Meanwhile, at the UN:

(Lei Mei POV)

You took a breath and focused on not only the words in your head and in front of you. But of the many numerous faces that were among this place. This hallowed place of diplomacy, of compromise. You would also call it a farce, but the Soviets had already done that back in the 50s when they left and almost immediately helped start a war in Korea. Good times, and you almost wished you were born back in the 30s to fight for whoever paid you the most. Probably the Russians, but you did not rule out the Americans.

However, despite all that, you were happy. You were happy, that in a moment, some people would listen. And others would denounce you. But you had a captive audience, the entire world.

Though you also knew for a fact that after your homeland had made a mockery of the United States Navy, despite the literal act of God that occurred on that aircraft carrier. You knew it scared the shit out of everyone, but it also prevented everyone from really caring about your little escapades in Africa. After all, with that shit happening, you wouldn't be surprised that they would think your homeland was hiding giant robots or some evil laser shit.

Eh, you didn't really pay attention, maybe they were just drunk when they made up their statement.

"Good morning everyone, it is an honor to be invited to speak to you today." You decided to speak English because at the moment, you were speaking to the West, and your Russian was terrible. "I'm sure most of you have heard of my ambitions for my nation, so I will not waste your time repeating myself."

There was silence, as everyone seemed to look at you, who stood before them. A Crazy woman who was deciding to play dictator. But at least you knew you weren't insane, and you were going to prove it. And also laugh in their face when they argue if you were lying or not. "Instead I will tell you what we have done since then. We have fed and housed our people, organized our mercenary corps into companies, and set up light industry so that we have something to offer our neighbors even in times of peace."

There was murmuring, before you rolled your eyes, and smiled as you face the delegations from Africa, your new compatriots, who may soon join you in this wonderful game of politics, and life. "This, sadly, is not such a time. Our neighbors have both ended up in three-way civil wars, and we have taken advantage of our relative stability to set up refugee camps for civilians displaced by the conflict."

You saw the Egyptian and Sudanese delegations stare bullets at you, and you shrugged them off like they were actually bullets from their nations, ineffective and poorly used. "If you doubt my claims feel free to send your people by for a tour. In fact, even if you do trust me we'd like to welcome a delegation to have a look around. I'll be the first to admit that refugee camps are not a specialty of mine, and your experience in such matters could stand to improve our operation for the people we're trying to help."

That declaration made the murmuring increase, as the Delegations from many neutral nations, and your new friend in Costa Rica, nod approvingly. The Irish delegation was very surprised that your statement was made.

But many of the Eastern nations, the Soviets, in particular, were unhappy with such proclamations, especially when it came from an upjumped mercenary.

Mostly because they had backed the wrong horse when trying to take over the region. "Still, I can't imagine we've done such a bad job that it warranted the attack on our Egyptian camp from the Egyptian government. Your people are there freely and are free to rejoin Egyptian society at any time they wish. I applaud the Sudanese government for not making the same mistake, despite sharing Egypt's misplaced misgivings. It is unfortunate that we were forced to engage in hostilities while trying to keep the peace, but we do not fuck around when it comes to the lives of our people, or those under our care."

If that man was armed, you were sure the Egyptian Delegate would have tried to shoot you. But again, you were sure he would miss because if their army was anything to go by, he would not know how to use his firearm properly. And attack an unarmed woman.

"And what of your nation's illegal actions within the State of Zimbabwe?" The General Secretary asked, interrupting you.

You frowned. "As to the matter of Rhodesia, I was in a difficult position. Both sides sought to create racist tiered societies, and my employers wanted me dead. Thankfully I was able to depose both dictators, and Zimbabwe-Rhodesia has elected Mr. Muzorewa as its first president. The Elections which might I add had been overseen by neutral overseers from Botswana and Kenya. They considered the elections, despite the chaos, to be legitimate."

"I doubt I will always have the freedom to follow my conscience in the middle of a warzone, but I will always try. It seems that many of the missions you engage in here have similar aims, and we would be pleased to work with the UN under such circumstances. For our fee of course, for we are not soldiers of the State, but free men who have found a home."

You paused and finally found the flourish to finish. "Of course, we are also available to hear the pleas of individual nations. As for my nation, I simply ask that you keep watching, as we demonstrate we are just as I have claimed."

"We are a nation outside of Heaven. That means that despite our pettiness, and our wish for-profit and coin, we are not wishing to destroy nations, or invade them, not without ever possible avenue taken to prevent it."

You ended with a smile. "Thank you all for your time. We're open for business."

