Operation Terrapin

Operation Terrapin

The stats:

MU per layer: ~78mil

Total layers thrown: 11

Total layers standing simultaneously: 5

Longest Link: 6,838 km

The story:

When Persepolis was announced earlier this year, a call went out for durable cover fields. Rob Nussbaum  was contacted by Joe Dague for help. Using keys left over from another operation, a plan was hatched to link Washington Island (Wisconsin), Sapelo Island (Georgia), and an island off the west coast of France. The lanes were aggressive, but doable. Unfortunately, between a lot of agents absent along the US lane due to anomaly sites and ultimately killer coastal blockers (good job, Resistance), we were forced to call off the field attempt. 

We all agreed this was too good not to attempt again, and the op was shelved for several months. In June, John Sarmie prodded me about firing up the team again. The process of reaching out to our operator teams and local team leads began, tech was fired up, and plans were hatched. Rob was kind enough (or evil enough) to allow John and myself take the reigns.

Our anchor keys were already in place, but there were many strategic key movements that still needed to take place to hold off some of our more challenging areas. Our operator team worked with local agents to find good rail anchors and keys were sent in motion. 

A special team was formed to work on controlling the US and Canadian coastline. This was the failure point last time, so agents along the eastern seaboard were brought in to coordinate plans very early in the process. Some very tightly coordinated efforts went together to drop a very hard RES link while simultaneously throwing our own northern and southern coastal control links. This was a huge win, and even resulted in a 550k MU fish field for our agents in Newfoundland that stood for several days. Despite our efforts, the coast still played a role in this field (more later).

As late as the night before throw, keys were making their way into guide linkers’ hands. Special shout out to Ed Bihlajama who busted his rear making multiple key transfers and acting as the sole guide link thrower responsible to dividing our US lane several different ways. Our zone operators did an amazing job sealing up the lane early in certain areas, as well as developing very aggressive guide link plans and coordinating our ground agents to execute flawlessly. 

One of the most challenging areas along the US lane was a couple of portals in southern Kentucky located on paid-access 4×4 ATV trails in low-cell areas. These portals were once owned by Jenny Foo and later legitimately captured by a resistance agent. Jenny’s intel was integral in forming a plan around these portals. On Friday, when Rain Creek arrived in the area to take to the trails, she arrived with no cell service at all. After investigation, and a conversation with the carrier, it was discovered that the copper had been stolen out of the local wireless service towers’ power station, resulting in a total cell outage in the area. Saturday morning, we woke to the news that the power station was repaired and we were back in business. With three or so hours to get through all the trails to each of the four portals (miles apart), it was going to be tight. Additionally, coverage was spotty enough that our comms were not solid. Hoping everything was going as planned, we proceeded as if the portals were going down.

Then, shortly after 10am, my heart sank as the call went out in the ops channel that there was a new blocker from Robbins Reef Lighthouse in NYC. The blockers were sent to Grenada and Puerto Rico. These were killers, for sure. At this point, we had to face the fact that our 1pm checkpoint was likely out of the question. As Tim McGarvey frantically called every helicopter and boat service he could find, Brit N Boots was able to find an agent in Puerto Rico to drop that end. Grenada was a no go, however, so it HAD to drop from NYC. We finally found a boat willing to run an agent out to the lighthouse, and thank goodness agent J-P Michael was available to hop on and take the ride on the choppy water.

Around that same time, we finally started to see a little action from southern Kentucky. It was only a little bit of time now before those mountain blockers would fall. Meanwhile, in France…

Approximately two hours before our scheduled throw time, a new blocker appeared across the water on the French coast. After reaching out to locals with no luck, two agents (mogg and sehdatcha) left the island to make the 20 minutes ferry and 60+ minute drive to the other island blocker (and gave up their overnight stay on our anchor island). They waited there while we dealt with the NYC blocker…

We were in constant contact with J-P regarding his eta to Robbins Reef. As we watched him approach the lighthouse on glympse, we had our French and US teams ready. As soon as the boat got to the lighthouse, we made the call for the blockers to drop. A moment later, the lane was clear and +John Sarmie threw his link from Sapelo to Washington Island and France lit up their portal and threw to Washington Island. After circling the lighthouse trying to literally drift within range of the portal, J-P dropped the NYC blocker, allow us to throw from NOAA up to the Canadian coast to guide. About 30 seconds later, Mickael Patte threw from France to Sapelo to close our first field… 78 million MU!

Meanwhile, back in Wisconsin… Our anchor team had been discovered and Resistance were on their way. Shout out to Res agents GoodTwin and OzzyTheGr8 for making the trip to fight our anchor teams. These two agents singlehandedly prevented our fields from hitting the 6pm EST checkpoint. However, as they drove around pulling down our fields, our anchor and link teams worked to set up new layers to throw. Eventually, our Sapelo team had to catch their ferry off the island and our linking was finished. 

