Day 43 - Ingress First Saturday Hat

 

Lockdown Day 43 - I have been commissioned by the current holder of the Ingress First Saturday Hat, Araikus888. I won't let what it is out until it gets revealed at the next First Saturday. Araikus888 tells me that it is going to be a Stay at Home First Saturday, not sure how that is going to play out but lets wait and see.

Ingress vs Pokémon

Last week I got a call that today was going to be an Ingress Missions Day, now we haven’t played Ingress for a very long time as Pokémon has taken over and for me even that is not played that often.

Anyways Lynda, Robynne, Rebekah and I joined the diehard Ingress players for some Ingress missions. So both augmented reality games are made by Google Niantic but which one is the better. Ingress is geekier leaning with team battles but Pokémon is more a children’s game and easier to play. We had to relearn Ingress as it has been a long time but half way through the day after following a couple of missions, Ingress went out of the window and Pokémon took over.

Smurf the Earth

This weekend is huge in the making, a worldwide Ingress Resistance event, Smurf the Earth, which is along the lines of the Olympics. Lynda and I were asked to join a team for this top secret mission.

I can’t say much until tomorrow so here is a photo during the event which we found ourselves just before midnight at a cemetery in the middle of nowhere meeting other smurfs in clandestine. The agent’s names left to right are Bionikat, Bashles15, Devash15, WaterTech12214, and Rooliez15.

Ooooh and I am sure there were some movements coming from some freshly covered graves but I couldn’t tell the others as they were on edge already.

Persepolis Celebration

After a successful Persepolis action by the Resistance in Gauteng last Saturday, those involved decided to celebrate at Piza e Vino in Rosebank. A lot of people were crucial to our victory but below is our story, a small but critical element to the Resistance winning. Please note some ingress terms are used and may require some knowledge of Ingress. Photos are from today’s celebrations and sorry if I missed anyone.

The Persepolis XM Anomaly started with lots of intelligence work on the ground with sleeper cells reporting info which went into the planning. Friday night started with a pre-emptive strike of blockers going up joining secure locations. From the feedback we heard from the sleeper cells that this action had them, the Enlightened, on the hop and they finally dropped the blockers in the early hours of the morning.

For us that was our job done and dusted but two Resistance members, Paul and Wesley who had been assigned to protect Soweto, a huge potential MU area, asked if Lynda and I could join them on Saturday afternoon. Not sure what the plan was but we met up in Krugersdorp and saw green fields up everywhere. After a brief strategy meeting at the side of the road we decided to start at one anchor which was not far and disrupt as we go.

Arriving at the first anchor portal we found a car load of bored tadpoles protecting the portal which was armed to the teeth with AXA shields. Poor toadies, they seemed so eager for a battle when we pulled up only to see shock on their faces when we ADA’d the portal and drove off. By the time they had reverted the portal we had blocker links up from Kagiso. Speaking only about our action on the West Rand and towards the south, we later learnt that they had about 6 teams of over 20 frogs all camped at strategic portals against only 4 of us. Wow, this day turned out to be a David against Goliath sort of day.

The blocking portal from Kagiso didn’t last too long as expected but we were already on the move to put up blockers further south west into Soweto. Nothing could be done as the fields went back up other than stay on our course of action. We later found out that our next group of blockers put a real spanner into the works of the Enlightened’s overall plan to win this Persepolis war that they had to specially send out a team to kill them. As soon as they were down a large green field went up which we knew it would from the intelligence that we received.

By that time our small team of 4 commandos were already on the move to our next target of the southern anchors of the layered fields over Soweto. Now that the large field was up no one could make any more fields so by taking down the small layered fields was a good move. A Toad team based at a main anchor was sent up to recapture them while we sneaked down to kill the main anchor. Knowing that this was a strategic anchor we decided to camp there, knowing that when the big green field came down, that this portal would need to stay blue.

And battle for this portal became known as the Battle of Soweto as a fierce battle then ensued at the Grasmere portal. The attacks kept coming and coming and we defended like heroes. Somewhere in the heat of the battle I kept hearing our intel telling us to keep going, you nearly there. It felt like Darsana all over but somehow in the fog of war we won.

Afterwards I heard that every Resistance member played their part well, from those that went out to kill the long links, to the Defence of Tembisa in the north to the Battle for Thokoza in the south, not forgetting those at home running our intel, and of course the 4 Resistance members who stood tall in the Battle of Soweto.

So hence the celebration at Piza e Vino. Well done everyone to a job well done.

