Ah, missed that. Or forgot. Either way, thanks. That said, I think Bulb Ship killing duty could probably be safely left to the less experienced pilots.
I mean, probably. On the other hand, bulb ships aren't so common that we need more than one or two squadrons hunting them at a time usually.
In general I envision EMLs being useful for thinning out the ranks of the medium-sized alien craft. They're very much not guaranteed to be one-shot kills against the aliens, and the alien drone fighters are so maneuverable enough that scoring multiple hits on them outside dogfighting range is not assured in my opinion. But the medium-sized "ship" craft (the bulb, beam, and six-gun ships, plus any other types built to the same scale) are small enough to be reasonably vulnerable to our weapons while being quite a bit less maneuverable- or so I hope.
Not if there are two of them. We're going to be outnumbered pretty regularly, and the enemy are either being controlled remotely, or attacking whatever's closest. Coordinating isn't going to be hard for them, in the former case.
And in the long run, everybody dies eventually, so... shrug, I guess?
All things are relative, and the difference in safety between being "the guy the enemy specifically wants to stop" and "the guy the enemy wants to stop in order to get at the guy they really want to stop" is relative too. Historically most air forces have put less experienced pilots in the wingman/support positions, and I'm pretty sure there are good reasons for this, personally.
Pixy is probably the best choice for the Nosferatu, yes. Hopefully, he doesn't decide to live up to his nickname while flying it.
I mean, he never decides to get his wing shot off. It just... happens.
I think we may want to specifically issue orders that if he does get a CFA-44's wing shot off, he is to use all his prodigious one-wing-flying fu to land the rest of the plane, because we need the plane for later.
With that said... the risk that Pixy will get the plane trashed while Trigger's on vacation is omake gold and also the best argument for not letting him fly it.
That said, at least at Selatapura, the freed up planes would be the Nosferatu/Pixy's F-14X, two F-22As, and an another F-14X. We could always let Druid use the F-22s, but it might be better to give them to some of Mobius Squadron, instead. They perform similarly in a dogfight, but the F-14X has the EML, whereas the F-22 doesn't. If we want to let the rookies do some plinking, the EML is likely to hurt more than most of what the F-22 carries. I think.
The thing is, Mobius One has the other CFA-44, with those cluster burst missile ADMMs. We tend to sic those on the enemy tough guys... but now that you mention it, with much of our force being armed with EMLs, it might actually make more sense to use Mobius Squadron for 'crowd control' against alien fighters, with the cluster missiles' multi-target ability. So yeah, hm. That makes sense.
Good to know. While that does mean we could try and save by only building enough planes for whoever isn't on vacation to fly, I don't really see a reason to do so. Especially since we built that plane factory.
Agreed. Among other things, we're going to want to keep recruiting steadily (our forces have grown by 11 pilots or more in the past one or two weeks). And, well... planes get wrecked. It happens. You want reserve planes for emergencies.
I mean, probably. On the other hand, bulb ships aren't so common that we need more than one or two squadrons hunting them at a time usually.
In general I envision EMLs being useful for thinning out the ranks of the medium-sized alien craft. They're very much not guaranteed to be one-shot kills against the aliens, and the alien drone fighters are so maneuverable enough that scoring multiple hits on them outside dogfighting range is not assured in my opinion. But the medium-sized "ship" craft (the bulb, beam, and six-gun ships, plus any other types built to the same scale) are small enough to be reasonably vulnerable to our weapons while being quite a bit less maneuverable- or so I hope.
No, that's a good point, actually. And, even if they try and use the fighters to "screen" for the larger ships, and have them physically block the shots, that won't necessarily be a bad thing, either. Keeps a disproportionate number of fighters occupied.
And in the long run, everybody dies eventually, so... shrug, I guess?
All things are relative, and the difference in safety between being "the guy the enemy specifically wants to stop" and "the guy the enemy wants to stop in order to get at the guy they really want to stop" is relative too. Historically most air forces have put less experienced pilots in the wingman/support positions, and I'm pretty sure there are good reasons for this, personally.
The cynic in me says "because they're more disposable". That said, looked at cynically, that still holds true for us. It's easier to replace an A-rank than an S. So yeah, consider me won over.
I mean, he never decides to get his wing shot off. It just... happens.
I think we may want to specifically issue orders that if he does get a CFA-44's wing shot off, he is to use all his prodigious one-wing-flying fu to land the rest of the plane, because we need the plane for later.
With that said... the risk that Pixy will get the plane trashed while Trigger's on vacation is omake gold and also the best argument for not letting him fly it.
The thing is, Mobius One has the other CFA-44, with those cluster burst missile ADMMs. We tend to sic those on the enemy tough guys... but now that you mention it, with much of our force being armed with EMLs, it might actually make more sense to use Mobius Squadron for 'crowd control' against alien fighters, with the cluster missiles' multi-target ability. So yeah, hm. That makes sense.
I only just started looking up what those weapon codes mean (how and why I avoided it until now, I have no idea), so that's mostly accidental. I just figure homogenous squadrons, all with the EML, was more important for rookies than Mobius, who are more likely to be in the thick of it.
Also, a friendly reminder to people to vote. And also that, last I checked, one of our Aces still needs a nickname. Which I probably shouldn't be involved with, as I'd probably give Salamander 4 something like "Vulcan" or "Nocturne" or "Pyroclast". So, basically, a not-at-all-veiled Warhammer 40k reference. What can I say, the Salamanders are an awesome Legion.
The last time I checked, I still had a few issues with @kilopi505 and @Icipall 's plans, that I don't think had been fully addressed... I could be wrong?
The last time I checked, I still had a few issues with @kilopi505 and @Icipall 's plans, that I don't think had been fully addressed... I could be wrong?
The last time I checked, I still had a few issues with @kilopi505 and @Icipall 's plans, that I don't think had been fully addressed... I could be wrong?
Regarding my plan, you said that you thought it would be better to add Mobius-squadron to those on High Alert. @Nixeu was ok with that, so I did that change.
Erusean military has taken massive losses, both during the Lighthouse War and during the current Civil War that has also torn the military to pieces between ERF, FE and all nations declaring themselves independent.
They're having a multifront war, even if they could defeat FE and take over all their old territories they wouldn't have forces left to police it all and deal with all the resistance forces and guerilla warfare they'd employ. Erusea is no superpower like Osea or Yuktobania, especially not now.
Erusean and economy and industry took massive hits during and after the war, especially when the satellite coverage and power were lost. Power, which I might add, is given to them by the Lighthouse which is governed by IUN (bluff, we wouldn't dare make Shen angry, but Eruseans don't know that). They wouldn't have resources or industry to rebuild all of that area, their people already are at low living quality.
During all of this, the aliens are still here. Even if ERF were to win, they'd be left as easy pickings for the aliens. Humanity needs more united front to deal with them.
Surely they've heard of the recent battle and how though of a fight the aliens put against the Osean Federation. If superpower with and Arsenal Bird had so much trouble, what can they do when in middle of a civil war when the aliens decide to come here?
