This article is based on a player handout from Andy's own campaign.
For additional inspiration, read a few spy novels and watch a few spy movies,
then put your players through a suspense-filled adventure session ( or two).
My thanks to Andy for granting permission for me to host it on my web site. -
Kevin Clark - Feb. 8th, 1999.
Copyright ©1995, 1998, 1999 Andy Slack. All Rights Reserved.
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HTML layout/editing by Kevin Clark ( kevinc AT cnetech DOT com)
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http://www.geocities.com/pentapod2300/best/spies.htm
Disclaimer required by Far Future Enterprises: This item is not authorized or endorsed by Far Future Enterprises ( FFE) and is used without permission. The item is for personal use only. Any use of FFE's copyrighted material or trademarks in this file should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks. In addition, this item cannot be republished or distributed without the consent of the author ( Andy Slack).
Now, there are five sorts of spies. These are native spies, internal spies, double spies, doomed spies, and surviving spies. When all these five types of spies are at work and their operations are clandestine, it is called the "divine manipulation of threads" and is the treasure of a sovereign. Native spies are those from the enemy's country people whom we employ. Internal spies are enemy officials whom we employ. Double spies are enemy spies whom we employ. Doomed spies are those of our own spies who are deliberately given false information and told to report it to the enemy. Surviving spies are those who return from the enemy camp to report information.
Of all those in the army close to the commander, none is more intimate than the spies; of all rewards, none more liberal than those given to spies; of all matters, none is more confidential than those relating to spy operations. He who is not sage and wise, humane and just, cannot use spies. And he who is not delicate and subtle cannot get the truth out of them.
Delicate, indeed! Truly delicate! There is no place where espionage is not possible. If plans relating to spy operations are prematurely divulged, the agent and all those to whom he spoke of them should be put to death.
Generally, in the case of armies you wish to strike, cities you wish to attack, and people you wish to assassinate, it is necessary to find out the names of the garrison commander, the aides-de-camp, the ushers, gatekeepers, and bodyguards. You must instruct your spies to ascertain these matters in minute detail. It is essential to seek out enemy spies who have come to conduct espionage against you and to bribe them to serve you. Give them instructions and care for them. Thus, double spies are recruited and used. It is by means of the double spies that native and internal spies can be recruited and employed. And it is by this means that the doomed spies, armed with false information, can be sent to convey it to the enemy. It is by this means also that surviving spies can come back and give information as scheduled.
Just over a third of all 2300 AD characters have worked as covert
Field Agents for a corporation or government ( the second most popular
career choice for player characters), or in some related career such as
Thief or Law Enforcer. This handout focuses on undercover work in
the 24th century.
Andy Slack
July 1995
Usually, bombs are used to frighten or injure people ( such as IRA car-bombs), whereas incendiaries are used to destroy property ( such as the Animal Liberation Front's firebomb attacks on department stores selling furs). The threat of either can be used to disrupt travel and business without the expense or inconvenience of actually planting one.
The majority of devices used by terrorists and criminals are simple,
and built from common household items such as watches, flash bulbs, and
clothes pegs; more organised groups make use of stolen military supplies
to assemble bombs requiring a high degree of technical knowledge.
The home-made items have a fairly short shelf-life; complex devices with
military explosives and electronic timers can be planted months or years
in advance of use.
He avoids narrow streets or ravines, stopping, or slowing down, especially
if anything unusual like an accident occurs ahead; he will turn off and
choose another route instead, and is prepared to accelerate away at the
first sign of trouble, usually with lights and horn going to attract attention.
Minor breakdowns like flat tyres are ignored until a known safe place is
reached. If attacked by another vehicle, he will avoid driving alongside
it ( which risks a broadside) or trying to force it off the road, into
a ditch etc. ( which locks the vehicles together and makes him a perfect
target).
Fences range from four strands of barbed wire marking a boundary ( just stroll on by) to wire mesh topped with razor wire and backed by mounds of concertina razor wire ten metres wide and three metres high ( bring gloves, a ladder and bolt-cutters; scramble over in under a minute, or cut your way through in about 10 minutes). Electrifying the fence doesn't slow the intruder down, but does make mistakes more dangerous. Adding minefields slows him down ( many minutes if he sneaks in, less than two if he blows the mines up and pulverises innocent bystanders within 250 metres of the fence).
Walls range from clay tiles ( smash a hole through with a sledgehammer in under 60 seconds) through 20 cm reinforced concrete ( 2-7 minutes with power tools, a couple of minutes with explosives) to 50 cm expanded metal and concrete bank vault liners ( spend all night at it with hand tools, or bring your own antitank weapon).
