Petals of Carbon Steel -- You're a Pilot, Not an Ace. Try your best.
- Thread starter Gazetteer
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
- Location
- in the trash
[X] You determine the enemy's angle of approach beforehand
It's back! Hooray!
[X] You determine the enemy's angle of approach beforehand
Forewarned is forearmed.
[X] You determine the enemy's angle of approach beforehand
Forewarned is forearmed.
[X] You determine the enemy's angle of approach beforehand
- Location
- Central Standard Time
[X] You determine the enemy's angle of approach beforehand
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[X] You determine the enemy's angle of approach beforehand
Hampsterpig
I write stuff.
- Location
- Somewhere in my own head
[X] You determine the enemy's angle of approach beforehand
- Location
- Australia
[x] The civilian population is kept calm and orderly, even in the event of emergency lockdowns or evacuations
Vote closed
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hey! This story is wonderful, it's always a treat to see an update no matter what length (and this was plenty). And dang, I'd forgotten just how difficult the choices you present are to grapple with, and how much that enhances the story.
Edit: woops, missed the vote
Edit: woops, missed the vote
Gazetteer
Alleged poisoner
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Technically, the engineered pilots came first -- the Carbon Steel is an attempt to make a version of that technology that didn't require extensive cybernetic modification of the pilot to work.
Thank you! Jay and Kana are a lot of fun to write together, and I'm really happy with the amount of chemistry they have. I'm always happy to hear that other people enjoy my characters.
I don't know how I missed that! At least there aren't any crimes against humanity involved in this project, even if it is an overengineered monstrosity.
When Kana started the story, she seemed very...safe. She had teammates, even friends, but she was comfortable as "Pirate". Clever, snarky, unreliable.
Now she's showing anxiety to Jay and just being glad that he's around when she's stressed. The journey to Princess God becoming emotionally vulnerable is very endearing, though she would probably throw up if anyone said so.
- Pronouns
- Reader
Finally getting around to reading Titanium. Mazlo's first screw up was hilarious. The part where North lets him have credit for saving the princess is in infuriating, Faize is highly amusing, and the single vote difference that meant J6 wasn't Norths Type was excruciating, even if I knew they didn't end up together already.
Either way, the whole thing has been brilliant so far, even if I like Kana more. I keep imagining a certain space pirate arriving to rescue and annoy the crew of the titanium whenever I reach a battle.
It's very clear that most of the voters were leaning on some sense of plot armor to keep Amani alive until the battles conclusion or for Gazettear to rap up the quest anyway even if Amani died. The justifications given are so detached, fatalist, and cavalier It's genuinely annoying.
The indifference to the deaths of named, familiar characters in preference to the approving the bad guys damaging a vague setting statistic of civilian lives without faces or representation, with far more lives to be lost anyways in the event a poor tactical choice cost them the battle to, is an utterly foreign concept to me, as most of what I read, I read out of interest in specific characters.
Either way, the whole thing has been brilliant so far, even if I like Kana more. I keep imagining a certain space pirate arriving to rescue and annoy the crew of the titanium whenever I reach a battle.
Now this is a vote that utterly confounds me. Risk the quest and battle by placing the ship the main character is on to be damaged over inconsequential civilian domes that would be raised by ship fire in the aftermath of a Usurper victory anyway, some of the votes for it simply because the rose taking damage in every battle amused them.
It's very clear that most of the voters were leaning on some sense of plot armor to keep Amani alive until the battles conclusion or for Gazettear to rap up the quest anyway even if Amani died. The justifications given are so detached, fatalist, and cavalier It's genuinely annoying.
The indifference to the deaths of named, familiar characters in preference to the approving the bad guys damaging a vague setting statistic of civilian lives without faces or representation, with far more lives to be lost anyways in the event a poor tactical choice cost them the battle to, is an utterly foreign concept to me, as most of what I read, I read out of interest in specific characters.
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Gazetteer
Alleged poisoner
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Don't worry, you would absolutely have gotten a montage of characters on or around Titan who were either known to you or related to someone who was -- Mazlo, Anja, and Andre had their whole families there, just that you knew of. And you can absolutely bet you would have had to later read a scene in the epilogue in which Amani and Greyson and a few other shipmates are the only ones who show up for a belated service Anja had, for Ito, her parents, every one of her siblings, and even her fucking dirtbag boyfriend.
If you're not feeling the bittersweet sting of loss even in the face of victory, I am doing a poor job of writing this shit.
- Pronouns
- Reader
Lol. Thats fairly obvious, I've read quite a number of your quests at this point, but it's heartache I can live with and accept as opposed to outright getting the main character killed or killing a character thats had numerous chapters to endear themselves to me. At the end of the day, prior to the follow up update to the vote, there was no reason to believe the Rose taking damage couldn't result in the battle turning and the same characters we'd presumably be saving with this vote being blasted into irradiated ash by a victorious Divine navy.
