Nice work agents!
Nice work agents!
Originally shared by Ravi Bhikhie
Operation Drakkar: Enlightening the North Sea - #ingressreport
tl;dr: 3 teams, UK, Norway and the Netherlands created a 5.4 Million MU field spanning the North Sea on May 5th 2013, at 15:00 UTC. Weeks of preparation, HUNDREDS of KM's driven and an unbelievable amount of fun was had. Cross-border planning, cooperation and oh, ridiculing as well(see vid at the end). This is the story of one of the biggest fields in Ingress so far!
The plan
By Roegbere:
How does an idea start? Dunno, in my opinion it’s just there. What matters is not the idea. just the confidence in pursuing the idea, Thats how Operation Drakkar started.
Anyways here I was somewhere in March, finding myself wanting to upgrade my Ingress experience to more than changing blue portals into green portals.. I was wondering how to make a field that counts!? Creating this alone was either madness or simply not possible.
Consulting my old friend Ilyas, we thought of locations to create our “super field”.
I made easily contact with the Norwegian community in person of Subverz who guided me to the Stavanger Community. Where I was met with very Friendly and and Cooperative Agents hemwa and leomwa who were very excited to help us out and moreover shared in our enthusiasm!
By Ilyas:
One lazy afternoon in April, Roegbere called me and woke me up saying something about having made contacts with the English and the Norwegian. It wasn’t until he said “...and he’s flying from Norway to Amsterdam TONIGHT!” I woke up immediately, tried frantically to establish contact with our man from Norway and rushed to the airport to arrange our first key exchange. That’s when things really got rolling, but not without a challenge! ReidarØstrem was not able to leave the airport during his transfer, so I was slightly panicking. I pulled up blueprints of the airport and directed him as close to the outside world as possible. By dropping some items we could establish each other’s location and once I saw this was possible, I rushed to ReidarØstrem’s location and grabbed the keys. Step one completed!
Norway
Norway Team: Hemwa Leonmwa, ReidarOstrem, vgard123, MrHeine, rbrag3, Subvertz
Since the Norwegian team would not do any linking, they did not have a complete team on site at Field Time, nonetheless they were critical in our mission! They built up the portal as strong as they could and made sure their team had keys to recharge the portal. As it turned out, the Norwegian portal was the first to be attacked, they had to defend the field from being taken down and they did so with fierce dedication! Many items were recycled and cubes emptied to keep the portal from going down! Agents were even sent in later on to refill the portal.
The UK
by MunkehB
UK Team: MunkehB, Selar, Jambo140, Azrael, gabrielvon, xkm, M328DJ, Utu, haloj, Kinghornbeach, HiJaC, Savagebeagle, Spacecowboy93.
Key exchanges
When we first started to look at planning key exchanges for this field, it seemed like an almost impossible task. The UK team already had the required keys for the Lindisfarne portals but these still needed passed to a member of the NL team. Luckily, Dutch Agent Disparity had already approached the Scottish Enlightened to let us know he would be visiting for a few day at the start of May. We got in touch with him and arranged that Gabrielvon would meet him at Edinburgh airport and drop the Lindisfarne keys for him. Disparity then spent a few days in Scotland before heading back to Amsterdam on his way to Shanghai. Ilyas was able to meet him at Schipol airport on May 4th and collect the Lindisfarne keys during his 4 hour stop over. Or so he thought. Turned out that Disparity missed a flight and 3 hours suddenly turned into 3 minutes, again DURING a transfer. But they managed to exchange the keys during those nerve wrecking minutes, Ilyas got the UK keys and Disparity was off again.
The Norway keys seemed like they would cause a bigger issue until ReidarØstrem mentioned in one of the planning threads that he would be flying into Aberdeen before heading offshore. Reidar was able to collect the Norway keys from vgard123 and met up with savagebeagle on Sunday night to pass them on. We now had less than a week to get those keys from Aberdeen to either Glasgow or Edinburgh, which given work commitments was posing a problem. After cautiously asking around, a rather long winded travel schedule was made for the Norway keys. HiJaC was heading to the Scottish Highlands on the Thursday and was willing to take a slight detour to pick up the keys from savagebeagle in Aberdeen, he then continued north to Forres and passed the keys to spacecowboy93 who was heading to Edinburgh for the weekend. Spacecowboy93 met with jambo140 on May 4th and handed the keys, with a rather large breath of relief. All the keys were now in place!
