Vote Tally : A Hard Fae's Knight (Worm AU) | Page 19 | SpaceBattles [Posts: 470-498]
A Hard Fae's Knight (Worm AU) | Page 5 | Sufficient Velocity [Posts: 125-126] ##### NetTally 3.1.4
[X] Case 53 in the Trainyards, offer a potential cure for his condition in exchange for joining the Wild Hunt No. of Votes: 16
[X] Perchta No. of Votes: 9
[X] Barghest No. of Votes: 8
[X] Parian, offer to trade a minor power boost for a costume No. of Votes: 5
[X] Kalbatha/Calbatha No. of Votes: 2
[X] Keep the Name, Bitch is Bitch No. of Votes: 2
[X] Parian, offer to trade a major power boost in exchange for joining the Wild Hunt No. of Votes: 2
-[X] And agreeing to kep her safe, buld her a shop in our territory. No. of Votes: 1
[X] Arawn No. of Votes: 1
[X] Case 53 in the Trainyards, offer a potential cure for his condition in exchange for joining the Wild Hu No. of Votes: 1
[X] She-Wolf No. of Votes: 1
[X] Try to mend things with Poison Apple, offer money from looting Chain Gang in exchange for joining the Wild Hunt No. of Votes: 1
Total No. of Voters: 22
Nivianë PoV
Sunday, April 17th, 2011
As I went throughout my day I had a police scanner app pulled up on my phone, the beeping and muffled requests for backup acting as a not-so-pleasant backdrop to my daily routine as I tried to track down the Trainyard Case 53 via online sightings.
I think I might do the recruitment attempt without Per-…
Convince Bitch to change her name, DC 90
1d100 = 44, Fail
I sigh. Without Bitch, she was very insistent on keeping the name.
Anyways, I think I might go to recruit this new cape without her. She was never really the most sociable cape, even without the recent loss of a leg.
Mindlessly I continue scrolling, letting the background hum of the polcice scanner soothe me.
*bzzt*
Gang fight on 14th and Able, eight civilians and ten gang members wounded.
*bzzt*
Break-in on Littlefield and Main a few hours back, someone's finally circling 'round to respond.
*bzzt*
Mayor Christner's house got TP-ed, the teens who did it were caught in the act after a neighbor called 911.
*bzzt*
Stop-and-frisk gone wrong on Clayton, shots fried, the perp tried to escape when the cop found a dime-bag of weed and it looked like he was reaching for a gun.
*bzzt*
Resisting arrest on Buckton, no injuries reported.
*bzzt*
Home break-in on Murdock, perp caught in the act, disgruntled ex-husband who'd been drinking after losing his job.
*bzzt*
Shots fired at a routine traffic stop, some "asian thug" driving an expensive SUV that was absolutely pointing a gun at Officer Mullinski, he swears.
*bzzt*
Homeless camp broken up in the West Trainyards, two officers were injured trying to clear it out.
*bzzt*
Chain Man fighting the Teeth on 54th and Asquith, forwarding to PRT for-
Wait a minute.
Gotcha.
I flip open my phone, call the unfortunately-still-named-Bitch, and set off running.
Oof, poor fucking Teeth. At least Aisha didn't roll a 5 or lower, or she'd be dead.
When I arrive, I see Chain man standing confidently in the middle of the sidewalk, his eponymous tool whipping back and forth as it slices through a gibbering horde of naked bodies covered in bone jewelry.
Thankfully, this is no horde of civilians going to the world's most inappropriately-themed Mad Max costume party, but the near-endless legions of one of the Teeth's longtime enforcers: Spree.
With the power to create nigh-endless legions of short-lived mindless duplicates, he typically serves as the Teeth's frontline combatant. Sure, his clones may decay into organic goo after 15 seconds, and may not be smarter than your average monkfish, but quantity is a quality of its own, as they say. Few are the capes that can resist a zombie horde, especially a horde of screaming, naked, running zombies dressed like a racist cartoonist's idea of a Congolese tribesman.
Wait… why does the bone jewelry duplicate with him, but not the clothes?
