#o2j #OdeToJoy
Danke auch von mir nochmal an alle Beteiligten, hier speziell den Agents aus Österreich! Ihr seid die besten 😀
Im Moment sind wir bei 1260 Agents die Europaweit mitgemacht haben (still counting). 41 davon aus Österreich!
@Acabah, @BastArt, @bayerndirndl, @bbotAUT, @Bierbo, @bloedheit, @Cerberus1900, @cheef, @cheefin, @Chlorgas, @cyan, @fastghost, @G3RY, @Gspenst, @hapeweid, @Hias, @Knusperleicht, @liveordeath, @maddin81, @Maleachi, @martl, @matspa, @NMIGIZMO, @nospecs, @nospleen, @pez84, @Plano500, @Raptor8604, @Rooks, @Savak, @Sebaesch, @siegi, @Simandl, @SmokinLu, @spacesun, @stg51, @TheDD, @thegstyle, @Vaios525, @warrior0705, @Zwetschki
(alphabetisch)
Originally shared by Vicki Ellen (mimtwin)
Operation Ode to Joy
Main Sitrep
Countries Involved: Portugal, Spain, France, Czech Rep., Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland, United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Azores, Italy, Croatia, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Sweden, Hungary, Slovakia, Scotland, Faroes
Bad Ass Portal Locations: Mountaintops, islands, national parks, restricted areas. Wherever you can imagine that has limited access.
Agents Involved: Over 1000 at current count, list being produced. Edit. 1263 and more countries to add
Total MU: Over 220 Million
Brief
The agents from operation #spinnaker wanted a new challenge, and to go even bigger! The astounding operation #O2J identified and used hard to reach “Bad Ass Portals” to form a web of mega fields from mainland Europe and out to the Azores. The adventures that agents had getting to those portals can be found by searching with the # #O2J . It was a landmark operation in terms of international collaboration and also in linking through cities and “impossibly dense” countries.
I interviewed the organisers of this incredible operation, *Vincent Rammelt* and *Flurin Noller*
This is the biggest fielding operation Europe has ever seen. Where did the idea for this operation come from? Who was the team that started the idea?
VR:
The challenge after Spinnaker was to make a little crazy field. We wanted to try a link through a city like Mönchengladbach. Then we had an idea to link through Hamburg. We made a completely blue city (L3+ portals). We helped on anomalies in Berlin, Amsterdam and Frankfurt. We needed a new crazy idea!
FN:
It started with an idea for a “small” field – Helgoland, Aachen, Berlin. Vincent and I were dreaming and I had some fun looking for hard to attack portals on islands.
Then it got bigger and bigger and at some point we started the hangout with the question „Are you up for something crazy?“
International collaboration is a big part of Ingress, but this operation takes it to the next level. How did you decide which countries to involve? How was the link plan devised?
FN:
I asked people I knew from Spinnaker, from the anomalies and from a weird hangout where I was invited to by accident. All of them continued to find good agents that helped planning and making #O2J a success.
VR:
As part of the mainlink headquarter on Unight8 it was my obsession to chat with Europe. I like it to talk every day with the other countries. We have become good friends, met at the anomalies in the other cities. And we like all the same game.
Why did you choose this name for the operation, and who came up with the logo?
FN:
I came up with crazy fielding theories and Vincent just had the perfect name for it.
VR:
The first idea was to make the operation on the European Day on the 9th May. But this was a friday so it would have been a hard job to find enough people. So we asked the european agents to find a better date.
The name is a reference to the European Anthem “Ode to Joy”. Ingress is a great joy. The logo is a composition of Europe, the song and the resistance. It was design by https://plus.google.com/+LarsT%C3%B6gemann/posts
Have there been any interesting challenges liaising with other countries, with different languages and local situations?
FN:
Not to raise political issues I’ll stay silent on that question (but yes). It was amazing though that so much cooperation and friendship occured between different countries with different cultures and languages. Astonishingly all the “problematic” links were established.
VR:
Every operation is a new challenge. I see no borders between other countries and people.
What was the toughest portal in the operation?
FN:
Since all of them were Bad Ass Portals (meaning hard to access at a certain time of the day) we had a lot of struggle to find people willing to be at that position and make the necessary links. The toughest Portal might be the swiss Portal, the “Sphinx”. It was not only the only Portal that had no crew at the site but also the one portal that went through the most struggle. The link to austria was almost impossible to create, the link to france was also quite challenging. And everything was only possible because one agent went up there on Saturday with the last train to Ada the portal. Every incoming link to Switzerland was established. These agents did a great job!
VR:
Every portal was very tough. I’m a little bit sad about the portal in Hamburg. It was an act of nature, because it was only reachable by boat, but there was no chance to get in the port through the faulty watergate. Berlin was also tough. The agent had to buy a rubber boat with paddles and now he is a happy owner of this and have strong arms.
We understand some agents had to climb a mountain to get to a portal, tell us about that!
FN:
As I just mentioned, the link from Austria to switzerland was almost not possible to establish. We had blockers that were really Bad Ass. Two agents made a tour to one mountaintop but they had to climb down again due to bad weather conditions.
So we decided to take the other sides of the links down. 10 days prior to the Op an Italian team tore down one of the links and a few days later the two agents took down the portal on Titschal. They covered it as a simple LTP-kill. And it worked.
VR:
The climb on top of the mountain was very crazy and dangerous. But the first peak had bad weather conditions and the agents canceled the climb at the last few metres. This was one of the craziest stories for me.
Some of the fields were blocked by the enlightened, and we’ve heard epic stories of their adventures in doing so. But of the ones that went up, is it true that some were removed by spoofers? Any other stories about how the fields were removed?
FN:
Yes. One Portal on a mountain was suddenly flipped, the agents on the summit were searching the area, they saw no one. And in Berlin a newly created blue L1 Account managed to create some blockers on the Island where you are not allowed to be at that time. One other Portal got attacked by a newly created green Account, but we could recharge that.
The take down of the Portal in Cologne however was at least partly legitimate. Two local frogs talked their way into the restricted area, where our agent was baffled to see them. Faro cies was also attacked by a spoofer.
VR:
The plan was to use only badass portals. #Spinnaker remained for 36 hours but #O2J should be online for a longer time. So it was no surprise of taken down by spoofers. I hope Niantic react. France reported “This morning at 11am 3 crazy ENL drove from Paris to break our anchor 2h before you could safely walk across (the tide was still up), one of them went swimming!”
Now it’s all over, how are you feeling?
FN:
Whisky… And now after the Whisky, I enjoyed it so much working with these great agents. Due to bad luck some of the fields were not established but a pretty good part of it was and so I’m happy!
I love being a Resistance agent.
VR:
I’m very proud of the European Resistance. You rock the game! You made a fantastic show.
And now: Turn off my Ingress and Hangouts and sleep for some day. Oh wait….10 new messages….. I’ll have a look.
Credits
The huge O2J team in all the countries in Europe
Link design and Ops @flurin @vincent @whoever else
Sitrep Vicki Ellen
Joe Philley Anne Beuttenmüller Brandon Badger Matilde Tusberti John Hanke Ingress Brian Rose
#o2j #ingress #resistance #europe #sitrep #ingressreport
