Scene #5340: A Not-Unexpected Party

Owner	Pose
Karian Icefang	Having made quite the arrangements, Karian alerted mort that he was coming to visit his friend, and bringing....quite a gathering. Karian's entire great company for that matter. The old wolf opted to allow himself to change into his warpony form, and with that proof in their eyes, many others allowed the same (though there are always some holdouts) Many comments can be made out about the strange land, but also of how peaceful it felt. Soon enough though, the gathering made their way up to Mort's. "The cakes are either going to love or hate us..." Karian mutters before knocking on the door.
Mortimer Balman	It's a lazy summer afternoon in Ponyville, drawing on evening but not quite there yet. Mortimer is busily helping Switchbait, Roll, and Reder set up the back yard for guests. A few pavillion tents have been thrown up- Mort isn't sure how many people Karian is bringing today- while Switch flutters back and forth between the house and the Town proper. The Cakes down at the Sugarcube Corner had been enlisted to whip up a series of baked goods for Mortimer's guests. Pies, cakes, fritters, and other assorted sweets. The scent of barbequed meat wafted into the air, fanned by Reder's magic away from the town and into the Everfree Forest. The glowing eyes of wild beasts could be seen at the forest's edge. They knew better than to do anything.. Untoward, though. That dwelling was the house of a madman and his mad beasts. Mort's current set of meat crops would be wiped out but that meant little, Astartes had massive appetites. Really the hardest part was providing enough /drink/, but a little knowledge on local brewers and the existence of cactus juice, mead, and cider meant that his guests would have plenty of (low alcohol content) beverages. The locals would be a little nervous at seeing so many massive ponies bearing wolfish QT marks and weapons, along with full sized Astartes marching through town. But they recognized these people, and knew that they were of good intent and wholesome soul, if violent of heart. Many would wave and provide cursory greetings, as is the hospitable thing to do. At the end of the day, seeing where the troop is marching, they would simply shrug it off as Old Man Balman inviting his strange, dangerous friends over for a tea party of some sort or another. The door would be answered by Roll, who immediately leapt up and hugged Karian around the neck. "<WOLFPERSON! Uncle Morty is out back, I have cactus juice!>" She would then excitedly wave at the other Wolves. "<Hiiii!>" Truly one of the most cheerful and unflappably happy creatures. The little delibird would waddle off into the back yard, rolling a big keg of 'cactus juice' ahead of herself. The real question the Wolves should be asking themselves is 'where did he find folding chairs that can comfortably fit our massive bulk?' But that is a trade secret, and will never be shared.
Karian Icefang	Karian smiles and offers nods and bows to the citizens, as does his followers. Roll would get herself a big hug and her head scritched a little. The rest of the party move about, heading for food and drink both. It would be clear on all their faces they were on edge, their hunting instincts closer to the top then normal. But there was no risk of any incidents happening today. Karian himself looked around for Mort and Ulbrecht, as he had a massive dragon bone for the 'puppy'.
Mortimer Balman	"Ah, Karian, there you are man.. Brought the Company, I see. Alright lads make yourselves comfortable, aye? We've much to discuss, I suspect. Surprised so many of you let yourselves become destriers, but I am pleased. It speaks volumes to your ability to adapt, like proper marines. Good on you boys. So then!" Mort's speech was a little different today- he was speaking in a different language, one he didn't sound like a redneck in. His native tongue. Drinks would be poured for every man, though the 'feast' was not terribly huge it was all promising to be quite delicious. Switchbait, finished with his last run, would assist in this once he had set out the last wheelbarrow full of baked goods. "<Grand to see you all, Astartes. I do hope your trip was not terribly unpleasant, by all means dig in as you are ready to.>" Proper buttling of all needs is essential to a properly thrown 'shindig' as loathe as Switch was to use such words. Reder was by this point done, and snoozing off in a corner. Ulbrecht was walking out of the Everfree with a blood-stained mouth, having fed on some unfortunate local- probably mystical- creature that had been unlucky enough to draw his attention, which would mean when the Space Wolves were detected the overgrown puppy would shower them in messy affections, and then subsequently lick their faces clean of all the blood.
