Secret Tunnel Plot Update!

[raavashing]

Hey again!

Firstly, I'd like to thank everyone that signed up to help out with digging the Secret Tunnel. There are 27 vounteers which means once the digging actually starts it will take only a month and a half of dedicated digging (not counting event interruptions) assuming all characters that signed up are still around to do that.

However, before digging can get started, the actual location of the tunnel will have to change which means some new organization has to happen.

Reason for location change
Wan has been writing to Caroline (NPC) and she has informed him in not-so-polite terms that if they dig a tunnel from the garden, they will endanger the secrecy of the resistance's hideout. And Wan doesn't want to destroy what little trust they have with that group.

What's the plan now?
Wan is going to get into contact with a few of the people he personally told about the tunnel plan and try to organize a meeting between about 7-12 of the Volunteers to discuss the following options (These choices have not been approved/shown to Blue because I want a game plan first before presenting a new direction for this plot):

Search for a new tunnel that goes through the barrier
Either in Haven West, Haven East, or Haven North. Something that people can get to without it looking suspicious in case of Yao Corporation monitoring their movements. The Underground Garden was convenient because they couldn't be obviously or easily tracked once they went into the tunnels connected to the sinkhole.

Advantages: Uses existing tunnel network which is not fully explored as is; could lead to new discoveries

Disadvantages: Takes longer to scout tunnels and find entrances; not sure if any will lead past the barrier


Create a tunnel that goes through the barrier
It's already known that the barrier is weak enough to be pushed through once people go far enough down. This would require creating an initial tunnel with an entrance hidden somewhere in the ruins and with the preference of being somewhere that isn't near to the Underground Garden.

Advantages: There are two earthbenders who can create the initial entrance and the tunnel that leads to the barrier from above ground so no conventional digging would have to be done until they got to the barrier; Might possibly be able to bend the earth past the barrier to continue extending the tunnel but not sure how far either could do that; could pick their own concealed entrance

Disadvantages: Not sure how far they'd have to dig initially to get to part of the barrier that can be pushed through; might take more than a few tries to find the 'sweet spot' people can actually push through; might have to manually dig the tunnel starting at the barrier due to possible power restrictions; will take longer to dig a proper tunnel that extends far enough away before going up


Try to get to the surface from the tunnel nearest the Clone Beth Room
People had to push past the barrier to get into the Clone Beth Room, so they would clearly be outside it if they manage to get to the surface.

Advantages: Powers aren't restricted in that tunnel which means more than a few characters can rip a hole to the surface (in theory); Worth trying even if it fails to be viable

Disadvantages: The door at the back of the Clone Beth Room is impenetrable to powers, so there could be more of that kind of material blocking the way to the surface where people can't see it until they hit it; Don't know if it actually leads outside all barriers or just the one around Haven West (could end up in a new location); there's a large possibility of reaching the inside of a building instead of the surface outside of immediate Yao Corporation control; the surface might not be habitable outside the barriers and that's why all the known Yao Corporation facilities outside the barrier seem to be underground or enclosed


Other Options Wan Hasn't Thought of
Propose them in the discussion!

Where is the Meeting at and Can I attend?
IC: It will take place on 08.17 OOC; 11.20 IC (Dated to tomorrow) and in a large abandoned building in the ruins to the North West of the Housing Spiral.

OOC: The ACTUAL meeting is going to be an OOC discussion here in the comments of this post to simplify things. If you signed up for the plot, your character can attend/learn about it happening through word of mouth.

If your character did not sign up last time, but would like to attend the meeting, try to work out with CR who would have passed the word along to them. There are more than a few well-connected chatterboxes who signed up. (This includes characters new to the game this month)

Known Yao Corp Employees can show up, but they will not be allowed inside the building. Wan has reinforced all the walls with earthbending so there's only one entrance/exit that he controls the conventional entrance to. (if you have spying devices/astral projection that can't be detected by others, you can listen in)


How will this work?
I'll have top levels started for attendance tracking, option discussions, and any 'anything else'. Post in to talk about it, threadjacking is fine. If your character attends but doesn't say anything, it will be taken as your character saying nothing ICly. While the discussion will be done OOC to move things along quicker, all of it should be taken as if it were IC.

