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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.​
     
    Last edited:
  • Informational
    • Hm. So this reporter almost got things right. Could we speed that up by like, writing to them? Obviously we can't give military details, but we could tell them about our upcoming wedding, which might be enough of a cluebat to say that Yachi isn't dead and what our pronouns are? And that we're not an underclass. :p

    Would that be a valid snippet vote?
     
    We could just post a small piece in the local paper announcing the wedding.
    then send a cutout of that to said foreign reporter.
     
    open_sketchbook said:
    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.
    Click to expand...
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    ...Did we just accidentally put someone through college?

    ...I think we just did.

    "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."
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    Aaaand Yachi, by contrast, learned to keep his head on a swivel and listen for any hint of engine noise because it might be an incoming Cossack.

    "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."
    Click to expand...
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    This is actually a problem for Coralie as she tries to write stuff for home. Like, how is she supposed to describe Asuka without:
    1) Making Asuka feel backstabbed, which she cares about because she hates making people she likes feel backstabbed, or
    2) Saying something that some newspaper editor will simply and condescendingly correct and say "oh nonsense, there's no such thing as neither a man nor a woman."

    [I have had a creative dry spell working on this but would like to start it]

    "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.
    Click to expand...
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    "Hey! It's been tested!"

    [Asuka gives her a Look]

    "...Okay, technically we tested it by dropping an anvil down the inside of the Eiffel Tower."

    "Why did you use an anvil?"

    "Now that you mention it, I don't know. It just seemed appropriate at the time..."

    Axslashel said:
    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.
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    Coralie:

    "I know, right? It's surprisingly homey sometimes!"

    brmj said:
    I feel like just doing that without any further commentary would only push her back towards the previous type of confusion.
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    I'm pretty sure Middlemiss will simply go right back to calling Asuka a woman in that case.
     
    Last edited:
    Yes and yes.

    [ ] 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.
     
    The sheer number of people who keep pushing the snippet vote for a kitty makes me happy.

    [x] 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
     
    [ ] 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
     
    Crasian01 said:
    The sheer number of people who keep pushing the snippet vote for a kitty makes me happy.

    [x] 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
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    I look forward to the day when the newspaper sections covering the big national names include a family photo of Asuka, Yachi, and <Insert cat name here> together..with top billing in the caption given to the cat of course :p
     
    Axslashel said:
    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.
    Click to expand...
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    These attitudes arose from similar conditions of military politics too, with an old leadership class being politically subverted by a dynamic junior officer corps influencing the philosophy of war for the purposes of chasing glory. It was much more comprehensive and society wide in Imperial Japan as democracy failed there, though.

    ancusohm said:
    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.
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    quick note, your new employee is from Joseon, not Cathay. He's Korean, in other words. Akitsukuni hold on Cathay regions is a legal fiction of "administrative areas" of Cathay territory, while Joseon has been outright annexed, it's cities renamed, the people second-class citizens, and the last survivor of the royal family held hostage in the Imperial Palace as a "guest" being groomed as a puppet ruler.

    did i mention that imperialism is deeply fucked up? we go into it a little more directly in Castles of Steel than here, but seriously. Akitsukuni is a fun setting but it's still Imperial Japan, which wasn't a great place even before democracy failed and it became a de facto junta run under a policy of racial supremacy.

    it is fortunate that very few people live in the areas Akitsukuni claimed for the iron, and the peace treaty allows any white populations a deadline to flee to Caspia. The Gallian mediators were willing to settle for a lot, but nobody would tolerate white populations living under non-white rule. this is 1912 we're talking about here.

    man remember when this was a fun quest about airplanes?
     
    Last edited:
    War Is Over!
    If You Want It!    ​

    Your name is Svetlana Popovich, and you are a soldier. You had been proud at the beginning, when they had called you up six months after the war began, and explained that good Caspians were giving their lives at the front, that they were running short of brave men to face the foreigners, that your nation, your Tsar, your God had need of you. You had been even prouder when you passed training with flying colors and been assigned to the 40th Shock Battalion. You marched under the banner of Svyatoy Ekaterina, happy to fight among "the Saint's Children" as the army press had called you.