Karian Icefang	Karian smirked at Mort's speech, and nodded. "Well, seeing your leader change helps." He says. Though towards Switch, he finds a few waves and is told many time to not have to worry or to rest himself. Ulbrecht would find equal affection given to him via fur ruffles and praises of his successful hunt. That's then Karian motions and has the giant bone brought over to the Thunderwolf.
Mortimer Balman	Mort would settle down in a chair and gesture for Karian to settle in. At this point Karian should notice that the tables had all been arranged in a circle. A cube was set in the middle of the table the Wolf Lord would be sitting at. Holographic projections sprang out from it, while a soft female voice- one curiously with an accent similar to Mort's- began speaking. "Data Assistance Protocol online. Awaiting input." Mort would light up his pipe while the program booted. "Alright Karian, if you would be so kind, feed all available data into my little PDA here." A holographic keyboard appeared, as if on cue.
Staren	Mortimer isn't the only outsider watching Ponyville. One man watches from the sky... Staren sees the huge number of people coming into Ponyville, and beams down to follow them -- initially appearing as another pony, a brown-maned white unicorn stallion with the bandana around his neck (and a perhaps out-of-place robot-head QT mark)... but after following them to Mort's and seeing that Karian is here, he approaches the pair. "Hey guys, what's up? Some sort of party?"
Karian Icefang	Karian eyes the device. "Upgrading tech, are we?" He asks. But he does as asked and enters in all the information he had been able to gather. "I also have a cargo ship passing by Argas-25. In truth, it's a spy vessel. They're going to try to tap comms, maybe see if they can get some survaillance pictures...Staren. Pull up a seat, friend. We're discussing a....situation."
Mortimer Balman	"Not as much as you'd think. This is my old Djaro box, but I was able to finagle a custom voice.." He trails off briefly, tiniest wisp of a smile on his face. "Ah, very good. Aye Staren pull up a seat, son. The Wolves have need of some help. I've volunteered. Always looks good to the Imperium's higher ups, after all." Mort's attention turned back to Karian while smoke trailed from his lips. "Didn't think you people /had/ spy vessels, but that will suffice. Actionable intel is our only hope in Hell, here."
Staren	Staren pulls up a seat and sits on it, pony-style. Since they're both in pony-shape, he doesn't change back for now. "What do they need help with?" He looks curiously at Karian.
Karian Icefang	Aye, we don't have spy vessels." Karian says with a wink. IT seemed he knew a few people that owed the wolf lord a few favors in the past. But he soon finishes typing in the information. "Argas-25 is a Forge World. Meaning that about 95 percent of the planet makes machines of war. Thankfully, it specializes in making Rhino APC's. A few month's ago I heard rumors that it was showing signs of rebellion. I deployed Squad Beorn to investigate. After the third day, they went quiet. I had thought them lost until my Iron Priest reported that he was still recieving their indicator runes as green." He begins.
Mortimer Balman	Mort chuckled at that. "Of course." The little machine began displaying planetary data. Larger manufactorums were highlighted along the surface, along with topographical data, seismic- all the basic information. Population estimates and other publicly available resource data followed. Pictures of Adeptus Mechanicus Enginseers and Magi appeared at random. [STRATEGIC VALUE: HIGH. HYPOTHESIZING MILITARY STRENGTHS.] This made Mort chew on his pipe a bit. "Even if 'all' they manufacture is Rhino transports, those can be outfitted with fairly potent weaponry. The Machine Cult would surely have a reasonably sized garrison of troops.. ..There would be a /lot/ of servitors, and other materiel needed to endure a siege."
Staren	Staren holds out a hoof. "Hang on a second. What's the rebellion's deal? I mean, the Imperium aren't always the nicest folks. How do we know they didn't, say, have a warpgate appear on their world, make contact with outsiders, and then decide that xenos didn't suck? Even if it's some more routine political issue, maybe it should be resolved diplomatically." "...I mean. If, on the other hand, they've been taken over by a demon-worshipping cult that wants to kill everyone else, blowing them up is certainly on the table."
Karian Icefang	"Aye." Karian says, drawing his own pipe from seemingly nowhere. He also points with the end of it to one particular facility. "There, Manufactorum Domina. I suspect my brothers are being held in there. From what little information we have, it has at least 200 sub-levels and is built to withstand oribal strikes. My initial reaction was more gut instinct." He then looks over to Staren. "Long story short, A squad of my brothers I deployed a few months ago that I had thought lost are on the planet, very much alive. Now, No loyal member of the Imperium would ever restrain or otherwise hinter an Astartes."