Beware of Smurfs

Dear Enlightened aka Frogs,

Please be aware of trying to capture a Resistance member to indoctrinate them to your foul ways. Yes although smurfs as they are more commonly called, are normally cute and cuddly, they are known to retaliate if they feel threatened.

So if during the game of Ingress you come across a smurf in the wild, don’t try to surprise him or her, don’t even try to corner the poor smurf rather slowly let the smurf know that you there in his space and with open hands introduce yourself when asked what type of Enlightened are you. Please don’t forget this small piece of enlightened information which one day might save your life.

So beware of smurfs as here be smurfs, yes I came across this group of smurfs, meeting at the sacred grounds of the Irene Concentration Camp Cemetery and Garden of Remembrance for a Sunday afternoon hack and braai. As you can see from the following photos compared to the first two, that smurfs if met in a non-threatening way can be quite docile and of course cute and cuddly as their name suggests.

Trigger Happy Bunnies

Last night we met up with some of the Far West Rand’s finest Ingress Resistance players for a night on the town. Around the table are agents Elizhy, True2Blue, BioniKat, MaxyJade, Lala187, Rat73, Vinkie, HVS000, with TVS000 taking the photo with my cellphone.

Early in the evening Vinkie who is after uniques requested that we go Fochville and paint the town blue, so off we went to the heart of Enlightened agent Kleinblaar’s little grovel, Fochville and put down a spider’s web of blue links. Along the way someone came up with the name Trigger Happy Bunnies.

Update: Sometime in the early morning we crawled back into bed.

Darsana Pretoria

Last night it was like quiet before the storm, I mean I quietly prepared all our equipment, checked, and then double checked our stock levels. We were ready!

Pretoria was selected as a satellite site for Darsana XM Anomaly in support of the primary site at Barcelona Spain. I can’t speak for the Enlightened but the Resistance has been eagerly preparing for weeks now. Getting stock levels up, training in teams, and putting out disinformation to try getting the Enlightened off balance and not focused. And it seemed to work.

The Enlightened only managed to field 56 what could now be called brave little green frogs against the Resistance who said enough is enough as 106 highly trained blue Smurfs stood up. As I can only speak for our team Northern Ninjas, along with all the other Resistance teams we simply stopped the frogs mid hop.

For Cluster 1, Dispatch sent our team with about 3 others down to the two sub-clusters far from the main sub-clusters where we found only 1 frog team in place. A huge green field appeared covering the entire area with anchors 1000s of km away, too far send anyone to take out. But this just made us more determined as now we could not let a single portal fall. Two volatile portals appeared in the two sub-clusters we were at and the frogs simply found them out smarted, out played, and out matched.

Next it was off to Cluster 2 were our team got to our sub-cluster early. Soon afterwards 2 frogs appeared followed by the rest of our teams to the remaining sub-clusters. The volatile portal appeared in the sub-cluster right next to ours. It looked like the Enlightened’s game plan changed as suddenly re-enforcements arrived at the volatile in mass. So 2 of our team stayed at our allocated portals while the rest shifted slightly over to protect the volatile. Evenly matched over this disputed portal we out played the frogs once again with strategy.

I wasn’t sure that the Enlightened would take any of these defeats lying down as the Northern Ninjas arrived to look after a single portal tucked out the way in Cluster 3. Once again we found the volatile located in our section. This time we were outnumbered by 1 frog, and these weren’t any tadpoles, these were the heavy hitters. It was a hard battle but the tide turned suddenly when 2 frogs decided they had enough and left. If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen as we are going to be barbequing some frog’s legs tonight.

After that tough win we headed for Cluster 4 which we knew it would be difficult as most of the portals were close to each other. As before the volatile appeared in our sub-cluster but under another Resistance teams area but because the portals were so close we couldn’t help but put our weight into the volatile denying the frogs anything.

In the end we just did not give the Enlightened any space to breathe. Final score for Darsana Pretoria is Resistance 212 and Enlightened 12.6 Whitewash, no sorry bluewash. We left all these green frogs blue with envy.

Final score:
Barcelona Resistance 910 Enlightened 786
Stuttgart Resistance 457 Enlightened 293
Pretoria Resistance 212 Enlightened 12.6 (Note the frogs only got 12)
Toulouse Resistance 142 Enlightened 145

Ingress First Saturday

Well today is the first Ingress "First Saturday" event to be held in Gauteng. 48 cities were chosen worldwide and luckily Johannesburg was selected as one of them. It was a good turn out but sadly it was 31 Enlightened against 26 Resistance. We, the Resistance, put up a gallant fight until the so called enlightened Nick threw a green slime field over the entire playing field. Oh well we nearly won overall but won the coveted floating trophy. Well done to Nam3berry, you have done the Resistance proud.

