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Aircraft Design Company- Matsura's Planes Are Always Fastest!

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Character Sheet
  • Informational


    • ​
    Stress
    0​
    Office Stress
    0​
    XP
    5​

    Matsura Asuka
    Head Designer for Ohara Airworks
    Age 24 (Legally 25)
    Year 12 AF (After Flight)

    Design Stats
    Aerodynamics Engineering - +2
    Structural Engineering - +2
    Chemical Engineering - +1
    Mechanical Engineering - +1
    Ballistics Engineering - +1
    Electrical Engineering - 0

    Personal/Political Stats
    Social Skills - 0
    Politics Skills - 0
    Importance - 2
    Income - 1
    Investments - Ohara

    Resources
    Power - 0
    Wealth - 2

    Designs
    Type 1 Series - Military Variation (Designated T1M1)
    Type 2 Racer (World Speed Record October 1910-April 1911, 180kph)
    Model 2 Scout (Designated T1M2)
    Navy Scout Prototype (Drowned Rat)
    Dive Bomber B1M1 "Duck"
    Machine Gun Carrier R1A "Dragonfly" (World Speed Record May-July 1911, 200kph)
    Naval Rescue Water-Landing Supply Plane NR1M0 "Dolphin" (World speed record 240kph)
    Rhino Demon Train Hunter
    The world's first airliner
    The world's first pulsejet airplane

    Assets
    Slide Rule
    Computator (1 Reroll per Routine)

    Languages
    Albian
    Gallian

    Familiar Vices
    Drinking
    Prostitutes
    Dancing

    Family Life
    - Engaged to Arita Yachi, formerly the leading Ace in the Imperial Army. Designated #1 Cutest Army Boy, he's having some serious problems with PTSD right now.
    - Taking a second try at dating Mikami Kiho, ex-dockerwork from the south.

    Upgrades
    - 3 XP to upgrade a stat.

    Ohara Airworks
    Start Up, Imperial Capital, Akitsukuni

    Owner
    - Mr. Ohara, Rich. Aircraft Enthusiast. Business guy.

    Engineers

    Kibe Koume, 26, Office Manager
    Tiny & angry, Kibe went to school in Albia, picking up the language, the religion, and a fuckload of swear words. Speaks Albian.
    Mechanical +2, Ballistics +1
    Office Manager: If Kibe is not assigned to a team, the Office Stress is reduced by 1.

    Sakane Jun, 26, Second Team Leader
    A soured patriot, Sakane is married and has a young child being raised gender-neutrally. His two brothers who fought in the war.
    Structural +2, Aerodynamics +1
    Team Leader: If there are any additional projects, Sakane will lead them.
    Joinery: Sakane has training in the traditional Akitsukuni carpentry art of joinery, creating complex self-supporting joints with no fasteners or glue. When working with non-monocoque wooden spars or ribs, +1 Structural.

    Tezuka Kenji, ???
    A stoner with occasional flashes of insight. Nobody really knows what he does, but he's probably useful?
    Aerodynamics +2, Chemical +1
    Flashes of Brilliance: Each natural 10 rolled by any team Tezuka is assigned to gives +1 forward to the next research roll.

    Hasegawa Morio, 26
    A hopeless nerd with a photography habit, mostly on account of developing his own film, Hasegawa seems to do nothing but work and stack card houses, but somehow has an incredible attractive boyfriend. Speaks Gallian.
    Chemical +2, Ballistic +1
    Silent Workhorse: Hasegawa can work on two different projects at once for no cost to Office Stress, providing they use different stats.

    Kawamura Yosai, 25.
    Serially successful womanizer and incredibly attractive, Kawamura doesn't seem to have much of a personality outside of seducing women. Well, except for that time he seduced Asuka, which nobody talks about. Speaks Dyske.
    Structural +2, Electrical +1, Social +1
    Easily Distracted: If Kawamura is working on the same team as a female or non-binary employee, the team is at -1d10.

    Koide Hatsu, 24.
    One of the few female graduates of an Akitsukuni engineering school, Koide is brilliant and incredibly driven, but her first job at Akibara was both humiliating and exposed her to an abusive coworker. Her father is a rich businessman with factories in Joseon, and she's engaged to Ken from Castles of Steel. Speaks Joseon.
    Mechanical +2, Structural +1
    No Sleep: If you let her, Koide will work herself to death. She can work a second project for no Office Stress, but all her stats will be reduced to 1 for the routine.