"inconsequential civilian domes"
The Titanium Rose exists to be placed between "inconsequential civilian domes" and a genocidal enemy. If Amani died doing her duty, that would be a perfectly acceptable outcome. Gazetteer is definitely the kind of author who kills beloved characters, and Amani would have died in a manner that fit the narrative.
It's not "indifference". This is a story where named, familiar characters die. That's how it works. Within that setting, we have the choice to choose who to sacrifice, and we made the same choice that the main character would. Amani would absolutely trade her life to protect millions of innocent people, even if she doesn't know their names or faces.
Our choices killed Jaycee, who had quite a few chapters to endear herself to readers. Different choices might have killed Gloriana or Milo or Amani. If you don't want to read about the deaths of significant characters, this is not the author for you.
There was no reason to believe that the Rose taking damage would change the outcome of the battle. The Rose was one small and lightly armed vessel in a battle that involves hundreds of ships and mecha. Her destruction did not prevent the Imperial Navy from winning.
The result of our decision was that the Rose died and hundreds of thousands or millions of civilians lived. I think this was the right decision, and I will vote for options like it in the future. Even in a fairly dark and awful future like this- especially in that future- there is honor in sacrifice, and Jaycee and the Rose died doing the right thing.
- Pronouns
- Reader
Yes, characters do die in this quest. I accept that. It's preference for picking the civilians, in a way that before hindsight made it a loss the loyalists could take and still defeat the Divine, was just as likely to tip the battle in the divine navies favor and result in the civilians being killed off anyway, that makes it make no sense to me. That and the relative cheerful or defeatist way some of the voter supported it.
The only meaningful justification for the military's existence is a "preference for picking the civilians". The Imperial Navy is a corrupt institution that exists to uphold a seriously immoral system, but the people who serve in that Navy are actually willing to die to protect their homes and families. If you had to ask Captain Andre whether she would give her life to preserve her husband, her friends, and her third-grade teacher, the answer would absolutely be Yes.
In a pitched battle between two navies, the survival or destruction of a single corvette is a rounding error. There was no logical way that the destruction of the Titanium Rose would bring about the defeat of the Imperial Navy, and in fact it didn't.
cB557
voOOP
One less frigate is a risk, sure, but it's not a terribly large one. The way I see it, you can't consider everything else secondary to achieving victory, because the victory itself isn't the point. That was, to me, a fight to keep the people of Titan safe. if we weren't willing to take such a small risk to do that, then I guess we're just fighting to keep power, and if we're not willing to protect our people then we don't deserve that power.
I assume you'd counter that if we lost and the Divine Navy took Titan then far, far more people would die, and that is true, but the increase in the likelihood of that from a single frigate is so minor that I think that moral calculus only works out if you're greatly valuing achieving victory itself over the lives saved. Remember that saving the Rose also wouldn't guarantee victory, or even have made it much more likely.
I assume you'd counter that if we lost and the Divine Navy took Titan then far, far more people would die, and that is true, but the increase in the likelihood of that from a single frigate is so minor that I think that moral calculus only works out if you're greatly valuing achieving victory itself over the lives saved. Remember that saving the Rose also wouldn't guarantee victory, or even have made it much more likely.
- Pronouns
- Reader
@dptullos @cB557 ignoring the numerous times through out the quest where the Rose's contributions made a serious difference in the outcome of various battles, and the entirely hindsight nature of your assurance of the Rose being inconsequential to the battles outcome, at no point during the vote did anyone make those arguments.
There was talk of not wanting to vote for civilians out of a desire to avoid there own culpability, and talk of how the pilots where more essential than the rose at this point because of the already existing numerical disadvantage, but the main thrust of the group supporting sacrificing the Rose was that it was an entertaining narrative twist or preferable to the pilots. The characters personal feelings were never brought into posts to argue against sacrificing the civilians, and the Rose was never dismissed as inconsequential to the battle outcome. One voter outright said that they just didn't want to vote for civilians and picked it "Because this is the end game and our protagonist is not needed for the epilogue."
You can argue "it's what the character would want" all you like but that was never of great concern of the majority of the votes support base.
There was talk of not wanting to vote for civilians out of a desire to avoid there own culpability, and talk of how the pilots where more essential than the rose at this point because of the already existing numerical disadvantage, but the main thrust of the group supporting sacrificing the Rose was that it was an entertaining narrative twist or preferable to the pilots. The characters personal feelings were never brought into posts to argue against sacrificing the civilians, and the Rose was never dismissed as inconsequential to the battle outcome. One voter outright said that they just didn't want to vote for civilians and picked it "Because this is the end game and our protagonist is not needed for the epilogue."
You can argue "it's what the character would want" all you like but that was never of great concern of the majority of the votes support base.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Sorry, you were saying something about 'justifications [that] are so detached, fatalist, and cavalier It's genuinely annoying.'?