The global opinion of Erusea is already low enough after the Lighthouse War with it leading to nearly total destruction of the global satellite coverage, nearly causing an AI apocalypse (even if that is not widely known) and that's not even counting the warcrimes found on Tyler Island. Not helping during alien invasion would make that reputation even worse.
If ERF refuses to see reason and continues on their current path, it might force IUN to step in. The same IUN that employs both Strider and Mobius squadrons.
Carrots:
Working together with IUN and the nations that have unannexed themselves to bring an end to the war would show ERFs desire to be better and help the world to combat the alien threat and not redo past mistakes. It would also save their forces for the real enemy and help them to start rebuilding over an area they can actually police.
XCOM Usea is willing to help them rebuild and continue providing energy through the Lighthouse. War ending would also make it much easier to protect Erusea from the alien invaders.
The unannexed nations just wish to gain their independence, as long as ERF is not hostile to them, they have no reason to be hostile back, unlike FE. Working together to deal with FE would bring peace between humanity in Usea and let everyone turn their attention to rebuilding their military and industry.
-[X] [Zane] Which divisions inside Administration get how many teams?
--[X] 2x Teams to Logistics
--[X] 1x Team to Human Resources
Also, a friendly reminder to people to vote. And also that, last I checked, one of our Aces still needs a nickname. Which I probably shouldn't be involved with, as I'd probably give Salamander 4 something like "Vulcan" or "Nocturne" or "Pyroclast". So, basically, a not-at-all-veiled Warhammer 40k reference. What can I say, the Salamanders are an awesome Legion.
Alright, first part of my two-part Omake is ready to go. It's a bit long, but hey, that happens. The origin for it is possibly somewhat interesting, but also something that's best revealed with Part 2, I think, as it had little to do with this section. This ended up spiraling into something a lot bigger than I expected. Thanks again to @Simon_Jester and @huhYeahGoodPoint for checking for any blatant continuity errors.
Anyway, without further ado, I present to you:
Fledgling
Part 1: Dragon and Pheonix
Siegfried von Drache, or Fred Drake, as he was more commonly known, was starting think his greatest regret in life was going to end up being his choice to get that drink with that pretty girl.
Oh, sure, it had seemed harmless enough at the time. An attractive young woman approaching him at a nightclub, wanting him to buy her a drink. A girl with the accent of home, a fellow Belkan, no less. How could he resist? The worst he expected to happen would be to wake up the next morning with a splitting headache and maybe an emptied wallet. Him being a college student, and this being spring break, it wouldn't have been the first time that week.
Instead, he woke up, bound, blindfolded, and gagged, in the back of what felt like a moving car. While this turn of events was surprising and distressing, it didn't take him long to figure out why it happened. Which was when he really started to worry.
The von Drache family were famous in Belka. Aside from being a wealthy noble, Siegfried's great-grandfather Gernot was one of the pioneers of aviation, and the designer of one of the earliest parachutes, aspects of which could be seen in designs still in use to this day. It wasn't hyperbolic to say his grandfather had likely saved countless lives with his work, much of which revolved around improving airplane safety. His plane and engine designs were known for high reliability and high durability. Every bit of Gernot's intellect had been bent towards reducing the odds of failure, and to ensuring the safety of the pilot.
According to his diary, after losing several colleagues and friends to crashes and engine failures, Gernot had made it his mission to minimize future deaths from similar problems. He also refused to allow his designs to be used for war planes, instead focusing on commercial and personal aircraft. To him, planes were meant to fulfill mankind's dreams of flight, not to rain death upon their fellow man.
Siegfried's grandfather, Gunther, decided to follow in his father's footsteps, but turned his mind to improving fuel efficiency, and on maximizing the distances planes could travel. From a young age, he'd set out to build a plane that could circumnavigate the globe, without stopping or refueling. While he'd never managed to achieve his dream, his planes had set a number of endurance records, including being the first to accomplish several transoceanic/continental flights, including the very difficult Aurelia-to-Estovakia run. He had started the family-owned aviation company, Drachen Works, which mostly dealt in custom parts and expensive, personal use planes. He too eschewed military uses for his planes.
Siegfried's father, Siegmund, was just as brilliant in the area of aeronautics. His designs for airplane engines and aerofoils were considered revolutionary for the time, allowing for significantly larger planes, able to carry larger payloads than ever before. Like his forerunners, he focused heavily on non-combat applications of this, namely on developing better cargo planes, which were, of course, produced by the Drachen Works. He was brilliant and respected for that work. So much so, in fact, that he was drafted to work on a secret project for the sake of his country. A project which, had it not been for a number of thinly-veiled threats, his father never would have agreed to work on, it being a tool for destruction on a massive scale. The infamous XB-0 Hresvelgr. And it was from that point that their family's fortunes began to decline.
As the war came to a close, Belka on the losing end, his father began to panic. Fearing he might be drafted for his talents by the victorious Oseans, and refusing to build any more weapons of war, his father had faked the deaths of himself and his family, and they had made their way to Emmeria, far away from Belka and its influence. Siegfried had only been four at the time, but the fragmented memories of that desperate journey still haunted him to this day. Blasted craters, the press of the gas mask on is face, the fires...it all came back to him at night.
He remembered, too, the day his father watched the footage of his creation being unleashed, months after he was sure it had been stopped before it could do anyone harm, and the tears in his eyes as he saw it fall. He always wondered if those tears were for the destruction of what he'd slaved over for so long, or tears of joy, to see its rampage ended before much harm could be done. He knew, though, that his father would always, from that day on, express nothing but respect and gratitude towards Cipher, the Demon King of the Round Table, for his actions on that day.
His father spent his years since then as an airplane mechanic, refusing to truly utilize his design knowledge or talents, or risk revealing the identity of his family. He was, in-fact, convinced that there was some shadowy organization after him for his talents, which would stop at nothing to find him and draft him to make more weapons. He never gave any details, nor justified his fears, but they clearly ruled him every waking moment of his day.
However, his father couldn't hold back his own brilliance entirely. Siegmund still drew up designs for engines and aircraft while at home, hiding them afterwards, when he couldn't bring himself to burn them. It was almost a compulsion, a way to get the designs to stop haunting his dreams, so he claimed. He tried to keep this habit from his family, mostly successfully.
Unlike his two older siblings, though, Siegfried had "oil running in his veins", as he had once overheard his father say to his mother. Siegfried was fascinated by the planes his father repaired, often visiting the workshop and observing while his father worked. Then, Siegfried discovered a stray design on the back of a forgotten paper napkin at the age of eight, and was instantly enthralled. After asking about what it was, and hearing the full details of his family's history, Siegfried couldn't help but track down his father's secret design stashes, awed by the brilliance on display, and regretting that they could never see the light of day. From then on, Siegfried was determined to follow in the footsteps of his forefathers, and become an aerospace engineer, to show the world something like those wonderful designs he'd grown up studying.