Based on the look of his Faerie, his abilities are primarily focused around biology, so maybe it's because the bones are organic but the clothes aren't? So his clones pop out naked, but with a big necklace of skulls and femurs?
Wait, but then why does the Faerie clone the string holding the bones together?
…
Oh fucking ew.
C'mon, guys. I know it's the Teeth but really? You couldn't stop by the arts and craft's store for some yarn?
At least if I make a rope out of someone's dried-out skin, it'll be for a reason. And not because I decided to make wind-chimes as imagined by Hieronymous Bosch.
Honestly! The blood of a minor god running through his veins, and what does he do? He decides to live out the fantasies of a teenager listening to Black Sabbath for the first time.
Absolutely disgraceful excuse for a contractor, I have no idea what Lesser Shambling Horde sees in him.
Regardless, Spree's a zombie apocalypse in a can, making him a perfect enforcer for the Butcher's will. Especially with the brutal, visceral horror of having to chop your way through a mountain of bodies, there are only a few capes in the Bay capable of dealing with his legion of shambling bodies.
Unfortunately, for the Teeth, Chain Man is one of those capes.
His famous chain is the closest thing this side of invulnerable, able to shred through even the toughest Brutes like a knife through hot butter. The only person that's even managed to resist it is Alexandria, and even she only managed to catch it in her hands. She tried to break it over her knee, but she had about as much success as a normal person would trying to break a metal chain.
Spree's main strength is the sheer number of bodies he can throw at a problem, but the number of bodies doesn't really matter when the other guy's weapon can delete anything it touches from reality like the fucking Siberian.
Wait, the sheer number… Hmm…
Oh!
Oh yes.
I break out into an evil grin as I climb up to a nearby rooftop, signaling Bitch to stay put. The Bow of Gilgamesh isn't exactly a non-lethal weapon, even with blunted arrows… but if the only "people" surrounding Chain Man are a horde of shambling clones, I don't have to worry about any casualties.
Time to show the Bay what made Iron Rain so scare, the perfect alpha strike.
…Fuck, no, I can't but a dozen bolts through his eye socket from a distance like this. A silent assassination is a clear escalation of the Unwritten Rules, it's provoking a retaliation I'm not ready for. If I want to get away with killing capes I need to be as "honorable" about it as possible — as strange as that sounds — with clear, open battles. Otherwise, Victor will just shoot me from 300 yards with a sniper rifle the next time I'm outside, or rig my house with enough TNT to kill Crawler.
Also, that type of classic cape fight will be better for my PR, and that's a key element to my ability to effectively survive in this city.
Alright, so how to make this fight "fair", but still use the advantage of the bow?
Wait… this is going to be the debut performance of the Wild Hunt. The grave robbery was only four days ago, the news about our team-up shouldn't have trickled down to the gang informants yet.
I pull back on the Bow of Gilgamesh, a metal arrow magically appearing nocked against the shaft. "Bitch. On my mark, charge in, try to take out as many of Spree's clones as you can. If you make your dogs big and bulky enough, Chain Man won't have enough reach to slice through to the centers."
Already having been briefed on my bow's abilities, the one-eyed cape nod, and mounts up on her dogs.
There, my team is announcing itself. Now he has only himself to blame if he gets skewered by my arrows.
I feel the mental charge of the bow build up as I stand still, aiming at Chain Man.
In the meantime, Chain Man has been slicing through Spree clones with depressing ease, and it's only his prodigious output combined with Chain Man's laziness that keeps the Teeth cape in the fight.
"You fucker!" Spree yells, desperately backpedaling as Chain Man slices through his clones like a wheat thresher, "you helped those fucking Asians kill Skids!"
Charging…
The gang leader scoffs, but backs off just a touch, to give the other cape time to speak. "The fuck you smoking?! You're angry at the wrong fucking gang, moron."
Strangely, Chain Man has the slightest tinge of a southern accent. Something in the Southeast, maybe Tennessee or one of the Carolinas?
Charging…
Spree growls, taking advantage of the minute reprieve. "Oh fucking yeah?"
"How the fuck else do you explain how your fucks attacked one of our stash houses the night Skids died? We were all off fighting you, Skids was by himself!"
