Siberian sun
Документ сохранён в рамках проекта #Схоронил от канала Инвестигейт по-русски.
Seven axioms of Jarvis Shards coordinator
No battle plan survives contact with the enemy
There is no such thing as unneeded contacts or keys
Part 1
Imagine vast country spreading for over 13000 kms from East to West. Moscow and St. Petersburg, millions population cities are sparkling with thousands of green portals and almost the same amount of blue. Salekhard, cold and rich city laying on Polar Circle, where some 3-4 agents clash with each other. Ural mountains and Ekaterinburg in the middle ñ this divides Europe and Asia, and one of the most furious Resistance teams leaded by world-famous agent @Toxyd is stationed here. Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia, lying on the great river of Obí, where Enlightened fighting hard with Resistance. Lake Baikal, worldís largest source of fresh water, unique natural wonder, and two cities in the North and in South: Severobaikalsk and Irkutsk ñ just 500 kms apart, but not connected with any kind of decent road. Olkhon, small island in Baikal lake. Yakutsk, residing on Lena river, diamond mines around, lowest annual temperature as low as minus 59 centigrade. And, finally, Magadan, built on permafrost, the gateway to the gold-mining region on Kolyma river.
Now imagine all those cities are 1200+ kms away from each other, different timezones, barely connected with irregularly working roads, even trains getting stuck in snow from time to time and hours of driving through blizzard and night. This is Transsiberian Shardway. This is where five Jarvis shards were quenched and hardened to survive the longest 6350 kms jump in the history of Ingress.
A day before shards appearance Enlightened Moscow HQ have had a meeting to discuss possible strategies for shard (only one at the time) delivery to San Francisco. Armed with powerful multi-core notebooks, thousands-dollars GIS software and digital Earth models we were estimating all the possible routes available. Not much, honestly.
One way was to throw the shard to Europe and forget about it ñ not our problem anymore. Not very enlightening, not very responsible, but absolutely possible. This was not even considered as a viable option.
Second way was to get in contact with Sweden and Norway to transport the shard to Iceland and then to the East Coast in USA. Where it should have carved through the country, results unpredictable. We wanted something more reliable.
Third way was to go transpolar. Get the shard to the northern city and then throw it high above North Pole towards Canada or Alaska. Daring and amazing, this plan could only rely on yet unknown availability of Very Rare Link Amps (VRLAs) and non-existent keys from Canada or Alaska with unknown time when (and if) can we get them.
And there was fourth way: all the way through Siberia. Vast space, cities hard to reach and West Coast in range for the final hop ñ most of the cities. And we have had keys! Santa Monica, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Pacific Coast Highway, Hollywood ñ whatever we choose. Yes, these keys required our American friends to clean the way, but they were readily availableÖ in Moscow. We needed to transport them to Magadan or transport Magadan keys to San Francisco. And, yes, Magadan keys also wereÖ in Moscow, stored in our centralized repository. Weíve chosen to use both chances ñ transporting both packages to have a backup.
For Magadan we recruited stewardess, telling her how cool Ingress is and she was eager to play and help. Weíve loaded her account with keys from Yakutsk and San Francisco, and Magadan confirmed arrival a day later.
San Francisco part was harder. Luckily,@Sn0wgirl, a sister of agent @FanCarver, our go to contact in Novosibirsk lives in San Francisco and she was going to visit her homeland for Thanksgiving day. We have only had to get the Magadan keys from Moscow to Novosibirsk. This was done by +Dmitriy T agent @inye, renowned Enlightened field architect during his all-Russia journey which took place on the first days of the shards chase. We were not set yet, but we were sure weíll get the keys in place when we need it.
The problem remained though, how to pass Ural Mountains. Basically, there were two ways: going towards polar circle to evade densely populated cities or going south facing possibly lengthy fights in almost every city in this industrial region. Our obvious choice was to go north.
As a result of operations ìEscape from Moscowî and ìProtonî weíve managed to send shard #5 to Salekhard some 30 hours after it appeared in Moscow at Bolshoi Theatre. We thought it will be safe there for at least a day or two until Novosibirsk team will be ready to build L8 portal packed with Link Amps to pull it to Siberia. We were wrong ñ there are no safe places and no safe hours.
