Sgt. Sideswipe looks over his shoulder and sees Poise. He's had a few encounters with her. Nothing too terribly illuminating, but enough to recognize. He politely smiles, gives a quick 'wave' and goes back to sitting at attention.

The rest of the available Joes that are on duty arrive and take their seats. As the general murmur that usually accompanies such a gathering begins to die down, he stands next to the projection system with his hands clasped behind him, naturally assuming an at-ease stance. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen." he says, reaching over to tap the laptop so that a large map of the United States appears. "We're all busy soldiers so I'll cut to the chase. We know what is at stake. Cobra has a foothold in our backyard, and as sworn members of the United States armed forces, it is our duty to defend her and kick these intruders back to the slimy hole they crawled out of."

He taps another key, and several zones appear on the map. "We know that Cobra has taken the cities marked, and based on those cities, we can assume they have influence, or direct control, of smaller communities near those cities." Another tap, and it zooms in on Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin. "Thanks to the gift we have received from the Autobots, we have routed Cobra's bid to add Milwaukee to their roster. But we cannot stop here. Therefore, this meeting tonight is to discuss our options, gather ideas, and get together a plan to begin taking back our territory."

Security Chief Surefire raises his hand, but waits to be acknowledged before speaking.

About fifteen seconds too late, Poise finally raises her hand to salute a superior officer, and then sheepishly drops her hand back down. She's pretty good at 'at ease' though. However, she's also been chastised for giving out her opinions before being asked, soooooo she patiently awaits her turn.

Sgt. Sideswipe looks over at surefire, surprised someone jumped to recommend action, or has a question so quickly. He goes back to looking at General Hawk.

Hawk looks over towards Surefire. His gaze is one that is torn between a variety of emotions, but discipline wins the day. "Surefire." he says.

"Sir," Surefire begins, "President MacLeod has declared victory in Cobra Unity and announced a withdrawal of troops from that country, among others. However, as he's given no numbers or timetable, we've been slow-rolling the extraction to give our Kurdish allies as much cover as possible so Cobra won't move in the slaughter them while we're gone."

Surefire shifts slightly, trying to ignore the pain in his ankle. He continues, "My question is, are we going to pull out our forces completely and use them to bolster our defense of the home front, or leave certain teams in place." He flips open one of his folders and double-checks his intelligence. "We have Lt. Thunderwing training Kurdish rebels in the Qabdat Khafia base, and Mercer leading a team of Renegade mercenaries behind enemy lines. Also, Chuckles is imbedded in Cobra operations there, although he hasn't reported in in some time." Surefire looks up, face neutral and serious, focused in the task at hand.

Poise waits her turn, then smirks, "Well, this whole robot offensive seems to be working pretty well for them, but we've already seen that these things have a nodal support structure all relying on that sicko guy that turned himself into a tank." She grimaces, what sort of person would merge with a machine or robot like that? Poise continues, "Capture of that guy is going to do a lot to change the tide no doubt, but it also means that everything...>>EVERYTHING<< goes through that focal point. A simple granial code index thumper delivered simultaneously from different vectors, using these robot goon squad types,..." She gestures in sort of a converging motion, even if her lingo isn't understandable, "...sending everything BACK to robo-tank-man, would just about fry everything he's got." She winces a little, "Not sure if that's going to be deadly in his case, or if it'll just result in some stage-six brainfry."

General Hawk nods to Surefire. "Manpower is one of the issues that we will have to solve, and there are some plans in the works for that." Hawk says, looking to Poise as she speaks. "You've hit the nail on the head. Over Kill is their key to the BATs. Take him out, and their ability to control them is severely hampered. It is clear that Cobra is using their BATs as their main force, and that is a weakness that we have to exploit." he says, tapping another key on the keyboard, bringing up a set of old schematics. "I am sure that most of you remember the Broadcast Energy Transmitter. We still have an old prototype in storage, and we still have tech heads available to work their magic."

"What I am envisioning, and what I am placing before our technical team, is to 'reverse the flow' of the BET. Pull power, rather than broadcast it, and focus the area of effect. If we can accomplish this, we can draw the power from all operating BATs in a given area, rendering them immobile. We then move in and clean up." he says, bring up some notes in a couple of Powerpoint slides to lay out the points. "This is of course still all theoretical, but we must have a means to weaken Cobra's offense on a grand scale."

Poise seems mildly impressed, "Orbital energy manipulation? For a Stage-Two planet, Earth is pretty surprising. Well, you wouldn't mention it if it weren't non-volatile, but even a mass transfer of energy's going to damage electronics in the A-O-E. And if your satellite doesn't have enough power to work with, it'll need to shunt it somewhere..." She concedes with a grimace, "Which...sort of leads to malleable orbital cannons." She raises a hand objectively, "Generally a really bad idea, by the way. Save yourself a few thousand years. Don't do it."

Sgt. Sideswipe can't help but smile at this. He's seen a lot of stuff in emergency rooms. He's even seen some crazy stuff during training. But Poise's story, and her assessment and recommendations - this takes 'you won't believe this' to a whole new level.