    You had been good at it, too, fighting and killing. Be it with your rifle or your bayonet or, later, when you had gotten wise to the way trench-fighting was done, the edge of your spade, few could boast of having survived as many raids, offensives and skirmishes as you had. And though sometimes the sights, the sounds, and dear God, the smells of the battlefield had troubled you, you felt satisfaction when you slept at night, knowing that every man you struck down was one less soldier to fight for Akitsukuni, one less enemy to insult the honor of your nation and threaten your homeland and countrymen.

    Now, when you sleep at night, all you feel is horror. You are back on the battlefield, as always: before you stands the trench, and you sprint inexorably towards it, paying no heed to the bomb tossed back at you that sends shrapnel hissing through the air to either side. When the dreams first came, you had tried to stop yourself, to slow down at least, but you have long since given up. Some force propels you onward, and you are powerless to resist as it drives you to leap over the parapet and land in the trench, spade drawn.

    There you meet your foe. An officer, you can tell, not by sparing a moment to glance at his uniform- such things could get you killed- but by the sword in his hand, a ka-ta-na, not the modern sabres more commonly carried. That was all you had time to notice on the day it happened, but in your dream you see more; the way his chest heaves with exertion, the sweat and grime and blood that is caked all over him, the way he shouts as he thrusts the point forward and you dimly feel a spark of pain blossom in your chest. As always, you look into his eyes for a brief moment. Sometimes he is angry, other times he seems frozen, almost without emotion entirely. But tonight, and for the last few nights, they are wide with terror. Then your spade comes down and bites deep into his chest, and as you yank it back out of him he staggers away and is lost to you.

    The pain build quickly, roaring in your bosom like a fire, choking you, filling you with agony every time you breathe. You reach up to try and feel the wound, see how bad it is, but your hand falls on cold steel, and you look down to see the length of the sword sticking out of you. Oh, you think to yourself, and then you wake, gasping and clutching at your chest, where the phantom pain is drifting away as fast as it has come. There is no need to fear, you tell yourself. Your wound has healed, perfectly, and you will not receive another. The war is over.

    Unbidden, your eyes fall to the ka-ta-na sitting by your bedside, wrapped in cloth. Your lieutenant had let you keep it, sent it to you while you lay in a hospital bed. A souvenir of your courage. You need no souvenir; an impressive scar provides all the memories you will ever need. The sword just seems to ram it home. You hate that thing. But you can't seem to throw it away, either.

    It has been the same thing for the last few days; standing on a windswept platform at some backwater railway station, watching as Akitsukuni prisoners are marched down from the nearby camp and sent aboard train after train to return to their homeland. You are told many Caspians are going the other way, though you haven't seen them; another sign of the war's end. The mood is dour nonetheless; your comrades don't speak to each other much, the cold serving to keep them sullen and silent, and it has much the same effect on the prisoners.

    Although, on the first day, they had sung something, some tune about marching through snow. You can still recall the words faintly: Yuki no shin-gun, koo-ori o funde, do-rega kawayara michise shirezu... The cadence sounded upbeat, but there was no pomp or ceremony in their voices. But the way they perked up slightly at the sound of the train, looking hopefully Eastward...

    Well, you'd figured that you couldn't let that stand unanswered, so someone had started up with a song of your own, and you'd joined in: When we were at war, when we were at war, everybody thought of their beloved or their dear wife... There'd been no second round of singing after that, nor any other day after. Everything needed to be said had already been said.

    So here you stand, silently, the sword at your hip because you've nowhere else to put it, and you're wondering how to get rid of the damned thing. Maybe it will make the dreams easier on you. But you can't just throw it away. You can tell that it's beautifully made, and that it had clearly been well cared-for. You had even had a crude leather scabbard made to hold the thing, since it felt wrong to leave it open to the elements while you went about recuperating.