Next morning after shard arrival to Salekhard L4 Resistance agent surfaced there and easily destroyed unprotected storage portal then moving the shard to the airport. Our intelligence suggested some high profile resistance agents will be coming there shortly to steal the shard to the place where they could control it. We decided to counteract dispatching our agent from Moscow. They were flying the same plane unrecognized by each other.
On arrival to Salekhard Resistance agent @vizor101 acted decisively supported by local lower level agents. As spoofers from both sides were trying to steal the shard, he have just flipped it and waited for the next time window. Our agent @smilenka was directed not to show up until next time window opens, covertly monitoring the portal. And then she have just disappeared, not answering to our calls.
It was much later when she appeared again. Her SIM card ceased functioning this very hour, leaving her without any kind of communication and it took several hours to get new one. There are no sure situations ñ she could interfere, but unpredicted technical problems ruined our only plan to get control. Meanwhile Resistance agents waited for the next time window, flipped the portal again and sent the shard to south, distant city of Severouralsk. So theyíve got control, his mission in Salekhard was accomplished.
This evening was nervous for Moscow HQ. We were estimating different options, trying to rise our agents in Ekaterinburg, looking for reserves elsewhere. Of all cities in Russia only Moscow really tasted what shards race is. Most cities simply could not understand, why this canít wait until the next weekend. Our mobilization went slowly, Siberian teams readied but have nothing to do ñ we could only wait.
But Resistance did not waited. Now, as theyíve got initiative, they gathered Ural agents coordinated and lead by @Toxyd and pushed the shard all the way south this night. Planning was changing every hour, we could not estimate where should we alert people yet, and it was late night. But finally we were lucky to intercept the shard at Tolyatti in the morning. After several hours of fights it was sent to Saratov. Volga battle was about to begin.
Volga is often called mother of all Russian rivers. More importantly, it often served as a place for most decisive fights and victories in Russian history. And the most intensive fight for the shard #5 was held there too.
We now knew the plans of the Resistance ñ they were pushing the shard south. We were trying to get it to the east, but this did not showed up yet. In Saratov we have had keys and agents ñ we thought this will be a sure thing.
The day went as planned. The shard was transferred and stored near the home of our agent. For the night it was blanketed with a green field, and we thought nothing can happen. Once again, we were wrong. While the portals holding this guarding field were as far as 180 kms away, one of them inaccessible in the night, Resistance was determined enough to travel these distances dropping the field by 0400 in the morning. Our agents were asleep, assuming the shard is safe ñ and Resistance were acting in the field. This morning we lost it again and it appeared in Volgograd, where we knew nobody.
Morning started with estimations, how long will it stay here. Volgograd (it was Stalingrad during WW2) is neither green nor blue, and there are not many agents for both sides. This was going to become a stalemate, so we needed to do something with it. Situation was still very fragile. We could send our paratroops but they might have come too late. We decided to take our chances.
This was a very strange call. I dialed @Slnet, one of our #team9 diehard agents in Moscow and asked him: ìHey, can you fly to Volgograd today?î
«Weíre booking your tickets right now, your plane departs in 4 hours».
Later I described situation to him: he could be late, he could be useless, he could face overwhelming opposition, no guarantees. «No problem», he replied.
So our reinforcement was boarding the plane, and we were searching for the agents on the ground who could hold the shard. Suddenly a post appeared in one of the almost dead, definitely leaked community from the agent @Shi we never heard of before. He was asking, what to do with the shard in Volgograd. We were talking on Hangouts the next minute. ìCan I trust you?î ñ I asked. ìAnd why should I trust you?î ñ he asked. And we decided to trust each other.
While agent @Shi did not directly participated in the following fights, he helped tremendously coordinating local agents of all levels while high level reinforcements were on the way. This looked like ballet: one or two agents were lacing links around the blue portal with the shard while not trying to attack it directly. Every time window we were able to block the predicted link to the south. Then agent @Kidovsky arrived to the shard portal and hot phase began. We saw the link to Tuapse twice ñ he was destroying it. Third time it seemed Resistance succeeded ñ but no, the shard stayed. Green blockers started to appear in the southern part of the city, and @Slnet reported he has landed. We held this part of the fight. Now it was time to take initiative.
