Originally Posted by Icelander
As things unfold over the few days that the island is visible, there probably wouldn't be time for journalists to become involved. Commercial flights in the Caribbean and surrounding area are heavily disrupted by the four tropical storms active simultaneously at the end of August and beginning of September. Even in areas where the storms haven't yet hit, there are weather warnings, as at least two of the storms are moving erratically and their paths are hard to predict.
In order to get the expedition members to Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands, it is necessary to use private planes or boats, with pilots and crew willing to risk the weather. That is practical for Kessler, because he is literally a bilionaire and already has several boats and planes based in Florida, the Bahamas and several of the Leeward and Windward Islands, with crew used to catering to his eccentric desires, but it is not as easy for journalists.
Also, there aren't all that many people who would want to leak this. There is a private pilot who saw the island, by accident, but while he did tell several people, it isn't as if any reputable news source can print it without some form of confirmation that there is something out there. Absent that, the news would be 'Local pilot misreads instruments, thinks he is at a different location and tells a wild story'.
Any others who know ahout it are either Kessler's staff, chosen for loyalty and tight-lippedness, expedition members who'd be risking their spots and salaries by talking, not to mention tanking their own credibility by talking to press before they really know anything, and then possibly someone from the US Navy, Air Force or Coast Guard.
Even if some journalist hears unconfirmed reports about something interesting being spotted in the Atlantic a couple of hundred miles north of Puerto Rico and/or about several academics congregating on one of the Virgin Islands, flying or sailing there in private transport despite bad weather, I don't think any journalist could make it there before the expedition leaves. It's not like news organizations have private transport crewed by ex-military types kept ready at all times to be ready to chase down paranormal occurances.
If a local journalist comes around asking questions, there would be a PR person and a number of attorneys who'd cite confidentiality concerns (everyone involved is obviously heavily NDA'ed) and give prepared and boring answers related to meteorological and oceanographic surveys and valuable research instruments that need to be removed from the path of Hurricane Luis.
They'd be covered under two or three different entities, one of them a company involved in offshore mining (where CDR Shackleford, the expedition leader, genuinely works) and maybe one or two private scientific research institutions where others involved work.
This is actually backstory. The campaign is set in 2018/2019.
Teddy Smith (PC) was one of the security on this expedition and along with fifteen other expedition members, as well as several boat crew, a private pilot and a mechanic, he disappeared when the expedition was caught in Hurricane Luis.
Twenty three years later, at the start of play, he washed ashore on the island of Dominica, a good six hundred miles away from where he disappeared (the twenty three years lost at sea were rather more remarkable, of course). With him were two other members of the security team, one catatonic and one incoherent, as well as Professor Harlan P. Wehmeyer.
I'm establishing the names, background and connections of the other members of the expedition for backstory purposes and because their families, friends and connections might affect Mr. Smith in play.
|