Intruders with vehicles are harder to stop. The barrier ranges from the common motorway barrier to concrete tank-traps; getting through one of these means ramming them with a one-ton truck doing 80 km/hour, and being prepared to write off the truck afterwards. Ditches and revetments are also used; it takes around 30 seconds to stop the vehicle, erect prepared ramps or bridges, and drive over. As ramming is less effective at lower speeds, crash barriers or parked vehicles are often placed in front of walls or gates to protect them. Of course, the smart intruder steals a hovercraft and sails over the barrier in jumpjet mode.
The sort of building you'd want to break into has a roof made of some combination of metal subdecking, reinforced concrete, insulation, wood sheathing and waterproof membranes. Depending on thickness and materials, penetration time using hand tools ranges from 3 minutes to longer than you'd wait; explosives take 2-3 minutes, but you might get caught in the blast. Power tools big enough to be useful are too heavy to get onto the roof. Once you're inside, floors are basically thicker roofs without the waterproof membrane.
Most doors can be penetrated in less than a minute using hand tools ( axes, crowbars) or small explosive charges, and mechanical locks can be picked or burned out in under 30 seconds. Vehicle access doors are best defeated by ramming. For the serious paranoid, the "King Tut Block" comes highly recommended; when you leave, you use a truck-mounted crane to emplace a multi-ton concrete block over steel beams in the floor, right in front of the door; then you drive off in the truck, presumably laughing. Bank vault doors take 10-30 minutes to defeat by stealth, depending on what you use and how good they are; explosives will get you through in under 5 minutes.
Regardless of whether it is standard, tempered, wire reinforced or laminated, someone with hand tools and a bad attitude can be through a glass or acrylic window in under 20 seconds. Polycarbonate windows last nearly two minutes. Adding steel bars or mesh inside the window adds a minute or so to penetration time. Without doubt, the window is the weakest part of the building, and the prime target for attacks. The usual response is to make them too small to crawl through.
Heating/ventilation ducts, sewers and so on are another weak point.
Intruders can move through them at roughly half to one metre per second
if horizontal, and about half that if vertical. Ducts in secure buildings
are filled with barbed wire or wire mesh screens ( decreasing speed by
a factor of 15 as you have to cut and remove the wire), or metal grids
( quartering speed).
Combination locks are more secure as there is no direct access to the mechanism. Since the 1950s ( when manufacturers stopped resting the fence on the edge of the tumblers) it has not been possible to pick them using a stethoscope. Since the late 20th century, the tumblers have been made of plastic or ceramics to resist decoding using portable X-ray machines. The impatient can melt the lock with thermite, make it brittle with cryogenic fluids then shatter it, or blow it up; any of these takes under two minutes, and melting done skillfully ( you just melt the mechanism without damaging the casing) is not obvious to a cursory inspection.
Electronic coded locks require an ID card, PIN number, or scan of the
user's retina or hand geometry to allow entry. They typically control
electromagnetic latches in the door frame capable of withstanding 1,500
kg of force. Someone with Security Systems skill and a security systems
kit can be through in 10-30 minutes; brute force also comes highly recommended.
There are two main approaches to interrogation: Trickery and torture. Each has its supporters; some say that enough pain will loosen anyone's tongue, others that careful and repeated questioning exposes the truth better, arguing that someone being tortured will simply tell you whatever he thinks will make you stop, which is not necessarily the truth. The approach chosen by your captors depends on their skill, their personal preferences, their organisation's regulations, and how much time they think they have.
Most characters with experience in this line of work know about the classic "good cop - bad cop" routine, and are taught to make themselves "the grey man" -- to convince their interrogators that they are unimportant cogs in the machine, weak, stupid, frightened, and ignorant of whatever the interrogator wants to know. They are also trained to have several layers of cover story in place, so that if the outer cover story is broken, they have a plausible second one to fall back on, and so on. Unfortunately, the interrogators get the same training.
The result is usually a test of endurance and willpower. The captive sticks to his original cover story as long as possible, to buy his colleagues enough time to realise he has been captured and take appropriate action; then pretends to have broken under interrogation, and reveals his second story, hoping to persuade the inquisitor that this is the truth, at which point the interrogation will stop. The interrogator meanwhile uses lack of food, lack of sleep, and possibly torture to rattle the prisoner so that he makes mistakes, thus revealing whether his current story is the truth or not.
Most people will break eventually, though not all. Since it has
proved impossible to discover who will hold out and who won't, no one is
told more than he needs to know for his mission; what he doesn't know,
he can't be made to tell. Occasionally "doomed spies" are given false
information and deliberately betrayed to the enemy by their own superiors,
so that when they are interrogated the enemy will find out the disinformation
and act on it.
This article was prepared for Challenge magazine, but the publication folded with the demise of GDW before I had it in a fit state for submission. ( A tip of the hat is due to Andy Bird, who titled his player handouts "What every knight knows", "What every Iscin knows", and so on.)
16 April 98: A locksmith emailed me to say he thinks I under-rated
mechanical locks. This is quite possible as it is not my field of expertise, so
Your Mileage May Vary.
-Andy Slack