    You've got a plan, though, or at least an idea. You know there's noblemen in Akitsukuni, samurai, and that this sword is their weapon. You know the man who stabbed you was taken prisoner. You'd thought, or maybe dreaded, that you'd spot him on the platform one day, but it hasn't happened yet and you know there's not all that many prisoners left to go. But maybe there's one of those nobles left. And maybe he knows what you need him to. So you pull the scarf down from over your mouth and nose, stamp your feet and shout "Oy! Do any of you prisoners speak Caspian?"

    Your comrades shoot you strange looks, but you hardly notice as one of the officers stands and leaves the throng of prisoners to speak to you. You meet him halfway, holding up a hand to stop him, and his eyes fall to the sword on your hip as he says "I speak Caspian. I am second Lieutenant Hosokawa." You nod. "Lieutenant Hosokawa." you say "you are one of the, uh... Samurai, yes?" His eyes narrow slightly at that, and he takes a half-step back as he guardedly replies, "Yes. I am. What do you require of me?"

    For a moment, you stall: stuck envisioning the eyes of your attacker, wide with terror and pain as the spade bites into him and his sword runs through you. Yet slowly, reluctantly, you take the sword from your hip, draw it partway from its scabbard, and hold it out to him. "Can you tell me," you say, "who this belongs to?"​
    You are Tatiana Kozlova, and you feel the war has ended far too late for you. From the beginning, it had worried you; Pyotr had joined the flying corps almost as soon as war broke out, and soon you were stuck in a cycle of working exhaustively to finish your thesis and waiting anxiously for when the next letter would come in and brighten your day. There had been that wonderful moment where he had written to tell you he loved you, vindicated you after years of pining after him, yearning to be more than friends but too frightened to make a move yourself. You almost felt glad that the war had spurred him into telling you he felt the same way.

    And then came the cost, what seemed like a punishment for your earlier happiness, when he had written you one last fleeting letter, and then gone silent. You had been scared then, but when he had never returned home on leave, and word came from his squadron commander that he was missing in action, you had been terrified. You could not help but feel that you had poured some of that terror into your work, striving to make newer and better designs for rifles and machine-guns, putting particular energy into a lightened model designed for fighter aircraft. It had felt wrong to you, whenever you stepped back and thought about it; you had never been a vindictive person. But then you'd go home to an empty letterbox and remember the anguished cries of Pyotr's mother and how his brother had been called up two weeks later, and you would keep staying late at the factory, devising weapons to help you take revenge by proxy.

    But all of that was over. The war was over, had been for almost two weeks, and the soldiers and prisoners were at last beginning to come home. At first Pyotr's mother had come into the city with you, waiting eagerly for men to disembark, and her cries of delight when Iosef had stepped off the train had healed some of the pain and worry you still felt in your heart. They had waited another day with you, then returned to the village; to wait for Pyotr, they said, though you can tell they are beginning to give up hope. The trains are still coming through every hour, but word is that they will soon taper off to a trickle, and then stop altogether.

    But you have not given up yet; deep down, you know you cannot bring yourself to do so. To think that you will never get the chance to hear him say it in person, to hold him again, to tell him about your thesis while he smiles and pretends to understand and calls you a genius, to most of all finally kiss that handsome face of his. You have thought, over the past few days, what you might say to him; a joke about keeping a girl waiting, telling him how handsome he looks in his uniform, or of course, "I love you." Right now you're leaning towards just grabbing him by the collar and pressing your lips against his until one of you figures out how to do it properly.

    But for that, of course, you have to wait and see. So here you stand as another train pulls into the station, and the expectant crowd around you cranes their necks, looking for loved ones. All around there are shouts of joy as lovers and families are re-united; more softly, there are tears and cries of anguish as people see how war has left their loved ones mangled. You stand, waiting and watching, until the platform gradually empties out, as the last few soldiers straggle home.