    Kobayashi Ayao, ???
    Disowned heiress of the Kobayashi family, all Kobayashi wanted was a career and to be a modern woman. For her trouble, a cousin threw acid on her, scarring her face, neck, much of her torso, and her left arm. Despite appearing serene and above it all, she's actually an avowed communist activist and baseball player.
    Aerodynamics +2, Social +2

    Adachi Ren, 24
    Adachi learned chemistry from her father, one of the most famous chemical engineers in the country, rather than through formal schooling. She's married, has a kid, and takes spirituality very seriously. Yes, you did the math right, she had Yuki when she was 17. It's 1912, folks.
    Chemical +2, Electrical +1
    Young Mother: Adachi will cause double Office Stress if she has to work multiple tasks.

    Uyeno Sei, Ballistics Engineer, 31.
    The oldest member of the crew, this is Uyeno's second career. Her first was as an officer in the Imperial Navy with specialized technical training: her very promising career was cut short by her transition. Her work in a naval arsenal on machine-guns landed her the job here. Briefly dated Satomi (the age range is a bit creepy but again, 1912), she's missing a piece of her ear and is deaf on that side, from an exploding cannon. Recently returned from Varnmark from experimental surgery, she's known for her skill navigating gendered bureaucracy.
    Ballistic +3

    Mi Kyung-Jae, 23
    A recent graduate of the Imperial College of Heijo, Mi is from the recently annexed territory of Joseon. For those keeping track at home, that means he's a Korean national living in Imperial Japan in 1912. We haven't seen much of his personality because he's rightfully terrified of everything around him. He has a specialty in endurance engine design and modification. Speaks Joseon.
    Mechanical +1, Chemical +1
    Endurance Engines: Mi has an excellent understanding of metallurgy and tolerances. Any engine he works on gains +1 Reliability if a 16+ is rolled.
    Pulsejet Wizard: Mi is now one of the world's leading experts on the pulsejet engine. He can be given his own project to custom-craft pulsejet engines, and he gives +1 to any pulsejet-related project.
    Joseon National: Mi does not have security clearance to work on any top-secret projects.

    Miyoshi Shigeri, 23.
    A non-binary person and admirer of Asuka's work, they were in an support role in the Army before joining the company.
    Structural +1, Mechanical +1, Aerodynamic +1
    Mechanic: Miyoshi has some experience repairing and refurbishing aircraft. They get +1 if assigned on the clean-up phase.


    Other Employees
    - Ohara Satomi, 22, Mr. Ohara's niece and the company test pilot, Ohara is a general lesbian disaster. She's good at flying planes, driving cars, and kissing girls. She's bad at being patient, being respectable, and sticking to literally anyones conceptions of gender roles. Deeply in lesbians with Coralie D'Amboise.
    - Fujkikawa Sotatsu, old, modelmaker. He's an old man and toymaker and we don't see much of him because he locks himself in his workshop a lot. He's friends with Kawamura?

    Assets
    - Engine Test Rig (Allows engine tweaking and optimization.
    - Wind Tunnel (+1 Aerodynamics)
    - Rapid Prototype Lab (+1 Clean Up)
    Expanded Cast

    Akitsukuni Industry
    - Homura Mohoko: Head Engine Designer for Kobayashi. First female engineer in the country. A lot of sex appeal.
    - Okumura: Head of Akibara aircraft design.
    - Yamanaka Hajime: Kobayashi engineer. Young and eager.
    - Igarashi Masazumi: Kobayashi engineer. Reserved and experienced.
    - Admiral Akibara Toru: Imperial Navy Admiral. Maximum nepotism. Maximum douchebag.
    - Lt.Cmnd Akibara Shinzo: The above's son. A hottie but very forward.



    Character Families
    - Matsura(?) Mizuko: Asuka's sister. Was paralyzed in an accident in Asuka's first flight. Lives Elsewhere and is married now. Can't forgive Asuka, even though she's tried.
    - Adachi Motoki: Adachi's husband, an accountant. Legally blind.
    - Adachi Yuki: Adachi's 7 year old daughter and wannabe pilot. Very adorable.
    - Yachi's Brother: Exists.
    - Sakane's Wife: Exists. Drives him a bit crazy, but he loves her.
    - Yachi's Brother's Wife: Exists. Is statistically likely to be pregnant.
    - Lt. Coralie D'Amboise: Gallian pilot in exile. Satomi's girlfriend. 25. Accomplished bisexual duelist. She flew in the war for a single day, and for her troubles got a hole blown in her cheek and had her left arm paralyzed.