By the time he reached the age of 18, he knew exactly which college he wanted to apply to, one far away in Yuktobania, and had quietly applied to for the aerospace course, in attempt to hide it from his father. While there, he had received rather exuberant praise from his teachers for his designs, and he'd even gotten to the point of applying for a patent for one of them, after only having attended the college for a year.
And now, during his second spring break, he'd finally discovered that his father was right to have been so afraid.
From the beach in southern Yuktobania, he was hauled around, passed from truck to train to truck again, and generally just man-handled, and occasionally fed. Then, his captors finally pulled him out of a car for the last time, and dropped him on the cold, hard ground. He heard a voice with a Belkan accent say "We have acquired what your employer requested. I assume you brought what we asked for?"
"Of course", another voice replied, and the accent told Siegfried where he had ended up: Estovakia. War-torn Estovakia. A chill went down his spine.
"Good. Our transaction is completed. Pleasure doing business with you."
Siegfried was then, yet again, picked up like a sack of potatoes, carried for a time, dropped into a chair, and finally had his blindfold removed. The light seared his dark adapted eyes, making them water.
"My apologies for the...unpleasantness, you may have experienced on your way here, Siegfried," said the man in front of him, who was oddly familiar...
"Uncle Lorenz?"
Lorenz Riedel. An old friend of his father's, and a fighter pilot. While they'd disagreed on many things, including his father's pacifism, they were very close friends in-spite of it. At least, before Lorenz was shot down by the Demon Lord of the Round Table, and Siegmund had faked his death and fled the country.
Lorenz smiled. "I see you remember me. I'm honored. Now, I'm sure you're wondering why I brought you here-"
"To make war planes. I can't think of any other reason anyone would go through the trouble of kidnapping me, and hauling me all the way to Estovakia."
Lorenz grinned. "You always were a smart child. Yes, we have a project that we need your assistance for. A super large, aircraft-carrying aerial warship. And two other supporting units, as well."
"But why me? I don't even have a degree yet."
"Bah! Just a piece of paper, to verify what is clear to anyone with the eyes to see it: you are a true von Drache, a wizard of aeronautics. Your talents were being wasted at that university."
"Oh? So this was somehow for my benefit then? How very good of you to kidnap me, take me away from my friends and peers, and strand me in a war torn country," Siegfried said, venomously.
Lorenz winced, then wilted, at this tirade. "No. No, I did not bring you here for your benefit. I had you brought here because I fear that, without you, the lives of our countrymen here, for which I have become responsible, will be ended as the price for our failure. This project is beyond us, and our lives depend on success. I had been getting more and more desperate, when an old associate from my days with the Belkan Air Force contacted me, offering a deal: the aid of a von Drache, for something the local warlord had in his possession. I...took that deal, though it shames me. I asked for you over your father, as he was more likely to be...difficult. Whereas you..."
Siegfried sighed. "You made the right choice, there. I'm afraid my father's regrets over his work on the Hresvelgr mean he would rather die than work on another weapon. Whereas I enjoy living far too much to refuse. And, besides, there's no place else for me to go, given where we are. So, I accept. Now untie me, point me to a work area, and get me all the notes and blueprints you've got. Might as well get started now, if our lives are on the line."
----
Siegfried was...surprisingly happy. The past several years had been, in retrospect, some of the best of his life. Sure, he'd been stranded in a foreign land, forced to design and build weapons of war. But he quickly became friends with the rest of the Belkans there, and he somehow felt more at home there than he ever had in Emmeria. The other engineers he worked with seemed to grasp the principles behind his designs in a way no one but his father ever had ever managed before. Though their understanding was more limited, they'd each taught him a lot about their various fields of expertise. They also made for excellent sounding-boards, and excelled as walls to bounce his ideas off of. It wasn't long before the crews he was working with had almost become a second family to him.
War-torn and fractured Estovakia might be, but they valued technical skill highly. His needs were met, and he lived in relative comfort, especially compared to the average Estovakian. Uncle Lorenz tried to shield him from the worst of the war, but he was well aware that things outside his little bubble world weren't good.
And the work...the work was fascinating. Despite everything negative his father had to say about developing weapons, despite the way it went against the moral stance his family had held for three generations before him, Siegfried found the challenges of building military hardware so much more engaging than working on civilian planes. Civilian planes simply didn't push the envelop like military fighters did, didn't reach the same speeds, or move the same way. And he loved working on them, even though he knew that many lives that might be lost because of his work.
While the Aigaion might have been the star of the show, he was probably the most proud of his work on the P-1114 Gyges. The degree of maneuverability he'd managed to achieve was stunning, given the size of the airframe. It was more maneuverable than a few older attackers still in service, in-fact. Nowhere near as good as even an older fighter plane, of course, but it didn't need to be. Just maneuverable enough to intercept incoming enemies that might threaten its companions.
He'd also finally gotten to experience things from the other side of the design equation. Uncle Lorenz insisted on teaching him how to fly, forcing him to fly sims, and even operate the test vehicles himself. "If you're to understand aircraft, you should understand how it feels to fly, and be willing to take the same risks you expect your pilots to," he'd say. And so, Siegfried flew. They discovered he was, according to his uncle, a natural. Siegfried mostly credited this to his deep understanding of the aircraft. He simply knew what was needed to get the results he wanted, that was all.
Not that he didn't learn anything from the flights. Indeed, Uncle Lorenz had all sorts of tricks to teach him, and he gained new insights into design with every flight. He came to rather enjoy his test flights, in-fact. The thrum of the engines, the feeling of the wings cutting through the air...there was simply nothing else he'd ever done that felt so...right. Except, perhaps, when he was working on aircraft designs, seeing in his mind the way air would flow over the aerofoils, or out of a jet engine, and all the other minor details of aerodynamics and maneuverability.
He'd finally find the place he belonged.
-----
Siegfried finally managed to escape from the crush of the Aigaion's launching party, via a balcony. Much as he liked the accolades and the cheering, he needed a quick break. He wasn't quite used to this sort of attention.
It seemed he wasn't the only one. There was someone else taking shelter on the balcony. The familiar figure took a draw from the bottle in his hands. The smell told Siegfried it was probably a bottle of Lucas' moonshine. That stuff could eat through thin sheets of metal, and was known to the rest of the engineers and the local soldiers as "suicider".
"Uncle Lorenz? Are you...okay?"
"Siegfried. What are you doing out here? You should be inside, celebrating."
"I just needed a break. And you still haven't answered the question."
"...It's a hard question to answer, child."
"It really shouldn't be."
Lorenz laughed at that one. "Insightful as always, Siegfried." He sighed to himself. "The ones in there, they're celebrating because their work is, at least for now, is done. My work, however, is only beginning. Our employers aren't likely to let a skilled pilot like myself sit on the sidelines of this war, even if I'm starting to get old."
