Operation Tidefire

Operation Tidefire was an attack on Dark Arcadia meant to severely cripple if not outright sink the island by bombarding it with sixteen anti-ship missiles/torpedos.

Interception

While Dark Arcadia had no standard military to counter the assault, they were not outright defenceless.

Faced with the terrorist attack on their island, the Dark Arcadians made due with their water police and the dolphins both from the Cetacean Communication Project and their wild cousins to:

1. successfully disable one of the attacking ships by having the Tiberious ram it
2. run off another
3. trap the lead ship

...ultimately leaving only the remaining one a chance to proceed without interference.

Damage

The island was struck by five torpedoes - from an Arcan perspective, a considerable improvement over the intended sixteen, but still a severe loss. Two torpedoes further took down a police boat each thanks to the element of surprise, and one struck a dolphin in the chaos. Further dolphins had been wounded and killed in an initial gunfire assault - though since this was responsible for setting off the chain reaction to warn the island, in retrospect it has probably saved lives, morbid as the thought may be.

Timing

Politically, the act coincided with Dread's release from The Mictian Project, causing brief confusion over whether it was a retaliatory act from Europe. The order of events is described in 'Scorn', but for reference, in (chiefly approximate) UTC times:

• 18:17 — #249
• 19:30 — Dread is whisked out of the base.
• 20:30 — Bennett's first e-mail to Francisco:

I want to know what the hell you think you're doing. I
don't care if you think you can get away being more
elusive than the Pope, or if you think just because you
own a sovereign nation you're beyond instruction. I swear,
if I don't hear back from you as soon as you've set down
wherever you are, I'll make you regret the day you were
born.

• 22:30 — Bennett's second e-mail to Francisco:

Francisco.

It so happens I've spoken to Gary and it seems he all
but outright asked you to do this.

Is there a word for what you've done, I wonder? If you
were European, I'd say 'treason' would be apt, but of
course you sidestep that. 'Declaration of war'? That's
probably a bit high strung.

Anyway, I promise I'll come up with something - just so
we're on the same page.

Oh, in case there's any doubt, I still expect to hear
from you.


Cheers,
- Thomas Bennett

• 23:00 — Bennett's third e-mail to Francisco

Francisco,

for the record, you're vexingly hard to find. Well done.
Just thought you might want to know that. Leave a card
next time, would you?


Cheers,
- Thomas Bennett

• 23:15 — Gary's e-mail to Francisco

francisco, :-)

hey, you're probably being torrentially flooded by
bennett's e-mails by now, so I thought I'd just give you
a heads-up... I'm okay!! sort of. :o) got a serious
chewing out... but I'm not about to be executed for
treason or something like that... probably fired, I
guess? kind of can't tell right now, going to wait for
bennett to calm down. I'll keep you updated!

regards,
- gary

• 03:54 — Operation Tidefire
• 05:00 — Bennett's fourth e-mail to Francisco

Francisco,

we need to talk.


- Thomas Bennett

Assailants

• Lead ship
  • Jaak Klasson, in charge of the vessel.
  • Curro Gaspar, steering Klasson's vessel.
  • Benedek Vadas
  • Edan Talaka, who managed to get himself murdered by dolphins after falling off deck.
• Crius, the ship that got lucky.
• Hyperion, the disabled ship.
• Rhea, the ship that was run off.

Roleplay material

• Log #248 [Offline], the assault itself.
• Scorn, interlude involving Francisco's reactions
• Log #261 [The_Conglomerate], Francisco's public reaction in an interview