Ingress Stealth Ops with Cadre Cleve in Zagreb, Croatia

15 Ingress players show up to take upon the Stealth Ops with Cadre Cleve¹. Among them are 5 from Enlightenment (ENL) and 10 from Resistance (RES).

This time I am participating from the ENL side. As a GRT, I can aid in the practices of GORUCK team lead events, but with the hefty cost of being an Ingress liability.

As the ENL team lead has stated

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses.

Let the games begin!

Challenge 1 - Welcome Party

Cadre Cleve welcomes everyone to the Stealth Ops and starts by checking the required gear, the weight, the water, and the ID check. Next he asks

Can everyone hear me?

And we all affirm him.

Does everyone understand me?

And we affirm this as well. He chuckles, since understanding and hearing are two different feats.

Cadre Cleve explains the first challenge and tells the respective team leads to present the exercises among their faction. While he double checks that the admin portion of the event is taken care of.

The first two exercises remind me of the GORUCK Basic in Munich back in year 2022² and it feels like a characteristic workout from Cadre Cleve.

The Cadre puts a keen eye that each faction executes each rep as a team.

The first round is executed flawlessly, each participant is able to perform the exercises in a strict fashion. And the lap around the park both teams pass each other at the halfway point. The ENL goes counter clockwise around the park while RES goes clockwise.

Some members realize the power endurance required to persist through the exercises and I start sharing cheat codes to ease the suffering.

For the 8ct body builder take each count with ease meaning don't jump from count to count, but step into each. Also roll off the knees when doing the push-ups to put less strain on the arms especially shoulders.

For the brickyard man makers, if one has a strong core, one can clean and press the ruck in one fluid motion, otherwise drive it up through the legs. Additionally, make sure to tighten the core while the ruck is above the head when doing the 2ct lunges, otherwise one can lose stability and potentially feel it in the lower back or shoulders. Luckily, I just finished the MRC Winter Challenge³, which had lunges and overhead press as the exercises.

During the lap, the team lead aka Karma-Legs takes the front of the pack and frequently tries to pull the team while I take the last man position and try to push the group. We frequently alternative among the roles of either being the head or tail of the herd.

I ask each member who is struggling to understand their reason; learning one has too small shoes aka Cinderella and the other just came off walking with crutches, so knee problems are the leading cause. The final mate gray man himself quite well throughout the laps.

With each round, we surpass RES later and later until we finish the challenge and win it.

Winner: ENL

Movement to Spomenik domovini

While waiting to start the next activity, I share of the lake I went to earlier in the day to fill up my sandplates to the Cadre. He realizes that he has some sandbags at his hotel and we could use them for the upcoming challenges. Thus our next stop is the Sheraton Hotel and I offer to navigate to it.

During the ruck over, I mix and mingle with the other faction, which I have heard is a big no-no at some Ingress events. Though I can separate concerns between during and outside of the challenges. I will aid in whichever degree is required to permit that each participant can accomplish the event. Sometimes it will be the whole team, while other times it will be small units, either the faction or a portion of the faction.

Cadre Cleve grabs the sandbags, then giving us a mini-challenge for no points. The task is to get to the Spomenik domovini⁴ (EN: Monument to the Homeland) by using a unique route for each faction.

Karma-Legs is quickly able to get the POI and wants to navigate using Google Maps while I am struggling to acquire it, since the Cadre shared the English name and not the local name. Karma-Legs questions why I am not fond of using Google Maps and I explain that OpenStreetMap is typically more accurate for pedestrians and has no economical incentive. Each map is tailored to different user experiences and needs. The problems arise when one user group assumes that the experiences and needs should be the same across both products. Plus with OpenStreetMap I can navigate completely offline in airplane mode via OsmAnd⁵ over being defaulted to use Google services, internet, and satellite imagery.

As we are about to make it to the sculpture, the other team is about to swoosh in for the win. Although their head of the pack is sprinting to be first, their tail is barely visible, thus no need for any hassle, since it only counts when the whole team is at the location.

A Resistance member, who grew up in Croatia, gives us a history lesson of what the sculpture represents and how he experienced first hand the Yugoslav Wars⁶.