What will happen after this?
Depending on how fast the discussion goes, I'll propose whatever direction we've come to a consensus on to Blue between Wednesday and Friday of this coming week and we'll go from there. This includes the possibility of proposing all options to Blue in a priority list of which they'll try first before moving on to the next option.

Comments

Characters Attending

[raavashing]

just reply here with the character's name(s); this is for IC tracking purposes only

Option 1: Search for a new tunnel that goes through the barrier

[raavashing]

Discuss!

Option 2: Create a tunnel that goes through the barrier

[raavashing]

Discuss!

Option 3: Try to get to the surface from the Clone Beth Room

[raavashing]

Discuss!

Option 4: Other Options Wan Hasn't Thought of

[raavashing]

Propose and Discuss!

[monarchical]

Sonia Nevermind and Ty Lee would show up; Rapunzel can just hear about changes through word of mouth, I know she was signed up to help out as well, but. But Sonia and Ty Lee are more personally invested in the plan. :|a

Anything Else

[raavashing]

Characters flirting during the meeting? Griping about that last can of beans they ate? Fantasizing about murdering Kite? All that other stuff goes here.

[braavado]

Korra!!

Re: Characters Attending

[raavashing]

Wan will obviously be attending :3

[wharfs]

motochika's going!

[bardromh]

Mu's participating.

[afflictive]

Fujimaru'll be there.

[afflictive]

While not VEHEMENTLY OPPOSED to this option or anything and he'll still help even if it's what's chosen, Fujimaru is less in favour of it than the others. For one, finding new entrances will be difficult (assuming they can find anything at all), and they don't really have the resources/time to keep blowing things up in an attempt to locate one.

e.g. The recent player plot with Cecil—all things considered, they should consider themselves lucky that it did turn out to be a new area. While the dead end of a tunnel might be a better choice to blow up than others, it really might not have led to anything at all, let alone something past the barrier.

Therefore, as mentioned, there's the possibility that they won't find anything at all, so it's probably the option most likely to end in complete failure.

So while there's no problem with keeping an eye out for anything that might lead to a tunnel if they investigated it, Fujimaru doesn't think this should be their main option.

[superissues]

Kon will be there!

[monarchical]

Sonia will back Fujimaru on this completely, all his points are legit. They would basically need sheer dumb luck for this one to succeed, and she does not actually think they have a lot of that on their side SADLY...also, it'd take by far the longest and would require the stars to align, so.

She'd definitely endorse looking at the other two options over this one.

[monarchical]

This is the option that Sonia likes best, just because Yao's probably watching the Clone Beth area (or she would be, if she were them). She'd suggest maybe judging how far down they need to dig based on the depths of the other tunnels, but even if it takes longest it is the safest option of the three presented in her opinion. They can keep 1 on the backburner while working on 2, perhaps?

[intendance]

THIS IS SUPER LATE but Morgan will be there! Because it's Wan and she likes knowing what's going on.

[cuedoves]

BELATEDLY i'd like to throw Zuko here!

[raavashing]

Wan is in agreement with this in general. But he's worried about how much digging may have to be done to find a better place. And the possible attention it will bring from Yao Corp/ Employees thereof.

And it relies a lot on him and Korra being able to earthbend for decently long periods of time so that no one else has to go below the vague 'power cut off' line when making the initial tunnels to the barriers. Which can be pretty exhausting.

[monarchical]

It'd be best if they could find a building (?) near the edge of the barrier, and try to find a basement or something, really, just to get as low as possible in a defensible location so people have less digging to do. It's definitely the most effort-required option, but the chances of stumbling on another safe underground location are probably a little slim (though they can ask around). :|a

[raavashing]

It might be easier to find a decent enough building and just *create* a basement. Oh! thought! enough people use the church, they could create a simple safe room and escape tunnel under it that connects to the 'main' dig site so people could filter in from there for their digging shifts without drawing attention to the actual staging grounds with a bunch of people suddenly interested in this one spot in the ruins. Maybe a similar one from the clinic, too?