We advised @Slnet to stay covert near the portal. Meanwhile, lower level agents were cleaning the northern way trying not to attract too much attention. Saratov agents alerted ñ theyíve got keys from this portal. It was 2 vs 4 situation in attempt to link opposite direction in the same time window. Timing was our only chance ñ and nobody yet knew,@Kidovsky is not alone anymore. Linking was blue ñ green ñ no green ñ green again. Few seconds to hold it now. AndÖ success ñ the shard is thrown back to Saratov. Later 1200 kms blockers spreaded from Volgograd to east and west. Southern way was closed for now.
I hate remembering the next day of shards race. It was the war of attrition. The war with spoofers. They appeared in the night near the shard sending it to inaccessible city pretending they are living there. They were passing shards to each other and our agents could do nothing. There was some kind of spoofers summit ñ I reported 6 of them this day ñ both green and blue. We contacted Resistance HQ trying to resolve this situation. By the end of the day people were exhausted. By the end of the day we decided to ignore spoofers altogether and to resume the fight.
Once again, it was not successful to us. I am completely sure, Resistance HQ was not coordinating these spoofers, but they seemed to have their own plan. And their plan played against us. Super-long blockers were removed this night and Resistance was able to get initiative again and transport it to Crimea by the next morning. Then it moved to Sochi ñ and we could only watch it moving in despair. No agents were deployed there ñ we could do nothing. We knew the next move will be to Turkey or Israel and we tried to alert Crimea and Turkey to establish blockers. But they were too late. Next night shard #5 was transported to Israel by Russian Resistance.
+Maria Ilyushina agent @milyushina, who readied her Far East team in Irkutsk and stayed on alert all these days asked me next day: «Will we just give up?..»
Russians never give up. Siberian sun was yet to rise.
Part 2
In the world of Ingress there are cities shining bright green or blue whenever you look at them. And there are grey cities, where you can hardly find a single portal. But look closer: there are hidden L3 linking points reserved for future operations by the agents who travelled there long ago. Unseen from bird’s eye, they are carefully charged, keys secretly stored. These are ‘sleeper portals’, fragile secret weapon to use for really large scale operations.
If you take a look at Kumertau, you will see nothing there. Hundreds kilometers away from large cities of Orenburg and Ufa, it is mainly known for its helicopter production plant. A single green spark in Kumertau was unnoticable from above. Helicopter in front of the plant – painted blue by strange coincidence. This spark marks the beginning of Transsiberian Shardway.
One more shard in Israel? Another one in Egypt? This is getting interesting. And they stay, they don’t move to Buenos Aires or San Francisco. No surprises here – Middle East is not very stable region, and it is not easy for local agents to cross borders. Getting keys from surrounding countries is hard for them, so they needed to wait until somebody will bring viable keys to link abroad.
But Russians operating there have a great advantage. No visa needed and the borders are transparent for them. They are getting the kind of mobility unavailable for local agents. Can we use it? Sure, we will!
Keys transfers complete, Baku option (sitrep here: http://goo.gl/AFoJ58) becomes real with Kumertau keys, Siberia got a pair too. #Team9 carrying enough XM weapons to win the next Mideast conflict is boarding the plane. November 24, operation ‘Eastern’ starts aiming for two shards in Israel (sitrep here: http://goo.gl/Ska6hW).
12 hours after departure of #Team9 Baku receives shard #12. Russians traded their Understanding for Intuition, but it’s OK. Siberian teams are alerted to move out by the evening. Meanwhile Baku team is preparing what we call ‘launchpad’, high level portal packed with link amps. It is 2000 in Baku and in Moscow when local agents are sending the shard to Kumertau. It’s 2300 in Novosibirsk, where local team arrives to Moshkovo, to control shard arrival. It’s 0100 – and it’s tomorrow already – in Irkutsk, where agents are getting into position.