    This is the worst part, realizing that you are once again left alone. But you have a routine to deal with it by now; you walk over to the timetable and check it again; another train comes in in two hours. Enough time to go and get some hot tea and a bite to eat.

    Perhaps it will be empty too, and you know that there are not many trains left for you to wait for. But you have faith, or at least hope, and that is enough to keep you going. Only when the very last train is empty will you give up on that. And then...

    But that is for another time. You want to be well fed and warm when Pyotr finally comes home to you. So with one last wistful glance at the silent, empty train, you turn away.​
    You are General Irena Kutuzova, but you are not sure for how much longer.

    The war had left a terrible bitterness behind in everything it touched; the scarred landscape, the thousands of wounded, the thousands more who would never forget what they saw. But most immediately, it had shaken the army to its core. Field Marshall Vladislavovna had faced the full brunt of the Tsar's wrath. Never mind that there was nothing much anyone could do when the Akitsukuni finally made their move; you remember the speed at which your sector had shifted from the usual grinding stalemate to a full-blown retreat, the line blown apart while Fyodor tried desperately to drive off the landing force. You knew he would never forgive himself for taking the time to clear the mines ahead of him and remain cautious of the enemy's torpedo bombers, but at the same time you knew if he had rushed ahead and taken losses he may never have driven the enemy fleet off at all.

    As it stands, though, the naval war was the most successful part of the whole bloody endeavor, albeit not by much, so he would keep his job as head of the pacific fleet, or at least what was left of it after the withdrawal from Port Georgia to the new base in Uyarazi. A part of it had to do with his gender, too; there had been mutterings about letting women handle the fighting, which you did your best to ignore.

    No one, not the Tsar, not Icthys himself, would have been able to find a better way. There was no better way, the technology, the logistics, the conditions, they were impossible to overcome. Or were they? The though had dogged you for weeks; maybe if you'd been smarter, worked harder, you'd have found something, some new trick or strategy. That meant madness, you knew; you had had to talk Fyodor out of it over your New Year's dinner, when he'd let his anxieties turn him haggard and skeletal. But it hung there all the same, spoiling the crisp taiga air like a bad smell.

    It was a shame, really, because hunting with Fyodor makes many things feel a lot better; it takes you back to a simpler and uncomplicated world, when the two of you had been cadets needing a hunting partner with the stamina to keep up and the grace to not make more noise than a marching band. Fyodor being a wrestler and dancer, and you being a swords-woman no stranger to long marches, had each provided that in spades. Trekking through the virgin snow, eyes sharp and ears alert, it helps you feel light on your feet, free of your cares, until you stop around midday to light a fire and eat. The moment you sit down the gloom seems to come over you again.

    Fyodor notices, of course. "There's no point in worrying, Irena." he tells you, as you take a sip from your flask of hot tea. "I know that." you respond, more sharply than you intend to. "But it keeps gnawing at me." you pause. "Half a million dead and wounded, Pyotr. In just two years. God Almighty, did you ever think you'd see anything like it?" He pauses at that, staring off into the endless ranks of snow-capped pines. "No." he says eventually. "Not the strikes or protests either. I'm so glad my sailors stayed loyal. But to think that we came so close to giving way... I don't know what I'd have done. I don't have the heart to shoot one of my sailors."

    You'd had to. You'd had to shoot a lot more than one of your soldiers; whole companies had mutinied, until you'd brought up cossacks to whip them back into line, and even then... A dangerous, traitorous part of you had whispered to you every time you caught wind of another revolt. "Take them home." It said. "Let the Akitsukuni have this wasteland. It's not worth spilling blood over, is it? You know it. They know it. Only the Tsar doesn't know it." And after that the even worse thought, left unspoken, of what might be done with an army willing to use their rifles for peace. Thoughts of Julianna crossing the Aleacta.