He took a pull at his bottle, grimaced, then grinned to himself. "If they do force me out, I think I'll pick a new callsign. Without the rest of the Squadron, Gault 7 seems more like a bad joke than anything else. And I'm not about to claim the callsign without the number, either. No, I need something new. Something to signify how I was shot down, only to fly again, maybe. Like that mythical bird, the one that was reborn in it's own ashes. Let's just hope I don't have to manage that trick again."
Siegfried felt like his stomach had just gone into free-fall. Losing Uncle Lorenz would be...unthinkable, for all of them. He was their leader, the glue that had kept them together throughout this entire ordeal. "Surely, you'd be more useful training new pilots?" Siegfried said, trying to ignore his sense of foreboding. "Just look at how much you've taught me!"
Lorenz turned to him, his gaze intense. "Keep that to yourself, Siegfried. Don't bring it up where others might hear. You'll be drafted, and all my work hiding your flying talent will have been for nothing."
"Sorry, Uncle Lorenz. But my point still stands."
He shook his head. "I didn't have much to teach you, Siegfried. You were born to fly. If anything, you've taught me more than I taught you." He turned back to the view from the balcony. "And that's why I want you to stay out of this war. I've already taken so much from you, to save my own sorry skin. I refuse to take away your innocence, too."
Siegfried snorted. "We both know that's bullsh*t. You did it to save the others. And I'm glad you did."
He stepped to the banister, and turned to the man who had become a second father to him, locking eyes with him. "I forgive you, Uncle Lorenz. You had lives at stake. Having met all of the others...I would have volunteered for the job, if I'd been given the option, with what I know now. You have nothing to feel ashamed of."
Lorenz smiled sadly, and looked away. "Thank you, child. Maybe I'll eventually find it in me to forgive myself. But not tonight." He swallowed another slug of moonshine, and stared out into distance. Shaking his head, Siegfried joined him, looking out into the world that their work would soon be changing. For better, or for worse.
----
So, yeah, not a lot relevant to our current situation here, mostly just set up for Part 2, and giving a personality to a previously barely-characterized NPC enemy Ace. I do hope I haven't made those who played Ace Combat 6 feel too bad about shooting down Lorenz, aka "Feniks".
Oh, and hYGP, don't feel like you need to give me a reward for this, should you decide it's worth one, immediately. I'd honestly prefer to "bank" my "points", as it were, for a better reward from Part 2. Gives me more incentive to actually finish it, lol.
Alright, first part of my two-part Omake is ready to go. It's a bit long, but hey, that happens. The origin for it is possibly somewhat interesting, but also something that's best revealed with Part 2, I think, as it had little to do with this section. This ended up spiraling into something a lot bigger than I expected. Thanks again to @Simon_Jester and @huhYeahGoodPoint for checking for any blatant continuity errors.
Anyway, without further ado, I present to you:
Fledgling
Part 1: Dragon and Pheonix
Siegfried von Drache, or Fred Drake, as he was more commonly known, was starting think his greatest regret in life was going to end up being his choice to get that drink with that pretty girl.
Oh, sure, it had seemed harmless enough at the time. An attractive young woman approaching him at a nightclub, wanting him to buy her a drink. A girl with the accent of home, a fellow Belkan, no less. How could he resist? The worst he expected to happen would be to wake up the next morning with a splitting headache and maybe an emptied wallet. Him being a college student, and this being spring break, it wouldn't have been the first time that week.
Instead, he woke up, bound, blindfolded, and gagged, in the back of what felt like a moving car. While this turn of events was surprising and distressing, it didn't take him long to figure out why it happened. Which was when he really started to worry.
The von Drache family were famous in Belka. Aside from being a wealthy noble, Siegfried's great-grandfather Gernot was one of the pioneers of aviation, and the designer of one of the earliest parachutes, aspects of which could be seen in designs still in use to this day. It wasn't hyperbolic to say his grandfather had likely saved countless lives with his work, much of which revolved around improving airplane safety. His plane and engine designs were known for high reliability and high durability. Every bit of Gernot's intellect had been bent towards reducing the odds of failure, and to ensuring the safety of the pilot.
According to his diary, after losing several colleagues and friends to crashes and engine failures, Gernot had made it his mission to minimize future deaths from similar problems. He also refused to allow his designs to be used for war planes, instead focusing on commercial and personal aircraft. To him, planes were meant to fulfill mankind's dreams of flight, not to rain death upon their fellow man.
Siegfried's grandfather, Gunther, decided to follow in his father's footsteps, but turned his mind to improving fuel efficiency, and on maximizing the distances planes could travel. From a young age, he'd set out to build a plane that could circumnavigate the globe, without stopping or refueling. While he'd never managed to achieve his dream, his planes had set a number of endurance records, including being the first to accomplish several transoceanic/continental flights, including the very difficult Aurelia-to-Estovakia run. He had started the family-owned aviation company, Drachen Works, which mostly dealt in custom parts and expensive, personal use planes. He too eschewed military uses for his planes.
Siegfried's father, Siegmund, was just as brilliant in the area of aeronautics. His designs for airplane engines and aerofoils were considered revolutionary for the time, allowing for significantly larger planes, able to carry larger payloads than ever before. Like his forerunners, he focused heavily on non-combat applications of this, namely on developing better cargo planes, which were, of course, produced by the Drachen Works. He was brilliant and respected for that work. So much so, in fact, that he was drafted to work on a secret project for the sake of his country. A project which, had it not been for a number of thinly-veiled threats, his father never would have agreed to work on, it being a tool for destruction on a massive scale. The infamous XB-0 Hresvelgr. And it was from that point that their family's fortunes began to decline.
As the war came to a close, Belka on the losing end, his father began to panic. Fearing he might be drafted for his talents by the victorious Oseans, and refusing to build any more weapons of war, his father had faked the deaths of himself and his family, and they had made their way to Emmeria, far away from Belka and its influence. Siegfried had only been four at the time, but the fragmented memories of that desperate journey still haunted him to this day. Blasted craters, the press of the gas mask on is face, the fires...it all came back to him at night.
He remembered, too, the day his father watched the footage of his creation being unleashed, months after he was sure it had been stopped before it could do anyone harm, and the tears in his eyes as he saw it fall. He always wondered if those tears were for the destruction of what he'd slaved over for so long, or tears of joy, to see its rampage ended before much harm could be done. He knew, though, that his father would always, from that day on, express nothing but respect and gratitude towards Cipher, the Demon King of the Round Table, for his actions on that day.
His father spent his years since then as an airplane mechanic, refusing to truly utilize his design knowledge or talents, or risk revealing the identity of his family. He was, in-fact, convinced that there was some shadowy organization after him for his talents, which would stop at nothing to find him and draft him to make more weapons. He never gave any details, nor justified his fears, but they clearly ruled him every waking moment of his day.
However, his father couldn't hold back his own brilliance entirely. Siegmund still drew up designs for engines and aircraft while at home, hiding them afterwards, when he couldn't bring himself to burn them. It was almost a compulsion, a way to get the designs to stop haunting his dreams, so he claimed. He tried to keep this habit from his family, mostly successfully.
