Castles of Steel - Lesbians Good, Imperialism Bad

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Lieutenant Arisukawa Haruna

Balance Stats
❁ • ❁ Work / Life ❁ • ❁
❁ • ❁ Warrior / Princess ❁ • ❁
❁ • ❁ Radical / Respectable ❁ • ❁

Tactical Stats
Gunnery 0, Navigation +2, Command +2, Technology -4, Personal -2, Strategy +3

Stress: 3​


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PLEASE READ THE QUEST RULES BELOW

You collectively vote on the actions of Arisukawa Haruna, the first woman to serve openly in the Imperial Akitsukuni Navy.

This quest is set in a universe which is much like our own circa 1910, but with different politics, cultural norms, and ideas about gender and sexuality, as well as some unusual and advanced technology in places.

We are using this quest to explore themes like breaking the glass ceiling, divergent outlooks on gender and sexuality, colonialism and imperialism, and the place of royalty.

Content Warning
This quest goes some dark places.

There is violence, often explicit, often unfair, often against undeserving targets.

There are not always good options forward. The protagonist is not necessarily a good person.

There is implied content and discussion of sexual harassment and assault.

This is a world where people are often racist, sexist, queerphobic bigots. Sometimes, even the PC and the people they are friends with.

Voting Rules

We will tell you if write-in votes are allowed. If we do not say that write-ins are allowed, they are not. This is to prevent people from unrealistically hedging their bets.

You may proposal other options in a non-vote format, subject to approval, on non write-in votes.

We will tell you when a vote allows approved voting. If we don't say the answer is no, pick an option. We like making people commit.

Discussions makes the GM feel fuzzy.

Game Rules
When we ask you for a roll, roll 3d6. You are aiming to roll equal or under the value of your stat. If you succeed, Haruna gets through the situation with no real difficulties. If you roll above the target value, Haruna will still succeed, but this success will cost her something or add a complication.

Whenever Haruna loses something or faces hardship from a botched roll, she takes Stress. The more Stress Haruna has, the more the job and the circumstances she's in will get to her, and it'll be reflected in the narrative. Haruna must be kept under 10 Stress: if she reaches 10 Stress, she will suffer a breakdown and the results will not be great for her.

Haruna loses stress by taking time for herself, by making meaningful progress on her dreams, and by kissing tall, beautiful women.

Meta Rules
Author commentary is in italics so you know it's not story stuff.

Please don't complain about the system or the fact we have to roll dice. We've heard it before, we've heard it a thousand times across multiple quests. We're not going to change it, and it wears at our fucking souls.

Just going "oh noooo" or "Fish RNGesus Why!" is fun and fine. Complaining at length because you didn't get what you want less so.

If you have a question, tag both @open_sketchbook and @Artificial Girl. If you only tag one of us, you will be ignored. Seriously, we both write this quest.

And yes this is an alt-history type setting with openly gay and trans people, ahistoric medicine, and weird politics. Just... deal, please?

This quest employs a special system called Snippet Votes. Please read this post for more information.
 
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Crasian01 said:
Look man, there's a reason why actual proper press conferences are a thing these days. It's so shit like this doesn't happen. Freedom of speech is one thing, but actual security is quite another. It's not as if tightened security is mutually exclusive with freedom of speech -- it's not a binary condition, it's a spectrum. Healthy freedom of speech can exist with adequate security for members of the royal family.

And this incident was not adequate security for a member of the royal family.

[x] The reporters: They delayed our exit when tensions were high. They must be curtailed.
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I was kinda there with you but I can see the points that others have been making about how maybe restricting press freedom isn't the best idea right now with a fascist movement simmering in our borders.
 
Question: Can we at some point get stat gains from significant learning moments or achievements or study?
 
10ebbor10 said:
You also have to take into account what exactly blaming the captain means.

It means we're saying the captain was irresponsible because he allowed us to go on a photo op. Not exactly the kind of idea you want to promote if you intend to be a combat officer.
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I kinda saw it as a statement against using the military as a political prop but I suppose that's an interpretation we need to consider.
 
If we throw the army under the bus, our naval superiors will probably buy it. But that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[X] Yourself: For who else is there? You could have made your objection more stringent or insisted that the schedule be kept or found a way to avoid this becoming the bloodbath that it had.
Adhoc vote count started by Rat King on Nov 27, 2018 at 12:36 PM, finished with 28 posts and 10 votes.
  • [X] Yourself: For who else is there? You could have made your objection more stringent or insisted that the schedule be kept or found a way to avoid this becoming the bloodbath that it had.
    [x] Captain Ienaga: His acquiescence to a foolish request for political gain caused the riot.
    [X] The press: They delayed our exit when tensions were high. They must be curtailed.
    [x] The reporters: They delayed our exit when tensions were high. They must be curtailed.
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[X] The press: They delayed our exit when tensions were high. They must be curtailed.
Adhoc vote count started by Rockeye on Nov 27, 2018 at 1:57 PM, finished with 99 posts and 23 votes.
  • [x] Captain Ienaga: His acquiescence to a foolish request for political gain caused the riot.
    [X] Yourself: For who else is there? You could have made your objection more stringent or insisted that the schedule be kept or found a way to avoid this becoming the bloodbath that it had.
    [X] The press: They delayed our exit when tensions were high. They must be curtailed.
    [x] The reporters: They delayed our exit when tensions were high. They must be curtailed.
    [X] Yourself: For who else is there? You could have made your objection more stringent or insisted that the schedule be kept or found a way to avoid this becoming the bloodbath that it had.
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Artificial Girl said:
Nope you gotta pick one. Also no approval voting on this one.
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Great.