Is this what we can expect from Darsana next Saturday?

The Enlightened shall not pass

This evening a group of Resistance players met at Montecasino in Fourways for a Ingress Social and what Ingress players do a lot, hacking.

Standing at the back are InsaneSplash, thr4sh3r, MaxyJade, and Meekk. Around the table starting at the front and going clockwise are BioniKat, GuardianAlpha, RiggerMortiz, NymphMel, Gazzadbn, and our Ingress visitor from France Srr91919.

We are all L8 and upwards Resistance fighters well except for our French Resistance member who is a L6 soon to be L8. With all this muscle, this meant we quickly had a L8 popup farm and we milked it dry. Comments did the rounds that this was the most successful popup farm in a long time. Well done for the organisers.

We are the Resistance. The enlightened shall not pass!

Drinks with the Enemy

As some of my readers may know, I am big into Ingress, and today MaxyJade, my Resistance agent name, had drinks with my mortal Enlightened enemy, Tabiac aka Allan.

After crossing over the scared battlefields into no man's land, Tabiac turned out to be not the bully I once accused him being but a decent down to earth person, go figure. Sitting drinking Kilkenny, Irish cream ale, we chatted about all things Ingress. MinonGal, another Enlightened agent who also works in the same office popped her head in to introduce herself.

Here is Allan holding his sign in peace, National Sarcasm Society, like we need your support. Maybe, just maybe some Enlightened are not the bad boogieman as we are led to believe, maybe they are just lost souls that have been misled. Bazinga!

Caught in the Headlights

To celebrate Ingress’ first birthday, the Resistance in Gauteng organised a Kansas City Shuffle by staging two operations, the first, Irresistible started on Friday. The Irresistible was aimed at helping the lower level Resistance players level up but had a hidden agenda of getting the operation leaked to the Enlightened so that they could be distracted in the Kansas City Shuffle and hopefully use up all their resources. For those who don't know what a Kansas City Shuffle is, it is when everyone else moves right, you move left.

The Enlightened in Gauteng who had found out about first operation fell for the Kansas City Shuffle, and built up mega fields from Livingstone in Zambia to Saldanha Bay, to Port Elizabeth to Durban to Maputo. All to stop the Resistance levelling up. Impressive but what the Enlightened didn't know was the second operation which was the Kansas City Shuffle. Of course before the second operation started, the Enlightened mega fields were swiftly taken down.

Unight8 involved 58 countries around the world with lots of teams of Level 8 players starting at midnight to make as many L8 portals before the Enlightened woke up and smelt the coffee. I left home last night at 11pm and joined 9 other Level 8 players in the Johannesburg West Rand and at midnight kicked off our part of the Unight8 operation. This early morning photograph shows part of the Unight8 JHB West team. By 4am we had 67 Level 8 portals in West.

From what Krow reported in total the 3 teams in Gauteng created 192 Level 8 portals which meant that the Kansas City Shuffle was a tremendous success. The cherry on top is that the Resistance deployed layered mega fields of their own this afternoon. I can see that the Force is strong in the Resistance Gauteng. Reports coming in worldwide is that more than 30,000 Level 8 portals were created leaving the Enlightened still napping.

Cannon

It is nearing the end of my first week back in Jozy after my sunny vacation at the coast. Work is ongoing, sleep debt is about paid up and Ingress is back in full swing. During lunch, I took the South African Military Museum back for the Resistance. Our enemy are the Enlightened which translates into the Latin word Illuminati. For those who know the truth, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me. The fight is hard but the truth will prevail.

Ingress Level 8

Finally I reached the top, Level 8 of the augmented reality game by Google and Niantic, Ingress. Our trip into Soweto yesterday left me just 25,000 Action Points (AP) short of Level 8's 1,200,000 AP.

On the way to work, a plan was hatched. After taking care of three portals before work and one during lunch I was left with only 8,000 AP to reach my goal. After studying the lay of the land, I planned my route home to sort out four portals but only after capturing two and forming two fields I found myself only just 18 AP short. So I hacked the nearest green portal for an easy 100 AP. Now I am Level 8, a good start to the week and here is a screenshot of my Ingress scanner on my cellphone.