Charging…
Chain Man laughs. "Not my fucking problem Butcher's too busy yelling at the voices in her head to run a good watch. Sounds like the dumbass got what he deserved."
Just a little more…
Just for a moment, I think I see another cape out of the corner of my eye, but by the time I flick my gaze ov-…
Huh, what was I saying? Oh, right, Spree and Chain Man
Spree just yells in anger, and sends a new wave forward. "Fuck you, asshole! It's time we put you in the ground for good! For Skids!"
I'm too far away to see it, but I can practically feel Chain Man rolling his eyes. "Better men than you have tried, buddy. Better women too. Better children actually, you're kinda pathetic."
"Fuck you!"
Almost charged…
"Bitch, go now. Make sure one of them roars."
The cape boss laughs, whipping his invulnerable chain around to slice through more clones. "I've been knocking out Teeth since the days the Butcher was still sane enough to run a real gang. You're just the next in a long line, hitting a business is my territory like this. You have a fucking death wish?"
"You started it, asshole!"
C'mon…
"Nah. But I'm sure as shit gonna finish it."
The one-legged cape whistles, sending her three dogs speeding off down the alley while slowly growing to house size. Brutus lets out a truly terrifying roar, shaking the panes of glass in the windows for blocks around and causing both capes to turn towards us.
Aaaaaaaand… Done!
With a twang, I release the metal arrow I have pulled back in the bowstring, shooting directly at Chain Man and the army of Spree clones surrounding him. The arrows start to rapidly multiple once released, dozens of sharp metal arrows turning into almost a hundred as more materialize out of thin air.
Tens of Spree clones are impaled by the steel rods, disintegrating into organic goop with unholy shrieks, as their master takes the advantage to further retreat.
I hear a tortured scream, and- holy shit where the fuck did she come from?!
I see a cape in a demon mask crying while holding her impaled leg, only a few feet behind Chain Man, as the whole battlefield turns to look at her.
Shit, Stranger! Was she there the whole time?
I-… what?
Right, Chain Man! The arrows are only a foot away from him now, and for a moment, I almost think I have him dead to rights, a veritable wall of razor-sharp steel close enough to give him a shave…
…Then the gang leader whirls his chain around like Petey fucking Pablo and deletes all the arrows from reality.
Wait, I think I read on PHO he actually is from North Carolina. Explains the accent I gue-
Fuck, not now brain! My alpha strike failed, so I'm going to have to improvise.
"Bitch!" I yell, getting my team-mate's attention, "go after Spree on Brutus! Let me and the hounds take Chain Man!"
Without another word, the Dog Master points, and one of her house-sized hounds begins to amble off after the Teeth cape. He may not be that fast in this form, but he doesn't need to be when his legs are the size of vending machin-
Fuck, the Stranger! I can find her if I focus now that I know she's there, trying to hobble away from the fight back towards Teeth territory. At least she's not going to keep attacking with her leg skewered like that.
"You cunt!" Chain Man leader screams, and I lose track of the Demon-masked cape. "That could have fucking killed me!"
I frown. "That's rather the idea, my good man. For too long have scum like you run rampant on-"
He cuts me off with a yell. "Shut the fuck up, bitch!"
He's on his own chain now, and it's lifting in the air, and holyshitit'sfast-
Quickly, I leap back using the Brute rating granted by my biosuit, and he's distracted by a paw swipe from Angelica, who doesn't know any better than to not go after the little screaming man.
Cursing, Chain Man has to jump off his Chain. I think he can't be standing on it when it's inviolable.
But when he's not standing on it it's a noodle-shaped Siberian, and he can whip it around even as he's falling through the air.
I hear a yelp as he slices a deep gash into Angelica's paw, nearly cutting it in half.
Bastard! Angelica is a sweet girl, she doesn't deserve that!
As he's doing that, Rachel catches up to Spree, Brutus stomping on his clones like he's an Italian grandmother making wine.
I draw Mirror Devil as he turns back around, sending a burst of flame at the falling cape.
He scoffs, harpooning his chain into the ground in order to send him careening over the flame blast.