    Akisukuni Army & Ex-Army
    - Lt. Torio Tanaka: Yachi's former observer as an enlisted man. Was jumped up to fly Ducks and lost a leg on his first mission. A trained painter, married to Torio Saya.
    - Captain Amari Shiro: A Dragonfly pilot who ended up flying as Yachi's partner. Kind of delightfully twinky. They sorta slept together at one point, which wasn't great. He lost his previous boyfriend in the April Offensive and turned his plane into a shrine. He was shot in the gut and is still recovering.
    - Major Izuhara: Logistics officer, Imperial Army, this bespectled officer stood up to the Caspian Crown Prince and accidentally kicked off the Akitsikuni-Caspian War. The guilt was so much that, after almost a year of running Army procurement, he shot himself in a phone both.
    - Captain Nakai Sekien: Army scout pilot. First person to drop a bomb from an airplane, later head of the Duck Squadrons.
    - Captain Teshima: A Desk pilot that fought with Yachi. Lost an arm in the process, took over for Major Izuhara after his death. Seems cheery despite it all.
    - Captain Nashio: A real piece of shit dude and probably a rapist, he's also a war hero as the second-highest scoring ace on the Akitsukuni side. He was a young shitty kid in way over his head but it's no excuse.
    - Lt. Kinjo: Kind of a dumb lump and Nashio's friend, one of the desk pilots. Dead at 19.
    - Lt. Okazaki: Yachi's friend from before the war and pilot, he died in a spin in his dragonfly. His death probably hit Yachi the hardest.

    Westerners
    - Rose & Antoinette Sears: Pioneers of flight. Sisters. Black in 1910s not!America. Yikes.
    - Timina Guasti: Famous aircraft designer from Otrusia. Likes big planes and green.
    - Prince Protasov Vasilyevich: Crown Prince of Great Caspia. Real dick. You gotta hand it to him though, a decent flier.
    - Count von Zeppelin: Invented rigid airships. Runs a successful airline business. Damned impressive.
    - Bennhold: Aircraft Engineer. Experimenting with metal aircraft.
    - Aileen Middlemiss: Albian reporter for the Artimis Times. Well meaning and oblivious.
    Available Tech
    • Materials: Wood, Duralumin, Molded Wood, Wood & Silk Composite, etc
    • All engine mounts
    • All wing types
    • Basic reinforcement
    • Wing warping and ailerons
    • Basic water radiators
    • Flying Wings
    • Semi-Monocoque design (requires at least half the slots have frame pieces)
    • Valved pulsejets
    • Basic weapon mounts and turrets
    Tech not Yet Developed
    • Custom engines
    • Monocoque construction
    • Cantilever Wings and associated tech
    • V and T tails
    • Tailless designs
    • Aluminum and titanium
    • Cellulose surfacing
    • Any kind of radar
    • Weapon accessability mods
    • Interruptor gear
    • Geared propellers
    • And Maybe Other Stuff
    Akitsukuni
    Island Nation

    Government
    Constitutional Monarchy
    - The democratic portions of the government are dubiously legitimate.
    - The head of state is the Empress of Akitsukuni. She gives her blessing to newly formed governments.
    - The Navy and a small number of families have undue influence on politics.

    Economy
    Developing Mixed Market
    - Most industry is controlled by a small number of wealthy, family-owned companies.
    - The state provides most contracts to industry. Consumer good market is anemic.
    - Exports are few, mostly cultural.
    - Imports are raw minerals, food, oil, and expertise.
    - Currently suffering an economic crash after the last war.

    Politics
    The Diet is currently ruled by a Constitutional Nationalist government. It has a system of nonlocal proportional representation, with representatives appointed by the party in accordance to their share of the vote.
    - Constitutional Nationalists: 50%
    - Purity Club: 9%
    - New Independents: 26%
    - Fairness Association: 11%
    - United Communist League: 2%
    - Monarchists: 1%
    - Assorted Fringe Parties: 5%

    Demographics
    Akitsukuni is mostly very ethnically homogeneous. Around 5% of the population are various minorities, most from nearby countries. Roughly .1% are westerners here for business or in advisory positions.
    - Population: 55 Million
    - Religion: Mostly Kodo. Roughly 2% of the population follows western religions.
    - Wealth: Most wealth is concentrated in the top 5% of the country. Nearly 20% of the population lives in conditions indistinguishable from peasantry.
    - Urbanization: Heavily urbanized for a small economy: 35% and rapidly growing.

