[X] John: Patrol Graveyard
[X] Don't go: you have plenty of proxies.
Force Disposition
Salvage Boat Graveyard
Brute (4) [One is looking for a top hat and monocle.]
Engineer (1)
Conscript (2) [One is looking for sugar for the Distillery.] [One is looking for smokes.]
War Miner (2)
GI (1) [Guarding Salvage Team, radioing in if people are sighted.]
Amphibious Transport (1)
Meet Protectorate
Brute (1) [Be friendly, shake hands with Protectorate to demonstrate control, upset if he doesn't get to shake hands.]
Initiate (3)
GDI Light Infantry (1)
Nod Light Infantry (1)
NightHawk transport (1) [Transporting units there, standing by on site for evac.]
Virus (1) [Staying on one of the rooftops out of sight and on overwatch.]
Patrol Boat Graveyard
Brute (1)
Disc Thrower (5) [One goes by the name of "Nat 1."]
Initiate (1) [Removing squatters that have taken up residence in houses of residents who return.]
GDI Light Infantry (2)
Grizzly Tank (1) [Staying close to the meet and greet in case of things going wrong.]
GI (1)
Virus (1)
John (1)
Attack Merchat Bases in the Market
Brute (1)
Disc Thrower (1)
Nod Light Infantry (1) [Trying to get Merchants to surrender.]
Grizzly Tank (2) [One with the personality of Liberty Prime.]
Conscript (2)
Virus (1) [On overwatch.]
Buy Food in Another City
Engineer (1) [Tossing Narcotics and Baubles/Jewelery for money.]
NightHawk Transport [Carrying Engineer to City.]
Repairing Utilities in the Area
Engineer (3) [One is focusing on local power grid.]
Research indoor food production facility
Engineer (1)
Repairing Civillian Houses
Engineer (1)
Scout
Allied Attack Dog (1)
Soviet Attack Dog (1)
One of your Engineers was hard at work, lifting armfuls of jewelry and narcotics and throwing them into the Grinder.
Within moments, it began to break apart and grind down the items, turning them from complex shapes and varying sizes into their mostly-pure raw components for various uses. Or funds, if a transaction had to be made. It had a harder time processing organic materials and substances, but for inorganic items like the vials and syringes and the jewelry it was very good at it's job. You had to hand it to Yuri: he was a megalomaniac, but he did create some useful technologies.
In addition to your Engineer, there was also a NightHawk transport standing by, ready to take him when the Engineer was finished converting the items to funds. It was going to be an half an hour, you reckon, for your Engineer to finish his work, and a few hours to travel to a nearby city and back with supplies. However, with those supplies you would not have to worry about feeding and caring for the populace for quite some time.
Outside of your base, in the Graveyard proper, your men were continuing their work salvaging material. You had forgone the use of Slave Miners this time around, using a force of Brutes for the hard labor of tearing apart boats and wreckage for scrap metal.
"Not here." A Brute spoke, sullen. He halfheartedly dragged behind him a piece of hull from a ship, torn apart so that the genetically-modified human can take a look inside the cabin.
A nearby Conscript, who was taking a pack of cigarettes off of the ground, looked at the Brute for a moment. Then he turned to look at his partner. "What's he so sad about, Comrade?" He asked.
"How am I to know?" The other Conscript replied. "I am looking for sugar, not Brutes."
"You could try that warehouse over there." The GI walked by, SMG in hand as he looked around. "You go in first, I'll cover you."
"Of course I go first," the second Conscript muttered. Despite that, he had agreed with the GI, and when the latter had their M60 set up, he gingerly opened the door and began to search the place.
In the meantime, an Amphibious Transport emerged from the rusting hulks in the bay, moving towards the rest of the group. Not reducing in speed after coming onto land, it turned around, opening up to reveal a pair of Brutes, who began to lug out small boats they had found during their foray into the water. Once they had left them near the Miners, they walked back in, and the transport entered the bay once more.
In the meantime, a loud, cackling sound emerged from the Warehouse. The work stopped.
"Conscript?" The GI called out. "You alright in there, buddy?"
"Da, Comrade!" A voice shouted from within the weathered structure. "You were right - there's sugar in here!"
