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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
    • samdamandias said:
    Groovy.

    I have been thinking further on our potential airline. Another option is to go for a distinguished older person (most likely a man or enby given Akitsukuni culture) and have it clear that they are the steward, as one might have on a fancier ocean passage or aboard one of Von Zeppelin's airships.
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    I can dig the air butler aesthetic. Sommeliair? Conciairge?
     
    Given how vertically integrated historical Japanese industry could be with the zaibatsu, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Mr. Ohara winds up owning a passenger airline.
     
    Damn, finally got back into this quest.

    Aaand, I missed all the good Omake opportunities. I wanted to do stuff on the new tanks, dammit! Oh well, maybe next war.

    On the bright side, things are all patched up with Yachi! And now I can go back to my regular state of watching with bemused incomprehension as the smart plane people make the plans!
     
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    9-4: The Triumphant Return of Aileen Middlemiss, Reportrix
  • Threadmarks
    • Content Warning: broad-level description of incredibly awful racism. I went hunting for real life public and newspaper reactions to the Russo-Japanese war. Most of the stuff there is real.

    Now, I'm very white, so I have no idea what it's like to experience racism. I based Asuka's wierd dive into awful Western newspapers on my own bile fascination with transphobes, especially trans-exclusive radical feminists. There can be something sadly addicting about reading the opinions of people who hate you, even while it hurts.

    There wasn't nearly the pressure to rush orders anymore. A nine-hour workday was nothing compared to the crunch of wartime, and corners didn't have to be cut nearly as hard. You could afford to do design studies while you waited for more information from R&D and shopped around for engines, and the next two weeks passed fairly uneventfully at work.

    At home, things were anything but uneventful.

    You'd never lived with anyone since your parents. At college, you were the only nonbinary student there (though there were many more now) and the mostly Western administration had thrown up its hands and given you a private dorm. Having another person in your space, in your life, every morning and night, it was new and more than a little stressful. The only part of your routine that had survived was your early wake-up and tipping the papergirl (who regretfully informed you she'd be stopping her route in the spring to go to college. You were proud of Sasori, but wondered how she could afford it on the salary of a paper delivery girl). Everything else was in tatters.

    Yachi himself... now that he was settling into a routine, you could see the toll that had been taken on him echo through his whole life. His doctors in the ward he'd been treated in told him, as he started to recover, that he needed to stay active, that he couldn't sit at home and waste away. He was doing his best, exercising every day, going out into the world, reconnecting with his friends and comrades, going to the store for you, just walking in the park. It looked healthy, made him look active, but you started noticing that every time he came home he was sweating, breathing heavy, eyes wide. But he never said anything. You asked, and he never said anything, even as it got worse and worse every day.

    "I don't understand what's happening to him." You said, over dinner with Mikami. Her boyfriend was working and Yachi was out looking for a bicycle. "Like, I've gone with him a few times, he never stops looking around. At everything. He's exhausted when he gets back because he spends the whole time on his toes. Does Iwasaki do that?"

    Iwasaki Shoda was Mikami's boyfriend, and had been a bicycle messager. Apparently his job involved a lot of riding up and down just behind or between the lines, at the mercy of artillery the whole way. They sent them in pairs to make sure one of them made it, and he'd lost more than one partner to shrapnel. Unsurprisingly, coming home had been rough for him too.

    "No, nothing like that." She said. "He doesn't have much problem going out, but... any loud noise and he jumps. I dropped a pan the other day and he threw himself onto the mats. He laughed 'bout it, but I could tell he was spooked. The class said that doctors think its that they learned things that would keep them alive, and now they dunno know how to unlearn it. It's painful to see."

    War Neurosis was still off-limits for discussion in the newspapers, but it was creeping in elsewhere. Mikami attended a sort of meeting for the wives and girlfriends of affected soldiers, so she was your go-to point for information. After that, the two of you had ended up comparing notes, sort of, on your respective boyfriends and their troubles, trying to figure out how to help. You'd noticed some commonalities: both of them had lost some of the sense of humour they once had. Yachi used to be a hilarious storyteller, now he was a lot more terse. Shoda used to love wordplay, but no longer bothered. The rumble of an engine made Yachi bolt upright and start scanning, a backfiring car would make Shoda flinch and duck. Yachi trembled, Shoda cried in his sleep.

    "He said he feels like he still isn't home yet." Mikami had said, after the first two weeks. "Like he's waiting for them to ship the rest of him back."