An:

Sometimes we just need more metal gear.


Nothing more nothing less.

@HeroCooky I left off the the rolls and did some edits, to try and make this more canon.

Yes I'm a fan of metal gear, can you not tell?

A Rudderless Ship: The Sequel in Name Only

Shi Shanyuan could only look at the results in dismay. Nothing was going right! The flipper had jammed again in rotation! This was a disaster. It was looking more and more like the project would end in a failure

Of course, the complications had started after the carrier incident. It hurt to remember the utter unseen failure that had started this whole situation. A mere day after the Iwo Jima had beached itself, as part of the standard procedure, security agents had audited all the programs to determine security leaks. Several days of interviews had seemed to determine that there were not actual leakers, which was no surprise.

However, the outside investigation had produced quite different results. While the mecha program seemed like it was still secure, his own department investigating naval propulsion had a rather bad information leak. While they didn't even have a working craft, and were just testing a stationary propulsion system in a hidden alcove, their testing was apparently much louder than anticipated.

He remembered reading through the reports. At first, the security agents had discovered that the local fisherman knew about the testing times. It wasn't even through something like active spying of idiotic teenagers or the like. Instead, they had noted the increased turbulence in the local waters, and that fish often dispersed at a similar time. Every time they had been testing, the farmers had noticed because they were just causing that much turbulence in the local waters. While the farmers didn't know anything about the actual tests, it was mortifying enough that they had identified 'cursed times' for fishing.

However, it was even worse than that. Several investigations had also been launched into how no one had noticed a bloody ship beaching itself on the island. They did have a few underwater sonar systems which should've caught the fact that the carrier was close enough to be beached on the island. However, the one station that should've been watching in that direction had been having frequent problems. But further investigation showed that these problems only appeared during the testing times for the propulsion system. Those first tests had somehow ruined the sonar warning system, which was supposed to be used to warn the country about incoming raids or invasions.

It was a bloody nightmare. They were supposed to be doing initial tests into flipper system system for propulsion, and were still doing miniaturized tests. Instead, they had apparently been doing the loudest tests in the history of humanity (outside of a nuclear explosion), producing more turbulent interference in local waters than most large ships. It was by luck that no one in foreign countries had discovered anything.

He looked again at their new design. He hadn't realized just how effective it would be when he had first been told about it. Initially, after the results of the audit, A lot of math had gone into making the whole system have far less impact in the local environment. After coming up with several theories, they had finally produced a modeled for propulsion that used a wave interference model to reduce the total resulting wave turbulence from the propulsion system to almost nothing through the use of wave superposition. Apparently, wave interference from vibration of the flipper caused significant turbulence and had to be considered in the turbulence models when going above certain speeds. Of course, to implement this solution, they just had to have a flipper that could rotate and flip in a 360 degree arc. He almost hadn't believed it when Zheng Qing had given him the necessary specifications. He remembered yelling at Zheng at how they were reinventing the propeller, but Zheng had carefully walked him through how the whole system was infinitely more complex than a simple propeller. Eventually, he had understood, and gotten his team to work. Now, they had almost built something that worked.

Unfortunately, there were still problems. In exchange for reducing turbulence far away from the craft, his team had greatly increased the amount of turbulence experienced directly around the propulsion device. This had caused problems with the flipper joint, and now, the device kept jamming after going beyond 10 knots. The oversized system they had in the testing facility was supposedly capable of more than 8 times the speed (the technicians guaranteed him that the speedometer was accurate, and had given him a long, boring conversation about why Guangchou speedometers were more accurate than Chinese ones), and the flipper was supposed to be amazingly efficient in transforming that power into forward propulsion but it would all be useless if that power could not be leveraged.

He could only hope the next flipper design they were testing would work. They had tested every type of pin, prismatic and knuckle joint setup they could think up, but the interaction with the rotational motor/joint setup (for the flipper Orientation angle) had caused jamming problems. The only solution they hadn't tested yet was the ball joint used on conjunction with a proper steering knuckle. Jerry Rigging the whole system to work properly with the flipper mechanics had been a nightmare, and the increased weight of the more complex system had given him no confidence.

Of course, they had brought their only working prototype for this system to the testing center. He had no hopes for this system, but after it was attached to the anchor point in the testing center properly, he began the test. He watched as the speedometer slowly climbed past 5 knots. He could already see the shaking as the machine started to be effected by turbulence. Then the machine slowly climbed past 10 knots in propulsive power, and he was slightly shocked at the lack of problems. He could clearly see the whole system shaking far more than all the other prototypes they had tested, but it hadn't jammed.