It may sound fast and smooth, but still it takes a lot of time. Shard arrives to Kumertau, and the link to Novosibirsk is established in the next 5 minutes. Both sides control the shard, then Baku eliminates the link. There’s no way back to warm countries now. Siberia is waiting.
…and waiting. Hours pass slowly ticking through Siberian night. At 05.00 local time the shard finally arrives to Listvyanka, small town near Irkutsk. Novosibirsk team is heading home – it’s 0200 for them. Siberian sun is rising above the horizon when Irkutsk team send the shard to Olkhon island in lake Baikal at 0600 local time. Where it was assumed to be safe for a day.
0919 local time in the morning Irkutsk Resistance agent @Sasvseko was contacted by @Toxyd, who coordinated Resistance for shards race in Russia. At 1130 @Sasvseko was already driving to Olkhon. 1430 he was at the ferry boarding gate and at shard portal at 1656 hacking for keys. At 2200 he was back in Irkutsk gathering the team to build launchpad.
Enlightened of Irkutsk could not get to the shard portal in time – it’s 4 hours drive and ferry is not functioning in the night – but they tried to prevent the hijacking establishing a series of blocking links. But they were too early with this countermeasure, so by the actual time when shard transfer was to be done most of these blockers were destroyed.
At 0239 local time Resistance team arrived to launchpad portal to extract the shard from Olkhon island. At 0352 the link from Tomsk was established and at 0400 Irkutsk time the shard jumped there. Local Resistance have not had far going plans, so they threw the shard to the village of Parabel 450 kms away from the city to store it for the night.
Meanwhile, our second line of defence came into play. Ekaterinburg team lead by +Irina Belousova , agent @Raspberries moved out for 5 hours drive to the distant small town of Severouralsk, which served as transit point for Resistance plans many times before. It could be used again, so we needed to eliminate it in advance and to use it for our own purposes. Packed with keys Ekaterinburg team was able to establish five extremely long blockers to Salekhard, Barabinsk near Novosibirsk and southern cities of Ural region effectively blocking most of the possible ways to the west and southwest from Parabel, where the shard was stored by Resistance. Extraction operation was planned for the next night.
This night, after 9 hours of driving, 6 hours off-road through the snowstorm Novosibirsk and Tomsk teams united arrived to Parabel. The shard was jumping randomly between portals, possible reason why Resistance could not extract it themselves. Quickly localizing the portal they established link to Novosibirsk surroundings. Same hour the link from Irkustk landed to the transit portal. After hours of waiting Irkutsk teams confirmed shard arrival. It was 0900 November 30th local time, 0700 at Novosibirsk and 1000 at Yakutsk, welcoming the shard for the next day. Novosibirsk and Tomsk teams were yet to come back home 700 kms of Siberian roads.
Daybreak – the shard is in Yakutsk now. Resistance interception attempt was decisive and fast but they ultimately failed. Siberian teams were preparing to get more shards and store them in what was to become Siberian Shards Collider.
Shard #4 was very persistent in Japan. It refused to link to Vladivostok many times, though Japanese team coordinated by agent @hiyoko145 and our Far East HQ lead by +Maria Ilyushina , agent @milyushina tried it for about a month on daily basis. After such a long stay, Japanese named this shard ‘Doctor’ taught martial arts and filled with first grade sake. Only on 6th of December at 1800 local time the link from Okinawa was finally established. Vladivostok team was alerted twice to receive the shard – it only came on third attempt.
Seeing the next shard in Russia, Resistance agents become uneasy. The next hop seemed predictable – the launchpad to send it to Yakutsk from Blagoveshchensk was built a week ago. And this was an obvious position used many times before for big field operations... too obvious. So Resistance was waiting there to intercept.
But this wasn’t actual launchpad, it was a decoy. The shard was received to another portal 70 kms away. Resistance rushed there to intercept, and Blagoveshchensk team built actual launchpad in minutes. Resistance was late. The next shard joined others in Siberian Shards Collider.