Mortimer Balman	Mort taps the pipe against the table to knock loose some ashes. "Yea, the Imperium frowns upon those who raise arms or even briefly hinder the Astartes without damned good reason." The holography begins focusing on Manufactorum Domina, though it has very little interior information to display. "Forge Worlds are run by the Machine Cult.. If your brothers have been detained, then I would be surprised if the Mechanicus was /not/ aware of their signal transmissions, given their mandated expertise. This begins to stink of a trap.. Or, perhaps, your brothers saw something they were not supposed to. The Tech-Priests hate sharing their secrets, even the most innocuous ones. Unless the Mechanicus' leadership declares them Excommunicate Traitoris.. This could lead to a great deal of trouble, Karian. A single Great Company is a poor match against an entire planet, much less an entire Forge World. Frontal assaults would be suicide- half of us would be ashes before our seventh step."
Staren	Staren lowers his hoof. "I'm still not so sure we don't know the rebellion is without good cause. I just know too little about your world, I guess..." his ears lower slightly.
Karian Icefang	"That being said Staren...It's alot better then the alternatives. Slave to an alien race, dead, or worse...made into biomass." Karian says, taking a puff of his pipe. He lets the smoke rise to the sky, thanking the allfather for that apple flavored tobacco mort introduced him to a while back. "From a strategic standpoint, your right Mort. We're outgunned and outmanned. Beyond the mechanicus forces having home-field advantage. Though, what if we used small team tactics? Using the bulk of my company to create a distraction their forces respond to while a smaller force slips inside? Though that itself is a risk as well..we don't exactly know what's inside Domina.
Staren	"Well... I guess if we're just doing a rescue operation, or at least starting with one, it doesn't matter as much." He taps his chin. "This 'forge world', does it have enough agriculture and whatnot to support itself, or does it need a constant stream of supply shipments? Might be a way in that way... Likewise, do people ever move from one world to another in the Imperium? Might be able to pretend some of you are just civilians whose ship crashed right before the communications blackout, and only just made it back to civilization... unless the whole planet is one big city..."
Mortimer Balman	"Unfortunately Staren, it doesn't /matter/ whether or not the planet has good cause to rebel. The Imperium requires loyalty and obedience regardless of personal problems. If a planetary government is corrupt and the people are revolting solely to replace the government without losing allegiance, they might be inclined to care. But we don't know if the entire planet itself is rebelling or just the leadership or anything else. This is a dangerous game, now.." Mortimer rubbed at his chin while staring intently at the indicated manufactorum, and surrounding areas. "No.. Any scenario in which the troops get bogged down is a losing one. The Tech-Priests may not have Space Marines, but they have enough weaponry and technical equipment to make that a non-issue. We need something subtler.. We need a plan that under no circumstances allows the Wolves to get stuck in any one place. Logistics will be impossible.. No, we need a series of surgical strikes to create distractions. Draw forces out of and away from the Manufactorum long enough for us to get in and hijack some cogitators." Ears flick a little, laying flat against his skull. "Alternatively.. If the planetary population holds loyalist elements, we could incite them to aid in distractions and short-term battle lines." Mortimer shook his head at the catboy unicorn. "It's a single massive cityscape." The map is zoomed out to show Staren. "They need regular supplies from agri-worlds but they'll have huge stockpiles for emergencies. And.. Well, /us/ infiltrating is right out. Space Marines, you, me, we all look too non-human to blend in effectively."
Staren	"I think going in swinging without knowing what we're up against is just too... well, maybe not dangerous, but reckless. We need to do recon and find out what the situation is, for those reasons and others." He blinks at Mort. "Well, I dunno about you, but I can look human no problem." There's a blur, and suddenly a human woman with dark brown hair is sitting there in Staren's usual outfit. "Or I can use Iianor's disguise pearl if I need my armor to fit." She scratches her chin. "Now, you two... we might be able to find someone who can cast a transformation spell on you... Twilight's pretty good at those."