Fuck! I was hoping he'd try to block and leave his back open.
At least Rachel just got Spree, that's both Teeth capes out of the fight. I can't spare the focus to find the Stranger's faerie, but she was running when I last saw her.
I can't imagine the Butcher inspired the kind of loyalty it takes to fight through a metal pool cue impaling your thigh.
The flames dissolve into ash and holyshithe'srightthere!!!!
Desperately I jump back, shooting myself across multiple rooftops to avoid Chain Man's stab. Brute 4 strength for the win!
Fuck, if this is what a real veteran cape is capable of, Parchment Angel was definitely taking it easy on me.
No, I can't think like that. Worrying about how strong the villains are so much that you're scared into inaction is exactly how Brockton's other two queens let their kingdom go to ruin. This city needs savior, and I can't back down at the first sign of a fight.
I square my shoulders, raising Mirror Devil.
Let's see, I can't block or parry that chain of his, and it's too fast and maneuverable to dodge at close range…
I leap back, trying to create as much distance between me and Chain Man as possible while launching more jets of flame.
They don't hurt him, but they force him to spend precious seconds to turn his chain invulnerable to block my attacks with a twirl, meaning he can't use it to spear into the ground and launch him like an impromptu tentacle.
Bitch has made it back over with Brutus by this point, and is quickly re-growing her other two dogs in order to deal with their wounds. Chain Man looks like he's going over to deal with her, but a few well-aimed arrows convince him to keep his attention on me.
It's a chase over the rooftops at this point, with us leaping from building to building, my with my biosuit-enhanced strength and him by standing on his chain.
Jump.
Thunk.
Whoosh.
Jump.
Thunk.
Whoosh.
I slowly gain distance from him as he's forced to land to shield from my fire blasts.
That's right asshole, you can't catch me, you need your chain-tentacle non-invulnerable to launch yourself off the ground. Sure, I can't catch you either, but I don't need to, because-
Bam! There it is!
As if on cue, Bitch and her three dogs come roaring back in, Angelica nearly clipping Chain Man with a strike of her paw, going on to carve a trench through the solid concrete of the building without even slowing down.
Holy fuck I made those dogs tough.
Unfortunately, the element of surprise only works once, and Chain Man slices off her other paw as she falls down.
I shoot another jet of fire, forcing him to block, and Chain Man screams in frustration. "Fuck! I've had just about enough'a y'all!"
He hops off the roof, using his chain as an impromptu series of stepping stones to hop down to the ground and avoid my fire blasts.
As he lands, he moves his chain to create a rough half-cylinder around him, and begins spinning it around himself so fast all I can see is a blur of grey.
Chain Man smirks, and begins to slowly walk towards Bitch's dogs.
"Y'all kids are good, I'll admit. But y'all're about a decade away from makin' me sweat."
I shoot everything I have at him — fire, jets of molten iron, even a lightning bolt —but to no avail, the chain is spinning so fast that barely anything makes it through.
Fuck, fuck! He's running at Angelica now, and he's basically turned himself into a budget Siberian. If he hits her, he'll go straight through!
Think Gwen, think!
Alright, fuck, ok. So the plan doesn't require that we beat him, just that we drive him off.
So what's his goal here?
1d100 = 73, Pass
Let's see, police scanner said he was protecting a suspected stash-house. Spree and… whoever that Stranger was were losing badly until I showed up, so they couldn't have done much damage. So he still probably wants to protect it.
He's about halfway towards Angelica now. The dog is trying desperately to scramble away on her three remaining paws.
My eyes desperately dart around the square. Where hasn't he damaged.
Chain scar, blood splatter and chain scar, bio-goop and chain scar…
There! An abandoned convenience store, with a fuckin' mountain of bio-goo and blood outside, but no chain scars.
Without a second thought, I send a lightning bolt hurtling towards the empty storefront, aiming through the window to hopefully hit some of the drugs.
No a blast of flame, since I don't want to set the whole place on fire, but that should be flashy enough to get his attention.
I take off after the bolt, running at highway speeds across the square and into the storefront.
