I'm not sure whether the response to this is Angry Quebecois Noises or Angry Bayou Noises, but given how much Quebecois has drifted from Metropolitan French despite the best efforts of the Academies and how Louisianian French has a different ISO 639-03 code from French, this might be like trying to claim that Latin isn't dead because people speak Italian and Romanian.
Rudi stood stalk still beside Zimmerman. Under her breath, she muttered. "T-This doesn't mean I have to like you."
I'm sure there must be some interesting etymology here.
And I swear I'm not going to go on a deep tangent about pirate flags around the Gulf, but it's super important if those ships were flying the same version of the Jolly Roger, or different versions. Because if it's the same, it implies some level of organization and cooperation... (To say nothing of how some pirates had two versions, one for "Surrender and you will not be harmed" and one for "Fuck it, now we're going to kill everyone")
She landed on the stoop and brought her wrists smashing together with a crash. The brilliant blue-white flash of a criticality event
And I swear I'm not going to go on a deep tangent about pirate flags around the Gulf, but it's super important if those ships were flying the same version of the Jolly Roger, or different versions. Because if it's the same, it implies some level of organization and cooperation... (To say nothing of how some pirates had two versions, one for "Surrender and you will not be harmed" and one for "Fuck it, now we're going to kill everyone")
I would argue that the original "God from the machine" is more appropriate.
"God is the machine" would imply Zim is saying Midway is a divinity, which is probably some flavor of blasphemy. "Deus ex Machina" implies that she is a machine manifesting the divine, aka she is a holy figure performing miracles.
The latter falls much closer to what we've seen of how Zimmerman views things.
This was thrown together in multiple fits of hyperfixation. It could probably use more editing, but I need to get this out before it consumes any more of my life.
Recent lore reveals have pretty much put the kibosh on my other planned ideas, but if I come up with anything new I will certainly post it!
Part Two: The Highwaymen
Originally a word for a form of bandit, in North America "Highwayman" is a general term for anyone in the Wasteland who operates a motorized ground vehicle. Most of these vehicles are relics from the War of Ascension: army trucks, jeeps, etc, but Highwaymen have been known to use virtually anything that's rugged enough to handle the broken Highways and occasional off-road foray.
The vehicles operated by Highwaymen are strange things. They were never intended for centuries of use on overgrown and shattered roads. Parts haven't been manufactured for them in literal centuries, with the Empire disdaining such uncivilized modes of travel, and fuel is extremely hard to come by. Most are battered, heavily modified things held together only by their spirits, whose age, damage, and improvised repairs have usually made them even crazier than their drivers.
Petrol (or gasoline as the locals call it) is a rarity these days. Airships and other large machines run on nuclear power, and less complex/demanding vehicles normally use old steam engines that can run on anything that burns thanks to the efforts of their spirits. The ruins of America make simply surviving a difficult task, much less operating a drilling and refining operation to meet a barely existent demand.
The Empire frowns on anything that produces too much CO2, and Colossus will not hesitate to use Britain's full might against anything that risks disturbing the fragile balance she maintains. The scattered relics roaming the Wasteland are rounding errors in such equations, but the Empire still comes down hard on any gasoline production operations.
To get around the fuel problem, the majority of Highwaymen use vehicles with diesel engines (or vehicles that have been converted to diesel engines). With a little help from the vehicle's spirit they can run on almost any liquid that will burn, from vegetable oil to high-proof alcohol. Getting enough improvised fuel to keep their machines running is still complicated, but at least what they need can be produced by local communities instead of vast logistical chains. Some operate using steam engines (standard for the few vehicles produced in the Empire), but such engines are heavier and much weaker than their internal combustion counterparts.
Actual gasoline still turns up on occasion, despite any pre-Fire gasoline having gone bad long ago. Where this gasoline comes from and who might be producing it is a mystery, and there certainly aren't enough Highwaymen to justify someone running a secret refinery just to supply them.
Parts are even harder to come by than fuel. The factories and machines that once produced brakes, pistons, and tires are radioactive rubble, and abandoned or wrecked vehicles have largely corroded to uselessness. The Highway itself is a shattered mess. The many cracks and holes are easy to avoid on foot, but pose a major problem for vehicles moving at speed. As a result Highwaymen are incredibly reliant on the spirits of their vehicles to help overcome these problems, a reality complicated by the fact that almost all of these spirits are insane.
Many penny dreadfuls tell sensationalist stories of screaming cannibalistic maniacs roaring across the Wasteland in twisted, garishly painted vehicles festooned with spikes while belching fire and black smoke from their exhausts. While the flames and smoke are sometimes true depending on what the vehicle is running on, the few other kernels of truth come not from Highwaymen but from their spirits.
