The Alibi

[Psychlonic]

An oldie but a goodie.

Unfortunately, night operations not only require physical fitness, a quick mind, and stealth skills, but they also require some cunning social engineering. While the operation itself dictates absolute zero contact with outsiders, doing some fast talking before you set out can be a life saver. A rock solid alibi might be the only thing that keeps you out of cuffs when things go wrong. Although a well executed operation should never need an alibi, this is still a very important back up plan that no one should overlook. Nobody is good enough to enter the shadows without an alibi prepared. Nobody.

The key in making a good alibi is to look past the mere piece of bacon who might start asking questions, and looking into the courtroom you could wind up in. A good alibi will make the police look stupid for arresting you, since you were "obviously" elsewhere. The dumber your alibi can make the bacon look, the better.

Out of Body Experience
"The operative is able to transcend his physical body and travel to alternate locations, while others can only perceive his mortal form that never descends into the depths of the shadows..."

The OBE is a simple tactic that most juveniles and young adults have access to by default. The concept is that everyone in the household is positive you are in your room, and therefore find it inconceivable that you could have possibly been out at night on an operation. This is extremely strong because they will swear to anything that you are innocent and will hold up to the strongest scrutiny out of ignorance.

The OBE is even more convincing if you are on a second story and can leave via window to the ground below. This can be difficult for some, and may require the use of a rope, ladder, or other climbing equipment. Returning to base can be especially troublesome, and creating a minimum amount of noise is a must.

While the OBE is a powerful alibi, it has more drawbacks than the difficulties of noise as well. For one, this disallows the use of a vehicle since the ignition would alert the household, foiling both the alibi and the mission as a whole. This brings up another point; your own household can cause you to fail the mission. Sometimes, simple house exfiltration can be the toughest phase of the operation.

The OBE is also dangerous if there is a chance someone will enter your room while you are not there. Should this happen, it could cause a mission failure without you even knowing, to include a search put out for you, other houses put on alert, etc.

All things considered though, the OBE is one of the best alibis at your disposal. Sure, it disables the use of a vehicle and has some skill-related difficulties involved, but it's simplicity outweighs the problems. As far as group operations go, the OBE can be difficult as one party will only be under the impression that one of the members was at your place, with no visual confirmation. Either a confirmation of arrival by your household parents or a confirmation if they are questioned can counter this problem.


Teleportation
"The operative can travel great distances in short amounts of time, seeming to possess magical powers. He knows that others conceive this as impossible, and thus the operative deceives all with his cunning..."

Teleportation is the ability to travel to a place that's out of town and is extremely remote, and leave. So remote, in fact, that once someone is dropped off there, they are expected to stay there until picked up again. There will be times you want to go camping here.

The most effective way to go to teleport is to have someone who is unaware of your operations drop you (and team if applicable) off and make sure they are set to come back the next day or two days later. Now you can pull some tricks similar to the out of body experience. You can also have someone who is aware of your hobby take you to camp, but this lessens the effectiveness of the alibi.

If the camp site is remote enough you don't feel anyone else would come by and grab your stuff, go ahead and set up so you can go straight to sleep when you get back. Otherwise, stash your gear where no one can find it, and in an area that you can set the gear up quickly.

Regardless, you now have to perform the teleportation and reach the area of your operations. There are a couple ways this can be done. The first option is travelling by foot to the area of operations. This means lots of travelling on foot, especially in the dark, and if roads are unavailable or you do not know the area, you may need GPS capability. The second option is to have prearranged for an accomplice to pick you up and transport you to the area of operations. Make sure he also has an alibi.

Which option you pick here depends largely on your available associates and how far you are from the area of operations. The second option is generally preferrable since if you are chased on foot using the first, escape will be extremely difficult. On the other hand, working with vehicles gives a license plate if you aren't careful.

A spin on this is going to another town. If you are dropped off at an accomplices place and the two of you later decide to double back and operate in the area you originally left from, this will make no conventional sense and therefore place you away from suspicion.

Teleportation is a solid choice, especially if you live on your own and need an alibi, but it has it's problems. Mainly, you lose a lot of time to travelling around. Still, you get vehicle use, easy alibi for a team, and no one is likely to check on you until the set date. Even if they do, you can always claim to have hiked to a new area. Remember that while mere claims don't hold well in court, the likelyhood of a several mile hike from a camp just to trespass is slim, and therefore stronger.

Imaginary Friends
"The operative materializes life from out of thin air, and uses his creations to surround himself so that none may see his true self. His greatest illusion, however, is letting none know the true nature of his creations..."

Imaginary friends are the friends who don't exist, but you make them up anyways so you can do things like play pool with them, visit their house, go driving with them, whatever. The reason for this is so you can tell somebody you are going to hang out with them, and when they ask who the person is, you can use the made up name and the person asking the question will be unable to interrogate your friend to verify the facts. If possible, just say "you don't know him", only using the name if absolutely necessary.

