Attempting to Fulfil The Plan: ISOT Edition

Patricia Thurman groaned, her face in her hands as she looked at the yellow papers full of numbers and badly spelt requisition orders splayed across her desk. Christ, building tunnels into the side of a mountain shouldn't be this god damn hard! She shuddered as she remembered the sound of rumbles and screams because some jackass didn't nail in a log right. At least it didn't actually collapse. Why'd she even take this job? She was just a fucking manager at Walmart before all this shit went down, but one mention that she missed Minecraft and loved listening to her uncle's stories about coal mining in the Appalachians and she gets sat in a rickety shack in the mountains!

That's not what she fucking meant!

At least now they're getting actual lumber instead of having to chop down those shitty, crooked pine trees. Actual straight wood has helped those struts. And tools. Actual iron tools also help.

What doesn't help are her stupid fucking workers! Sure, Lewis is great, if he wasn't there the mine would be so much rock and piles of rubble instead of a shaft, and they are pulling out the shitty brown rock by the pound, but they need tons! But every day she hears about some fucking Nikos trying to light a torch with flint and steel in a god damn coal mine or something equally stupid. Well, they aren't doing that anymore, they had to stop for a week when she'd heard about that to yell some fucking sense into their thick, primitive skulls. At least that was cathartic.

They needed tracks for minecarts, they needed more food, they needed some way to light the goddamn tunnel that wasn't fire! For now they'd made little enclosed lanterns out of paper and reeds that worked off of oil, but those needed frequent refilling and re-wicking, and they gave off a pitiful amount of light. Fucking Christ, they needed more of everything. They even need more air! How do you ventilate a shaft with bronze-age tech? Who knows! Certainly not her! But the fact that she even knows they need that is better than anybody else.

Patricia once again misses her Uncle Patrick, if he was here he'd be doing a better job, most certainly. And maybe those miners would take an eighty-year-old man yelling at them for rank incompetence better than a thirty-something woman.

---

Antipatros swung his pick again, a sharp crack followed by a fist-sized chunk of rock chipping off the tunnel wall, making this hole into the underworld that tiny bit deeper. His eyes strained to follow it in the flickering lantern light. Bend down, pick it up, throw it in the cart, start swinging again.

Chip, chunk, pick, throw, swing, chip, chunk, pick, throw, swing. There was a comforting rhythm to the work even as he fucking despised it. The only reason he was here is because he hated farming even more. The constant maintenance, the shit, the worry that your harvest will fail by Persephone's whims, at least here in the comforting embrace of the Earthshaker he knows he'll only die if he disrespects the King of the Gods. Leave the plowing to his brother.

It was akin to ritual, the American's knowledge, wooden gates to hold up the earth, like Atlas the sky. Never leave an uncovered flame, or the Gods would be angered, taunted by Man taking Prometheus' gift into their domain. Beware your breath, because the closer you are to the underworld the easier it is to take your soul. They had captured tiny birds and placed them in cages, their souls taken easier still, to serve as a warning that they had gone too deep.

It was dangerous and hard work, invading the Gods' domain, but Antipatros knew that taking their bounty was key for Man to rise above his wretched state. Prometheus gave them fire, and thus civilization, but now man will take their own and rise to those mythical heights he'd heard of in the American's old city. Towers of iron and glass! Fueled by the very rocks he was digging for.

Man may be but ants before the Gods, but even ants may make great and wondrous works. He'd heard of the ancient pyramids of Aegyptus, made through slave labor and their gods' will, but his Gods do not care for any but their own domains and their capricious whims.

It takes a hero to stand up to the Gods themselves. He himself may be no hero, but he viewed his work as heroic. Braving the depths of the world with his band beside him, no one of them is a hero, but all together they will build something greater than themselves.

Antipatros and his people will rebuild the American's lost world for their own, and make it better. It is like their great philosophers said, "The people will prevail." Their wonders will not be for dead wanaxes or monuments of power, but a great and awesome city, where people may live freely, uncaring of even the whims of the Gods.

There won't be one great hero, but many small ones. And what they build will make the powerful tremble.

Have another omake. This one trying to make Age of Rust a Total War game.
----
New Arizona
Helot Conscripts
In theory these men can contribute to a battle. In theory.
In New Arizona, if you are not either an American or a member of the Mycenaean elite, you are a Helot. The life of Helots tends towards being miserable and short, as they are taxed to the brink of starvation, constantly conscripted for corvee labor, and have so few rights that any of New Arizona's elites can kill one at any time, for no reason other than that they felt like it. In the event that Helots were mobilized for war, it is unlikely that they would be given anything but the most crude of weapons, if even that.