Challenge 2 - Capture 10 Portals with 4 Links

Cadre Cleve presents the next challenge and gives us time to strategize. He delegates RES to go west of the starting point (SP) and ENL to go east.

We try to make a plan of splitting up the team into two and each capturing a cluster of portals. Further I try to arrange each person's role in the challenge. But as soon as we hear the start, all goes haywire, and everyone does what they think is best.

I miss the team aspect which is briefly mentioned in the challenge, as in show up at the SP as a team, and not show up each player in a solo manner.

Our unit gets the news that RES is already back at the start and thus we don't hurry up. But when we get to the SP the team lead questions if this is a race or where did you get lost? This remark is justified, since although RES sent the screenshot first and had a portion of their team back at the SP first, we still would have had a chance to capture the point, because their whole team was not there yet.

Winner: RES

Challenge 3 - Casualty Carry

During the previous encounter Cinderella was heavily complaining about his tight shoes and what he is willing to do about them like cut holes up front so that his toes can protrude out. I told him to tell Cadre about his conundrum, so that if it gets worse, that he is aware of the problem.

This is also the reason why the Cadre asks in the beginning, if anyone has any medical or physiological conditions to be aware. I have learnt from previous events like the Tough in Munich⁷ that it usually is better to overshare and it is not only for the Cadre to know of the conditions, but also for the rest of the team. I feel that lots of participants gloss over this information and that can partially be due to not ever being put into the responsibility role of hosting an event vel never experiencing an adverse effect after a medical or physiological condition happened.

As well intentioned as my notion is to inform first the team lead and later the Cadre, the Cadre takes the circumstances and makes a challenge out of it.

The ENL has to carry Cinderella whereas the RES gets a person with similar body composition to keep it as fare as possible.

The original restriction of the challenge is that only two people are permitted to carry the casualty at a time and I am thinking of doing the shoulder carry technique. Cadre Cleve sees our struggle and asks "if three are better". I say "yes" with the background thought that more is better and this now permits us for the third person to carry the legs.

Karma-Legs suggests

piggy-backing the casualty is the best way forward,

whereas the Cadre smirks

you will be putting unnecessary workload onto the carriers.

Cadre Cleve gives the go and off we are. We attempt to carry Cinderella using the shoulder technique while holding the legs with the arms. We get a brief comment from Cadre

it is better to carry the legs on the shoulders.

We rebuild the contraption for the new suggestion.

With a team of 5 and everyone except the casualty ideally carrying a ruck, the movement forward is becoming a real annoyance. I hear the Cadre in the back of my mind

you are doing a real world scenario of helping your buddy out of a difficult situation,

but it doesn't make the task any easier.

After struggling to coordinate while donning and doffing the casualty and frequently being pulled into the middle of the contraption, while walking on uneven terrain such as the unneeded kerbs of the cycleway, and seeing the other faction almost disappearing on the horizon, there was nothing to lose in trying Karma-Legs's suggested technique.

We switch it up that two carry the rucks of the others, one piggy-backs Cinderella, and the last rests until being cycled either under a ruck or back to carrying the casualty.

With 50 to 100 meter sprints, we slowly have been making progress. We see the other faction go down the steps heading towards the northern route to the lake. Instead of following them, we choose to take the southern route. Each time Cinderella is doffed it feels like one is flying thereafter. His mass is at least 20 kg more than any of the three carriers.

The lake is just in arms reach, and we have been thinking the whole time, there is no way to out perform RES with their duplicate manpower. But as we creep with relay after another, Karma-Legs notices that he doesn't see any RES at the end point. With a final sprint, he gives it his all before I jump in. From the perimeters of our eyes we see RES perusing happily through a playground not expecting us to swoosh in from the side. As if they do not realize, we just used the same tactic they pulled off during the previous movement. That is the difficultly of being upfront, one barely checks to see where the other team is located and fantasizes the headway one has accomplished.

RES is scurrying to switch up the contraption carriers, the donning and doffing is costing them seconds that they cannot spare before the end, and right before leaving they fumble the positioning of the contraption.

On the other side, I am slowly getting to my thermometer carrying potential. My knees are collapsing under the force. I want to switch out 5 meters before endex. Internally I am yelling at my knees,

come on you can do it!

