FlyOver Res SitRep – 20 January 2019

A couple of guys in first class on a flight
From New York to Los Angeles
…30,000 feet above, could be Oklahoma
Just a bunch of square cornfields and wheat farms
Man, it all looks the same
Miles and miles of back roads and highways
Connecting little towns with funny names
Who’d want to live down there in the middle of nowhere?

Jason Aldean

On January 20th of this shiny new year the skies over that beautiful part of the country known as “The Flyover States” were bathed in deep blue and all the inhabitants below were free from Shaper influence for 15+ hours. On the coasts you may forget we are out here but, on this night, we were not to be missed. The now reddit monikered, “close but no cigar” OP stoked the flames of MU desire in Resistance Agents across the country. A few teams truly stood out in their ability to get sh*t done. 2l4goMUstars and StubbieDijits in Texas drew up the framework for the original idea to put some of those superstar teams back into action and get the MU flowing. LordMilk in Colorado and terran1701 in Missouri took the design and knew exactly what to do with it. Once the glorious 40 portal spine in South Padre Island was chosen, the Petroglyphs in Canada were the next logical step, CGWYB joined the crew and the diamond field was born. The portals were plentiful and the layers complex. Preliminary draws were shared with key agents in the lanes. We are grateful to Xelef for showing us what was possible with those layers. Pains were taken to even out the throws across all the anchors and agents. Close to 200 portals were in play. And those who are familiar with a GoStars production know the volume of keys that need to be farmed. With 4 anchors, farming and getting those keys moved were a challenge. Many long hours were spent hacking those unmodded portals. Once the keys were acquired the network set about find routes to move them. Many, many people traveled impressive distances to move those precious keys. Even our favorite 4 time flipper got in the act before he recursed back to toadland for the 2nd time. Let’s just say if those keys had frequent flyer accounts they’d be flying the next flights in first class. And some of them got drunk along the way and didn’t find their way home.

Now the Resistance army must be built. GIGA AF indeed. Key contacts across the country stepped up to own areas in their backyard and far beyond. Huge hugs and thanks to BigBadaBoom, telecom, 3ch01c, [Redacted], majoreee, Debanater, ARAarnett, ANGarnett, AGuardianAngel, JulianDelphiki, Genostar, Gunbunny, TheWhiteRabbit, TheIndigoRose, Blackorzar, DrElwinRansom, MysticalGnu and 0Eric0. These folks are the heart and soul of any big op. Spectacular fielders in their own right, these agents ran their local regions and solved the hard problems. With them, there is never a hint of ego, they stand up and say, yup, come through here, I will make clear your path.

This is where the real work gets done, so let us share a few highlights of their fine work. [Redacted] managed to talk an agent out of a two year plus retirement to help at the last minute with a block left by an MIA agent. It allowed boots to stay in position and get that lane clear on time. We promise next time we will go around!

ARArnett and ANGarnett have been exceptional teammates on many fields and this time took the lead and ran the East Texas ops. They were on top of every alert ready to do more if needed. PunixGT and xpoopnuggetx put up beautiful fields in East Texas, like they have done so many times before. SplinkyMishmash, DishDr and PhastPhlash roamed the empty spaces between DFW and Louisiana and kept watch for the green monsters that lurk in those parts.

Telecom really gave his all to this one, originally slated to IO, RL got the in the way, but when the northlands needed to be cleared, he cleared his schedule and logged almost 800 miles in 24 hours to get it done. BigBadaBoom1 stepped upand really kept those northern states together, ya betcha.

AGuardianAngel was a blessing from day one. Keys moved, yup, travel to clear,yup, put up sexy rails, of course. She sees the game so well and knows her area. We were very lucky tohave her join us. Love it!

Our team in New Mexico had their hands full. Blackozar ran the lane like a seasoned vet. Just like Colorado, res agents 3ec01c and Rubic0n cleared difficult portals were willing to let some very sweet durables die to make this happen. They had long distances to cover, but the team made sure that the way was clear. The west Texas folks worked together with New Mexico as TheCryptKeeper came through to take out some out of the way blocks.

Colorado is a blueitful place to BAF. You’d be hard pressed to find any other area that is so welcoming and accommodating to MU creators and their friends. 0Eric0, MysticalGnu and LordMilk pulled two 16 hour road trips to get keys and did an all night drive in the snow to clear blockers and throw rails.