[monarchical]

Possibly! Although maybe use just the clinic instead? :|a We keep the bound fog box thing at the church, right? Although I guess the Yao employees know that, so a tunnel there shouldn't be too bad a problem.

And yeah, creating a basement may be easier, but you were saying that Korra and Wan's problem would be digging, so I was just trying to figure out a way to make it easier for them haha

[raavashing]

I'm not sure if the box is inside the church or buried underground somewhere. On the event end post for the box Someone asked about burying it to keep it from being tampered with, and Blue said it was okay to do that. But no one has said one way or the other if it's actually happened.

Well, Korra and Wan can earthbend from the surface - and they should stay on the surface so they don't lose power suddenly because they went too far down. It's more about how much earthbending they'll have to do and that they'd be doing it essentially blind because while they can feel the earth and how it connects, neither have been shown to use seismic sense to feel the earth much further than five to ten feet away. That's going to wear them out, but it's honestly the fastest way to make tunnels to the barrier to test how far down they have to go to find a section that's weak enough for people to pass through. Otherwise just digging the exploratory tunnels will take weeks.

[monarchical]

Hm hm hm. I think we can find people who might be able to help with the doing it blind part, though - like, idk. I don't know if the super guys would have any super senses for that or not. :|a At least Sandry could kind of...send her magic self down a little ways into the ground to "see" it, but she can't go too far without Tris in Haven or anything, and she's uninvolved in this, but it's just an example of like...an ability that could be combined to help them out.

[raavashing]

Yeah. They're going to need some way of coordinating. Unfortunately the phones are both monitored and full of static. so they aren't reliable.

This part is probably going to be the hardest to work out. Maybe one of the speedster if we can rope them in? We'd have to check the abilities of everyone that volunteered/showed up to the meeting and see if they would speak up about it or offer.

[monarchical]

YEAH...again, my most useful character for this part is...NEW AND UNINVOLVED...but I'm almost certain we have someone of use on our list, we just need to go through the sign-ups and locate them. :|b

[raavashing]

Even with that hiccup, this is a better direction that I was originally thinking it might go. It's at least a better game plan than Wan started with.

[monarchical]

The power of teamwork!!! and unexpected setbacks lmao

[hi_no_de]

Ammy'll be there!! Maybe Wan and/or Korra tell her about it. HEY GIRL DO YOU LIKE DIGGING? YES?? OKAY LET'S DIG

[hi_no_de]

Ammy goes around sniffing at all the people she hasn't met, and shoves her head under the hands of people who aren't skittish, mooching all the pats.

such refined very queen

[hi_no_de]

EVEN THOUGH SHE CAN'T TALK.... after reading all the comments above, you've convinced me/Ammy to go with option 2. I was gonna say option 1, but I think that's just Ammy's love of exploration. As Fujimaru said, it's the one most likely to end in complete failure.

Also Ammy just doesn't like the clone Beth room. It smells like human guts you guys and she can't break down the door 8'(

Re: Characters Attending

[borntochoose]

CLARK KENT attending because how could he not

Re: Option 3: Try to get to the surface from the Clone Beth Room

[borntochoose]

Clark likes this one! He feels like they kind of skipped over the room and it they haven't gotten all they could from it, plus it was VERY OBVIOUS they didn't want them there so even if they don't end on the outside (though they cross the barrier), they might discover important new locations!

[raavashing]

Wan can get behind this enthusiasm, but he does have his own reservations about it (see the Option 2 discussion). He wouldn't mind doing a small experimental opening and peaking out to see if it's more viable. But he's thinking the dig our own tunnel thing is safer in general. Particularly for the children among those taken.