In the meantime, you were running patrols in the graveyard and the docks beyond it. Not against any Merchants: you doubted that they would come back after losing their leaders and several men to your forces. Rather, these patrols were meant to deal with the sudden increase in crime that accompanied a mass migration of people.
They were helped by the fact that now you had a Radar up, and were now able to monitor and report crimes in progress to them and have them respond in a timely fashion. Any holes that you had in the area were covered up by a pair of dog scouts you had sent up, granting you sight of nearly everything inside the docks.
Like the sight of a few gangsters holding one of the people returning home at knife-point, threatening them with something. You cycle through your groups, for a moment, before you find one that can respond in time.
In the end, they had taken the man himself, walking him somewhere when they heard it approaching. You weren't exactly sure what they expected, but they probably didn't expect a Grizzly tank to come racing out of one of the streets, it's cannon pointed.
They stood there in shock for a moment, until they realized that the tank was coming for them. They bolted, running for a side-street and leaving the man behind as the tank pursued them. It stopped shortly afterwards, and you ordered it back to it's original patrol route, shifting "Nat 1" (you aren't sure why the Disc Thrower called himself that, it sounds like a rather unfortunate name,) and the other units with him to the area to conduct a more through search.
They were currently escorting a small family into the neighborhood, having found them being accosted by a proto-gang by the looks ofthings. After dispatching the Merchants, they had offered to guard the family on their way home. The father continued to shoot worried glances at the Disc Throwers, but raised no complaints beyond that.
You had an Initiate in the area as well, though a different assignment in mind for him.
He was currently staring down a woman in a house, a small fire burning just above his outstretched palm.
"Out." He spoke.
"C-can't I just stay here a little longer?" She was staring at the Initiate with wide, slighty-clouded eyes, laying down on a bedroll in what used to be the living room of the home. Outside the original owner was looking at the scene, gently nudging his children to go away for a bit.
"
Out." He repeated, the flame growing slightly larger. The woman quickly nodded her head, hurriedly packing up her bedroll and a few items scattered around it. With hurried apologies and pleas she rushed out the door, past the man and into the streets. With her gone, the Initiate dispelled the flames in his hand.
"The squatter is gone now, go back to your daily life." The Initiate spoke, brushing past the man and into the streets, where he continued to patrol for problems and provide solutions.
You turn your gaze from the screen to the Engineer in the same room as you. Given how low you were running on food, you wanted to see if you could build some indoor food production facilities. Since he didn't need to be up and about, you just had him in the Construction Yard, mulling over another terminal as he drew up and discarded designs.
"What am I even doing?" He suddenly said, rubbing his forehead. "I'm just trying to re-invent the wheel, here."
You ask for clarification.
"We already have the designs on hand, that and some civilian structures, why didn't I just grab those instead?"
Puzzled, you ask again. As far as you knew, none of the factions had any civilian related buildings. The MCV, if it had the schematics could build those, of course, but they didn't come pre-packaged with them.
The Engineer looks at you for a second, before explaining. "Right, sorry, not a whole lot of Commanders know about it." He clears his throat.
"In the years leading up to Tib War 2, Earth was running out of livable space to live on. Cities and non-military buildings don't hold up that well to Tiberium suddenly growing on them. GDI's R&D team had managed to quickly develop some civillian housing and infastructure that could hold up to Tiberium growth. The problem was, they didn't know how to build a large number of shelters in a short amount of time.
It was at that point that some genius realized that they had tons of GDI military bases all over the damn planet, with most of them having a Construction Yard or MCV on site. So, they loaded the schematics, and told them to build shelters. It worked, and that's why humanity managed to live long enough to continue killing each other."
You ask why you never found such an option during your battles.
"Because building a water purifier isn't as important as building a War Factory. Look, they're buried
somewhere in the database, just get me a GDI or Nod Construction Yard and I can pull out the schematics." Hearing your unspoken question, the Engineer continued. "The Brotherhood of Nod saw how much PR points building shelters got you, and for their Tiberium worshiping they don't want to lay in bed with it, so they went out and stole the schematics for the structures."
Would you need those Construction Yards to build civilian structures?
"Just to get the schematics. Afterwards I could just load them up to the other faction's databases and you could build them with any MCV."