    ---

    Papers from the west started filtering in through the loosening censors soon after. When they did, you ordered everything you could in Albian and Gallian (and Dyske, you could get Kawamura to translate), got your scissors and filing cabinet ready, and sat in for a weekend of archival bliss. You'd branched out in the last year: you were trying to pay attention to politics and international news now.

    The Artemis Times especially had covered the peace treaty and denouement of the war in fairly significant detail (it must have been a slow week in Europa) and it was fascinating to see the Western perspective. Mostly, it was shock, utter shock, that a white nation, even one as backward as Great Caspia, could be laid low by 'savages'. This was echoed in most papers, especially in New World papers.

    There was always an undercurrent of racist sentiment in the war reporting. Especially the cartoon caricatures, which, while usually exaggerating both sides, tended to just make the Caspians big and bearded, bearlike almost, while the Akitsukuni varied. The Albian cartoons were usually... upsetting, but still within the bounds of what you might call a human figure. Others portrayed the Akitsukuni as almost simian, animalistic, often with a jumble of cultural iconography from across the East shoved haphazardly into frame. It was a pretty stark reminder about how the world saw not just your country, but your people. You were less than human to them.

    But the stuff you read in the papers dated immediately post the Caspian defeat were startling, especially in the Gallian papers. There were folks calling for the Republic Fleet to sail up and lay waste to the country, that the Akitsukuni had no right to govern themselves, bleating on about the indignity of a Europan power having to surrender land to a lesser people. It let up a bit over the following days as tempers cooled, but it was worrying. Your nation was broke and exhausted, and the possibility that they could do that, that one of the Great Powers could lean down over the map and swat you out of existence, turn you into second-class citizens in your own country... it was frightening.

    The worst, unsurprisingly, was from New Alleghany. A paper from San Cristobal handed a quarter page over to a "racial scientist" who espoused pretentiously about the inferiority of the Lydian peoples based on... well, something about proximity to the equator or somesuch garbage. It clearly had little to do at all with the outcome of the war and more to do with drumming up hatred against Akitsukuni immigrants on their western coast, but it still wormed into your brain.

    "Why do you read this garbage?" Yachi said, staring over a little cartoon depicting a sword-welding, slit-eyed Akitsukuni soldier with a dozen bleeding holes through his chest, chasing a bearded Caspian off the map. You wanted to say something about needing to stay informed about what the West thought of your country, but it didn't ring quite true. To be entirely honest, you weren't sure why you were doing it.

    "There might be something of value in here." You said simply.

    "I doubt it." He folded the paper he was looking at and peered under at the next one. "Oh spirits. I think that's us!"

    You glanced over at the yet unread paper Yachi was pointing to, a copy of Albian center-left paper the Daily Chronicler. On it there was a line of photographs depicting important figures from the Akitsukuni side, with short blurbs under each. There was the Prime Minister, Admiral Kodama, Field Marshal Matsutoya, Princess Arisukawa, and...

    There was your face, from the photo of you getting off the boat for the air race. Next to it Yachi, as he was a year ago before the war, a portrait he sat for before transferring to the Air Artillery.

    "What does it say?" Yachi asked. You shifted to lean up against him, raised the newspaper to the light, and read.

    Major Yachy Arita
    Major Arita was the leading pilot of the Akitsukuni effort for war in the air. The war has seen a dizzying variety of machines of dubious military value deployed by both sides for a variety of purposes, and Major Arita flew single-seater scouts to pursue Caspian aircraft with machine-guns. He scored 30 victories in his airplane, making him an 'ace' six times over. We have reason to believe that he died in the final weeks of the war, though the Akitsukuni government refuses to confirm these rumours.
    Click to expand...
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    "How does it feel to be dead, sweetie?" You asked him. He smiled, running a trembling hand across your jaw.

    "Could be worse. What does yours say?"

    Asuka Matsura
    The Akitsukuni are not a creative people, inclined to imitate rather than innovate. Despite this trend, Matsura, working for the Ohara Company in the capital of Tokyo, created several unique aircraft which the Akitsukuni have paraded as key to their victory. Most importantly, Matsura designed the "Tonbo", the strange little gun-carrying bi-planes the Caspians called drotik, or Darts. Making this work even more remarkable, Matsura belongs to the 'wakashu' underclass, people forbidden to marry or express gendered traits.
    Click to expand...
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    "That's... actually better than usual." You said, checking the author of the article. "Aileen Middlemiss. Huh. Guess she's done some research."

    "I mean, she makes you sound like an untouchable or something!" Yachi said, indignant. The caste system had been gone now for over fifty years, but the cultural memory was still fresh.

