Castles of Steel - Lesbians Good, Imperialism Bad

Voting is open
Reader mode
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​


Click here for the winter version!

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.
 
Last edited:
noliar said:
That wasn't a massacre. That was a fight through a murderously* angry crowd that was not backing off. A fight we won because Haruna acted correctly. An after action report that apologises for what we did right would show a complete lack of understanding of what the job entails.

Further, the report is an internal document for our superiors not a press release to the Joseon public. That is the job of an entirely different branch of government and while they might mention "sadness for the loss of life" they certainly won't claim fault either, even if we write it in our report.

*Seriously, brick to the head is a potentially lethal attack.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Eh, more than 60 people died, many directly killed by soldiers. Compare the Boston massacre, which killed 5.
 
veteranMortal said:
A group of soldiers used bayonets to cut through a crowd of broadly unarmed and panicked civilians. That's a massacre.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Not this again. The Captain almost died. A lot of soldiers would have died if they held back any more than they did:
Trying to remain nonlethal, the formation breaks down. Most of you make it to the trucks, but some men die, and you are injured. Overall casualties are lower.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Haruna would also get hurt. Guess what dear cousin would have done if some joseon plebs had spilled Imperial Blood?
 
Last edited:
TotallyNotEvil said:
That's the point: we would be acknowledging it.

They only have to lift a finger and say "see, told you this would never work".
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I don't think it's that simple - even if we accept blame the government still has to contend with punishing us for... what? Doing exactly what they would have wanted us to do? The policy of the Empire doesn't really leave a lot of room for interpretation with regards to how rioters ought to be treated, if they try and characterize this as a bad thing they'll be indirectly criticizing a lot of their own actions as well.
 
Yes, but won't they do that anyway if their perception is instead that we're backstabbing a fellow officer?

For that matter, isn't another likely consequence of pointing the finger at Captain Ienaga that we reinforce the IRL Japan-style active conflict between the Army and Navy, since it would be a Navy officer blaming an Army officer for something that mostly happened while he was unconscious?

Just saying, there's pretty substantial costs to the "blame Ienaga" option too.
 
The Sandman said:
Yes, but won't they do that anyway if their perception is instead that we're backstabbing a fellow officer?

For that matter, isn't another likely consequence of pointing the finger at Captain Ienaga that we reinforce the IRL Japan-style active conflict between the Army and Navy, since it would be a Navy officer blaming an Army officer for something that mostly happened while he was unconscious?

Just saying, there's pretty substantial costs to the "blame Ienaga" option too.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It might not end up being a personal cost (at least not immediately; we might also end up with a reputation as that brat who will throw you under the bus to save her own skin), but I think there will be a cost.
 
Shebe Zuu said:
I don't think it's that simple - even if we accept blame the government still has to contend with punishing us for... what?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I don't expect punishment, for exactly your reasoning. I do expect them to cherry pick the worst and most self-critical parts of the report afterwards whenever the question of promotion, or additional women in the Navy, comes up again. Consistency is not a virtue of misogynists.

The Sandman said:
For that matter, isn't another likely consequence of pointing the finger at Captain Ienaga that we reinforce the IRL Japan-style active conflict between the Army and Navy, since it would be a Navy officer blaming an Army officer for something that mostly happened while he was unconscious?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I'm kinda counting on this? Purity Club is heavily naval, so giving the army another reason to be against the protofascists seems useful. Ideally by getting the captain to take point for any interactions between branches.
 
Last edited:
TotallyNotEvil said:
They did the bare minimum necessary harm to get away alive.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The update explicitedly tells us this is not the case.

Artificial Girl said:
That's when things started getting ugly. One soldier, trying to ward off people with his rifle butt, was knocked over by staggering protestors, falling in a tangle of bodies. His comrades turned, clearing the space around him with sweeps of their rifles so that he could clamber back to his feet. People in the crowd tried to stumble back and away from the sharp tips of the bayonets, but there wasn't room for all of them to retreat.

Once the first blood was drawn, once the screaming started, order broke down almost completely. To the men on either side of the incident, it looked like their formation had been breached, that a brawl had broken out. You tried to call a halt, but nobody could hear you. A cobblestone struck a soldier, and the one next to him thrust his rifle forward to cover the gap, catching a man through the gut with his blade. His comrades reversed their weapons as well, convinced the fighting had turned deadly, and simply pressed into the crowd blades-first. The screaming got louder as people tried to scramble away and others fell to the ground to be trampled in the panic.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The stabbing started because someone stumbled, and soldiers on either side interpreted it as an attack, and everything escalated from there.