Each next step has enough momentum that I still have balance in moving forward. I can see the shape of every separate pebble, but I have still not surpassed the threshold.

Come on knees, one more step!

And before I notice it, it is done! I instantly lay onto my back to decompress it out.

Winner: ENL

Resistance contests the Enlightenment performance during the casualty carry

Cadre Cleve states

That is some wild tortoise and the hare⁹ action.

RES tries to contest the performance of ENL, claiming that they were cheating in some form or another.

First thing, Cadre Cleve sets straight

although I was in the lead faction as I have been in the last movement, I frequently checked my 6 and checked where the other faction was located. Further I have 20/10 vision,

meaning he can see objects clear at 20 ft where others can see at 10 ft.

Next RES contests that the Cadre purposely gave them the longer route, where he reiterates the situation, saying

you asked me if we can go this way and I replied it is an option. Plus the route ENL chose was 50 m longer.

Choosing the right navigation tool for the job

I am really curious how the discrepancy of the distances exist between Cadre's navigation and mine, and it is due to not questioning if the Google pedestrian routing has the best choice. Which reminds me on how when we had the choice which steps to take, a portion of the team also wanted to take the route suggested by Google. Thus showing the trust one puts into one's tools can potentially make all the difference.

As one sees in the above image, only two options exist, the route RES took using the northern route of 650 m and the southern route of 700 m, which means that ENL had to take that option. This is a false dichotomy, since we are in a park and the paths are not barricaded away, meaning if required one can walk on the grass.

With some hassle and fighting with the Google routing tool, one can shorten the distance to just 600 m, which is also the default distance OsmAnd routing chose.

Outcome of the casualty carry challenge

Some players have the notion that some of the other Cadre hint towards favoritism of one or the other faction, but no one here or within the community know with whom I am affiliated with. Thus sometimes you lose no matter how much effort you put into the task and before you sprout rumors as teenagers on the side, we are all, here, adults, and you can speak frankly with me of your concerns. - Cadre Cleve paraphrased

Challenge 4 - Coupon throws along the beach promenade

After that fiasco, the show must move on. For the next task, each team needs to fill up a 40 litre sandbag and a 35# sand-kettlebell. I provide the Cadre with an electrical scale to create a more fare competition.

(Why do you have a scale with you? The reason being to measure out the required 20 lbs weight among a 10# and a 15# sandplate.)

Cadre Cleve presents the next challenge

He further explains that each faction will start on opposite sides of the promenade and pass each other on the right side of the path. Plus no person should be ahead of either coupons to prevent potential injuries.

Before the attempt starts, each faction is permitted some time to strategize. Karma-Legs suggests

switch the throwers after each toss and rotating among the coupons.

Whereas I suggest

each person performs the coupon toss they prefer less immediately before sticking to their dedicated coupon and then swap after three throws⁷, so that not too much momentum is lost from the groove while not being exhausted by the exercise. The next thrower lines up behind the current one executing and when done, should step to the side, not to be in the way of the next throw.

In the first attempt the ENL wins and Cadre gives some time to debrief and see how we can improve on the next attempt. We noticed that although we learnt not to stand in front of a thrown sandbag, we still somehow achieved this faux pas. Thus, we discuss to put more of a priority not to step forward until both coupons have been thrown.

In the second attempt the ENL wins again. The Cadre presents a comeback challenge for two points, where each faction chooses 3 athletes who shall do the same challenge, except with the alteration of lunging to each coupon before being thrown again. He gives this opportunity to each faction and the RES declines it after learning which three athletes they are most likely to face.

Winner: ENL

Challenge 5 - Coupon Carry Orientation Race

Cadre Cleve presents the next challenge, which is a ruck race with coupons to the north east corner of the botanical gardens¹⁰ with an aerial distance of 2.2 km.

The ENL team lead gives me the task of navigating to the target point. I have the route already plotted on the map and I shall use it as a guideline. Meaning that it is the best route OsmAnd permits respective to its restrictions vel conditions, thus diverging too much from it can come with a costly energy effort price tag. But on the flip side, if one knows the methodology of taxicab geometry¹¹, the hypotenuse in such a system as the shortest route, the time cost of waiting at traffic lights, and the notion that one is not bound to foot ways, then one can draw quickly a more optimized imaginary line. Plus on way southwards, I noticed an underpass, which will drop the traffic lights cost down by one.

