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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
    • open_sketch said:
    If you can lay out a quick sketch of this party for a write-in, sure. Asuka is not unique in their tribulations and difficulties, there are sure to be sympathetic folks.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    [X] A recently founded fringe party, the Trans People's Party . If anything, their positions on economic issues were worse than the independents, but they wanted to pass resolutions endorsing non binary marriage and at least made some token protests about how women deserved a full vote for fairness.

    @open_sketch let me know what's wrong in this wording, because I"m pretty sure a lot of it is? But that's my line of thinking.
     
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    open_sketch said:
    "These men are all here because they love their Empress! They trust you to vote against her enemies!"
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    For some reason, I do not think that who these people think the enemies of the Empress are, and who Asuka thinks the enemies of the Empress are, are the same group.

    But thinking about it, shouldn't the WEL be listed on the ballot, since they actually have an MP?

    Kinda tempted to vote for a party with bimetallism as a core plank, but I have no idea if Akitsukuni is still on the gold standard.

    E: Screw it, voting Silver Party, since it looks like WEL is going to be Asuka's choice

    [X] Silver Party, a fringe party focused on moving from the gold standard to a gold/silver standard to increase the amount of available money in circulation and facilitate international trade
     
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    Not a super serious suggestion, but here's a candidate irrelevant single issue fringe party.

    [ ] League of Independent Fishermen. Formerly a single issue party focused around fighting corrupt local harbor officials, they've since taken stands opposing attempts by New Alliganian fishing interests to expand their operations in the north-western Auroric ocean, in favor of responsible fishery management, against the wartime impressment of private ships and boats (and in favor of fair payouts for those lost or damaged), and against overly burdensome inspections and routine harassment by the navy. They've managed to win a couple local elections in rural fishing towns, but this is their first attempt on the national stage.

    As solid a fuck you towards the navy as this ballot is likely to allow, and not especially objectionable otherwise.
     
    I've been getting a bit disillusioned with this quest lately. I still love the characters and the planes, but it feels like the overall tone of the whole setting is trending away from "believably complicated, awful in different ways in different places, but still better than OTL in a lot of ways that count; overall feeling: optimistic".

    It's getting increasingly hard for me to believe that the slide of Akitsukuni into right-wing extremism can possibly be stopped. I mean, clearly they already blatantly outright control the election process, and once they've done that? They've already won. Like, you can't democratically defeat a party that controls the elections and is willing to manipulate them freely. All that's left is some kind of nonsensical left-wing coup that will inevitably fail and leave the country even worse off because the right-wing nuts have all the guns.

    And in the face of this Asuka pissed away their big opportunity to gain national influence on a sweet but ultimately pointless gesture by dancing with Yachi and ended up even less influential than they started out. Which I shouldn't complain about, because I missed that vote, but I'm doing it anyway because it irritated me.

    tl;dr I don't want to read the story of how a believably-optimistic alt-Earth slides into OTL levels of crapsack.

    [X] Women Equality League.
    -[X] Take the next plane out of the country.

    This is past saving democratically and it'll be a cold day in hell when Asuka or Yachi tries anything violent against their/his own countrymen.
     
    Last edited:
    thepsyborg said:
    I've been getting a bit disillusioned with this quest lately. I still love the characters and the planes, but it feels like the overall tone of the whole setting is trending away from "believably complicated, awful in different ways in different places, but still better than OTL in a lot of ways that count; overall feeling: optimistic".

    It's getting increasingly hard for me to believe that the slide of Akitsukuni into right-wing extremism can possibly be stopped. I mean, clearly they already blatantly outright control the election process, and once they've done that? They've already won. Like, you can't democratically defeat a party that controls the elections and is willing to manipulate them freely. All that's left is some kind of nonsensical left-wing coup that will inevitably fail and leave the country even worse off because the right-wing nuts have all the guns.

    And in the face of this Asuka pissed away their big opportunity to gain national influence on a sweet but ultimately pointless gesture by dancing with Yachi and ended up even less influential than they started out. Which I shouldn't complain about, because I missed that vote, but I'm doing it anyway because it irritated me.

    tl;dr I don't want to read the story of how a believably-optimistic alt-Earth slides into OTL levels of crapsack.

    [X] Women Equality League.
    -[X] Take the next plane out of the country.

    This is past saving democratically and it'll be a cold day in hell when Asuka tries anything violent against his own countrymen.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Their, not his, unless you mean yachi.
     
    Yeah, I feel you on this. But like... okay, realtalk: I'm trying to pace out some plot stuff with an arc, but this part is dragging more than I wish it would because of my mental health stuff. It won't escape anyone's notice that updates have been slower than I'd like.

    We're going to roll out the election and see how it goes here, and I've got a few loose ideas of directions to shoot the plot from there depending on how it goes. But I just want to give some interesting context that should like... frame this stuff.

    We're right about at the beginning of the transition between two eras in Japanese history: the late Meiji period and the Taishō democracy, and I'm drawing on a lot of real life elements and historical events to act as a framework for the more fantastical worldbuilding as I go. What makes the Taishō period fascinating as a place for the story to be set is that it represents a tipping point where history could have gone either way, as an increasingly liberalizing country took tentative steps into real democracy but, owing to a large number of complicated factors, ended up faltering and falling into a fascist dictatorship. It's not even like the obviously doomed Wiemar Germany, a government nobody had faith in, stillborn and with extremists already fighting over its corpse. There was a window where Japan could have taken another path, and we're entering it. And believe it or not, it did so even while stuff a lot like this was happening.

    This story is slow burn. Kind of too slow right now, because of aforementioned mental health stuff and me trying to hold off on something to let Castles catch up. I'm sort of realizing that isn't happening, so this update is part of me pressing forward. I'm sort of hoping the next few arcs cover a lot more time and we can quickly book it to 1913 and beyond. I have some trends in mind for how politics is shaped during that time, and the results of things like election rolls and player political actions will lean on those trends.

    Basically... give me a few more updates at least. Politics may be more volatile than you think.

    EDIT: Also an aspect of this is like, bleh, all my quests are currently stuck in low points. This is kind of a crappy coincidence that is really not making this easy.
     
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    [X] Women Equality League
    -[X] Smile back at the officer broadly

    Is smiling sarcastically at the secret police going to get us disappeared?
     
    [X] Women Equality League

    Let's do it, everybody. And somebody break out the good dice.
     
    [X] Women Equality League

    Burn all yo incense and sacrifice all ya goats, 'cuz we need all the good fortune we can get.
     
    [X] Women Equality League
    We must remember to calculate the constant of Murphy's Law if we are to hope for good rolls, for some reason I keep getting Pigeon as the answer.
     
    [X] Women Equality League

    Honestly, there were some really hopeful moments in this update. Yachi writing. O'Hara opening up an airline. Even the gliders actually selling. ;)

    This is setting a very solid foundation. O'Hara is going to get famous for this, and Yachi is very well positioned to become an influential opinion columnist. And we've been honest about who we are too the political establishment, so even if we are digging out from that mechanically it means we have nothing to hide and no dirty laundry to expose. I think chances are good for getting to a place to change things. :)
     
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