Sending two shards attracts twice as many Resistance. This was the situation we’ve encountered in Kumertau on December 7th. Two shards stolen from Israel and Egypt as a result of operations ‘Escape of the Ninja Turtles’ (sitrep here: http://goo.gl/Y7mcLv) and ‘Cleopatra Night’ (sitrep here: http://goo.gl/Cnb78y) [Русская версия отчёта — прям. аривариуса] using our venerable Baku option arrived safely to Kumertau.
Novosibirsk team was weakened this night, but they have had alternate transit portal which was owned by Resistance and they thought they could use some high level resonators deployed by opposing faction. The problem was to destroy mods installed without touching resonators. This was solved using the passcode provided by Dusseldorf Enlightened, which contained ultra strikes. Precise attack allowed to use opponent's portal as a launchpad.
Still there was a green blocker to remove over 50 kms away and the agent nearby have had no ADAs. While the link to transit point at Kumertau was established, agent @MikeLambert was dispatched from the core team to destroy the blocker.
In just 10 minutes newborn Resistance player appeared in Kumertau near distantly monitored transit portal attacking it with ultra strikes blantly telling the story of how he’s got RedX device – inventory loaded full. Baku, Novosibirsk and Moscow were madly recharging the portal where 2 shards gathered for the next 30 minutes while agent was speeding to destroy the blocker to link to Irkutsk. Transit portal in Kumertau ultimately remained green. At 2342 blocker is finally destroyed. Same minute defensive blocker to prevent cross-linking is established. Shards arrive to Novosibirsk at midnight. Adrenaline mode off, seems like it's time to relax for a few - but no!
At 0010 local time blue blocking link appears at Tomsk. Desperately searching Tomsk agents who could interfere, Novosibirsk team rises agents @AduchiMergen and @cc8gk26p. At 0045 second blue blocker appears from Tomsk. It's getting hot despite Siberian frost around. But at 0058 Tomsk team destroys one of the blue blockers. It's too late to send the shard, but Irkutsk team is able to throw another defensive link. Now the shardway is protected from both sides, corridor established.
0125 Novosibirsk time Tomsk team reaches for the second blue blocker and obliterate it. Same moment Novosibirsk team links to Irkutsk. 35 minuted of rugged defence for both sides now, countdown started.
Only at 0400 Irkutsk time two shards finally arrived to Irkutsk and we could relax for some time after sleepless night full of adrenaline. The rest of Transsiberian shardway was safe – directly to Severobaikalsk, where young and promising XM researcher, agent @Takezi was to begin series of shards collision experiments.
There are no safe places. This axiom was proved during Olkhon roundabout, and Enlightened HQ was getting uneasy when the shard was stored at the same place for more than a few hours. Instead we invented a plan to randomly move the shard between distant cities each several hours so Resistance hit teams could never be sure where to intercept it. This plan started near Yakutsk when local team sent the shard to Churapcha, small town 170 kms the same night after it first arrived in Yakutsk. Key points for the shards collider were defined and estimated according to the quantity of distant keys available between local teams. Shards movement times were set to correspond with airports and train stations timetable in the key sites. We were to get some more shards and to run a series of experiments prior to launching it to USA.
As our XM research developed, we discovered Jarvis shards are very unstable entities. After sending shard #12 to Churapcha it randomly moved all 170 kms back to Yakutsk lab using unlinked portals. It was hopping around for 5 days while Siberia waited for arrival of another two shards from Israel and Egypt via proven and tested Transsiberian Shardway. We really needed shard shepherd and Yakutsk team used lots of their time to move the shard around. Shards also seemed to be very attractive for both spoofers and newborn Resistance players. Strangely they appeared exactly on the shard portals never seen before in this sparsely populated regions.
Two shard colliding labs worked hard in Severobaikalsk and Yakutsk (led by agent @kfmook) to perform a series of tests proving we can actually send all the shards in one package. 7th of December was the day when 3 shards united on a single portal near Yakutsk for the first time in Ingress history. Next experiment to gather 4 shards in a single portal on 8th of December failed – unstable shard hopped off the target portal. Shards package transfer experiment was held the same night with 3 shards and failed too – 2 shards moved, but troublesome Russian shard #5 decided to stay for one hour more then catching up with its mates. 4th shard remained in Yakutsk went unstable hopping randomly across the city each hour ultimately resting in the non-existent portal – and Yakutsk scientists spent the whole day to catch it.