You frown at that. From what you remembered, Allied, Soviet, Yuri, GDI and the Brotherhood of Nod were paranoid that someone would steal their designs and use them against their original owners. They black-boxed the designs to hell and back, to the point that Engineers had to use the original hardware in the base itself to get the designs, and couldn't just take them and plug them into their faction's databases.
"GDI didn't have a whole lot of time to black-box them, and these were meant for civilian use so they asked themselves 'why should they?' They were kicking themselves later, but by that point it was less expensive to keep the designs instead of trying to black-box them."
You nod, and turn your attention back to your forces.
"Alright, think this will work?" One engineer asked two others. They had traveled around the graveyard, walking with the patrols whenever possible and fixing up the electrical lines all around. They had originally started with four, but he entered into a wrecked house, walking out a second later with it being completely fixed. As engineers do, he had used up all his tools in the process and returned back to the base, confident in a job well done. The others, finished with their repairs, followed him back for the final step.
"Course it will," One said with a Russian accent. "we walked around a quarter of the day doing nothing but walking around and doing repairs."
"Let's just get on with it." Another spoke.
"Alright!" The first engineer held up two wires. "Reconnecting the boat graveyard area in three, two, one!" He connected the wires.
Nothing happened.
The first engineer's face fell. After a moment, the second Engineer spoke up again. "The generators must be down as well." He said, "or there are damaged lines outside of the area we repaired, or-"
"A thousand different what-ifs," interrupted the third, "all explaining the same result: no power."
"At least we repaired some of the other utilities," the Russian Engineer spoke, "
not that they were in terrible shape, all things considered."
An awkward silence reigned over the area, as the Engineers tried to think of something to say. "Well," The first said, "I think we should see if we could check the generators."
"Where would those be?" The second retorted. "We haven't found any local generators in the docks, they're probably located further inland or somewhere more developed in the city, and those would be a long way-"
"We have the Bio-Reactors."
The first two turned to look at the Third. "If it is a matter of power generators, we could always hook them up to the Bio-Reactors. Right now they are producing more energy then what is needed, so it is no problem."
"And how would we do that?" The first engineer asked.
"Watch." The second said. He pulled out a radio, and began talking into it. "EVA, can you route some of the excess power into some of the existing electrical infrastructure?"
Acknowledged. Please Hold...
The first engineer began speaking. "Yeah, I'm getting some current moving through here, it's working!"
Being in the middle of the day, they couldn't see any lights turning on. But with power, they should be able to see some tonight.
"We might need a transformer," the third noted. "We're not providing as much power as we should be with the differences in voltage-"
"Comrade." The second interrupted. "Relax. We did good work today."
"Attention Merchants!" A Nod Light Infantryman shouted, pointing his weapon at the safe house. "You are completely surrounded by Coalition military forces. Come out with your hands up!"
There were two Grizzly tanks in plain view, their cannons pointed at the building. A Brute was standing by the infantryman, glaring hard beneath his visor at the outpost. Watching the rear door was a Disc Thrower, readying his explosive discs for use. On a nearby rooftop was a Virus, looking down the sights of her dart rifle.
When there was no response, the Infantry continued talking. "We have two tanks right outside your door, ready to fire right at you! Your leader is Skidmark is dead, killed by the Cape right next to me! Surrender, and you will live!"
"FUCK YOU!" The cracked glass shattered, and metal gun barrels came bursting out, opening fire blindly at the Coalition forces.
"Engaging Anti-Authority Scum!" One of the Grizzly commanders called over the radio. With two booms, the Grizzlies fired, making the front walls of the Merchant safe house explode into plaster fragments and wood splinters. The body of one of the Merchants fell forward, caught by the tank round as it tore the structure.
At the same time, the Disc Thrower threw an explosive disc through the back window. After a moment, the windows in the back blew out, glass flying everywhere. The firing stopped.
Cautiously, the Brute and the Nod soldier advanced into the structure, looking around for any threats.
"They're dead." The infantryman said at last. "They're all dead." With that, he shouldered his rifle, and began walking down the road, followed by the rest of the strike force.