Given the resentment Helots have for their masters, it is unlikely that New Arizona would ever try to mobilize their Helot population for war unless it was a matter of total annihilation otherwise. It is far more likely that such mobs would instead form from the near-constant Helot uprisings against their overlords. Such uprisings rarely ended well for the unfortunate rebels, often accomplishing little more than brutal massacres of the rebellious populace and another source of depletion for New Arizona's ammunition stockpiles.

Thrall-Soldiers
Slaves of the nation, called to fight and die for their master's war.
Slightly above the Helots on the New Arizona hierarchy are the Thrall-Soldiers. As the name suggests, these men are still slaves, but slightly more privileged ones than the average Helot, being (theoretically) exempt from the summary murder that Helots frequently fall victim to. In exchange for these rights, they are drafted to form the bulk of the New Arizona Army. Quality in both training and equipment varies heavily, with some formations armed with crossbows or even muskets, while others make do with the same bronze age equipment that the armies of the Mycenaeans wielded before the Event.

Thrall Musketeers
So long as their leash is kept taut, shackled hands can fire a gun just as well as free ones.
The weapons of New Arizona's Thrall-Soldiers vary heavily, with many armed with little more than downtime spears or even cruder equipment. The most promising among their number however, are allowed to use matchlock muskets capable of sending volleys of lead into enemy ranks. Their numbers are few, both from concerns of a possible rebellion of soldiers armed with these new guns, and because ever since the death of New Arizona's gunsmith, the amount of muskets that can be produced has sharply dropped.

New Arizona Spartans
These men boast they have the skills of the legendary Spartans. If nothing else, they certainly have their brutality.
While Thrall-Soldiers make up the majority of New Arizona's army, they are far from trusted, with many in New Arizona fearing that they will simply turn on their masters at the slightest opportunity. The true, celebrated army of New Arizona comes from a far smaller force of Americans and Downtimer warrior-nobles that serve as full-time, professional soldiers known informally as "Spartans." Aside from professional training, the Spartans are also blessed with the largest stockpile of Uptime weapons on Greece outside of the feuding factions of the USAF (indeed, many of said weapons were purchased from them), making them one of the most lethal units that can be encountered on the battlefields of the New Arizona War.

Uptime Mortars
Each shot from these weapons cost lives to purchase. Used correctly, they may repay themselves several times over.
New Arizona's Deal with the USAF Western Command was the saving grace of the nation's military. In exchange for raw resources and Helot "laborers", New Arizona's trading partner would supply them with enough Uptime weapons and ammunition to support a small professional force. Aside from small arms and the occasional machine gun, a number of US military infantry mortars were also acquired. While they may lack the sheer power of Mycenaean cannons and bombards and are available only in even smaller numbers, these weapons are far more portable, and a quick volley of explosive shells can shatter far larger infantry formations.

Popular Republic of Mycenae
Pike Militia
These men have two things: a pike and courage. Acquiring anything else depends on how well they use those.
Considering the hardship of the life of the average Downtimer peasant, particularly those under the rule of the more brutal American expeditionary nations, it is no surprise that the Popular Republic can at times find a significant amount of support from among their numbers. Equipping these masses into something that can be useful in battle, or even as an insurrectionary force, is a far greater challenge. The pike has been found as an acceptable compromise, cheap to produce and not reliant on a supply of ammunition. Rebel militias equipped with such weapons could expect to face heavy casualties against gun-armed opponents, but it still gave them more of a fighting chance than they had before, and with enough numbers and bravery, a headlong pike charge could be surprisingly effective.

Peasant Crossbows
Amateur soldiers at best, crossbow-armed militiamen can still be a potent threat when striking from ambush.
The early Popular Republic military was not so much a structured army, but rather a relatively loose organization of peasant militias designed to fight a guerilla war. Rather than opposing the enemy in head-to-head battles, they would launch constant harassment via hit-and-run attacks with crossbows, or more subversive means such as poisoning food supplies. As the nature of the Mycenaean military changed, such units became a secondary focus at best, relegated to home guard defense units, though some similar principles were used to organize militias of guerilla fighters within enemy territory.

Arquebusiers
The great mass levy of Mycenae, sending volley after volley into the foe.
In late 10 AE, the Popular Republic's military changed from a collection of peasant guerilla fighters into something more resembling a proper army. The majority of its ranks were levied soldiers, summoned to train part-time during the non-farming season. The weapon of choice for these men was the arquebus, often little more than a gun made from a scavenged Tucson pipe with a bayonet, but such weapons were relatively easy to train with, particularly in the simplistic infantry block formations. While far from anything resembling a professionally trained army, these men could be mustered in vast numbers, and advances such as the percussion cap made them surprisingly deadly despite their shortcomings.