Only on 9th of December Severobaikalsk XM researchers @Takezi and @circumstance managed to collide all four shards in a single portal. An hour later they all went unstable each hopping to his very own portal around.
Our experiments continued. We could not allow any failures now, preparing for Homecoming.
Bonus video: http://youtu.be/bQCQadoWx58
@FanCarver
@Mazay
@Gilrann
@PepperNsk
@popkaNSK
@Vladkansk
@ShiningCurrents
@Keoos
@arpolog
@ZanudaKupino
@MikeLambert
@milyushina
@matrih
@Alucard38
@Lutovolk
@xdAlexey
@Kotjara
@sweetheaven
@AduchiMergen
@Ensojoy
@Kfmook
@Kankretnyi
@djionj
@strongcrv
@TatarinovUrs
@BEN85
@Platina
@mixazya
@Miromani4
@picasso198854
@AdzkoeZlo
@Deneo
@Zadira
@kikipora
@Progreesor
@hiyoko145
@Momongadet
@SichuanRedPanda
...and many many more agents, including #Team9 Baku Team, Moscow Enlightened HQ, Enlightened Global Ops etc.
Part 3
Plans are useless – planning is essential. All the beautiful structures you was drawing in your mind can be easily ruined in seconds. Schemes are too rigid to use them for real tactical situations. Real operations require improvisation and changing tactics on the fly. That’s the moment when pre-planned system will help you when all the plans are trashed.
And that’s the moment when personal initiative comes into play. Real people making their decisions in the middle of Siberian night, working in synergy to fulfil our common goal. They rule the game, and HQ only works for them.
While never considered as an option, shard #3 was quite easy for us to extract to Baku from Dubai when we were contacted by our friends from India and UAE (see sitrep here: http://goo.gl/XkS6QT) . The problem was to send it further to Siberia. After spoofer attack our starting portal for Transsiberian Shardway in Kumertau was damaged and compromised – we could not use it anymore. Looking at the map we could hardly find any viable options except Chelyabinsk – bearing in mind keys available in Baku.
There was a problem, however. The portal which could be used as a new beginning of Transsiberian Shardway was known to be Resistance agent work portal. Thus it could not be used just as a transit point, it required close defence during transfer. Same time Chelyabinsk agents did not have keys from Novosibirsk and vice versa. Furthermore, this night Novosibirsk team could only dispatch three agent to deploy transit portal and they could not effectively defend it. So this was a kind of gambling throwing the shard all around Siberia hoping everything will be right.
+Irina Belousova , agent @Raspberries from Ekaterinburg was so passionate about seeing the shard and taking part in its transfer that she gathered a team to drive to Chelyabinsk from Ekaterinburg packed with Novosibirsk keys. It’s over 200 kms of snowy road drive, but who cares? Stakes are high – this is probably the last shard to pass through Siberia, and there will be no other chances. Local Chelyabinsk agents were to capture and defend this transit portal while Ekaterinburg team was on its way.
Timing was essential as we expected heavy resistance in Chelyabinsk despite it was late night. Ekaterinburg team was on the portal 15 minutes prior to the next hop, joined with Chelyabinsk agents. They raised the portal to the level needed and tried to link to Novosibirsk – and failed. Several more tries were also unsuccessful.
HQ was scrolling through the projected link to find possible blocker and found it – green link from Russia to Kazakhstan! There were nobody to clear it and, we expected Resistance to come to the shard portal in the next hour or so. Our only option was to move the shard to the south to evade this stupid blocker unseen during operation planning.
Chelyabinck and Ekaterinburg teams were splitted again. Local agents were tasked to guard the portal while Ekaterinburg team rushed 40 kms south to move the shard there, to the small town of Yuzhnouralsk. When split, Ekaterinburg team was underpowered to build the portal of the level required at once – they needed at least 2 hours playing flip cards.
In fact it turned to be 3 hours. The team was stopped by local highway patrol for routine check, but these several minutes were enough to be late for the next hop. And Novosibirsk agent could not wait on the transit portal anymore, leaving it shielded to the maximum but not really watched. Wish us luck now. Link back to Chelyabinsk and wait.