Mission day report
The Lindisfarne portal had to be level 8 and finding the required players was tricky due to time constraints and ability to travel long distances. With a little cooperation from North and South of the border, we were able to get a team together. MunkehB and Selar from Glasgow. Jambo140, Gabrielvon and Azrael from Edinburgh, xkm and haloj from Newcastle and M328DJ and Utu from Manchester. Kinghornbeach from Edinburgh had offered to assist if needed and our minds were slightly more at ease knowing we had backup if anyone cancelled on us! Lindisfarne is only accessible via a causeway which is covered during high tide. This means that you can only enter or leave the Island at specific periods throughout the day. On May 5th, Lindisfarne would be inaccessible from 10:15 until 14:45. With everyone having to travel 2 and a half to 3 hours at least, it meant an early start for the UK team. After meeting up in the car park, we headed off for a wander around the Island enjoying the stunning views and amazingly sunny weather (sunburn!). In keeping with the theme of the operation we managed to acquire some disguises to maintain our stealth like attack. Pub lunch in the beer garden followed by another walk and ice cream - it was suddenly time to create the field. After upgrading the portal to 8 we waited anxiously for the green light to create the first link - St Cuthberts statue to Neighing Horse. Slow networks meant a long wait before we noticed the link coming in from the Netherlands..... to the wrong portal! Slight panic and a quick message to the dutch sorted it out. Another two links made from the Dutch team and the field was created. Everyone let out a sigh of relief and enjoyed some cupcakes and champagne to celebrate a successful operation. Sadly this signalled the end to the day and it was time to head home. Thanks to all involved for an amazing day. Lots of laughs and great company. The team work involved in this field was outstanding and really reflects the most positive aspects of Ingress
The Netherlands
by Roegbere & Ilyas
The keys
We started out great The day I was allowed into the Stavanger community, I found reidarostrem who happened to be traveling that evening to Singapore... through Schiphol ! That meant first keys could arrive already the same day. Ilyas was found to pick the keys up from the airport, and from that point on we knew we took a path of no return this field just had to be there!
In the nick of time (the 4th of may) Disparity could deliver some UK portal keys including the wrong one ;-) at schiphol. After a confirmation that the keys were in Ilyas’ phone. I sighed of relief! What could stop us now?
Mission day report
Team NL: Ilyas(Operations Leader/Planner), Roegbere(Initiator/Planner), Krypt, Vertsmurf, Cribwi(Groningen host/P8 planner), Maxxion, Serrie, Raddee, Daimyo, Coordinator, EnterZ, Fur, Ricingstar, Jimar, Blackpenguin, DeaAnnemaj, dummiedoosje, CromwellStone, Pinpoint, Disparity(Key Taxi) & CrabbyData(Key Taxi).
To make this field possible from the dutch part we needed to have at least 8 lvl 8 players to be able to put a portal in place strong enough to support 2 links across the North sea
Ilyas was able to dispatch enough players and with help from local lvl 8 players we were having a congregation of 14lvl 8 players.
Special mention, amongst others goes to Agent Cribwi for not only hosting us in Groningen but also for knocking out a blocking link that kept appearing over and over again JUST above Pieterburen on the days before the 5th.
On the day itself people poured in from all sides of The Netherlands to meet in the north in Groningen. While the lvl 8’s were travelling Roegbere created a little diversion in Assen (smurf territory close to Groningen) together with 2 local Enlightened players (CromwellStone and Pinpoint(Who leveled to lvl 4 that morning.)) They destroyed a few high level Resistance portals to focus their attention on rebuilding rather than going gung ho on our portals.
In the meanwhile most people had arrived in Groningen to do something very useful...having lunch. After that we had some few hours of “leisure” time in which we decided to grant the city of Groningen about 12 Lvl 8 portals. Since we were anyway there and it also would appear on the radar as just another diversion from our field to be constructed later that day.