Also, blaming the protesters would be equivalent to supporting the racist authoritarian asshats like our dear cousin. Blaming the press would be supporting the authoritarians, although to a lesser extent, and if we can blame the Our Way reporter in such a way that we object to the reporter and/or their newspaper directly and well enough we may be able to limit the fall out to their media machine rather than reporters in general. If we blame the captain we kinda do what a lower ranking officer should never do, especially in a place like Imperial Japan, and that's risking offending a potentially powerful officer, and him being Army instead of Navy does not help. On the other hand, it also means we blame this on politics, which is always fun and risky but comes with the advantage of most people not liking politics that much and perhaps being able to see that there were better choices to be made there. Blaming ourselves means shooting our career in the foot but also lower the fall out and repercussions in and out of the military.


Well, seems like an easy choice to me.

[x] Captain Ienaga: His acquiescence to a foolish request for political gain caused the riot.
 
Teen Spirit said:
But the Press is also inflaming those Fascist movements. It was in part because of the fascist aligned paper that this incident happened.
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We're operating in the past, which means we get to set precedents for events we know already happened.

For example, we know that a war is coming, and that major press crackdowns will be part of this war (Shell crisis, the disastrous initiative). So, restricting the press now means that we provided support for those future crackdowns, which meant they were probably quite bad.
 
[X] Captain Ienaga: His acquiescence to a foolish request for political gain caused the riot.

It was an unforced error that he made that resulted in us sticking around for the riot. He could have easily picked up on our hint or read the crowd and denied the request. We weren't in command until things had already gone downhill. He doesn't deserve to be blamed for what happened, but this is a case where a lot of people made a lot individually small mistakes that resulted in a tragedy.

10ebbor10 said:
You also have to take into account what exactly blaming the captain means.

It means we're saying the captain was irresponsible because he allowed us to go on a photo op. Not exactly the kind of idea you want to promote if you intend to be a combat officer.
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Ienaga was the army captain in charge of our security, not our cousin.
 
I don't think it's fair of us to put blame on the Captain; he was doing his job, just like we were. If he bears responsibility, so do we.
 
[X] Yourself: For who else is there? You could have made your objection more stringent or insisted that the schedule be kept or found a way to avoid this becoming the bloodbath that it had.

The buck stops...well the buck stops somewhere higher but we're delaying it here!

Also, that was a really good update. Descriptions of stabbings, even undetailed ones, continue to make me squeamish.

edit: More serious note I guess, blaming the Captain would be very shitty. He's an army officer, not a servant, handling the press or the crowd's mood wasn't really his job.
 
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See my problem is I don't see this as our characters fault. Our character did our best considering the situation. Too soft would have caused some of our side to die. Too harsh would have gotten more people killed. To me it was either the Press or the Captain.
 
natruska said:
[X] Yourself: For who else is there? You could have made your objection more stringent or insisted that the schedule be kept or found a way to avoid this becoming the bloodbath that it had.

The buck stops...well the buck stops somewhere higher but we're delaying it here!

Also, that was a really good update. Descriptions of stabbings, even undetailed ones, continue to make me squeamish.
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I knew I was on the right track because I felt queasy writing it.

I made the mistake when I was writing PATROL of being like... I cannot write about military things without getting as close as I can to it. Which meant watching a lot of things on LiveLeak that to this day give me nightmares.

I will use this power for evil.
 
[X] Captain Ienaga: His acquiescence to a foolish request for political gain caused the riot. The civilians from Our Way made the foolish request, and indulging them was a mistake. The press is there to report, not to create their own news by maneuvering the Army and Navy into taking steps that will lead to a pointless riot and place Akitsukuni lives in danger. For Captain Ienaga, forgetting his own primacy and authority in this matter was a grave mistake, and one which has paid very dearly for.
 
Teen Spirit said:
See my problem is I don't see this as our characters fault. Our character did our best considering the situation. Too soft would have caused some of our side to die. Too harsh would have gotten more people killed. To me it was either the Press or the Captain.
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The press didn't intend to start a riot, just like we didn't intend to kill people.

I don't think we can blame them for this.
 
Rat King said:
I don't think it's fair of us to put blame on the Captain; he was doing his job, just like we were. If he bears responsibility, so do we.
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He was the senior officer present, in a culture where openly contradicting your commanding officer is Not Done. If he didn't want to be receptive to subtle hints that he was making a mistake, he shouldn't be trying to run a large organization full of Not!Japanese. :p

natruska said:
edit: More serious note I guess, blaming the Captain would be very shitty. He's an army officer, not a servant, handling the press or the crowd's mood wasn't really his job.
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Uh, I would argue that it totally was. He was the senior officer present; he was in charge, not us. Being aware enough of the crowd's mood to know that planting an imperial flag in the square in front of the palace would make them freak out is well within his responsibilities. So is telling the fascist newspaper reporters that no, they will NOT get their triumphal photo of imperial maximum triumph if the cost is risking the lives of Akitsukuni soldiers who might be killed in a riot.
 
Rat King said:
I don't think it's fair of us to put blame on the Captain; he was doing his job, just like we were. If he bears responsibility, so do we.
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No, his job was to keep us safe. He failed. We were under his command up until he was knocked out by that brick. He could have very easily taken the out we gave him and ignored that last reporter. Instead, he didn't read the crowd or think things through and got us caught in the middle of a riot.
 
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