There they encountered a good number of Merchants, fifteen, sitting on the ground, guarded by two Conscripts who kept their rifles pointed at them and their fronts facing them at all times. When one saw the lack of any prisoners this time, he quizzically tilted his head.
The Nod infantryman answered. "Unlike the last two bases we hit, the Merchants here lacked the brain cells to surrender to us. We made sure to leave no survivors." He could have just spoke it into the comm, keeping it quiet from the Merchants, but he spoke it aloud. A few heads turned to him. "Back to the base, now."
"You heard him, criminal." A conscript spoke, motioning with his rifle to the closest Merchant. "Up."
They settled into a formation. The Nod Infantryman and Brute walked up in front, the two Conscripts each covering a side, with the tanks keeping the pace behind them. The Disc Thrower and Virus went off on their own, acting as surprise reinforcements in case they were attacked.
They walked in (blissful, for some,) silence, until one of the Merchants asked a question.
"Where are we going?"
"You will be taken back to our base." The Nod Infantryman began. "From there? Who knows." Seeing the Merchant's worried expression, he added, "If any of you attempt to run, we will shoot you."
There were no more questions on the way back.
Your NightHawk didn't have enough space to take everyone to the Meeting at once. The solution, of course, was to take two trips.
You had sent four soldiers first: a Virus and three Initiates. The Initiates hung around at the ground level, occasionally kicking a stone or making small adjustments to their backpacks. The Virus, meanwhile, had climbed on top of a nearby rooftop, lying prone against the roof. She had chosen the tallest building around, so unless someone got above her, no one would see her, especially from the ground.
A few minutes later, a little after "same time as yesterday," you spotted a PRT Armored Van enter the area. It came within 500 feet of your Initiates before stopping. The back doors opened, and you saw the people the PRT and Protectorate sent.
First was a squad of PRT troopers. Five walked out and stood opposite the Initiates, three armed with assault rifles, one with a sprayer-weapon and another with a grenade launcher. It was hard to tell their body language under their armor, but they weren't pointing their guns at your men, which you considered a good sign, if any.
At that moment, your NightHawk arrived with your "diplomatic team." You had decided to stay in the comforts of your base, protected by the walls of the Construction Yard, the walls surrounding the base, and a mind-control device plopped down in the center of it all.
However, you still needed to actually talk to them, and since you weren't going to have your Initiates do it, you needed someone else.
'Someone else,' being a GDI Light Infantryman, a Brotherhood of Nod Light Infantryman, and a Brute. They exited the NightHawk, and began at a brisk pace to the middle point between the Initiates and PRT Troopers. At that point you notice two Capes have left the Van.
Assault was there, walking to the meeting with confidence. The other Cape, however, wasn't Battery.
If you had to draw a comparison, you would say that the new Cape resembled Tanya, but it would only go as far as they were both female soldiers, and had pistols. The Cape wore a modified army uniform, more form-fitting then the loose fatigues normally worn. To disguise her identity, she had an American flag wrapped around her face like a scarf.
From your examination, you couldn't see if she had any powers or not. Assault looked like a man in spandex, but he turned out to be completely immune to most of your attacks. The only weapon you could see on her was a pistol, which she kept holstered at her side.
In spite of your worries, your Brute continued on without any fear. "Hi there!" He shouted directly in front of Assault, extending his hand. "I want to shake your hand!"
Everything seemed to stop for a second. Assault looked at the Brute quizzically, before smiling and putting out his hand. You were worried that the Brute was going to shake roughly, but Assault seemed to handle it pretty well. As the Brute walked over to the other Cape, Assault turned to the infantrymen.
"Hi there, an Infantryman!" He paused. "Or is that you?"
"It's me." The Infantryman responded.
"Good! I see you have a friend next to you," he spoke, gesturing to the Nod soldier. "I'm going to call him 'Another Infantryman,' does that work?"
"I shall-" The Nod soldier began.
"Great, that works!"
In the meantime, the Brute was shaking the unknown Cape's hand. "What's your name?" He asked.
The cape pulled away first, shaking her hand a bit. "Miss Militia."
"Nice to meet you Miss Militia!" The Brute excitedly said, "I think we shall be best of friends!"
"Come over here you Brute." The GDI Infantryman ordered. "Let's start this meeting."