    Perhaps it was for the best that you might not have your commission much longer.

    "Still." Fyodor said, snapping you out of wrestling with your conscience. "It isn't all bad, what's happened. At least no more people will be dying over that place. And they're coming home now, soldiers and sailors alike." He looked over at her. "Perhaps things will change, too, in light of all the unrest. Even the Tsar must see that things can't remain as they are."

    "Perhaps." You don't speak with much conviction, but you want it to be true; you want to live in a Caspia where you don't send thousands to die over a severed hand. The way he speaks, you could almost believe him; that perhaps in spite of everything, some good will come of all this bitterness. You smile. "It's nice. Being back here. Thank you, for going hunting with me again." Fyodor smiles in return, when in the distance you hear an animal cry out. You both rush to your rifles and wander a little ways into the woods, moving carefully towards the noise. It quickly tapers off, and silence is all that's left, until you spy a bit of movement through the trees ahead of you and raise your rifle, Fyodor quickly joining you.

    It's a young deer, bleeding slightly from a cut on its flank, but still standing tall, with impressive antlers and a beautiful coat. Its antlers are stained red with blood too; the one on the left side looks jagged, and broken off. Attacked by a predator then, and the deer had survived, with a bite mark on the hind leg for its trouble. It limps along, then pauses to lick at its open wound.

    You aim down your sights, lining up on where the heart should be. "It's wounded." you whisper. "We should kill it before something else does." "Yes," Fyodor agrees, taking aim. "We should." You wait there for a moment, steadying your shot as the deer tends to itself. But then it straightens up and glances nervously around. You see its eyes. Wary, yes, and in pain. But not panicking. It looks around for a moment, then begins to move back the way it had come.

    You watch it through your sights for a heartbeat more, then let out a breath and lower your rifle. "Do you know something, Fedyenka?" you ask, as he too lowers his rifle. "I've had quite enough of shooting for one day." And there you stand, watching silently as the deer, still unbowed, disappears into the woods.
    ​

    Dammit, I hate how finicky the spoiler function on SV is. Anyway, here's a three-thousand word omake that no one asked for, now with half-assed literary symbolism! Credit to @Balaur for generously permitting the use of one of his side characters.​
     
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    tearlessNever said:
    *their nation's

    Wrong pronoun.
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    It's like I've said: People maliciously misgender Asuka as a boy. People absent-mindedly misgender Asuka as a girl. Very reliable test as to whether it's being done with malice aforethought.

    ancusohm said:
    Okay. It's official. Test pilots have no survival instinct.
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    Coralie certainly doesn't. Like, none whatsoever. About the only way to have a more spectacular set of anti-survival instincts would be to enjoy World War One infantry combat.

    Link to the guy who managed to be crazy enough to do that later in this post.

    The nutter, just to demonstrate the sheer power of the gods of irony, lived to be a hundred and three. (o_O)

    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.
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    As I mentioned, they'll probably switch back to calling Asuka a girl.

    Also, finding a satisfactory transliteration for Asian languages into the Latin alphabet is HARD. >_<

    [ ] Matsura talks to Coralie about Europan's experience of war neurosis.
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    That's going to be either a very short snippet ("I don't know, maybe it's caused by cordite fumes?") or a long but unhelpful one.

    On a scale of zero to ten measuring "so, how qualified are you to help other people understand why trench warfare causes PTSD," on which Wilfred Owen comes in at a ten, Coralie d'Amboise is like a zero or a one.

    It could be worse. Ernst Junger scores about a negative eight.
     
    Simon_Jester said:
    It could be worse. Ernst Junger scores about a negative eight.
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    Wasn't "Storm Of Steel" the recollection of WW1 that the Nazis liked? I remember that there was some memoir they far preferred over All Quiet On The Western Front (another achingly beautiful rendition of PTSD) because it didn't, y'know, undermine their whole idea that the First World War was still totally winnable guys and they would have been able to hold out if those damned Jews/Bolsheviks/Gypsies/Homosexuals/Capitalists hadn't stabbed them in the back.