Let's see… cash register, dvd rack — hey is that one of those off-brand Aleph superhero films? — empty freezer, bare shelves…
Behind my I hear Chain Man roar in fury. It won't be long until he catches up.
I race into the employee breakroom, hearing Chain Man's eerily silent chain-nado tearing up the store behind me.
I laugh in triumph as I find a stash room filled with hundreds of bricks of cocaine. Gotcha, bitch!
Alright fuck, what to do with it. Burn it? No, too slow, he could kill me. Blow it up?
No way to do it, I haven't been able to get my hands on explosives yet to copy into my blade, and it's not like cocaine… is…
1d100 = 41, Pass
Fuck, I got it!
Quickly, I tear open one of the bags, spreading it in the air until the whole room is coated in a lightly-floating powder. Thank god I watched that farm documentary with Rosie, or else I'd have no idea this was possible.
I cough as the drug settles into the air. Fuck, I hope I don't have to get piss-tested any time soon. I'm going to be high as a fucking kite in about ten minutes.
As Chain Man tears down the wall seperating the storefront from the hidden back, I put on my best smug grin, posing with Mirror Devil stabbed into one of the hundreds of cocaine bricks.
"Back off, Chain Man." I say, doing my best to disguise the unease in my voice at the plot.
He pauses, looking down at where I have my sword pressed against his narcotics. "…the hell's all this?"
"Have you ever heard of a powder explosion?"
He freezes, glancing around warily at all the cocaine floating in the air.
"That's right" I say with a victorious smirk. "I have a half-ton of TNT stored inside this blade, I let a bit out, and this whole room goes the way of a sawdust factory."
I don't, but holy fuck would that be a good thing to store in here if I can get my hands on it.
The southern-accented cape pauses, considering. "Y'wouldn't."
I raise an eyebrow, silently praying that he won't see through my bluff. "I'm a Brute, I can take it. But your product can't."
He shifts at that, like I've said something wrong.
What could…
1d100 = 7, Fail
Damnit, not now brain. We're in the middle of a hostage situation.
"Sure" I say, "you could kill me… but not before I light this place up so hard it looks like New Wave is having an orgy. What is this, twenty mil, thirty? This must be your whole supply for the next two months.
Hey, being the child of a gang accountant does have some benefits.
"Leave, Chain Man" I say, mustering up all the authority I can. "Let's call this a day, and both agree to just retreat. My partner and I live to fight another day, and you're not out enough money to buy a dozen penthouses."
"If not…" I say, inching my sword closer to the pile of cocaine, "…boom."
Please please please let him call my bluff, I don't think my biosuit can stand up to an explosion.
He growls, and I can see his chain twitching. I ready myself to jump away. Fuck I hope I can make it through the ceiling. I never thought I'd be praying for someone to do a cheaper job with construction materials.
"…Fine." he eventually says, and it sounds like he's practically forcing the words past his lips. "Git, then."
I shake my head. "Oh no, I'm not that stupid. You first."
His eyes narrow. "And how do I know y'won't just blow it all up anyways an' try t' dash?"
I give a dry chuckle. "Same way I know you won't slice me in half the minute I'm out of lightning range of this place: you don't. But trust that I would prefer not to light an explosion in the middle of the city, I am a hero."
He stares me down, and eventually chuckles. "You got balls, kid, I'll give ya that. Y'all win this time."
And with that, he hops on his chain, and starts to float out of the store, taking off into the alleys behind the convenience store.
…
…
…
Is he…
…
…
I ready myself for a sneak attack, holding my breath to avoid breathing in any more of the powered cocaine.
…
…
…
Bitch's voice pipes up from outside. "He's leaving!"
The coke-dust on the air goes spiraling as I let out a massive breath of relief, and I slump back against the wall, head in my hands.
Holy fuck, holy fuck, holy fuck.
I… He… Just…
Just… holy fuck.
Good news: we have officially established our cerdibility and power as heroes, driving off one of the most dangerous blasters in the Bay.
Bad news: we shot lightning bolts during the fight, meaning we now may be under suspicion for Skidmark's death. Up until this point, Kidlat of the ABB was the only known electrokinetic in the Bay, but with this new reveal… well, we're going to have to consider out actions very carefully vis-a-vis the Teeth.