The Brute shuffled over to the infantrymen, pouting. There was a brief silence from each side, as both waited for the other one to start talking.
Miss Militia spoke first. "I understand that you are Coalition, correct?"
"Yes." The Nod Infantryman spoke, "Mind telling us what you want?"
"I want to know what the Coalition wants."
The Nod Infantryman responded. "As of right now, the Coalition's only goal is to protect the people in the Docks and the Boat Graveyard. All of our actions up to this point have been to protect them."
"How does burning down the Trainyards help do that?" Miss Militia asked.
"We have said this before and I will say it again. We had determined that the Merchants were going to launch an all-out attack on our position, and as such, we decided that rather then try to weather the storm we would attack in the middle of the night and take them out by surprise."
Miss Militia nodded, before asking another question. "You arrived here the day after Leviathan hit, correct?"
"So I've been told."
"What were you doing here? People don't usually go to cities that were just hit by an Endbringer."
"Trying to figure out where we were. Part of the reason that we got into a battle with the Merchants in the first place was that we were originally going to ask them questions about where we were. Instead they opened fire on us and the Commander deemed them a hostile entity from that point on."
You couldn't see her expression underneath her scarf, but her eyes narrowed. "Would you have fought them otherwise?" she asked.
Your Nod Light Infantryman deliberately paused for a moment. "We likely still would have. We did not approve of the Merchant's actions towards the populace, and we would have used the threat of lethal force to get them to stop. Fighting was inevitable."
Miss Militia nodded. "I see."
Assault, who had been content to watch the proceedings, decided to speak. "I'm going to stop beating around the bush and tell you it plain and simple. As far as we know, you guys are trying to keep the peace in the area. You fought the Merchants because they shot first, and you're here because you really don't want to fight us."
"That works." The GDI infantryman spoke.
"The main issue here is that you used lethal force to do so and, I cannot stress this enough, burned down the Trainyards." Miss Militia spoke. "Your targets were Merchant gang members, but it doesn't change the fact that, legally, you murdered them, and committed arson. If these were normal circumstances, we would mark the Coalition as a criminal organization and deal with it as such."
"These must not be normal circumstances then." 'Another Infantryman' observed. Miss Militia nodded.
"You're correct. We have reinforcements out of city, but Brockton Bay is a mess right now, and we would rather not fight another group in place of the Merchants."
"So have you come asking for a truce, or an alliance?" The Nod infantryman asked.
"What's the difference?" Assault asked back.
"Truce implies that we will work together until there is such a time when it becomes convenient for one of us to back-stab the other. An alliance, meanwhile, suggests a more permanent arrangement."
"We have a deal," Miss Militia forcefully said. "If you agree to it, we won't prosecute you for the murders and arson. We might also be able to get them to be counted as self-defense."
"And in return?"
Miss Militia began to list off a number of rules. Normally, the Protectorate would apply more specific rules in regards to potential allies, she later explained, but as the Coalition was very clearly an organization, they would give you the full list to remember later on. The ones that stuck out to you the most were:
- Avoid using lethal force whenever possible. It is permissible, however, if against A or S class threats, or if your life and/or others is in mortal danger.
- Do not create any self-replicating organisms or machinery of any kind.
- Cloning may or may nor apply.
- Do not use any biological or nuclear weapons without the approval of the PRT, Protectorate, or similar government organization. Chemical weapons, as long as they do not qualify as WMDs, are allowed.
- Turn any master victims over to the PRT as soon as possible. Mastering a villain or individual and keeping them around for your use is not allowed.
When she finished, you told your Soldiers you had some questions for her.
"Our Commander was listening in," The GDI infantryman said "and he has some questions he wants to ask."
"Ask away." Assault said.
Question: (Text)
This isn't going to be a conventional voting segment. Here, you guys can ask questions at will and as you please, and I will write the answer as soon as I can get back to it. When the questions are all answered, I'll compile them into a single update and move on from there. However, for it to count as a question to the Protectorate, it must be in the format:
Question: (Text.) You can ask as many questions as you like, but if I feel the question has already been answered I will not answer it again.
Basically, this method would help it feel more like a conversation, and let you ask questions to your heart's content.