Finally the shard arrived to Yuzhnouralsk. Kicking around for 56 minutes – link to the neighboring portal – flip – upgrade – launchpad is ready… 3 hours late. One hour more to setup the shard on the launchpad. Luckily, transit portal is still there, no attacks, no Resistance activity. Now Ekaterinburg team links there, controls shard departure and minutes later link from Irkutsk lands on transit portal. No resistance. Why? We’re out of time, they could have intercepted it in Chelyabinsk and Novosibirsk, they could build blockers. Are we that lucky? Not really. There was an ambush.
11 of December, Siberian shards collider was working at full power sending 4 shards in a single package between Yakutsk and Severobaikalsk in random time periods. This very night they were transported to Yakutsk and then Churapcha 170 kms away. Irkutsk team was busy receiving the late shard #3 from Ural, Novosibirsk was asleep already.
At 0600 Yakutsk time Resistance agent @Toxyd himself surfaced in Churapcha at the portal storing 4 shards and linked back to Yakutsk surroundings. Later he told he was there for 3 days waiting for the shards to come. But he was a lone wolf there.
Yakutsk team was not ready to intercept and the next hour all 4 shards moved to Irkutsk, where the link to Tomsk was established in minutes. Resistance was planning to steal 4 shards while we were moving another one. Both operations were running at the same time – see the map with links spreading opposite direction through Siberia. 4 shards were to come to Tomsk by 0900 local time.
Who knows, was it a sudden XM blast to awake our agents in Irkutsk at 0700 and make them look at the logs the very moment when the link from Yakutsk was established? They were waiting for the shard #3 arrival and they were told to have a rest for 3 hours until Ekaterinburg team readied the launchpad. Anyhow, Tomsk team was alerted in the next few minutes and Irkutsk agents were driving to the transit portals.
It was 0858 – 2 minutes prior to the hop – when Tomsk team destroyed the transport link. Same minute Irkutsk team was establishing defensive blockers. Seems, Resistance have not had far going plans – they just wanted to steal the package. But we could not risk anymore. 2 hours later Irkutsk team transferred both intercepted package and shard #3 to Severobaikalsk, 5 shards in the same town. Homecoming was to happen today or possibly never.
December 11, 0520 Moscow time, after scrolling through the Enlightened HQ chat, hours full of adrenaline, I’ve took my next coffee mug and pinged for Brandon Downey, telling him: “Today”. Five hangouts open, we were estimating timing to move all five shards. Because there’s no such thing as ‘today’ when you deal with date change line. It’s yesterday in California and tomorrow in Magadan – time travel in action. We were to choose an hour to make it, operating UTC times.
There was a plan and there was a solid document behind this plan – links estimations, possible portal options and tracks codenamed and readied. Precise links traces and killsheets for each of the variants. Times to raise Magadan portal to appropriate level. Blockers estimation and counteraction plan – #Team9 agent is landing in Petropavlovsk in the next few hours loaded to perform a full city cleanup when needed. He was also given VRLA passcode to create fake launchpad which seemed like transit point to send shards to San Francisco. #CrazyRussians were determined to use most precious VRLAs for distraction only – you may see this fake launchpad on the screenshot of the longest link. And our agent was determined enough to act immediately on arrival, after 11 hours flight – jet lag included.
This was plan A – meticulous and sublime. It was set for Thursday (in US), and we were to shift it for Tuesday. US team has got the choice of the portal not to mess with blockers cleanup. They have had keys and assumingly they could raise the portal to L8 fast, while our Magadan team required 3 hours or more to do that. Weapon is armed – just pull the trigger. Just choose the time – and the time is today.
There were also plans B, C and D – different trajectories, splitting shards, distraction operations etc. But they were not polished enough. The main question was how much it will take to @Toxyd to get to the transit portal from Yakutsk. It was estimated that it will take more than an hour, but just a scratch more. However, this was our best plan and we decided to stick with it despite the possible risk of disruption. We knew that Resistance could only try to interfere and have no solid plan where to actually move the shards package. So, we speculated, on the long run we will anyhow succeed. Today.