    Military
    At Peace
    - Imperial Akitsukuni Navy (IAN): The 6th largest in the world, and the most experienced.
    - Imperial Akitsukuni Army (IAA): 150,000 highly experienced soldiers, and a considerable reserve.

    Aspects
    - Poor Resources: Aluminum costs +1.
    - Damn Akitsukuni Engines!: Engines have -1 Reliability.



    The Main Character Of This Quest Is Nonbinary And Uses They/Them Pronouns.

    I Am Putting This Here Because The Next Person To Misgender Them Is Getting Yeeted Into The Trash

    Also here's the Gayaverse TV Tropes page, because why not.​
     
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  • Informational
    • brmj said:
    it implicitly sets up a really unfortunate false equivalency and thus probably isn't a great example to reach for.
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    I was really confused until he explained what you meant by that:
    Simon_Jester said:
    fall into the "Ancient Greeks were a homophilic culture, Ancient Greeks were a culture where young boys were implicitly expected to have sex with older men, therefore gay = pedophile" bullshit moron tra
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    And I have to say, to immediately jump to that kind of conclusion is kind of fucked up.
     
    [X] What we need after this war is reform and democratic expansion under the New Independents
     
    [X] What we need after this war is reform and democratic expansion under the New Independents
     
    TotallyNotEvil said:
    And I have to say, to immediately jump to that kind of conclusion is kind of fucked up.
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    This is a time when we've got bigots running around making the most absurd, counterfactual and discredited attacks you can think of, some of them in positions of power. Equating LGBT people with sexual predators of one sort or another is one of their favorite tactics, most recently demonstrated by the bathroom bills and the associated artificial moral panic. When I caution against using unfortunate examples that risk playing into their hands, I do so without accusing you of anything; I am certain that wasn't your intention. And yes, having to even consider that is kind of fucked up. It's a fucked up situation.
     
    brmj said:
    This is a time when we've got bigots running around making the most absurd, counterfactual and discredited attacks you can think of, some of them in positions of power. Equating LGBT people with sexual predators of one sort or another is one of their favorite tactics, most recently demonstrated by the bathroom bills and the associated artificial moral panic. When I caution against using unfortunate examples that risk playing into their hands...
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    Okay, but they're not here. Can you please calm down and just, y'know, let us talk?

    You're not going to be able to somehow censor the existence of ancient Greece so that gay-bashers don't find out about it, they already know and have been actively using that stereotype for gay-bashing for literally centuries. Trying to stop people from talking about it for fear of gay-bashers who don't participate in the thread as far as we can tell is just... why?
     
    Simon_Jester said:
    Uh... correction.

    In the early 20th century, it was every bit as likely if not more likely to trigger a backlash by aristocrats, capitalists, and petit-bourgeois types who feared that in case of a proletarian revolution they'd get treated as kulaks and shot. Not without reason given, y'know, what happened to the kulaks.

    Basically, if a liberal government was in charge and the socialists flexed their muscles, they'd move a bit to the left to appease the trade unionists and social democrats.

    If a conservative government was in charge and the socialists flexed their muscles, they'd work with the police and the industrialists and link up with proto-fascists to beat the Reds into paste, and things would get worse.
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    It did happen sometimes, actually. Much of the German social security program can be traced back to Bismarck, famed realpolitician, wanting to undercut the communists.
     
    [X] I agree with Kibe. We need stability.
    tbh I think the New Independents vote makes more sense based on what we've seen of Asuka but I think it'd be more interesting to have them lean into the more traditionalist side of the light nationalism we've seen from them so far.
     
    Gnarker said:
    It did happen sometimes, actually. Much of the German social security program can be traced back to Bismarck, famed realpolitician, wanting to undercut the communists.
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    Sometimes. Bismarck was freakishly cunning about things like that, and very few other conservative politicians of his time or afterwards were that far-thinking or flexible.

    And at the other end of the spectrum, fifty years later, you have Hindenburg literally allying with Hitler to keep the lid down. Or, well, the history of Japan.
     
    [X] I think you're worried about nothing Kibe. The Fairness Association won't be like that if they win.