Unlike his two older siblings, though, Siegfried had "oil running in his veins", as he had once overheard his father say to his mother. Siegfried was fascinated by the planes his father repaired, often visiting the workshop and observing while his father worked. Then, Siegfried discovered a stray design on the back of a forgotten paper napkin at the age of eight, and was instantly enthralled. After asking about what it was, and hearing the full details of his family's history, Siegfried couldn't help but track down his father's secret design stashes, awed by the brilliance on display, and regretting that they could never see the light of day. From then on, Siegfried was determined to follow in the footsteps of his forefathers, and become an aerospace engineer, to show the world something like those wonderful designs he'd grown up studying.
By the time he reached the age of 18, he knew exactly which college he wanted to apply to, one far away in Yuktobania, and had quietly applied to for the aerospace course, in attempt to hide it from his father. While there, he had received rather exuberant praise from his teachers for his designs, and he'd even gotten to the point of applying for a patent for one of them, after only having attended the college for a year.
And now, during his second spring break, he'd finally discovered that his father was right to have been so afraid.
From the beach in southern Yuktobania, he was hauled around, passed from truck to train to truck again, and generally just man-handled, and occasionally fed. Then, his captors finally pulled him out of a car for the last time, and dropped him on the cold, hard ground. He heard a voice with a Belkan accent say "We have acquired what your employer requested. I assume you brought what we asked for?"
"Of course", another voice replied, and the accent told Siegfried where he had ended up: Estovakia. War-torn Estovakia. A chill went down his spine.
"Good. Our transaction is completed. Pleasure doing business with you."
Siegfried was then, yet again, picked up like a sack of potatoes, carried for a time, dropped into a chair, and finally had his blindfold removed. The light seared his dark adapted eyes, making them water.
"My apologies for the...unpleasantness, you may have experienced on your way here, Siegfried," said the man in front of him, who was oddly familiar...
"Uncle Lorenz?"
Lorenz Riedel. An old friend of his father's, and a fighter pilot. While they'd disagreed on many things, including his father's pacifism, they were very close friends in-spite of it. At least, before Lorenz was shot down by the Demon Lord of the Round Table, and Siegmund had faked his death and fled the country.
Lorenz smiled. "I see you remember me. I'm honored. Now, I'm sure you're wondering why I brought you here-"
"To make war planes. I can't think of any other reason anyone would go through the trouble of kidnapping me, and hauling me all the way to Estovakia."
Lorenz grinned. "You always were a smart child. Yes, we have a project that we need your assistance for. A super large, aircraft-carrying aerial warship. And two other supporting units, as well."
"But why me? I don't even have a degree yet."
"Bah! Just a piece of paper, to verify what is clear to anyone with the eyes to see it: you are a true von Drache, a wizard of aeronautics. Your talents were being wasted at that university."
"Oh? So this was somehow for my benefit then? How very good of you to kidnap me, take me away from my friends and peers, and strand me in a war torn country," Siegfried said, venomously.
Lorenz winced, then wilted, at this tirade. "No. No, I did not bring you here for your benefit. I had you brought here because I fear that, without you, the lives of our countrymen here, for which I have become responsible, will be ended as the price for our failure. This project is beyond us, and our lives depend on success. I had been getting more and more desperate, when an old associate from my days with the Belkan Air Force contacted me, offering a deal: the aid of a von Drache, for something the local warlord had in his possession. I...took that deal, though it shames me. I asked for you over your father, as he was more likely to be...difficult. Whereas you..."
Siegfried sighed. "You made the right choice, there. I'm afraid my father's regrets over his work on the Hresvelgr mean he would rather die than work on another weapon. Whereas I enjoy living far too much to refuse. And, besides, there's no place else for me to go, given where we are. So, I accept. Now untie me, point me to a work area, and get me all the notes and blueprints you've got. Might as well get started now, if our lives are on the line."
----
Siegfried was...surprisingly happy. The past several years had been, in retrospect, some of the best of his life. Sure, he'd been stranded in a foreign land, forced to design and build weapons of war. But he quickly became friends with the rest of the Belkans there, and he somehow felt more at home there than he ever had in Emmeria. The other engineers he worked with seemed to grasp the principles behind his designs in a way no one but his father ever had ever managed before. Though their understanding was more limited, they'd each taught him a lot about their various fields of expertise. They also made for excellent sounding-boards, and excelled as walls to bounce his ideas off of. It wasn't long before the crews he was working with had almost become a second family to him.
War-torn and fractured Estovakia might be, but they valued technical skill highly. His needs were met, and he lived in relative comfort, especially compared to the average Estovakian. Uncle Lorenz tried to shield him from the worst of the war, but he was well aware that things outside his little bubble world weren't good.
And the work...the work was fascinating. Despite everything negative his father had to say about developing weapons, despite the way it went against the moral stance his family had held for three generations before him, Siegfried found the challenges of building military hardware so much more engaging than working on civilian planes. Civilian planes simply didn't push the envelop like military fighters did, didn't reach the same speeds, or move the same way. And he loved working on them, even though he knew that many lives that might be lost because of his work.
While the Aigaion might have been the star of the show, he was probably the most proud of his work on the P-1114 Gyges. The degree of maneuverability he'd managed to achieve was stunning, given the size of the airframe. It was more maneuverable than a few older attackers still in service, in-fact. Nowhere near as good as even an older fighter plane, of course, but it didn't need to be. Just maneuverable enough to intercept incoming enemies that might threaten its companions.
He'd also finally gotten to experience things from the other side of the design equation. Uncle Lorenz insisted on teaching him how to fly, forcing him to fly sims, and even operate the test vehicles himself. "If you're to understand aircraft, you should understand how it feels to fly, and be willing to take the same risks you expect your pilots to," he'd say. And so, Siegfried flew. They discovered he was, according to his uncle, a natural. Siegfried mostly credited this to his deep understanding of the aircraft. He simply knew what was needed to get the results he wanted, that was all.
Not that he didn't learn anything from the flights. Indeed, Uncle Lorenz had all sorts of tricks to teach him, and he gained new insights into design with every flight. He came to rather enjoy his test flights, in-fact. The thrum of the engines, the feeling of the wings cutting through the air...there was simply nothing else he'd ever done that felt so...right. Except, perhaps, when he was working on aircraft designs, seeing in his mind the way air would flow over the aerofoils, or out of a jet engine, and all the other minor details of aerodynamics and maneuverability.
He'd finally find the place he belonged.
-----
Siegfried finally managed to escape from the crush of the Aigaion's launching party, via a balcony. Much as he liked the accolades and the cheering, he needed a quick break. He wasn't quite used to this sort of attention.
It seemed he wasn't the only one. There was someone else taking shelter on the balcony. The familiar figure took a draw from the bottle in his hands. The smell told Siegfried it was probably a bottle of Lucas' moonshine. That stuff could eat through thin sheets of metal, and was known to the rest of the engineers and the local soldiers as "suicider".