The Cadre gives the start shout and ENL follows the plotted imaginary line. From the get-go I am confused why RES is heading south instead of due west. Maybe they do have a more optimized route that I might have overlooked. Nonetheless, I am self-assure in my calculations.

For awhile we see no hints of RES being anywhere close by, but out of no where we see them taking the hypotenuse through a park to the west of us while we are stranded in the middle of a primary road island. I see the jitteriness of the team mates settle in and they want to go faster. I try to calm them down and at least to myself I mumble

trust the system.

We cross the second traffic light, thereby we are on the inner lane towards the target point and RES still needs to cross at least one traffic light. We can only hope that it is in our favor and will halt them a bit longer.

The team thought that we are going to follow along the primary roads as in taxicab geometry, but I got another ace up my sleeve, and we are going to heavily cross through the park to the north of us, shaving off easily 10s of meters.

I can only imagine what some from the other faction were thinking of, first seeing us just being separated by a primary road, only to vanish like ghosts into the darkness of the park.

I also don't know how we lost Cadre, who was with us in the beginning, but in the end joined the RES pack.

Winner: ENL

These are the estimates of the routes the factions chose:

• ENL chosen route 2.65 km with 2 traffic lights crossings
• RES chosen route 2.8 km with 2 traffic lights crossings

RES's choice was wise and they could have optimized it by 10s of meters if they didn't put so much fate into the Google router.

Movement to the Gazebo at the Trg Nikole Zrinskog

For the next movement, I offer again to navigate the group to the gazebo in the center of the Trg Nikole Zrinskog square¹².

It might feel like I have been carrying certain aspects of the event a lot and sadly I don't know if everyone is pleased with this outcome. From the eyes of a gamer, carrying is usually welcomed as long as the carrier is not fed up with picking up the slack of the other mates and the ones who are being carried don't mind losing too much action vel effort. Or one can remember the wise words from Karma-Legs

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses.

Challenge 6 - Capture 15 Portals with 7 Links

At the gazebo, Cadre Cleve shares the next challenge.

This time each faction is permitted to go in any direction they would like.

The Cadre gives the go and both factions head southwards. Both factions realize that there are the most permissive portals to capture.

For ENL there is no avail. We try to save some time by using an external player to send the screenshot to Cadre. At the same time RES has shadow agents staged at various portals blocking capture attempts, thereby making us either travel exceedingly far or accept defeat.

Winner: RES

On a side note, both factions had some players being stopped and questioned by the police. Some were prepared to use the excuse as a reason for failing the challenge.

Challenge 7 - Relay Race

For the final challenge, Cadre Cleve presents a relay race with 4 athletes chosen by the respective team leads.

In the pre-race debrief, I ask to go first in the relay, since I don't like hastily perform exercises and permit others to take the potential glory of winning the race.

I step up to the plate first and get to challenge the RES's fastest athlete. Lucky me, the guy is almost half a meter shorter than me and we are both performing exercises where the taller one is, the greater disadvantage it presents. On top of that it is the last challenge of the day and all the joints and muscles are drained from the beating of the day vel event. I survive my relay and pass it off to the next mate.

All three mates perform to the best of their abilities with some going the extra mile of doing clean complete exercises instead of skimping out on some of the counts. Afterwards I hear that most were in the same boat as me, that the body was running on low.

Winner: RES

To earn the patch everyone who is not injured has to perform the exercises of the relay.

Stealth Ops Result

Scoreboard: 4 ENL vs 3 RES

The one conundrum that the Cadre face with at Ingress events is how to make the event fare so that numbers don't matter. In the last challenge, I suggested to use the strategy from Cadre Dan¹³.

Cadre Dan Ingress events with large faction member discrepancies are structured to have two rounds. The first round is for points and the second round is to earn the patch. The faction with more members chooses the same number of athletes to equate to the faction with the lower count of members. For each challenge, the faction with more members chooses a new set of athletes to make it more fare and so that one cannot always choose the best athletes for the specific challenge..

Operator out!

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