Karian Icefang	Karian nods. "It might work. But the extent of forces on planet might be large. Usually Forge Worlds have their own Imperial Guard regiments as defence forces, and that might mean sanctioned psykers." He says, taking a long puff. "At this point, I'm open to suggestion that isn't spending my brothers lives trying to pry open a door under fire.
Staren	Staren purses her lips and frowns. "That could be a problem. There are ways to block psychic scans, though I don't know of any non-obvious ones... And even then, not showing up on a scan is as bad as being found out. We'd need some kind of psychic expert of our own..." You can almost see the lightbulb go on over her head. "Like Flamel! Although I don't know how he'd feel about this situation..."
Mortimer Balman	Mort rolls his tongue against his teeth, clicking them a bit. "Psykers, yeah.. ..We need a large diversion that can keep their attention, but it needs to also inhibit their... Communications.." He paused for a moment. "Staren you've given me an idea." He leans forward and begins having the map focus on several different targets. "Once we have surveillance data from the orbiting ship, we can determine who our focus is. If the planetary population contains significant loyalist presences, what we can do is this: Staren can use his disguising trickery to infiltrate a master vox hub. There's one here, about five kilometers from Manufactorum Domina. Staren you would need to sneak your way to the main communications centre, kill anyone there, and then begin playing a planet-wide broadcast to incite the civilians to open revolt." Mort draws another line, this time 90 degrees away from the vox building, "Karian, you could take a small force of Wolf Guard, Dreadnaughts, and Deathstorm drop pods here- between all these massive skyscrapers you could set up a potent chokepoint and utilize both heavy weapons and the local plascrete buildings for defense. Missiles and other long range anti-armour weaponry can be used to draw out the Manufactorum's forces en masse. Majority of defense personnel around the Manufactorum itself should be Enforcers, Skitarii, and maybe a handful of Planetary Defense Forces. /Meanwhile/-" The focus goes to Domina itself. "I can take whatever other volunteers you have and we can bust our way into the Manufactorum, with another drop pod, before their orbital defenses come online. If we can hijack into their cogitators, we can figure out where they're holding your squad and break them out. I'm better suited to that because this role requires constant high mobility and my flames can clear rooms faster than your boltguns can. We can bring some grapples to rappel and ascend, no need to worry about elevators- we can just punch through those. This brings us to our final problem- orbital defenses." Mortimer moved the view 20 some odd kilometers east. "If we're going to GET off planet, we need either a teleportarium or a Thunderhawk to come get us- as finicky as teleportariums are, I'd rather get in a Thunderhawk. Karian, this should be a job for your Company boys- we don't need to take over each individual cannon, just their main targeting arrays and fire control network, that way they can't shoot at our escape rides."
Karian Icefang	Karian nods as he hears Mort's plan. "That sounds like a plan. A good one at that. I hope that we'll get more information from our local ship." He then moves over and claps a hoof onto Staren's shoulder with a nod. "If your friend can help, I'm willing to meet with him. Send him my personal vox frequency."
Staren	Staren leans forward as she listens to the plan intently. She's nodding at the end, before sitting up straight again. She holds up a finger. "Two problems: 1. I am not a master infiltrator. Sneaking into a civilian server farm is one thing, sneaking into a /military/ facility..." She shakes her head. "I don't know. I'd need to know more about their defenses." She holds up two fingers. "Two: If there are loyalists, I'm not sure about asking them to throw their lives away to be a distraction. We need a better read on the situation down there." She nods to Karian. "And I'll give him a call."
Mortimer Balman	Mortimer rubs his forehead a bit. "I don't think you grasp the situation here, Staren. I know how your morality and ethics is talking here, but this is the /ideal/ scenario. If the Administratum gets rolling on this? There may not /be/ a planet or population left over. The Imperium is a meat grinder; human lives are /currency/ here, not some kind of sacrosanct individual. Victory is not achieved through noble ideologies: it is how well you spend your currency. If there are loyalists willing to fight, then they will be all too glad to join the Space Wolves against the enemies of the God-Emperor." He'd rub his eyes next. "We don't have the time or luxury of making a thoroughly thought out plan. Astartes lives are, by Imperium standards, well worth the losses incurred down there, especially if it means determining the nature of the rebels."