"Uncle Lorenz? Are you...okay?"
"Siegfried. What are you doing out here? You should be inside, celebrating."
"I just needed a break. And you still haven't answered the question."
"...It's a hard question to answer, child."
"It really shouldn't be."
Lorenz laughed at that one. "Insightful as always, Siegfried." He sighed to himself. "The ones in there, they're celebrating because their work is, at least for now, is done. My work, however, is only beginning. Our employers aren't likely to let a skilled pilot like myself sit on the sidelines of this war, even if I'm starting to get old."
He took a pull at his bottle, grimaced, then grinned to himself. "If they do force me out, I think I'll pick a new callsign. Without the rest of the Squadron, Gault 7 seems more like a bad joke than anything else. And I'm not about to claim the callsign without the number, either. No, I need something new. Something to signify how I was shot down, only to fly again, maybe. Like that mythical bird, the one that was reborn in it's own ashes. Let's just hope I don't have to manage that trick again."
Siegfried felt like his stomach had just gone into free-fall. Losing Uncle Lorenz would be...unthinkable, for all of them. He was their leader, the glue that had kept them together throughout this entire ordeal. "Surely, you'd be more useful training new pilots?" Siegfried said, trying to ignore his sense of foreboding. "Just look at how much you've taught me!"
Lorenz turned to him, his gaze intense. "Keep that to yourself, Siegfried. Don't bring it up where others might hear. You'll be drafted, and all my work hiding your flying talent will have been for nothing."
"Sorry, Uncle Lorenz. But my point still stands."
He shook his head. "I didn't have much to teach you, Siegfried. You were born to fly. If anything, you've taught me more than I taught you." He turned back to the view from the balcony. "And that's why I want you to stay out of this war. I've already taken so much from you, to save my own sorry skin. I refuse to take away your innocence, too."
Siegfried snorted. "We both know that's bullsh*t. You did it to save the others. And I'm glad you did."
He stepped to the banister, and turned to the man who had become a second father to him, locking eyes with him. "I forgive you, Uncle Lorenz. You had lives at stake. Having met all of the others...I would have volunteered for the job, if I'd been given the option, with what I know now. You have nothing to feel ashamed of."
Lorenz smiled sadly, and looked away. "Thank you, child. Maybe I'll eventually find it in me to forgive myself. But not tonight." He swallowed another slug of moonshine, and stared out into distance. Shaking his head, Siegfried joined him, looking out into the world that their work would soon be changing. For better, or for worse.
----
So, yeah, not a lot relevant to our current situation here, mostly just set up for Part 2, and giving a personality to a previously barely-characterized NPC enemy Ace. I do hope I haven't made those who played Ace Combat 6 feel too bad about shooting down Lorenz, aka "Feniks".
Oh, and hYGP, don't feel like you need to give me a reward for this, should you decide it's worth one, immediately. I'd honestly prefer to "bank" my "points", as it were, for a better reward from Part 2. Gives me more incentive to actually finish it, lol.
He shook his head. "I didn't have much to teach you, Siegfried. You were born to fly. If anything, you've taught me more than I taught you." He turned back to the view from the balcony. "And that's why I want you to stay out of this war. I've already taken so much from you, to save my own sorry skin. I refuse to take away your innocence, too."
Thing is, on some level, Siegfried does understand what the likely results of what he's making will be, and accepts them. He did live through the Belkan War, after all. He's seen at least a little bit of one of the worst, most devastating wars of Strangreal's history. Sure, his parents tried to keep the kids from seeing the worst of it, but they didn't really succeed in keeping them from seeing anything. Given the state of Estovakia, though, he's perfectly fine with building a superweapon, if it means putting an end to the chaos. Especially if his life, and the lives of his friends, are on the line.
Now, once they start invading Emmeria, his feelings on the matter are gonna get just a touch more complicated. That's part of Part Two, actually. Which is likely to be out sooner, rather than later, since apparently posting Part 1 ended up giving me the motivation to actually tackle the section that had been giving me trouble. Apparently, the cure for writer's block in Part 2 is releasing Part 1. Still needs some polishing, though. But at least it's got a complete skeleton, now. Just have to add some meat to the bones.
You know, I had originally agonized about whether I should update when I don't have much to say.
Now that I've started college, though, it's pretty clear that it's either little snapshots or no quest at all, and while my perfectionism might bitch at me about pointless words/low word count, I want to see my endgame too; hell, I'll even settle for March.
Also, I've updated the Personnel section, in all its fell glory.
Over the next few days, Long Caster jousted with his Erusean counterpart.
Long Caster's opening salvo of a greatly weakened Erusean military was shrugged off; further additions of the weakness and multifront nature of the war was brushed off with a pithy dismissal. Comparisons to Osean, Yuktobanian, and IUN strengths just made his Erusean counterpart smirk and say "so tell me how the IUN did in June 2019 again". Offers to rebuild infrastructure was met with a shrug and a smug confidence that Osean corporations wouldn't miss out on the chance to reindustrialize a market of a hundred million people either. Threats to cut off Lighthouse power supply was met with the rejoinder that the Restorationist Forces paid a blood price for that Lighthouse, and was plenty willing to assert their claim if XCOM USEA dared to cut them off.
Frustrated, Long Caster brought up that international opinion of Erusea was hitting new lows, and just recognizing the breakaway states would reduce the number of threats they faced on the continent dramatically. The Erusean ambassador shrugged, and said "Let the jackals think what they may, but the Eruseans will stand tall regardless."
Then the results of the Battle of Lambert Peak came in, and the wind dropped out of the ambassador's sails.
The Erusean Restorationist's offensive into Free Erusean territory had been dealt a crushing defeat around Mount Lambert, apparently. Free Erusean forces not only held the Whiskey Corridor towards Mount Lambert, but began pushing the Erusean Restorationists down out of Mount Lambert.
Then reports get confusing. Some reports mentioned the rise of a battlefield devil destroying everything in its path, others report a massive landslide annihilating both forces, still yet others report that the Erusean Restorationist line at the Whiskey Corridor holds strong. Mira Vacik smugly sent you a message that the Republic of Voslage deployed its Air Force into the Whiskey Corridor airspace and absolutely devastated both sides, in no small part due to the contributions of Sol Squadron. Apparently, Sol Squadron racked up somewhere around forty kills by themselves; it'd be unbelievable if Long Caster didn't have several pilots with kill counts in the multiple hundreds.
In other, incidental news, the Directory of Rainier no longer existed; that far out, nothing Long Caster hears is reliable save for the fact that the Directory has conclusively fallen. Reports then abound of a force attempting to attack the Republic of Voslage, but thus far nothing is confirmed to any real accuracy.
The attendance of the Voslagian envoy to the next round of peace talks made the Erusean Restorationists much more cooperative.
Peace talks continue!