Next few hours we were synchronizing Yakutsk, Magadan and San Francisco teams. Different timezones and different dates – solid planning, but never tried before. We have not even tried colliding 5 shards, nobody tried 6380 kms links, but everything needs to happen for the first time. Failure is not an option.
Homecoming was initiated at 2000 Yakutsk time, 1400 Moscow time, 0200 in San Francisco. Spread of links flew from Yakutsk surroundings towards Severobaikalsk to collect all 5 shards and it was successful. For the first time 5 shards were joined on a single portal. Severobaikalsk shard colliding lab said goodbye to them and eliminated the links. Magadan team was to get into position in 20 minutes, and US team was driving to the Moss Beach to receive the package. International voice comm channel was online to coordinate our joint efforts.
At 2110 Magadan time local team started to clear the way, very cautiously, not to attract attention. This point has never appeared before in our plans and we wanted it to stay secret as long as possible – nobody knew where we will send the package. 2130 Magadan time the team was assembled and moved to the small town of Ola 37 kms away from the city, safe time margin if Resistance will rush there after seeing the link. They have arrived at 2230.
Magadan link was established at 2255 local time, both parties ready to defend their endpoints. Same time #Team9 agent @Ilerien started destroying possible blockers hosting portals in Petropavlovsk (sitrep here: http://goo.gl/E593xW). He was tasked to use Resistance launchpad detected in the city to raise our own launchpad packed with VRLAs for distraction.
At 2100 Yakutsk time all 5 shards departed to Magadan for the final hop of their long way across Siberia. Resistance agent @Toxyd arrived to the shards transit portal in Yakutsk at 2104 – now we knew what the scratch for this hour drive is. He was welcomed by Yakutsk team and was so good to destroy the link sparing ADA for them.
Now US team could link to Magadan. It was unforgettable to see the longest link flying all the way across the Pacific. 2315 in Magadan, 1515 in Moscow, 0315 in SF – countdown commencing. Now waiting and defending.
It was Siberian midnight when 5 shards travelled to USA in the single package. 5 minutes later Magadan team destroyed this longest link in Ingress history. Mission accomplished for Russia – it has just started for SF. Magadan team was heading home. Yakutsk agents were about to share some beer with their Resistance opponent. Severobaikalsk lab was closing for the night. Irkutsk team was celebrating. Novosibirsk could sleep for a while after this nervous night. Ekaterinburg was waking up in the evening to hear the enlightening news. Baku team was heading back home from work. Moscow HQ – exhausted but victorious – was thinking on a day to have a party. Today. It’s over.
You know the rest, don’t you? San Francisco team is yet to tell their story of elegantly carving through the city to deliver the package to Cupid’s Span in the next two hours. There will be stories of collecting 3 more shards from US, Asia and Australia. This was a time of really global effort with many teams around the world acting as a whole for the largest joint operation in Ingress history. The most epic achievement.
“That’s one small link for the Enlightened…” – said Brandon when this longest link was established from California to Magadan. And I responded: “Yeah, we choose to go to the Moon and do the other things.” I was quoting JFK speech. This quote was not complete. It ends with the words:
“Not because they are easy. But because they are hard.”
Last hours of Homecoming audio: https://soundcloud.com/vitaly-kabernik/homecoming-mixdown
@Raspberries
@PaulFaceControl
@Bartleby41
Shards intercept emergency response Irkutsk:
Shards intercept emergency response Tomsk:
@Kfmook
@Kankretnyi
@BEN85
@TatarinovUrs
@Stumul1985
@toxiclmagadan
@Yar1
@NeirRon
@jedaineco
#Team9 detachment in Petropavlovsk:
US shards receiving party at Moss Beach:
@d0gboy
@mercurio
@technophile
@invertedatom
@reddog13
@jasonwentcrazy
@zeitgeist26
@stolenveil
@virtualadeptus
@litap
@Vicinext
@inye
@kaytame
@Vengr
@MT81
@lspacca
@Slnet
Homecoming:
Pt 1: https://bit.ly/ingress-sitrep-homecoming-1