The Midland-Odessa West Texas team has become very skilled and BAF facilitation. TheWhiteRabbit and TheIndigoRose are always asking what else they can do. They planned some nifty rails and were absolutely clear come throw time.

Wyoming has wide open spaces and a few very dedicated agents. DrElwinRansom and the WY team were very stealth. They handled things in a professional and businesslike way, as always, beginning long before the throws were made. Here too, the sacrifice of some remotes and durables was appreciated.

Oklahoma and Arkansas had the lane come through some remote but volatile areas. Debanater and majoreee were excited from day one and stayed on top of everything that needed to be cleared. They worked so well with the agents around them we hope to see more blue in that neck of the woods soon!

The Houston area can be littered with rogue blue links. JulianDelphiki knew exactly how to handle all of them. Even with distant spaghetti popping up 30 minutes to throw time, he changed gears, redirected agents and made sure come throw time the lane was clear.

This was just one of those magical nights where everyone’s hard work paid off. At the designated time, time drops that were blocking rails went down, rails went up then, the final blocks went down and the field was up. Our Nude Beach power couple, IceHotMomma and BigDaddy04 had keys and they got the first beautiful MU layers. Promise fulfilled. This where the road ends on South Padre Island. They drove many miles on the sand, beyond this point, hugging the shore to get to the anchor. No remote portal beach is safe from their monster 4X4 and excellent driving skills.

Then it was like clockwork, as our fine IO team of UnderNDA and {Redacted} guided the anchor teams through a complex throw plan; reversing anchors and bases as the plan went along. We can’t say enough about the grace and dedication they brought to this op. Tribalgeek and CountRaven kept watch for blockers. With such distances, extra eyes are always a blessing.

The rest of the South Padre Team, GunBunny, GunsBunny, StubbieDijits and 2l4goMUstars had the joy of cruising down the South Padre strip, setting up portals and making fields. GunBunny and GunsBunny had their hands full as the main drag was left to them alone at throw time. The last 3 portals were behind a campground gate that closed at 11pm. StubbieDijits and 2l4goMUstars were at a disadvantage without their steady wheelman, MilesTeg. They had to get into the campground before it closed for the night and wait for the time to add the MU that makes them giddy. (ok, one of them gets giddy and other just smiles slyly).

Over in Colorado, LordMilk and his BAF crew did their thing. These guys are just perfection. North -thedarkvisitor, CKRiker, LordMilk & South-MysticalGnu , WaffSkitt, CMaxNix and 0Eric0 And the scenery is to die for.

Now, sometimes you are in the right place at the right time when the BAF team comes to your town. Agent “thedarkvisitor” is a newish agent to ingress, only level 8 but working hard to level up. He just happens to live in Cortez, the site of the Colorado anchor. The Colorado throw team tried to track down this agent visually to meet up prior to the OP but was unsuccessful. When the OP started, thedarkvisitor panicked to see all his portals being attacked by Res agents. He didn’t understand how this was possible. He started looking at the stats of the agents and noticed the levels and badges. He was excited and started to reach out to the team, hoping they were moving into town. Finally, he would have some Resistance agents in his area! Although the Colorado Team was not moving to Cortez permanently, they did reach out in comms and asked him to meet up in the park (at the time, it was just after 10pm….. but next to the local police station). thedarkvisitor rushed over and met up with the North throwing team at the 4th portal in the spine. He was asked if he wanted to make a field. Of course, he did! They dropped him a key to throw from that anchor. thedarkvisitor only had Prime installed, so it was going to be a big test on the newest update to Prime and the linking and fielding. He successfully made the link and a field was made. The north team congratulated him on his Onyx Illuminator badge. He was confused, so they had him check his stats. Wow! A new badge! The North throw team asked if he wanted to make more. He responded with a “hell yeah” and he jumped in the car with the North throw team. This night was the craziest night thedarkvisitor had ever had. He was so used to playing in his little town, against one of his friends. He had never imagined being able to get pulled into such a crazy OP, nor did he know that things like that existed. He learned so much that night from the Colorado throw team, and he has now found more friends in the Res community. He was the #1 agent in all cells that only touched the North field. It is not every day that a giant field comes to a small town and you are able to gather up one of the locals to throw over 4 mill MU in a single throw. By the end of the night, thedarkvisitor had 17,995,355 MU. He was worried about getting to Level 9 from badges, but that fear quickly faded away with his first onyx badge.