Also, because of her grevious injury, Aisha is no longer able to hide her caped activities from Brian. He successfully figures out what's up despite her attempts to play it off as a mugging. Unfortunately for him, Aisha categorically refuses the help of "the chief Nazi", as she calls Mr. Anders, in breaking free from the Teeth, even if she herself has long wanted out of the gang she joined in a fit of teenage rebellion.
Spree's unconcious body is lying in an alley, what do we do with it? We could chop off a limb, but that would have the same effect as killing him, given how it'd n
[ ] Take him back to the forge and kill him (Teeth declare us as an enemy for killing both Spree and Skidmark, will go after us if they have the opportunity, roll 1d100 Bo2 to see how distracted they are by their war with the Chain Gang and ABB)
[ ] Leave him for the PRT after taking a literal pound of flesh (increased reputation with PRT, Teeth still suspect Kidlat for killing Skidmark, roll 1d100 DC 65 to see if Spree escapes, otherwise he gets sent to the Birdcage and out of our grasp)
[ ] Drop him in Teeth territory after taking a literal pound of flesh, wake him up, and ask he send a message to the Butcher: they don't attack us while we're taking down the Chain Gang. Also, that we didn't kill Skidmark. (Teeth are neutral, roll 1d100 DC 65 to see if we can escape the PRT's notice. On failure we are branded a villainous gang, and our release of Spree will be shared with the Public)
Spree artifact votes, if we do kill him. His power is based around quick-printing temporary biomatter based on a template. Also remember, if you pick any of the "wait" options, we'll always have the chance to catch and kill him again, especially if he's back with the Teeth.
[ ] Melt it down and mix it with Canis Avenger (Bitch's Ring), lets her create temporary flesh clones of her dogs with a quarter of the power of their enhanced forms.
[ ] Melt it down and mix it with Canis Avenger (Bitch's Ring), lets her dogs temporarily extend their limbs
[ ] Mix with some of Bitch's blood, a necklace that deploys a large "airbag" of quick-printed Brute 4 flesh when the user is in danger. This airbag will be a few inches larger than the user's body, and disintegrate after five seconds.
[ ] Melt down and mix with biosuit, allows Gwen to temporarily extend her limbs at their full Brute 4 power.
[ ] Write-In (if it gets enough votes it'll trigger a re-vote)
Non-Kill Artifact votes
[ ] A ring that allows people to temporarily extend their limbs at base human power
[ ] A cup that can fill with an endless amount of human flesh and blood, which melts into a slurry after 5 seconds (yes even if someone like Panacea uses it)
[ ] Mix with some of Bitch's blood, a necklace that deploys a giant spherical "airbag" of quick-printed base human flesh when the user is in danger. This airbag will be the size of a bus, completely impede all movement, and disintegrate after five seconds.
NO WRITE-INS
Further options down the line!
– If we have the corpse of a cape with a space-time component to their power, we can create a ring that will let us teleport and leave behind zombie flesh clones, like a bio-Oni-Lee
– If we have the corpse of a cape with a space-time component to their power, we can create a ring that will let us shunt off injuries to temporary flesh clones of our own body parts
Hey everyone. I just learned that my boss, small business tyrant that he is, is shutting out company's doors and giving everyone four days notice. Four days. In retrospect it's been clear he's been planning this for at least half a month, but didn't tell anyone because he's a fucking sociopath (who at multiple points has expressed complete contempt for all his employees, viewing them as lazy parasites who are only poor because they're too stupid to know how to manage money).
Even worse he told me at the beginning of my shift, and now I have to sit here like an asshole and pretend everything's fine, since he's telling all the other employees tomorrow morning. I can't even call anyone to cry because I'm on the clock right now.
As a result, this quest is going on a bit of a hiatus as I try to get... everything worked out. I might update, I might not, it depends on how I'm feeling.
It's just... fuck.
Here's the vote or whatever. Appropriate that this came right as I was writing the chapter for Trainwreck, because that's what my life has become.