Doing that, and made some eyebrows raised as we passed by a pub for 4 times we get to know each other a bit more. Around 4 o’clock it was time to head up to Pieterburen, to create our final piece of art, an almost equally sided field over the entire North sea.. could it be done, how about blocking links that might emerge as they did in the days before... excitement was rising and by the time we arrived at the troll portal it looked more like a boy choir having its annual trip, than a group of grown ups.
Last checks being made...
Around 16:50 Ilyas and Roegbere commenced in a fierce battle of Rock- Paper-Scissor to determine who would lay the final link. In this bloody episode Roegbere found out his paper was defeated by Ilyas’ scissor. UK team would link to Norway first, and at this moment, all communication between Ilyas and the UK broke down! Alternatives were being set up at once and...yes!
Confirmations came in, about a link across the North Sea from the UK to Norway. Than it was our turn.. Yes! Link to Nærbø was made! Now the last link had to be made.. and eeh 313 ap.. no field.. what was wrong... well the portal was wrong.. After a deadly silence Agent selar confirmed Ilyas connected the wrong portal.. which brought hilarious laughter to both of the teams. Of course, at that moment, the comm lines suddenly came up. Happily enough no harm was done and Ilyas could still make a Great field of 5.4 Million MU across the North Sea!
Thanks
There is so much more that happened in the weeks leading up to the 5th of May and on the day itself that it’s impossible to cover everything here.
To all people involved.. What we did was truly amazing!! One of the largest fields created ever! Besides that, the cooperation between people and groups of people who have never met before is a true example of teamplay in dedication.. I am proud to have been part of this operation!
Keep the world green!(and don’t forget the fishes!)
Cris Biemond - Agent Roegbere
Yours truly - Agent Ilyas
As a bonus, an unedited video of the final 5 minutes of the operation, recorded at the Dutch portal: Ingress Sea field NL-UK-NO creation
(lots of boring bits but keep watching!)
#Enlightened #Ingress #BigField #sitrep
Originally shared by Ravi Bhikhie
Operation Drakkar: Enlightening the North Sea - #ingressreport
tl;dr: 3 teams, UK, Norway and the Netherlands created a 5.4 Million MU field spanning the North Sea on May 5th 2013, at 15:00 UTC. Weeks of preparation, HUNDREDS of KM's driven and an unbelievable amount of fun was had. Cross-border planning, cooperation and oh, ridiculing as well(see vid at the end). This is the story of one of the biggest fields in Ingress so far!
The plan
By Roegbere:
How does an idea start? Dunno, in my opinion it’s just there. What matters is not the idea. just the confidence in pursuing the idea, Thats how Operation Drakkar started.
Anyways here I was somewhere in March, finding myself wanting to upgrade my Ingress experience to more than changing blue portals into green portals.. I was wondering how to make a field that counts!? Creating this alone was either madness or simply not possible.
Consulting my old friend Ilyas, we thought of locations to create our “super field”.
I made easily contact with the Norwegian community in person of Subverz who guided me to the Stavanger Community. Where I was met with very Friendly and and Cooperative Agents hemwa and leomwa who were very excited to help us out and moreover shared in our enthusiasm!
By Ilyas:
One lazy afternoon in April, Roegbere called me and woke me up saying something about having made contacts with the English and the Norwegian. It wasn’t until he said “...and he’s flying from Norway to Amsterdam TONIGHT!” I woke up immediately, tried frantically to establish contact with our man from Norway and rushed to the airport to arrange our first key exchange. That’s when things really got rolling, but not without a challenge! ReidarØstrem was not able to leave the airport during his transfer, so I was slightly panicking. I pulled up blueprints of the airport and directed him as close to the outside world as possible. By dropping some items we could establish each other’s location and once I saw this was possible, I rushed to ReidarØstrem’s location and grabbed the keys. Step one completed!