    "The last article she did on me, she called me a woman." You explained. "This is a real improvement. Maybe they'll figure out a pronoun for me in ten years time."

    He flipped over to the opposite page, which had a similar line-up of Caspian figures, including two women. You thought one of them might be a pilot, but decided to keep that quiet. Yachi didn't need to look at his enemies right now.

    ---

    The Women's Auxilary Army was restructured in December, though not disbanded as originally promised, and Coralie found herself made redundant. She wanted the test pilot job, replacing Sumisu, who had tested the T1M1 and had quit when the war started. He was unaccounted for, and everyone was pretty sure he was dead, but nobody was sure how to find out for sure. Unfortunately, she wasn't in any condition to fly, so she hadn't gotten the job, but that hadn't stopped her from hanging around the office most days. One one of those days, she brought in something fascinating: a folder of sketches of a parachute design, with full schematics, and even a small scale model, which she had brought from Gallia. You stared at them, flabbergasted.

    "Why didn't you show me these earlier?" You asked.

    "You were busy?" She said, shrugging. "And so was I, you'll remember. I brought up the parachute to my superiors in the WAA and they said that it was not a priority. Considering the design of the Dragonfly, this was understandable to me."

    It took you a second to realize that she meant that trying to jump from a Dragonfly would result in getting mulched by the propeller. You were sure that was something you could fix, easily. Maybe some kind of cutoff system that would stop the propeller dead? You'd talk to Kibe about it later.

    "In any case, Mr. Boulet would like to have his parachute tested, and I would like to repay my debt to him." She explained. You looked over the small scale model she presented, comparing it.

    "Yeah, this will probably work. Sakane, how fast do you think you can make this?"

    Your engineer strode across the room and looked at the design carefully. "I dunno, three days?"

    "Alright, so we test next Monday then." You said simply.

    "I can't wait! It will be so exciting. I've been ready for weeks." Coralie said. You stared at her, wide-eyed.

    "You realize we're going to test with a mannequin first, right?" You said.

    Coralie looked devastated.

    ---

    Roll 2d10 to test the chute.

    I've decided to borrow a word from a third-gender concept that real historical Japan had to use for non-binary folks in Akitsukuni. It doesn't make a lot of sense literally translated, so... don't think about it.

    More snippets would be tasty! Without the war, I wanna do more Life Stuff.

    Also, maybe Asuka should make some kind of effort to know their employees better, so that can be a factor of the snippets...

    Finally... I'm not pointing fingers, but some of the attitudes towards post-traumatic stress and its victims in this thread have been distressing. This is an issue pretty close to my heart. It hurt to read that stuff.    ​
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • This will be incredibly valuable for our airliners, if we don't get our customers so drunk that they're incapable of following instructions.
     
    I wonder if we could like, test a parachute for cargo drops as well.

    I had a sort of image in my head of duck pilots in the war who just can't adjust to home life, almost can't really live with what they've done and what happened to them. So they buy a dolphin try flying planes again and instead of dropping bombs they drop mail, or medicine, or whatever.

    Recondition themselves. They don't need to look for enemy interceptors. They're checking the plane for normal wear and tear, not bullet holes. Letting the droning of the engines fade into the background rather than checking it constantly to make sure it hasn't taken a bullet. Trying to help the countryside they spent so long destroying.

    It's not perfect, and it's not redemption, but its a start.
     
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    open_sketchbook said:
    "I can't wait! It will be so exciting. I've been ready for weeks." Coralie said. You stared at her, wide-eyed.

    "You realize we're going to test with a mannequin first, right?" You said.
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    The more I think about it, pre-ww1 France is really similar to Imperial Japan in their view on war. Replace "banzai" with "elan" and the charge is basically the same.
     
    Okay. It's official. Test pilots have no survival instinct.

    So, uh, Yachi is having a lot of trouble. Um, does anyone have any ideas other than giving him time?

    Huh, the paper misspelled "Yachy"... unless they're using a different transliteration rule. Also, I suppose using no pronouns for Matsura is slightly better than using the wrong pronoun. Spirits help us all when the Europans find out about the marriage.

    With both of them getting some international attention, I wonder if Europan reporters will try to interview them. That's bound to go poorly.

    Okay. Snippets.

    [ ] Matsura takes Yachi on a weekend vacation to some hot springs or a monastery. Somewhere peaceful.
    [ ] Matsura talks to the new Cathayan employee about Cathayan aircraft (as an excuse to ask how he's doing in Akitsukuni)
    [ ] Matsura hangs out with Mr Ohara. (It seems like they only talk about work)
    [ ] Matsura talks to Coralie about Europan's experience of war neurosis.
     