Guards Sharpshooters
A single bullet in the right target is worth a thousand sprayed blindly downwind.
One of the largest constraints on professional military training in the Age of Rust is the farming seasons. Every man on full-time professional training and service is a man less available to plant and harvest enough food to keep famine at bay. This remains true in the Popular Republic, where in an army that can potentially number in the thousands, only a few hundred at most are truly professionally trained soldiers. Such men (often referred to as "Guards") are generally drilled as sharpshooters, armed with rifles that boast much longer ranges and higher accuracy than the average arquebus, and in battle are used to pick off targets of higher importance, rather than simply mass-volleying lead in the enemy's general direction.

Cannons
The newly crowned kings of warfare, artillery shatters armies and walls alike.
Among countless changes to warfare in the Age of Rust has been the birth of artillery. Generally taking the form of smoothbore cannons of bronze, iron, or in the most advanced nations steel, artillery could turn walls that would withstand years of siege into rubble within hours, or shatter battle formations with a volley of shot, if not from the devastation of impact than from the terrifying noise and shock of their firing. In other cases, cannons have allowed even technologically outmatched armies to contend with American forces, as even primitive cannons can easily outrange most Uptime firearms. During the New Arizona War, the Popular Republic of Mycenae had the largest artillery park, with Iolcus lacking in the necessary expertise and industry, while the production of cannon in Athens had come to a near-total halt after the death of the city's gunsmith.

Siege Bombard
The deafening noise of this weapon's firing is matched only by the devastation inflicted upon what it hits. When it hits.
Most of the cannons made in the foundries of Mycenae were small swivel guns for defending walls or 12-pounder foot artillery pieces. A handful of exceptions were the heavy siege bombards, capable of firing much heavier shells. Though even less mobile than the cannons, the Bombards were seen as the perfect thing to smash through the cyclopean walls and palaces of the various cities, and while their accuracy on the battlefield left much to be desired, when a shot found its mark the effect was nothing less than apocalyptic.

Kingdom of Iolcus
Iolcan Warriors
The club, spear, and sword still kill men, without regard for such esoteric things as their temporal origin.
The Kingdom of Iolcus takes great pride in being the nation of Mycenae that relies the least on American aid, though some say this is little more than salve to cover up how much the Kingdom lags behind its rivals. Regardless, the bulk of the Iolcan army is made up of soldiers that would be easily recognizable to any pre-Event general. Equipped as heavy melee infantry, these warriors are largely rallied from various peasant levies and armed with weapons ranging from two-handed spears to clubs to swords. Though such weapons are useless at range, if the distance can be closed they can still reap a deadly toll on their opponents.

Iolcan Crossbowmen
Some sneer at the crossbow as the weapon of the cowardly and unskilled. History proves the crossbow's bolts care little for such taunting.
Most armies of Mycenaean Greece had a skirmishing force of some description, composed of archers, slingers, or javelineers, but this was near-universally a supporting element rather than the deciding arm of battle. With the increasing prevalence of ranged weaponry however, even the most conservative of militaries have had to change. The crossbow, though not without its own problems, proved easier to manufacture than firearms, and easier to train men to use compared to the bow. Though the boast of the Kingdom having the first "domestically made" crossbows in Greece is only true by a very specific interpretation of the facts, the bolts they shoot are no less deadly.

Mycenaean Chariots
The age of the chariot has died almost before it was born, but these warriors will have one last moment of glory before it does.
For most nations in the post-Event world, the Chariot has minimal value in direct battle, with the proliferation of crossbows and gunpowder weapons rendering it too vulnerable for such things. The Kingdom of Iolcus is a notable exception. Bordered on all sides by superior opponents, any tool that can be of use at all is valuable, and the Kingdom's largely intact warrior nobility are well-trained in the use of the chariot as an instrument of war. While their role is now a more dangerous profession than ever before, the charioteers of Iolcus are determined to prove that the sun has not set on their era just yet.

Chariot Gunners
The most bizarre melding of the past and future: A bronze age chariot partnered to a man with a firearm.
Though the Wanax of Iolcus makes regular speeches proclaiming his proud kingdom as one that does not need American assistance, in truth the lack of American expertise and equipment is sorely felt, with the entire arsenal of Iolcus holding barely enough Uptime weapons to outfit a squad or two. In the event of warfare, this handful of trusted men are paired with charioteers, allowing them to be rapidly repositioned to wherever their firepower is needed most. Some have suggested the use of the chariots themselves as mobile firing platforms for hit-and-run attacks, but this has so far been deemed too much of a risk for a scarce and constantly dwindling resource.