Norway
Norway Team: Hemwa Leonmwa, ReidarOstrem, vgard123, MrHeine, rbrag3, Subvertz
Since the Norwegian team would not do any linking, they did not have a complete team on site at Field Time, nonetheless they were critical in our mission! They built up the portal as strong as they could and made sure their team had keys to recharge the portal. As it turned out, the Norwegian portal was the first to be attacked, they had to defend the field from being taken down and they did so with fierce dedication! Many items were recycled and cubes emptied to keep the portal from going down! Agents were even sent in later on to refill the portal.
The UK
by MunkehB
UK Team: MunkehB, Selar, Jambo140, Azrael, gabrielvon, xkm, M328DJ, Utu, haloj, Kinghornbeach, HiJaC, Savagebeagle, Spacecowboy93.
Key exchanges
When we first started to look at planning key exchanges for this field, it seemed like an almost impossible task. The UK team already had the required keys for the Lindisfarne portals but these still needed passed to a member of the NL team. Luckily, Dutch Agent Disparity had already approached the Scottish Enlightened to let us know he would be visiting for a few day at the start of May. We got in touch with him and arranged that Gabrielvon would meet him at Edinburgh airport and drop the Lindisfarne keys for him. Disparity then spent a few days in Scotland before heading back to Amsterdam on his way to Shanghai. Ilyas was able to meet him at Schipol airport on May 4th and collect the Lindisfarne keys during his 4 hour stop over. Or so he thought. Turned out that Disparity missed a flight and 3 hours suddenly turned into 3 minutes, again DURING a transfer. But they managed to exchange the keys during those nerve wrecking minutes, Ilyas got the UK keys and Disparity was off again.
The Norway keys seemed like they would cause a bigger issue until ReidarØstrem mentioned in one of the planning threads that he would be flying into Aberdeen before heading offshore. Reidar was able to collect the Norway keys from vgard123 and met up with savagebeagle on Sunday night to pass them on. We now had less than a week to get those keys from Aberdeen to either Glasgow or Edinburgh, which given work commitments was posing a problem. After cautiously asking around, a rather long winded travel schedule was made for the Norway keys. HiJaC was heading to the Scottish Highlands on the Thursday and was willing to take a slight detour to pick up the keys from savagebeagle in Aberdeen, he then continued north to Forres and passed the keys to spacecowboy93 who was heading to Edinburgh for the weekend. Spacecowboy93 met with jambo140 on May 4th and handed the keys, with a rather large breath of relief. All the keys were now in place!
Mission day report
The Lindisfarne portal had to be level 8 and finding the required players was tricky due to time constraints and ability to travel long distances. With a little cooperation from North and South of the border, we were able to get a team together. MunkehB and Selar from Glasgow. Jambo140, Gabrielvon and Azrael from Edinburgh, xkm and haloj from Newcastle and M328DJ and Utu from Manchester. Kinghornbeach from Edinburgh had offered to assist if needed and our minds were slightly more at ease knowing we had backup if anyone cancelled on us! Lindisfarne is only accessible via a causeway which is covered during high tide. This means that you can only enter or leave the Island at specific periods throughout the day. On May 5th, Lindisfarne would be inaccessible from 10:15 until 14:45. With everyone having to travel 2 and a half to 3 hours at least, it meant an early start for the UK team. After meeting up in the car park, we headed off for a wander around the Island enjoying the stunning views and amazingly sunny weather (sunburn!). In keeping with the theme of the operation we managed to acquire some disguises to maintain our stealth like attack. Pub lunch in the beer garden followed by another walk and ice cream - it was suddenly time to create the field. After upgrading the portal to 8 we waited anxiously for the green light to create the first link - St Cuthberts statue to Neighing Horse. Slow networks meant a long wait before we noticed the link coming in from the Netherlands..... to the wrong portal! Slight panic and a quick message to the dutch sorted it out. Another two links made from the Dutch team and the field was created. Everyone let out a sigh of relief and enjoyed some cupcakes and champagne to celebrate a successful operation. Sadly this signalled the end to the day and it was time to head home. Thanks to all involved for an amazing day. Lots of laughs and great company. The team work involved in this field was outstanding and really reflects the most positive aspects of Ingress
The Netherlands
by Roegbere & Ilyas
The keys
We started out great The day I was allowed into the Stavanger community, I found reidarostrem who happened to be traveling that evening to Singapore... through Schiphol ! That meant first keys could arrive already the same day. Ilyas was found to pick the keys up from the airport, and from that point on we knew we took a path of no return this field just had to be there!