    With Bismarck the undercutting was a mixed bag though, due to how health insurance was set up. It was also paired with represive policies.
     
    [X] What we need after this war is reform and democratic expansion under the New Independents
    Simon_Jester said:
    Okay, but they're not here. Can you please calm down and just, y'know, let us talk?

    You're not going to be able to somehow censor the existence of ancient Greece so that gay-bashers don't find out about it, they already know and have been actively using that stereotype for gay-bashing for literally centuries. Trying to stop people from talking about it for fear of gay-bashers who don't participate in the thread as far as we can tell is just... why?
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    Also different cultural standards and missing like the vast majority of the cultural contexts.
    Or for the matter, any sort of proportionality.

    Just imagine three thousand years and two apocalypses later and the best example of modern literature is a well preserved basement dweller's shrine to anime.
     
    [X] What we need after this war is reform and democratic expansion under the New Independents.

    I'm remembering how the Popular Front fucked up nationalised aircraft production in France in 1936, deciding that manufacture should be organised by region, rather than what the companies were good at making, and only getting mass production going in 1938. That amongst other factors led to French planes being roughly three years behind German planes in 1940. On the one hand, something like that would be sort of hilarious here, especially if we end up in some sort of nationalised super-company, or making planes for the navy suddenly, but on the other hand, yeah maybe not.
     
    [X] What we need after this war is reform and democratic expansion under the New Independents
    I wonder if we can get a liberal-socialist coalition government in the Diet, (if thats how this works?)
     
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    open_sketchbook said:
    I also want to present Akitsukuni as a culture with rigid social roles, but those roles aren't ours. While Akitsukuni has a social role for non-binary people, it is a very narrow and somewhat restricted role, and was moreso in the past. I'll go into more as time goes on, but basically, Asuka is under a lot of social pressure to present as best they can a perfect androgyny outwardly, and this isn't always easy or comfortable. And it extends to other things: the end of the last update notes that Asuka feels maybe they can talk about politics because, you know, it's the modern age, they don't have to maintain that perfect inoffensive neutrality...
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    Combined with the thing mentioned earlier about nonbinary people being expected to be available as a confidante to men and women, this basically makes me think of nonbinary being basically the "Geneva gender" in Akitsukuni.

    [X] I think you're worried about nothing Kibe. The Fairness Association won't be like that if they win.

    Fully automated luxury nonbinary air communism ahoy!
     
    [X] Write-in: The Fairness League winning is the only possibility that makes me worried.


    I will cast my vote for "literally anything but the communists". I do hope approval voting is allowed. If not, let me know and I'll just edit the marks off the trailing options and vote for whatever is the most likely to beat the communist sympathy option.

    EDIT: Scratch that. Writing in third option.
     
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    basic enby stuff
  • Informational
    • Balaur said:
    Combined with the thing mentioned earlier about nonbinary people being expected to be available as a confidante to men and women, this basically makes me think of nonbinary being basically the "Geneva gender" in Akitsukuni.
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    That's basically the idea. After starting this quest with the intention of doing no research I went ahead and did a bunch of research, and discovered in real Japanese history there were multiple periods where upper class men and women were so intensely segregated from one another in public life that it was seen as intensely weird to talk to your own wife through anything but letters. Combined with the fact I had already sort of fallen into the trap of writing Asuka as this perfectly androgynous individual, I decided it would be neat if there was a historical role there of being a sort of neutral go-between, somebody who could sit in court with the men and talk politics and war, then go sit with the women and talk family and finance, and in the process share information back and forth. Somebody not threatening either to men's ego or women's safety.

    Basically the idea being that the interpretation taken in Akitsukuni's culture (in aggregate over time), influenced by whatever equivalent of Zen Buddhism developed there, was that somebody who was neither a man nor a woman was somebody who was striving to transcend either and live a life of perfect balance. Which... isn't really true, but, that's gender roles for you. Gender roles are restrictive. Akitsukuni just has three restrictive gender roles instead of two.

    I can't really tell you what Asuka's identity would be if they were a modern American instead because, you know, these things are intensely cultural, but the words they'd use for their situation might be something like "trans nonbinary".

    You can imagine like, in the court of Alt!Nobunaga or such, basically having slow motion drama play out through a game of telephone between the men's court and the women's parlor, carried by the folks who were allowed in (and expected to attend) both, and that's basically the idea.
     
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