Edit : You're relying heavily on the 2 vote options we got, which causes you to interpret an OOC binary choice as an in universe dilemma. OOC, we rolled a partial failure. That failure could manifest itself in 2 ways.

But that doesn't mean the same inevitability existed in character. We could have succeeded the roll, and had no casualties, we could have failed the roll and had lots.

Think of this vote as the similar to character crestion. The other options don't exist elsewhere in the military, they're just gone, vanished into the annals of alternate history. Same for the soldier killing here. When we didn't pick that option it didn't mean our soldiers valiantly fought in self defense, it meant the killers were never there, and were innocent civilians instead.
 
Last edited:
Shebe Zuu said:
I don't think it's that simple - even if we accept blame the government still has to contend with punishing us for... what? Doing exactly what they would have wanted us to do? The policy of the Empire doesn't really leave a lot of room for interpretation with regards to how rioters ought to be treated, if they try and characterize this as a bad thing they'll be indirectly criticizing a lot of their own actions as well.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You are fundamentally under a misconception. The problem isn't how we dealt with the riot. We will likely be lauded for that.

The problem is, "who fucked up so bad that the Princess had to cut her way out of a frenzied mob?".

And that's plain and simple not us. That's the point we've been trying to convey.

The Sandman said:
Yes, but won't they do that anyway if their perception is instead that we're backstabbing a fellow officer?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Navy will love that we are blaming the Army.

And the Captain himself will likely assume blame. The army prides itself in protecting the Imperial Family, that we had to rescue him is likely the second worst case scenario, the worst being one where he lives and we die. This is probably the most shameful one, tho.
The Sandman said:
Just saying, there's pretty substantial costs to the "blame Ienaga" option too.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
None of the options are great, but he was our superior officer, he was local to the place and couldn't figure out a riled up crowd wouldn't like a provocative photo.

It's on him for providing poor security and not managing the crowd.
 
Last edited:
10ebbor10 said:
The update explicitedly tells us this is not the case.



The stabbing started because someone stumbled, and soldiers on either side interpreted it as an attack, and everything escalated from there.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Precisely. They did the minimum they could.

When cobblestones are flying and a huge mob is pressing in on all sides on people armed with nothing but shirts and spears, things tend to get nasty.

Still doesn't change the fact we acted well.
 
Last edited:
TotallyNotEvil said:
Precisely. They did the minimum they could.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Stabbing people because of a communication error is not minimum justified force. It's just a communication error.

TotallyNotEvil said:
hen cobblestones are flying and a huge mob is pressing in on all sides on people armed with nothing but shirts and spears, things tend to get nasty
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

As can be read clearly in the update, the mob wasn't pressing in, it was struggling to get away and got stuck between us and the trucks.
 
10ebbor10 said:
Stabbing people because of a communication error is not minimum justified force. It's just a communication error.



As can be read clearly in the update, the mob wasn't pressing in, it was struggling to get away and got stuck between us and the trucks.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Stuck between us and the rest of the crowd, more like, since the people at the back couldn't really see/understand what was going on at the front and were either moving forward or just not making room for the people in front trying to back up.
 
10ebbor10 said:
The update explicitedly tells us this is not the case.



The stabbing started because someone stumbled, and soldiers on either side interpreted it as an attack, and everything escalated from there.

Edit : You're relying heavily on the 2 vote options we got, which causes you to interpret an OOC binary choice as an in universe dilemma. OOC, we rolled a partial failure. That failure could manifest itself in 2 ways.

But that doesn't mean the same inevitability existed in character. We could have succeeded the roll, and had no casualties, we could have failed the roll and had lots.

Think of this vote as the similar to character crestion. The other options don't exist elsewhere in the military, they're just gone, vanished into the annals of alternate history. Same for the soldier killing here. When we didn't pick that option it didn't mean our soldiers valiantly fought in self defense, it meant the killers were never there, and were innocent civilians instead.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

A full success would have meant getting back to the vehicles with minimal injuries all around (minus poor Captain Ienaga, of course). A failure would have meant that you lost control of the situation and the soldiers/sailors started shooting anyway. A partial success? Well... You saw how that played out. Though I guess it's not really important now. As you said, that moment is gone and what has happened has happened, but it wasn't the inevitable result.
 
TotallyNotEvil said:
Still doesn't change the fact we acted well.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

That's the crux of the problem though, isn't it? We represent an aggressive, territorially expansionist power that just killed protesters. 'best option' =/= 'acted well'. We didn't have any choices that left us without blood on our hands. That means we chose a bad action, even if it was the best available.