In the nick of time (the 4th of may) Disparity could deliver some UK portal keys including the wrong one ;-) at schiphol. After a confirmation that the keys were in Ilyas’ phone. I sighed of relief! What could stop us now?
Mission day report
Team NL: Ilyas(Operations Leader/Planner), Roegbere(Initiator/Planner), Krypt, Vertsmurf, Cribwi(Groningen host/P8 planner), Maxxion, Serrie, Raddee, Daimyo, Coordinator, EnterZ, Fur, Ricingstar, Jimar, Blackpenguin, DeaAnnemaj, dummiedoosje, CromwellStone, Pinpoint, Disparity(Key Taxi) & CrabbyData(Key Taxi).
To make this field possible from the dutch part we needed to have at least 8 lvl 8 players to be able to put a portal in place strong enough to support 2 links across the North sea
Ilyas was able to dispatch enough players and with help from local lvl 8 players we were having a congregation of 14lvl 8 players.
Special mention, amongst others goes to Agent Cribwi for not only hosting us in Groningen but also for knocking out a blocking link that kept appearing over and over again JUST above Pieterburen on the days before the 5th.
On the day itself people poured in from all sides of The Netherlands to meet in the north in Groningen. While the lvl 8’s were travelling Roegbere created a little diversion in Assen (smurf territory close to Groningen) together with 2 local Enlightened players (CromwellStone and Pinpoint(Who leveled to lvl 4 that morning.)) They destroyed a few high level Resistance portals to focus their attention on rebuilding rather than going gung ho on our portals.
In the meanwhile most people had arrived in Groningen to do something very useful...having lunch. After that we had some few hours of “leisure” time in which we decided to grant the city of Groningen about 12 Lvl 8 portals. Since we were anyway there and it also would appear on the radar as just another diversion from our field to be constructed later that day.
Doing that, and made some eyebrows raised as we passed by a pub for 4 times we get to know each other a bit more. Around 4 o’clock it was time to head up to Pieterburen, to create our final piece of art, an almost equally sided field over the entire North sea.. could it be done, how about blocking links that might emerge as they did in the days before... excitement was rising and by the time we arrived at the troll portal it looked more like a boy choir having its annual trip, than a group of grown ups.
Last checks being made...
Around 16:50 Ilyas and Roegbere commenced in a fierce battle of Rock- Paper-Scissor to determine who would lay the final link. In this bloody episode Roegbere found out his paper was defeated by Ilyas’ scissor. UK team would link to Norway first, and at this moment, all communication between Ilyas and the UK broke down! Alternatives were being set up at once and...yes!
Confirmations came in, about a link across the North Sea from the UK to Norway. Than it was our turn.. Yes! Link to Nærbø was made! Now the last link had to be made.. and eeh 313 ap.. no field.. what was wrong... well the portal was wrong.. After a deadly silence Agent selar confirmed Ilyas connected the wrong portal.. which brought hilarious laughter to both of the teams. Of course, at that moment, the comm lines suddenly came up. Happily enough no harm was done and Ilyas could still make a Great field of 5.4 Million MU across the North Sea!
Thanks
There is so much more that happened in the weeks leading up to the 5th of May and on the day itself that it’s impossible to cover everything here.
To all people involved.. What we did was truly amazing!! One of the largest fields created ever! Besides that, the cooperation between people and groups of people who have never met before is a true example of teamplay in dedication.. I am proud to have been part of this operation!
Keep the world green!(and don’t forget the fishes!)
Cris Biemond - Agent Roegbere
Yours truly - Agent Ilyas
As a bonus, an unedited video of the final 5 minutes of the operation, recorded at the Dutch portal: Ingress Sea field NL-UK-NO creation
(lots of boring bits but keep watching!)
#Enlightened #Ingress #BigField #sitrep
Thanks Joe Philley Much fun for all three teams and a great learning experience with all the key exchanges!
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