While we learn as little kids that lying can be an effective way to stay out of trouble, this unfortunately is not always true when we grow up and need good alibis. Therefore, it is important to give as little info as possible, only using names if necessary. If Deputy Dick comes sticking his nose in your case and grabs a name he will find that no such person exists, blowing a hole in your alibi. That said, this is a very conditional alibi that must be used in the right conditions.

The most effective place to visit is your imaginary friend's house, because if you hang out in a public place, the other patrons there might not see you and inform someone of such a fact. Alternatively, you can choose a normally empty place that might seem like a good hangout to the uninitiated. In such a case you'd say something like "Hey, I'm going to hang out down by the river with some people."

As said, this alibi is extreme conditional, it's risky, and should really only be considered on low risk operations where investigations are unlikely. Imaginary friends will rarely hold up under investigation, so they should only be used to trick others.

Unwitting Pawns
"The operative is a powerful warrior, but rarely finds himself in confrontation. Instead, he uses his cunning to force others to fight his battles, whether they are aware of the true catalyst of the conflict or not..."

This is more of an alibi you employ during the actual operation, and is mostly theft oriented. The idea is that when you take something or perform certain actions otherwise, you make the scene appear as if someone else could have caused it. This will place the blame on an unwitting pawn as it makes much more sense that they would have performed the deed rather than yourself.

Such actions would include leaving windows open in certain manners, taking only small percentages of certain objects, unlocking doors along paths an employee might frequent, and otherwise making the scene appear to be an inside job. You need to really put yourself in your target's shoes here and think about who you might suspect when you do anything on the operation. If an outsider isn't even suspected because your unwitting pawn is taking all the heat, it doesn't get any better than that.

This tactic should also be used in conjunction with another, like the OBE. This ensures that even in the rare event your pawn is found not guilty, you will not be a suspect. Even if you should become a suspect, your OBE alibi will protect you.

Like all alibis, this one has it's downsides. For one, your actions on an operation are limited. If theft is your intent, you can only take so much when there might be so much more available. Furthermore, making an operation appear to be an inside job can take some serious thought.

For the novice operative, unwitting pawns are your surefire bet. Coupled with an OBE, you are very safe when you are finished with the operation. Should you decide to take something, this also couples well with the OBE because of the possible limitations of carrying loot associated with it.

Sonic Speed
"The operative is like a tornado, able to change from a calm breeze into a raging wind at unthinkable speed. He uses this ability to infiltrate his targets with such speed that nobody notices his absence..."

Sonic speed requires a lot of prior preparation to successfully perform, but when done correctly it will give you a very strong alibi. The principle is simple, you perform an operation so quickly that nobody thinks you had the time to be the suspect. This operation takes places while you are visiting another location with people there to verify your presence. These people can be anyone, so long as they know you and that you are present.

Before this visit however, you need to set up for the operation. You need to plan your operation to be fairly close to your area of operations, and you need to make sure there is a convenience store nearby, or anything else you might randomly go to during the visit. Once you get these three locations in tandem with each other, you now need to place some gear between your area of visitation and your area of operations. Remember that you can carry small things like a flashlight, multitool, and possibly gloves and mask on you the entire time you are visiting, just don't let anyone know about them. You can also probably get away with wearing black pants and footwear, so long as you have a contrasting shirt that seems impossible to operate effectively in. If you wear a light hoody, you can wear a black longsleeve shirt underneath and be able to carry all your gear on you and not have to stash anything.

Regardless, you are prepared for the operation, and now you need to utilize the technique. At any given time late at night during your visit, tell everyone you are taking off to go to the convenience store to get something to drink or whatever, and try not to let anyone go with you. If someone else wants something, just take their money and tell them you'll buy them something while you're there.

As soon as you get out of the door, you need to be hurrying towards your gear cache. If you've got everything you need, haul ass to the area of operations. You need to make sure you are not gone for a suspiciously long amount of time, going over twenty minutes gets risky. Needless to say, time is not on your side. When you get to your gear cache, grab what you need quickly. Throw on your dark over clothes, put your screwdriver in a pocket, and start moving out. During the operation, you won't have time to fuck around much, so you might want to snap pictures if you need to stare at something for awhile.

With the operation finished, quickly return to your cache and dump all incriminating gear. You might want to make sure you kept a soda in the cache. If anyone else wanted you to buy something, leave the soda there and when you return, make up some crap like looking confused and say the store was closed/locked, crack a joke about how the employees were probably toking in the back, whatever it takes. If only you were buying, grab the soda and take it back with you to make it look like you actually went. If you took a bit longer than reasonable to go to the store, make an excuse like you ran into someone you knew - but make sure nobody else knows the person. You might create an imaginary friend in this case. You want to lie about all this regardless of who you are visiting, because much like the OBE, doing so will make it impossible for anyone to unwittingly ruin your cover story.