Towards the end of the day, Long Caster decided to head back to his room to pick up one of the snacks he left on his desk. He came back to the room, locked the door, filtered out the snoring, and headed to his desk next to his occupied bed. It took him another few seconds for him to fully register that "my bed is not supposed to have anyone in it and there is definitely not supposed to be snoring," at which point he suddenly rushed to the side of the bed.
Dark skin, darker eye circles, and anger lines drawn all over his face.
Yep.
Daniel Snow passed out in Long Caster's bed.
For a moment, Long Caster considered mercy.
Daniel Snow's snoring ripsawed through that half-formed idea.
Long Caster smiled a cruel smile, and pulled out his phone.
"I will be honest, Long Caster, I was not expecting your efforts to continue negotiating a peace to work as well as it did," Pulford idly remarked. "In my opinion, you took a gamble that shouldn't've worked and was lucky enough to have it succeed. Worse, now I have to put up with Shen's insufferably smug smirk for months," he grumbled.
"Is the forever unflappable Pulford grumbling?" Long Caster teased.
"Yes, yes, have your laugh at my expense," Pulford waved off. "Everyone else is doing that already. Good work on recruiting more people for our organization, although our requirements will continue to rise. Keep up the good work there," Pulford said.
"In addition to that, we have several new requests from the IUN and other XCOM branches; in no particular order, XCOM VERUSA is requesting that we stop taking Yuktobanian industrial capacity that they need, XCOM ANEA is requesting permission to contribute to Stonehenge, XCOM OSEA is requesting our xenoscientists and Dr. Vahlen in particular to analyze the debris from the Battle of Granada Plains, all the branches are requesting a pilot exchange program, and so on. Do you understand?" Pulford recited.
"Understood. Then, with your leave?" Long Caster asked.
"Granted."
It is now the week of January 29th to February 4th. The Focus vote will not be open until I have time to get country information updated and thus get you all your IC income this week. Right now, vote on proposals:
XCOM VERUSA:
[] [VERUSA] Yes
[] [VERUSA] No
XCOM ANEA:
[] [ANEA] Yes
[] [ANEA] No
XCOM OSEA:
[] [OSEA] Yes
[] [OSEA] No
Transfer pilots:
[] [TRANSFER] No
[] [TRANSFER] Yes
-[] Which squadrons do you transfer and where?
I don't see any reason not to - we don't really have any particularly noteworthy lab facilities that it would make more sense for Vahlen to do her work out of, and the other two requests are more than reasonable.
(Especially if we can delegate actually firing STONEHENGE to another AWACS.)
Question- would getting communication satellites in orbit be a way to reduce Long Caster's Focus consumption?
Then the results of the Battle of Lambert Peak came in, and the wind dropped out of the ambassador's sails.
The Erusean Restorationist's offensive into Free Erusean territory had been dealt a crushing defeat around Mount Lambert, apparently. Free Erusean forces not only held the Whiskey Corridor towards Mount Lambert, but began pushing the Erusean Restorationists down out of Mount Lambert.
Then reports get confusing. Some reports mentioned the rise of a battlefield devil destroying everything in its path, others report a massive landslide annihilating both forces, still yet others report that the Erusean Restorationist line at the Whiskey Corridor holds strong. Mira Vacik smugly sent you a message that the Republic of Voslage deployed its Air Force into the Whiskey Corridor airspace and absolutely devastated both sides, in no small part due to the contributions of Sol Squadron. Apparently, Sol Squadron racked up somewhere around forty kills by themselves; it'd be unbelievable if Long Caster didn't have several pilots with kill counts in the multiple hundreds.
In other, incidental news, the Directory of Rainier no longer existed; that far out, nothing Long Caster hears is reliable save for the fact that the Directory has conclusively fallen. Reports then abound of a force attempting to attack the Republic of Voslage, but thus far nothing is confirmed to any real accuracy.
The attendance of the Voslagian envoy to the next round of peace talks made the Erusean Restorationists much more cooperative.
Also, oh shit Sol 2 and Sol 3 just went super-saiyan hit SS/SSR-tier.
Let's get Voslage on-side next turn.
Peace talks continue!
Towards the end of the day, Long Caster decided to head back to his room to pick up one of the snacks he left on his desk. He came back to the room, locked the door, filtered out the snoring, and headed to his desk next to his occupied bed. It took him another few seconds for him to fully register that "my bed is not supposed to have anyone in it and there is definitely not supposed to be snoring," at which point he suddenly rushed to the side of the bed.
Dark skin, darker eye circles, and anger lines drawn all over his face.
Yep.
Daniel Snow passed out in Long Caster's bed.
For a moment, Long Caster considered mercy.
Daniel Snow's snoring ripsawed through that half-formed idea.
Long Caster smiled a cruel smile, and pulled out his phone.
"I will be honest, Long Caster, I was not expecting your efforts to continue negotiating a peace to work as well as it did," Pulford idly remarked. "In my opinion, you took a gamble that shouldn't've worked and was lucky enough to have it succeed. Worse, now I have to put up with Shen's insufferably smug smirk for months," he grumbled.
"Is the forever unflappable Pulford grumbling?" Long Caster teased.
"Yes, yes, have your laugh at my expense," Pulford waved off. "Everyone else is doing that already. Good work on recruiting more people for our organization, although our requirements will continue to rise. Keep up the good work there," Pulford said.
"In addition to that, we have several new requests from the IUN and other XCOM branches; in no particular order, XCOM VERUSA is requesting that we stop taking Yuktobanian industrial capacity that they need, XCOM ANEA is requesting permission to contribute to Stonehenge, XCOM OSEA is requesting our xenoscientists and Dr. Vahlen in particular to analyze the debris from the Battle of Granada Plains, all the branches are requesting a pilot exchange program, and so on. Do you understand?" Pulford recited.
"Understood. Then, with your leave?" Long Caster asked.
I think VERUSA's request is reasonable but how much of our IC comes from there? We can probably afford to sign some over, and it may help VERUSA deal with their own problems.
I see no real downside to ANEA's help. They're the railgun people. We have giant-ass broken railguns. Match made in heaven.
OSEA's request is... uhhhhh. Iffy. @huhYeahGoodPoint , do we get Vahlen's team back? Or would that be a permanent reassignment?
Transferring pilots is... uhhhhhhh. I'd actually almost be willing to give Cyclops Squadron to X-COM OSEA, especially if we hadn't juuuust stood down Strider Squadron for R&R.
It is now the week of January 29th to February 4th. The Focus vote will not be open until I have time to get country information updated and thus get you all your IC income this week. Right now, vote on proposals:
XCOM VERUSA:
[] [VERUSA] Yes
[] [VERUSA] No
XCOM ANEA:
[] [ANEA] Yes
[] [ANEA] No
XCOM OSEA:
[] [OSEA] Yes
[] [OSEA] No
Transfer pilots:
[] [TRANSFER] No
[] [TRANSFER] Yes
-[] Which squadrons do you transfer and where?