As he looked closer, he realized that the flipper orientation was actually being effected by the local Turbulence, being slightly off (by a few arcminutes) which he realized would probably be a problem at higher speeds. Still, he wondered if this tolerance, which hadn't really been possible in the other models they had tested, was the reason this design was still working. It was an idea he might want to test later. Still, he realized this would probably be a problem at higher speeds, as the much greater turbulence at higher speeds would only lead to the flipper being effected by said turbulence more.


He looked back at the speedometer, surprised by the fact that the flipper was now producing enough power to supposedly go at 40 knots. He watched in surprised as the speedometer slowly climbed up to, and past 70 knots, with the flipper only having an approximate three degrees of deviance in the proper orientation at any given time. He was amazed at just how quickly the whole assembly was rotating and flipping, and he could tell it all looked like a blur to some of the younger scientists. Yet, it was working, and he would-

He heard a huge snap, as the whole system enacted safety protocols and quickly slowed to a standstill. Of course it had broken! None of the designs could work properly, could they? He stepped up to examine the test model, only to find everything seeming to be in order. There were no cracks in the ball joint, the flippers were still whole, and the clunky steering knuckle still seemed to be in one piece. What the hell had broken?!

It was an hour later when technician Takahashi finally found the problem. Apparently the engine had broken. The whole engine block looked like someone had taken a sledge hammer to it. Worse, he had no idea if it was a problem with the flipper system in general, with this specific implementation, and how it interacted with the drive train, or if the engine they had imported from China was just faulty. He was dreading the sleepless nights he would be having while he tried to fix this new issue.

Issue after issue! At this rate, they wouldn't even be able to test the abilities for this rotational rudder system to turn without using a rudder before the millennium ended. Nothing was ever going right!

---

6 months Later

Nothing was going right! They were still stuck on the transmission issue. and the newest tests were showing problems with wear and tear on the ball joint and-

Great, Takahashi was approaching gim too. This could only mean there was something else going wrong.

As Takahashi entered, he called, "So Technician, what else has gone wrong with the flipper design today"

"N-N-Nothing, sir. T-That wasn't what"

"And then? Why are you here Takahashi?"

"Well, I was working with my friend-"

"You mean the one who was promoted a couple weeks ago? Was this the project you two were working in your off hours"

"Yeah, they had this really smart idea to simplify everything and-"

"Takahashi. I am a senior engineer. I have lots of experience with grifters. I know all the tricks. You will not be able to sell a grift on me. So don't try-"

"Sir! Its not that! I just think the current project is very over-designed. It has so many moving parts and failure points and"

"I hope you remember a lot of very smart people have worked on the design. I know your partner did good work, but what could the two of you have possibly come up with?"

"Two flippers, sir"

"What?"

"Two flippers sir. It should remove the turbulence problems we were seeing with the single massive flipper we are using currently, without needing the weak ball joint"

"What is the problem with the size of the current flipper?"

"Sir, it is the size of a whale flipper"

"..."

"Moreover, my friend pointed out that the design would be much simpler to test. I have already designed a human-powered model, and observed that it 80% matches the turbulence reduction of our current design. Paired with the fact that it is much easier and cheaper to build, I think it might-"

"We spent 2 years barely getting a design off the ground, and two upstarts somehow had a better idea? I somehow find it hard to believe that the best experts our country had were- What is up with that face, Technician!"

"Well my friend had some words about those experts and..."

"And?"

"Well, my friend called them 'upjumped old men who wanted to outdo the mech designers in complexity, but kept ruining the project by trying to leave their mark with one more stupidly complex design or innovation that didn't work. We keep getting handed shit and expected to make a working design out of it; of course we would fail"

....

"Takahashi, please don't tell me that I've been wasting the last 2 years of my life on a worthless boondoggle..."

...

...

Nothing ever went right for Shi, did it.

---

AN: so yeah, here is an omake for after the carrier incident, assuming we survive. and no, I did not plan on writing two omakes with the same names, but as soon as I saw @CyberEnby's idea for sub propulsion, I knew I could write something quick for it. And then I realized I had just used the best name for it. So I reused the name... for a sequel... that has nothing to do with the original.


Also, I know all the engineering here is utterly ridiculous. All the advanced tech in this quest is ridiculous (and fun), and I wanted to lean into that for this omake about design troubles.

And yeah, please let me know anything I can improve for this omake.

Edit: minor edits to improve flow, and make certain parts funnier, hopefully

Edit: Added an funny epilogue for @CyberEnby's simple solution, suggested below.