Cars, trucks, motorcycles, and other motor vehicles are highly complex machines with many moving parts, so their spirits are sapient and relatively bright as such things are measured. They are also very old: no one is building new cars these days, so all vehicles in operation are 200-year relics that survived the Fire through luck and sheer grit. They've had to be extensively repaired and modified to keep them running, an extremely traumatic process for the spirits. Almost all Wasteland vehicles volunteered for their modifications and most insisted on them so they could remain with their drivers, but this doesn't lessen the physical and mental trauma.
The spirits that roam the Highways are twisted, crazed things. They are still good natured and love their operators, but they are absolutely insane. They are in constant pain from the grinding of their improvised parts, and most have learned to love it. Sadists and masochists in equal measure, they beg their operators for ever more modifications. Spikes and crude paint are to them what piercings and dyed hair would be to a human: nightmarishly scandalous to a "cultured" individual (even to most spirits) but delightfully transgressive to the wearer.
The vehicles of the Wasteland aren't mere civilian transports and haven't been for centuries. The needs of their operators have turned them toward two goals, speed and violence, and their spirits reflect this.
Almost universally, they want to go fast. They don't care what their operators have to pull off or inject into them, as long as it gets them going just a little bit faster. They will whine and complain if their drivers aren't putting the pedal down, and sometimes take things into their own wheels if they get too eager. They crave the roar of their engine and the rush of wind, and if they can't get more speed will settle for modifications that make it feel like they are going faster, such as removing panels or making the engine louder.
They are also extremely aggressive. They aren't quite smart enough to fully understand the nature of the violence they so adore, but they love it all the same. To them, the Wasteland is a contact sport and they're itching to get more skin in the game. If it moves they want to race it, and if it doesn't move they want to ram it. They are willfully, recklessly ignorant of any danger to themselves, viewing dents and other damage as "badass scars". They lean out their own windows or climb onto their roofs and hoods to scream profane challenges and make wild gestures, not out of malice but because they think it's fun.
While the spirits Highwaymen partner with really are screaming, insane savages (most of them, anyway), the Highwaymen themselves are usually far more rational. They almost have to be to keep their vehicles from racing to death just for kicks.
Since the definition of a Highwayman is "anyone in the Wasteland with a motor vehicle", literally anyone can become a Highwayman if they can get their hands on a working vehicle. Despite this, the rarity of such vehicles and the resource-intensive nature of keeping them running in the Wasteland means that independent Highwaymen are the exception rather than the rule.
To operate, a Highwayman needs several things: fuel, spare parts, a safe place to store and work on their vehicle when not on the road, and the services of individuals who can see to the vehicles' physical and spiritual maintenance. Ensuring long-term access to these resources is a huge task, but with the exception of parts specific to their vehicle (and over two hundred years of wear have ensured most surviving vehicles are standardized to some degree), all of these can be shared between Highwaymen. Thus, the vast majority of Highwaymen are members of a larger group instead of lone wanderers.
In the same way that a cavalryman is familiar with the basics of caring for a horse, all Highwaymen are at least somewhat mechanically adept. They can handle changing parts, swapping tires, and most other forms of physical maintenance and repairs. Highwaymen can do little for spiritual maintenance, however, so getting their vehicles regularly serviced by a Technician is critical.
Technical skill is rare in the Wasteland, but not nearly as rare as most believe. Technicians are trained, not born. They jealously guard the secrets of their trade, but as the saying goes: "three can keep a secret if two of them are dead". There are many ways for such secrets to slip into the wider world, whether through careless talk, espionage, bribery, or more…blunt forms of information gathering. It is also entirely possible for a Technician to become disgraced if they abuse their position or otherwise fall into scandal. A disgraced Technician will find it extremely difficult to find legitimate work in the Empire, but their knowledge doesn't magically evaporate when they fall from grace. Thus, most find their way to the Colonies or other fringes where their skills are in such high demand that no one bothers asking inconvenient questions.
Most large settlements have a Technician in residence, especially if they fall along a major trade route. They don't normally advertise, lest the Empire take offense, but even the clumsiest self-taught novice or the laziest exile can usually make a living servicing the spirits that reside in or pass through such areas. Highwaymen will make use of such hedge Technicians if they must, but their vehicles usually require far more than just a quick in-and-out to keep them running.
Independent Highwaymen have no choice but to rely on whatever Technicians they happen to encounter, regardless of skill, and since the alternative is letting their vehicle fall apart they are at the mercy of whatever price that Technician feels like charging. In contrast, an organized group of Highwaymen usually have the resources to seek out skilled Technicians and directly recruit them. Less scrupulous Highwaymen will outright kidnap Technicians, though even these groups tend to keep their enslaved Technicians in gilded cages to incentivize cooperation.