[] [VERUSA] Yes (pending some thinking I'll do later)
[] [ANEA] Yes
[] [OSEA] No (pending clarification from QM)
[] [TRANSFER] No (but maybe in a week or two)
They may have to take that up with Yuktobania. I'm not entirely clear on why exactly they started providing us with support in the first place, but at a guess, they may be trying to offset any influence Osea might have over us, given that a sizable chunk of our leadership is Osean. If that's the case, rejecting their support might not be a good move without some sort of alternative way for them to counterbalance any Osean influence.
That sounds to me like a polite way of saying "we've found/suspect there are more alien survivors, they may have gotten loose, send help". That's the main reason I can think of for them to ask for our xenobiologists. Think we may want to request more information, before making any decisions.
I think VERUSA's request is reasonable but how much of our IC comes from there? We can "probably afford to sign some over, and it may help VERUSA deal with their own problems.
They provided us 6k IC last turn. So, a decent amount, but not enough to really hurt us too much, if we give it to VERUSA. However, VERUSA only had an income of 18.5k IC last turn, so this would be a pretty significant shot-in-the-arm for them. Throw in the fact that we basically have "Power=Yes", and thus can expand our own/local industry pretty quickly, if we dedicate enough existing IC to it, and it's very much a loss we can handle.
Honestly, VERUSA is in a bit of a difficult spot at the moment. Only 2 of the 4 countries on their continent are supporting them industrially, and one of those to doesn't have much to spare, it seems. ~5/6ths of their current IC comes from Yuktobania, whose massive budget is pretty much the sole reason they can get by. So it's entirely possible some people are going to see them as favoring Yuktobania over everyone else. Possibly because of this, and/or other diplomatic reasons, VERUSA is operating out of a pretty terrible base (or pair of bases? Not sure) on the border between Yuktobania and Verusa. Their main focus right now is on improving their facilities. Which could be why they need the IC.
[x] VERUSA] Yes
[x] [ANEA] Yes
[x] [OSEA] Request more data on the situation before making a decision.
[x] [TRANSFER] Noo
Long Caster's opening salvo of a greatly weakened Erusean military was shrugged off; further additions of the weakness and multifront nature of the war was brushed off with a pithy dismissal. Comparisons to Osean, Yuktobanian, and IUN strengths just made his Erusean counterpart smirk and say "so tell me how the IUN did in June 2019 again". Offers to rebuild infrastructure was met with a shrug and a smug confidence that Osean corporations wouldn't miss out on the chance to reindustrialize a market of a hundred million people either. Threats to cut off Lighthouse power supply was met with the rejoinder that the Restorationist Forces paid a blood price for that Lighthouse, and was plenty willing to assert their claim if XCOM USEA dared to cut them off.
Frustrated, Long Caster brought up that international opinion of Erusea was hitting new lows, and just recognizing the breakaway states would reduce the number of threats they faced on the continent dramatically. The Erusean ambassador shrugged, and said "Let the jackals think what they may, but the Eruseans will stand tall regardless."
Then reports get confusing. Some reports mentioned the rise of a battlefield devil destroying everything in its path, others report a massive landslide annihilating both forces, still yet others report that the Erusean Restorationist line at the Whiskey Corridor holds strong. Mira Vacik smugly sent you a message that the Republic of Voslage deployed its Air Force into the Whiskey Corridor airspace and absolutely devastated both sides, in no small part due to the contributions of Sol Squadron. Apparently, Sol Squadron racked up somewhere around forty kills by themselves; it'd be unbelievable if Long Caster didn't have several pilots with kill counts in the multiple hundreds.
@huhYeahGoodPoint To be clear, we're just loaning Vahlen and the others to OSea, right? Also, how will this affect her teams current Xenobiology-project?
Presumably the other X-COMs are fighting low-level skirmishes against small alien forces, the same as we were fighting before the Grenada Plains battle. They don't keep up posted on what battles they fight because we haven't set up regular liaisons.
X-COM Osea, in particular, definitely suffered a whole lot of losses in the Grenada Plains battle. There were likely others.
The problem the other guys face is that they seem to be stuck throwing in swarms of A and B-ranking fighters in fourth-generation aircraft. That means high casualty rates, which in turn makes it hard for them to cultivate a corps of aces that they can build the larger force around. Similarly, constantly having to replace fighters means they can't upgrade very well.
This is a big part of why I'm seriously considering turning over Cyclops Squadron. They're good enough now that they could make a real difference to X-COM OSEA's survival rate.
@huhYeahGoodPoint
What percentage of casualties have each XCOM branch taken relative to what they started with, or in other words which branch has the highest attrition rate relative to their size?
You are not wrong. From the looks of things, OSEA's had four engagements, VERUSA 2, and ANEA 1. Assuming they've lost pilots in every engagement.
More points of data:
-OSEA just straight up lost 3 entire four-man squadrons in what looks like their first tangle with the X-Rays, along with two off another team.
-Holy crap, ANEA needs more help than I expected. They've only had one fight (with losses, anyway), but it was ugly. In addition to losing 3 four-man squadrons, they had only single survivors in at least two others, and several other squadrons have likely lost 1/2 to 2/3rds of their members, depending on how many they had to start with. Their total losses are pretty close to what OSEA has lost over the course of several battles.
-VERUSA hasn't got anywhere near the casualties of the other two branches, but they still had a fight where they lost one four-man team, and had three others reduced to a single survivor.
-Gryphus 4 was actually killed in one engagement, and Grendel Sauadron got shaved down to just Grendel 1, so we've even had some canonical characters die, apparently. Though I think they were all minor ones.
I know we've been blessed with having both Trigger and Mobius One, but goddamn, the other guys are getting wrecked. We really do need to help them out, share what we know about how to fight the X-Rays, and work on upgrading their aircraft.
Presumably the other X-COMs are fighting low-level skirmishes against small alien forces, the same as we were fighting before the Grenada Plains battle. They don't keep up posted on what battles they fight because we haven't set up regular liaisons.
X-COM Osea, in particular, definitely suffered a whole lot of losses in the Grenada Plains battle. There were likely others.
The problem the other guys face is that they seem to be stuck throwing in swarms of A and B-ranking fighters in fourth-generation aircraft. That means high casualty rates, which in turn makes it hard for them to cultivate a corps of aces that they can build the larger force around. Similarly, constantly having to replace fighters means they can't upgrade very well.
This is a big part of why I'm seriously considering turning over Cyclops Squadron. They're good enough now that they could make a real difference to X-COM OSEA's survival rate.
OSEA only lost two pilots during the Grenada Plains fight, actually. Admittedly, one was probably a decent Ace Candidate (Snowflake 1, who lost two wing-mates in one of their first battles, and thus may have had some experience under his belt), but most of the losses seem to have been members of local militaries, not XCOM OSEA. OSEA probably has the most experience after us, honestly. Combine that with the larger number of countries on Osea that have their own armed forces including a certain SSR Mercenary Ace, and I think we'd likely be better off supporting either VERUSA or ANEA. Probably ANEA, since, while they might have Talisman, they got utterlywrecked during at least one engagement.