Surefire listens and nods at the ideas put forward. As a non-technical Joe, however, he remains silent for now.

General Hawk nods to Poise. "Orbital weapons are a can of worms I'd prefer not to open. We have enough problems to deal with at the moment." he says, with a side glance to Surefire. After focusing there for a few seconds, he returns his gaze to the remainder of the room. "Yes, it is something we have to consider. That is why I want to focus the AOE as much as possible, potentially down to being able to target a city block. We want to be able to strike quickly and decisively, and if at all possible, across multiple geographic targets at once. This would lessen the chance that other cities would get wind of the weapon and begin fortifying their defenses."

Kamakura listens quietly from the back of the room. He doesn't add anything but does tense a bit. He does not want America to be Springfield on a larger scale.

Surefire accepts Hawk's withering gaze stoically, focusing on the subject of the meeting for now.

Sgt. Sideswipe raises a hand and clears his throat. "Right now... what's the estimated casualties of such an initiative." He adds "I know there's always risk, but for an operation like this..."

Poise gives a glance about to the others, being all quiet like. "This sort of conflicts with my idea of a network attack...buuuut, actually half of my initial career as an optical technician was lens-based energy manipulation. Given what I've seen here, and without further disrupting your natural technology progression...I could probably get an optical focus neat enought to say.....40 halbs width or so. 30 if you keep surprising me."

"Projections are minimal, dependent on how tight we can get the AOE to be using the BET." Hawk replies. "However, if we are forced to result to conventional tactics to being taking territory back one city at a time, then we are looking at substantial civilian casualties and that we must avoid at all costs." he says, looking to Poise. "You are more than welcome to look over the schematics if you have some ideas on that front. But we do need all possible strategies on the table, and a network attack agaisnt the BAT communications system is definitely one to continue to look into. A combination of both could be even more devastating. Scramble the BATs with a network attack, then strike with the BET to neutralize them and all Cobra fortifications. We reduce them to ground forces only, and move in, chasing them out of the town. By relying on their BATs, they are lacking in actual manpower."

Poise crosses her arms and squints, "Wait. Why not just target this Over-Kill character with the wave? Again, not sure if this is deadly to him, but if he's the core of it, then having no processor energy itself is going to bring down the whole network, this is why you don't use nodal networks."

Sgt. Sideswipe nods and says aloud, but not necessarily loud enough to make it sound like a suggestion, more like thinking aloud. "We'll have to have rescue and medic teams mobilized immediately to go into these cities then, and tend to those."

"That is one possibility." Hawk says. "Taking Over Kill out will significantly reduce their threat, but we need to be certain that he is out of commission for a significant amount of time if this is to work. We know that without him, the BATs lose much of their tactical decision making." he says. "But he is only one target, and the BATs are spread out in large concentrations across the territory they occupy. Any plan to be successful must consider taking out Over Kill and the rest of the BATs at once to have a chance of success."

Kamakura pauses. "Well so long as they've cut back on vipers." the ninja says. "I wonder if this means their recruitment drives are finally failing."

Poise supinates her wrist, " So...right before a big city battle, zap him, and drastically tip the scales in your favor?" She corrects herself, "Our...Our favor. So that means it'd work best as a surprise, so there should be something else going on to keep them occupied."

"If they had the Vipers to deploy, they would have done it by now." Hawk suggests. "It is only due to their ability to manufacture large numbers of BATs that have allowed this invasion to work for them, and that is what we must nullify." he says, looking to Poise. "Yes. We pick the location where he is stationed, strike it, and at the same time, zap other cities across the country to sap them of power. Teams wait outside those areas ready to strike, and when given the signal, they move in, and if we are successful, we regain a large portion of the United STates from them in one fell swoop."

Sgt. Sideswipe gives a nervous, reflexive smile after what General Hawk just said. This is what he signed up for, after all.

Poise squints, "You're going to target multiple locations from orbit within minutes? How many of these things do you have? You're talking about on-the-fly adjustment, and line of sight failings from planetary curvature if you extend out too far."

General Hawk nods. "We have enough materials available to build four more devices, and I am envisioning that each device is equipped with multiple facings allowing multi-directional firing. This should give us a large number of firing solutions in quick succession."

Poise wordlessly gives a slow nod to the General's response. It does look like he thought this through. Finally she squeaks, "Alright, seems legit."

Sgt. Sideswipe nods and says under his breath "All right, let's do it."

"It's a plan. There's always room for improvement, but we have to take action." Hawk says. "On other fronts, as you know, we had to deal with some public relations troubles due to what was discovered at the Coffin." he says, another glance to Surefire. "As you are aware we have been, for the most part, exonerated. After conferring with Mr. Witwicky, EDC operations have been restored. As difficult as this situation has been, I do not intend to allow it to sour the relations we have had with the Autobots thus far. We must now focus our attention on our primary task, and that is getting Cobra out of our country. Unless anyone has anything else, then you are dismissed."