About an hour and half outside of Kansas City, Missouri, at the sight of the best gas station pizza in the nation, Casey’s, eight Res agents led by Terran1701, met to set plans in place and exchange keys. Joining him were perplexed4u, DeathMagnet, creppycrawle, ANachtmann, CNachtmann, BowDownl, qgtheory, zayin, MrSkivvies and seraphimsmurf. Once they were certain the keys were in the right hands, they jumped in three cars. Two teams headed north while the rest of them rode quickly to their first portal. They deployed the portal and Terran1701 threw a couple of rails to help hold the lane since these things normally take a few minutes to get going.

Next thing they knew the south field and the north field were up. BOOM!

Dispatch asked if they had all of our portals ready and sheepishly, they replied….. not yet. They sped across the street and started lighting the portals up while trying not to slide on the ice. They held their throws from those portals to let the other teams catch up. Then Terran1701 checked to make sure progress was quickly being made on the north end.

One of the agents that came with up was a founder with only a platinum badge so that was upgraded quickly. They also had three more Kansas City agents drive up just for fun, they were not expecting to throw but they dropped keys to them all so everyone could get at least a layer.

After finishing at that portal, they had a local cop drive by a couple of times, so they moved along to the final portal. They did their job and got the layers and links up but had a delay on the south. (More on that later) Thankfully they were able to use our last throw to get another agent onyx. The north team met up as the fields converged and confirmed that one of them had thrown for their onyx during the op as well.

Not wanting to draw attention they all headed back home celebrating, 3 new Oynx Illunimators and one of the easiest and most fun ops they’d ever had the opportunity to make happen.

The Canadian throw team led by CGWYB threw fields from 3 portals in St. Victor, Saskatchewan Canada. SKMOUNTAIN, and WildChild06 threw from our first portal, with DrkPortal and TheNumbersMan throwing from location 2. SKMOUNTAIN helped out from 2 and 3 with CGWYB closing things out. Travellersnow, OlHandyDk and BigBadaBoom1 helped with blockers. SupremeO, BigBadaBoom1 and carpetbaggerMT helped with keys. WildChild06, a level 7 player got her onyx illuminator, longest link, and largest mu field. SKMOUNTAIN got his longest link and biggest mu field. A snowstorm in Moose Jaw, with 12” of snow and whiteout conditions kept the closest enlightened players home, 110 km away so the fields lasted longer. SKMOUNTAIN and WildChild06 had a challenging wait on top of the hill at the St Victor petroglyphs as it is a walk-in portal. Their hands got really, really cold as it was very windy and snowy. They did get the job done and had a race to the car out!

Once the field is up, then the questions start to mount, how much, how much, how long? The south fields came in around 14.4M and the north at 4.5M. When the beast was in full bloom it was close 1 Billion strong, 956,736,096. Over 112 cells were touched and most had our anchor teams in the top spots. There would be no need for local fields to win their cell in so many places! Once the CP was secured the Texas crew headed down to the last 2 portals to make them ready for incoming throws. Construction and such had made getting around difficult. The final portal was out on a jetty and the tide was coming in. StubbieDijits and 2l4goMUstars ventured out and was able to get it lit, but scurried back to land as quickly as possible as water was washing over the rocks. No need to risk life and limb. They don’t like beacons that much!

When all woke up the next AM and grabbed their scanners, the blue was still overhead. Such a sweet sleep with the blanket above. Then the pings began. A local frog tried to take down the Texas spine and the one very AP ladened portal. Right into the trap. Sometimes you get lucky, you get to rethrow and add on the MU. And did they get lucky. The spine came down from the outside in. Once the ENL agent was 2 portals up from the juicy target, they reset that sweet portal and rethrew 22 more 14.4M layers right over top of him. Then they reset the last two portals (that jetty was much easier to negotiate in the date time) and LordMilk headed out. He had the honor of throwing the last two fields of his beautiful draw. A nice 347M MU bonus. The frog gave up after a few portals. Eventually ENL made their way to Missouri and Colorado and those beautiful base links came down. Our intel team kept watch till they heard that every agent made it home safely. This production took the hard work of so many, many people. We wish we could do a movie ending scrawl to thank each and everyone of you! None of it happens without every single agent stepping up and completing their task!

This beautiful blue was brought to you by:

Many thanks ~ with permission
Mickie Dorado
(214goMUstars)