There are so many cool stories from our agents on the ground, like the one where we totally lost the capsule with the keys at the southern island and flew a new set down with Sara Bee. Too many more to share here, as I’ve already talked too much. I have so much appreciation for our dedicated and talented organizers, operators, and ground teams that made this whole things possible. You guys are all amazing!

Organization:

Ron Groves 

+John Sarmie  

+Mickael Patte  

Coast Control Team:

Ben Newfang  

+Brit N Boots 

+Christy Murray 

Bill Murray

David Moore

+Eric X 

+J-P Michael 

+Jesse Spangenberger 

+Jon Luning 

+John Sarmie 

Justin (@luigix4)

+Kate Bisnaire 

+Kristie Robertson 

+Mark Schaub 

+Morgan Self 

Parker Haliburton

Ryan Nichol

+Agent StephenG 

+Tim McGarvey 

+Zach Barrett 

Richard Harris

Sean Kenny

Operations:

Carrie Bradfield  

Trinyan X  

Alexander Porambo  

Nate Bowers 

Heiko Leberer  

Courtney IAmCoyote  

Mark Schaub 

Agent StephenG  

Kenneth Colwell  

Robert Landsparger  

Michael Rother 

Kate Bisnaire 

Tim McGarvey  

Toralv Dirro  

Andrew Lindner

Adam Schmucker

@Kelsey C 

Anchor Teams:

France : 

+Mickael Patte 

Benjamin Duveau

Nicolas Florizoone

Olivier Remaud

Pinky Unicorn

Iky Nox

Rémy Chaix

garnouille Hervé

Mogg Houet (had to leave anchor to down block link on an other island)

Simon Rubat du Mérac (had to leave anchor to down block link on an other island)

Washington Island:

Uranium Anti 

Jonathan Clark 

@JokeNutz

Bill Trost

Sapelo Island:

John Sarmie 

Tina J 

SiriusAmory2113

NewoIkken2113

Papasaus

Armnhammer

WednesdayAddam5

+Stephen Thornton

Key Mules:

+Ed Bihlajama 

Dano L 

+Sara Bee 

antientrope

ladybirdatl

SiriusAmory2113

Newolkin2113

+Lori Watson 

+Richard Riedling II 

+John Wartke 

MI Rails

+Josh Mead 

+Ryan Kalkauski 

Jacob Dykstra

Lane Clearing:

– Canada

Craig Matheson

Derek Ball

Elliot Furr

Neil Brennan

Scott Olson

Steven Veldt

+jonathan turcot 

+Achilles Nikopoulos 

– Michigan 

+Ryan Kalkauski 

+Paulette Truax-Rossing 

+Sam Bird 

+Timothy Hutchison 

+James Ohmart 

+Steven Kaye 

+Kevin C. 

+William Mayr 

+Jason Berg 

+Duane Maddox 

nativebeauty24

XMellyX

PowerCuban

CC: +Gerid Adams 

– Indiana

+Meg McKibben 

+Kyle Stephens 

+Jarome Allen 

+Dawn Philpot 

+Chris Bricker 

+Hoss Bosley 

+Mark Goebel 

Cindy Schall

– Ohio

+David Matts 

+Casey Martin 

+Cat Vinch 

+William D Storer 

+Joelle Wilson 

+Brice cooper- D0CWH0 

Robin Geoppinger  

Michelle R  

Alissa – EvelienRain  

Lori Watson  

Jennifer Burns  

John Burns

Dominic Corbin  

Patricia Corbin 

Andy Pohl 

David Reynolds Jr 

Shawn Tingler 

Ed Bihlajama

Mary Bihlajama 

Patrick Wanzer 

Larry Manson 

BT Hicks 

Anthony B 

Eric Marschall 

David Abbott 

– Kentucky

Betsy Keplinger  

Jefferey Gossman

Matthew Clements

Marc Williams  

Vanessa Williams

– Tennessee

Rain Creek  

Victoria Shuler  

@bossladysolar

@xkHos

– Carolinas

Judd Gregory

Justin Collins

Christopher Codding

Tyson Griswold

Lori Carroll 

Mark Reslink  

Destiny Page  

Valarie Patton

Joel Livesay 

Carl Chesney

@feygiant

Justin Patton

overcached

smileytechguy

Yegob

CaptRalph

Carolinatreky

– Georgia

7shades 

explicity

Drew Rakkapogue 

KHAOTIK1

Misakah

JackNSnack

Gambler08

ninjabirder

– US Coast

J-P

VIPs (local intel, agent finders, emergency contacts, etc):

David Buckham 

Jenny Foo 

Jon Tillman