I'm a big fan of that line from Bucky Barnes where Capt America is trying to make him feel less guilty over murdering while mind controlled: "Yeah. I still did it, though."
 
veteranMortal said:
A group of soldiers used bayonets to cut through a crowd of broadly unarmed and panicked civilians. That's a massacre.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
By similar logic, if the soldiers keep standing there and the... broadly unarmed... crowd keeps throwing rocks at them until they're all stoned to death, that would also be a massacre, yes?

Or would that not be a massacre?

10ebbor10 said:
Eh, more than 60 people died, many directly killed by soldiers. Compare the Boston massacre, which killed 5.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
How did we go from "somewhere north of 30" to "more than 60 people died?"

Also, speaking as an American, the Boston Massacre was heavily publicized as a deliberate killing of non-threatening people when the soldiers were, in fact, being attacked. I'm not sure it SHOULD be called a 'massacre.' A massacre implies one-sided killing intent and overwhelmingly superior armament. Honestly, I'd call it a fight between the British soldiers and the American rioters, with a lot of unarmed Americans caught in the middle.

If you want a real example of what a 'massacre' looks like when carried out by soldiers with bolt-action rifles against a non-threatening crowd, check Bloody Sunday in 1905 Russia. Or the Amritsar Massacre. If we had opened fire with the intent of a causing that kind of event, the kind of thing that is unambiguously a massacre where one side has guns and killing intent and the other doesn't... We wouldn't have killed that many people, in all likelihood, but that's only because in our case the crowd had somewhere to run.

10ebbor10 said:
Alternative reality.

Also, some =/= a lot
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We were literally, explicitly told, by the QM, in so many words, that if our soldiers used only nonlethal force, they would die. We were not promised that 'few' of the soldiers would die, only that 'most' of the detachment would make it out alive.

The only sense in which it's alternative reality is that we chose not to MAKE it a reality.

10ebbor10 said:
The update explicitedly tells us this is not the case.

The stabbing started because someone stumbled, and soldiers on either side interpreted it as an attack, and everything escalated from there.

Edit : You're relying heavily on the 2 vote options we got, which causes you to interpret an OOC binary choice as an in universe dilemma. OOC, we rolled a partial failure. That failure could manifest itself in 2 ways.

But that doesn't mean the same inevitability existed in character. We could have succeeded the roll, and had no casualties, we could have failed the roll and had lots.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The outcome in which we succeeded at the roll is not the world in which Haruna now lives, and is not the world in which Haruna has to choose whether or not to blame herself for what happened.

Hypothetically, we could have rolled a success. Realistically, the best that could have meant is "the crowd retreats from the bayonets, all the men make it to the trucks, and no protestors stumble onto the bayonets."

In which case we would have done exactly the same thing we did anyway, it's just that it would have worked better.

Honestly I'm skeptical of the idea that no one would have died even if we HAD rolled a success. If nothing else, people could easily still have gotten trampled by the crowd itself without our direct intervention.

Artificial Girl said:
A full success would have meant getting back to the vehicles with minimal injuries all around (minus poor Captain Ienaga, of course).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Would people in the crowd have gotten trampled backing away from us?
 
[x] Captain Ienaga: His acquiescence to a foolish request for political gain caused the riot.

Ugh. Out of the shit choices I think this is the least worst. Prefer blaming the press, but since the vote is leaning against that, might as well.

Just hope that this won't be Haruna completely offloading any and all blame from herself and everything else onto the captain. I'd really like this to be a self-reflective learning moment for her and have her think about what really lead up to the events.

Blaming herself just means shoveling political opponents in the navy buckets of ammo. As unfortunate as the situation is.
 
Artificial Girl said:
The outcome in which we succeeded at the roll is not the world in which Haruna now lives, and is not the world in which Haruna has to choose whether or not to blame herself for what happened.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
In large part, I was trying to get a sense for what the likely outcome spreads are for success/partial/failure in future situations, as anything else.

Some curiosity as to how you would have interpreted a success on the die roll seems reasonable, though if you're choosing to play with your cards so tight to your chest as to decline to answer, I won't dispute the matter further.
 
Simon_Jester said:
In large part, I was trying to get a sense for what the likely outcome spreads are for success/partial/failure in future situations, as anything else.

Some curiosity as to how you would have interpreted a success on the die roll seems reasonable, though if you're choosing to play with your cards so tight to your chest as to decline to answer, I won't dispute the matter further.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It's highly situational for each roll.
 
[x] Captain Ienaga: His acquiescence to a foolish request for political gain caused the riot.
 
Inserted tally
Adhoc vote count started by TotallyNotEvil on Nov 27, 2018 at 7:40 PM, finished with 235 posts and 44 votes.
Click to expand...
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Voting is open
Back
Top