    Well i'm contractually concatually obligated to repeat this every snippet vote until it either happens or open_sketchbook says it wont happen, so... :p
    [] Asuka comes home from work one day to find Yachi playing with a stray cat that insists on being adopted by Yachi adopting Yachi as their human
     
    [] A few theater makers decide to make a play about the Akitsukini-Caspian war, and it's tragic hero, Coralie.

    Because it is something that you could make a rather spectacular and tragical story about.

    First, the Race, the Temptation, the start of the war and then the Exile
    Second, the journey to Akitsukini, a land of myth wonder and racist stereotypes, where she has to teach the Lydians how to fly
    Ending with the final battle, where at it's most desperate hour, Coralie single handedly saves the Akitsukini army, at tragic cost to herself. Ace in a day, but only for that day.

    Or well, you could tell the truth, but eh, who cares about that.
     
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    [ ] Matsura reads an article regarding their nations new territorial acquisitions
    [ ] Matsura reads a different article where an Albian "expert" acknowledges the danger of bomb/torpedo planes, but then reaches the conclusion that "dedicated hunter-killer aircraft" were nothing more than a resource shortage inspired stopgap, and that bolting some extra AA guns to the decks of ships would be more than sufficient to safeguard the Royal Navy.
    [ ] Matsura reads a third article, where a Gallian "expert" attributes their country's victory to the "decisive final battle", plus the Caspians being poorly trained cowards who allowed their foes to seize the initiative.

    EDIT: What the fuck me, get the pronouns right, god.
     
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    [ ] Matsura hangs out with Mr Ohara. (It seems like they only talk about work)
    [ ] a visit to the factory museum to see all the changes
     
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    [ ] Ohara starts outfitting a Dolphin as a luxurious passenger aircraft to demonstrate proof of concept.
     
    bdun140 said:
    [ ] Matsura reads a different article where an Albian "expert" acknowledges the danger of bomb/torpedo planes, but then reaches the conclusion that "dedicated hunter-killer aircraft" were nothing more than a resource shortage inspired stopgap, and that bolting some extra AA guns to the decks of ships would be more than sufficient to safeguard the Royal Navy.
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    You could do a whole stream of these things

    - The Caspian AT-AT's only worked because Akitsukini artillery is crap. In normal battle conditions, a moving artillery positions will always be outarmored, outgunned and outnumbered by a stationary position
    - Machine guns only worked because of a lack of supressive artillery fire and sufficient elan
    - CAS only works because of shoddy ammunition storage practices
    and so on...
     
    open_sketchbook said:
    There was always an undercurrent of racist sentiment in the war reporting. Especially the cartoon caricatures, which, while usually exaggerating both sides, tended to just make the Caspians big and bearded, bearlike almost, while the Akitsukuni varied. The Albian cartoons were usually... upsetting, but still within the bounds of what you might call a human figure. Others portrayed the Akitsukuni as almost simian, animalistic, often with a jumble of cultural iconography from across the East shoved haphazardly into frame. It was a pretty stark reminder about how the world saw not just your country, but your people. You were less than human to them.
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    It's worth noting just how badly this victory shocked the world and shook Russia's international reputation. Nations had lost colonial skirmishes with other powers before, and France had been utterly humiliated in the Franco-Prussian war; yet this was prestige that was swiftly recovered as France expanded its colonial holdings and built up its army so as to "prove its strength".

    Yet Russia found it didn't have these opportunities, and faith, both internally and externally, in the quality of its armies and the effectiveness of the Tsar's leadership, had been shaken badly by the war. Lacking colonial possessions to beat up on, they were led towards more bellicose means to prove their strength, to the extent that Tsar Nicholas II largely agreed to the order to mobilize Russian troops against Germany because he misinterpreted an aide's advice as an accusation of cowardice, and he was tired of being branded a weak man. Likewise, Wilhelm II shot striking workers and led Germany into war because he too was tired of being seen as a weak "liitle man".

    Neither of their empires would survive the experience, Germany crumbling under the weight of famine and extraordinary casualties while Russians lost all hope that the Tsar could restore order or fix the problems that bedeviled the country. A war waged and two great empires destroyed, in large part because people simply could not believe that an Asian power could ever best a European one. If anything reveals the truly toxic nature of early 1900s Europe's locker-room politics, it's that.
     
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