Vote Tally : A Hard Fae's Knight (Worm AU) | Page 21 | SpaceBattles [Posts: 507-528]
A Hard Fae's Knight (Worm AU) | Page 6 | Sufficient Velocity [No votes]
##### NetTally 3.1.4
[X] Leave him for the PRT after taking a literal pound of flesh
[X] Mix with some of Bitch's blood, a necklace that deploys a giant spherical "airbag" of quick-printed base human flesh when the user is in danger. This airbag will be the size of a bus, completely impede all movement, and disintegrate after five seconds.
[X] Take him back to the forge and kill him (Teeth declare us as an enemy for killing both Spree and Skidmark, will go after us if they have the opportunity, roll 1d100 Bo2 to see how distracted they are by their war with the Chain Gang and ABB)
[X] Melt it down and mix it with Canis Avenger (Bitch's Ring), lets her create temporary flesh clones of her dogs with a quarter of the power of their enhanced forms.
Only on SB though, since I got pretty low engagement on here. Link to the newest chapter here.
The history of all hitherto existing society(2) is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master(3) and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.
The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.
Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.
From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed.
The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development.
The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolised by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The guild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle class; division of labour between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labour in each single workshop.
Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even manufacturer no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionised industrial production. The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry; the place of the industrial middle class by industrial millionaires, the leaders of the whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.
Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in its turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages.
We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange.
Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class. An oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility, an armed and self-governing association in the medieval commune(4): here independent urban republic (as in Italy and Germany); there taxable "third estate" of the monarchy (as in France); afterwards, in the period of manufacturing proper, serving either the semi-feudal or the absolute monarchy as a counterpoise against the nobility, and, in fact, cornerstone of the great monarchies in general, the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.
The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.
The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors", and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment". It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.
The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.
The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigour in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to show what man's activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades.
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.
The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.
The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.
The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.
The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralised the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tariff.
The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature's forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground — what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?
We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organisation of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.
Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class.
A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.
The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself.
But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons — the modern working class — the proletarians.
In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed — a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.
Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for maintenance, and for the propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by the increase of the work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of machinery, etc.
Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is.
The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labour, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labour of men superseded by that of women. Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex.
No sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so far, at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.
The lower strata of the middle class — the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants — all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialised skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population.
The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first the contest is carried on by individual labourers, then by the workpeople of a factory, then by the operative of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labour, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of the Middle Ages.
At this stage, the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition. If anywhere they unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet the consequence of their own active union, but of the union of the bourgeoisie, which class, in order to attain its own political ends, is compelled to set the whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet, for a time, able to do so. At this stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeois. Thus, the whole historical movement is concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained is a victory for the bourgeoisie.
But with the development of industry, the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength more. The various interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalised, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labour, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level. The growing competition among the bourgeois, and the resulting commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating. The increasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes. Thereupon, the workers begin to form combinations (Trades' Unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots.
Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by modern industry, and that place the workers of different localities in contact with one another. It was just this contact that was needed to centralise the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes. But every class struggle is a political struggle. And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern proletarian, thanks to railways, achieve in a few years.
This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and, consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier. It compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself. Thus, the ten-hours' bill in England was carried.
Altogether collisions between the classes of the old society further, in many ways, the course of development of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. At first with the aristocracy; later on, with those portions of the bourgeoisie itself, whose interests have become antagonistic to the progress of industry; at all time with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. In all these battles, it sees itself compelled to appeal to the proletariat, to ask for help, and thus, to drag it into the political arena. The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie.
Further, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling class are, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat, or are at least threatened in their conditions of existence. These also supply the proletariat with fresh elements of enlightenment and progress.
Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the progress of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole.
Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product.
The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by chance, they are revolutionary, they are only so in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.
The "dangerous class", [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.
In the condition of the proletariat, those of old society at large are already virtually swamped. The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industry labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.
All the preceding classes that got the upper hand sought to fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of appropriation. The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property.
All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.
Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.
In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.
Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in order to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence. The serf, in the period of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of the feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois. The modern labourer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the process of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.
The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