This alibi has many limitations on your operations. You can only select certain areas to operate in, you can't explore much on site, you have to spend a lot of energy trying to move quickly, and you can only carry so much gear and loot.

Sonic speed alone is an effective alibi when you're able to use it. You can also use this technique with other alibis to create a watertight defense. For example, a sonic speed OBE from your house immediately after you go into your room followed by using unwitting pawns is very, very safe. You won't find this idea very fun for exploration oriented operations though, because you won't have any time to really soak up your surroundings. It's also unsuitable for stealthy operations where you are dealing with high security, because you'll lack the time needed to safely disable security, and thus smash and grab theft will be your only option.

The Art of Lying
"The operative is the master of deception. He knows what others want to hear, what they expect to hear, and how to frustrate inquisition. Though he is skilled in this art he is wise enough to know that when used properly, truth can be the greatest deceiver... "

This would be a good time to explain the proper way to create a lie. You might think you've got it down but you probably don't, a lot of people are shitty liars whether they know it or not. The trick is not only being able to create an instant and false statement, but being able to make that statement able to withstand scrutiny.

The best way to accomplish this is to not lie at all, but rather stretch the truth a little and leave out incriminating facts. This is key in making certain alibis like the imaginary friends work for you. Learn to leave out specific details as much as possible because these are what anyone investigating will go to first. Instead of saying "I'm staying over at Ralph's house", you would say "I'm going to be at a buddy's place tonight, see you later" then leave immediately disallowing the ability for anyone to question you. You aren't necessarily lying, but they have nobody to check with either.

This can be good or bad though, since in a good alibi you need verification. In an OBE, on the other hand, you have a good opportunity to lie. If someone else is in the house, sans someone who would sleep with you, you simply state that you are going to bed. If you want to make extra sure nobody bothers you, claim you have an important test in the morning or have a long day at work. Now you are free to gear up and head out. Technically you aren't lying because you will be going to bed soon, right? Just after the operation. Better yet, execute the operation quickly and come back out for a drink of water, making your lie look even more convincing.

Another point that needs to stressed is: Don't emphasize! Don't emphasize! Don't emphasize! Get the fucking point? This is a major indicator of a lie that nearly everyone makes, don't emphasize your innocence, just casually let your lie roll off the tongue. Instead of saying something like "No, I did not do that", make it sound non-chalante with "Wasn't me" and deflect any further attempts with the few hard facts you have in your favor. Remember, the goal with all your lies and alibis are to make the prosecutor - attorney, cop, owner, parent, whatever - look as stupid as possible. By frustrating their attempts to make you feel insecure about your lie, you win.


Conclusion
Always look past the operation to the potential questioning when forming your alibis. Be positive that anyone who tries to question you will be made to look foolish by the evidence in your favor, and always have excuses you can back up if something goes wrong and your alibi crumbles. Lie only when necessarily, and support your lies with misleading truth.

[Secant]

Keep posting these, I'll compile them into a pdf.

[Xanatos]

* Make your lies sound obscure but believeable and generally something boring that people (relatives, friends, etc) won't find interesting and won't be bothered to look into.
* If you do get interrogated don't panic and try to leave in a hurry, but rather look annoyed at the fact that you are being interrogated and make it seem like a waste of time.
* If you have to improvise a lie stick with your first draft. What you say the first time should be the story you stick with the rest of the time. If you get caught with a partner they'll probably interrogate you seperately, in which case it's probably better to rehearse a story prior to the operation. To make it believeable add an "in-joke" or two relating to an incident that evening that both of you will "get" but the interrogators will not. This will make it seem like you were elsewhere and therefore less suspicious.
* When fabricating a story casually throw 1 or 2 misleading details that cause the investigators to look elsewhere, but don't overload or emphasise these facts.

[FuzzyCommandPenguin]

I have been using the "I was playing manhunt" excuse. It explains the presence of your gear and dark clothing, and is passable under most circumstances. Lamentably this is only really effective in suburban areas and is less believable the older you are. Not strictly an alibi, but it has worked for me. I recall once a car literally pulled into a driveway while I was lying in it. I rolled under an adjacent car but driver knew I was there, so i just got up and apologized for looking so scary and explaining that it was a game of manhunt. She laughed and I went on my merry way. Food for thought. I'm still an new OPper.

[Atarii-XV]

Keep posting these, I'll compile them into a pdf.

secant if you didnt know he already wrote a book on night op in 2005 if hes the same psyclonic i think he is

[Xanatos]

Keep posting these, I'll compile them into a pdf.

secant if you didnt know he already wrote a book on night op in 2005 if hes the same psyclonic i think he is

1. Yes, he's the same Psychlonic who wrote The Way of the Shadow.
2. You're telling that to Secant? Our Administrator?