    As a side note, war poetry on both sides of WW1 was frankly incredible and was on a level that we will likely never see again. The war occurred at the height of a flowering of modern student culture in France, England and Germany (such that even German drinking songs like "Frederich Of Palestine" and "The Inn of the Black Whale at Ascalon" incorporate classical or medieval history) and the officer corps was made up of future Oxford dons and great intellectuals from all fields and nations.

    The old Greek and Roman Classics were still covered in school and the focal point of a great deal of university study, so all at once there was a group of people schooled in classical history, mythology and literature, and an audience that would still recognize these themes and find them to be resonant. So founded in this literacy and intellectual tradition of both the Romantics and the Enlightenment is this body of incredibly beautiful work that serves to show the horrors of one of the worst conflicts in human history through a poetic lens.

    Like the Edwardian era that preceded, and was devoured by the conflict, we shall not see its like again. The poets of Flanders died in droves, and those who went home had been stripped of their optimism and faith in the human spirit, struggling to explain their experiences. A lively and literate world had lost its voice to shellfire and poison gas. We shall not see its like again.
     
    Night_stalker said:
    Reminds me, what did happen to the guy who caused this whole thing?

    The man whose hand drips with so much blood as a result of his actions?
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    Gavrillo Princip died in his cell of tuberculosis. He and his Black Hand brothers were angry young men swept up by a tide of nationalism, funded and directed, albeit discreetly, by elements in the Russian and Serbian intelligence service who dreamed of a pan-slavic brotherhood in the Balkans, at a time when "Illyrian" sentiment and ideals were at their height. I expect to him it was a necessary blow against an occupying power, and there were Croats, Czechs, Bosniaks and Slovaks who doubtless all felt the same way. I imagine he was horrified when he realized he'd started a war that would kill 25% of Serbia's population, including 57% of its male population.

    In my opinion, he was a young man radicalized by political forces that paved the road to war in hundreds of other ways. Pitiable, more than evil.
     
    CthuluWasRight said:
    Gavrillo Princip died in his cell of tuberculosis. He and his Black Hand brothers were angry young men swept up by a tide of nationalism, funded and directed, albeit discreetly, by elements in the Russian and Serbian intelligence service who dreamed of a pan-slavic brotherhood in the Balkans, at a time when "Illyrian" sentiment and ideals were at their height. I expect to him it was a necessary blow against an occupying power, and there were Croats, Czechs, Bosniaks and Slovaks who doubtless all felt the same way. I imagine he was horrified when he realized he'd started a war that would kill 25% of Serbia's population, including 57% of its male population.

    In my opinion, he was a young man radicalized by political forces that paved the road to war in hundreds of other ways. Pitiable, more than evil.
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    I believe they meant in-universe; the Caspian Prince.

    And uh, so far, nothing has happened to him, but he's a member of Russian royalty in the early 20th Century, so who knows.
     
    Axslashel said:
    "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger; and what kills me makes me incredibly strong."
    That is quite the motto.
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    Also shout out to another German war hero, Paul Von Letto-Voorbeck, who danced circles around the Allied forces and never lost a battle, at the cost of inflicting famine on thousands of native Africans by confiscating their supplies to keep his own men going and deny provisions to the enemy (the colonial theaters of the Great War often have more of the medieval about them than the modern war that dominated Europe).

    He lived until 1964, and whatever the toll of his campaign it is to his eternal credit that he told Hitler, one of his biggest fanboys, to go fuck himself. No really, here's a quote from the Wikipedia article: During the 1960s, Charles Miller asked the nephew of a Schutztruppe officer, "I understand that von Lettow told Hitler to go fuck himself." The nephew responded, "That's right, except that I don't think he put it that politely."[53]​
     
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