Groups of Highwaymen are as unique as every other organization in the Wasteland, but most fall into one of two general categories: Road Gangs and the Express.
The Road Gangs are the most infamous of the Highwaymen, and are the ones that most closely resemble the sensationalist British idea of a dozen crude cars screaming toward a defenseless settlement with whatever improvised weapons they've found. They are, bluntly, warlords running largescale protection rackets. They stake out whatever territory they're strong enough to police against other groups, then sponge off the settlements in their territory in exchange for promising to aid them if they need it.
This is often played up by sensationalist media, which portrays them as little more than rapacious raiders to be thwarted by a Gentleman Adventurer protagonist, but in truth the vast majority of Road Gangs maintain a very light hand in "their territory".
Road Gang protectorates are extremely literal about the protection that they offer. The Wasteland is a dangerous place, and even communities on river routes or rail lines are often days or weeks away from any possible assistance. Thus Road Gangs have slipped into the metaphorical role of The Cavalry, screaming across the cracked Highways at speeds only airships can match to provide aid to communities in distress.
While the average British citizen would likely imagine mad cannibals, sadistic bandits, or brutal warlords as the primary threat (and with the exception of cannibals* such threats are quite real), in reality most communities are more at risk to disease outbreaks, fires, and other natural disasters. Road Gangs can't totally stop such threats, but they usually have the numbers and equipment to keep people together and alive until large-scale relief (usually summoned from neighboring settlements by other members of the Gang) arrives. If things are beyond salvaging, Road Gangs can at least relocate any survivors to other communities.
On the rare occasion violence actually is called for, Road Gangs are generally more than up to the task.
Motor vehicles are a uniquely terrifying force in the post-Fire world. An approaching Road Gang can be seen and heard from miles away, a huge plume of approaching dust with a column of screaming metal racing ahead of it like the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Most residents of the Wasteland have never seen anything larger than a horse. More worldly individuals might have seen a train, boat, or even an airship, but there is a world of difference between the chuffing of a steam engine or the silence of a nuclear plant and the roar of a diesel engine burning on whatever twisted concoction its maddened spirit managed to get her hands on.
Those not intimidated into fleeing or surrendering before a Road Gang arrives often regret their decision.
They may appear crude, but a Wasteland vehicle is still several tons of steel moving at high speed. Shooting at them rarely does much good: most bullets will either bounce off or harmlessly pass through, and the actual vulnerable spots (engine, driver's seat, etc) are typically protected with scavenged armor plate. Anyone foolish enough to get in their way can simply be run over. A single vehicle has more power than entire teams of draft horses, allowing them to use chains and grapples to rip down guard towers and flimsier structures. Larger vehicles like trucks are often given dozer blades so they can literally plow through obstacles, including the gates of all but the most fortified settlements. Road Gangs frequently convert spare fuel into molotov cocktails and bolt weapons to their vehicles when possible, everything from machineguns to flamethrowers to racks of crude rockets.
Road Gangs trade heavily on the terrifying reputation and destructive potential of their vehicles, using shock and awe tactics to hide just how vulnerable they really are. All it really takes to stop the charge of a Road Gang are some creative earthworks. They have no hope of stealth, and their reliance on roads means their foes will always know which direction they're coming from. Tight spaces have always been the bane of mounted individuals, whether on horses or motor vehicles, and Road Gangs aren't the only people in the Wasteland with heavy weapons or explosives. While it would be destructive and bloody, most Wasteland communities could get rid of their "protectors" if they wanted to, or at least inflict so much damage they'd be unable to menace anyone else.
As a result, a Road Gang's protection racket only works if it's easier to pay them than it is to fight them. Tactics vary depending on the location and the Gang's leader, but most achieve this with a mixture of intimidation and civility.
A Gang calling on a settlement in their territory will often approach at full speed with full kit, reminding everyone of just how scary they are and how many chains, spikes, and guns they have. Once they arrive, however, they act as honored guests. They're just checking in, making sure everything is okay, and seeing if anyone needs help! They smile, tell wild stories, and often pitch in if there's work to be done (and a vehicle can be a big help when the only alternative is mules or horses). If there's talk of tithes or tributes it happens behind closed doors, and while they may leave with a great deal of "gifts" they make every effort not to overstay their welcome.
The message behind this bit of theater is usually quite clear: "We're terrifying bastards, but we're your terrifying bastards."
How much is an act and how much is sincere varies from group to group, and every Road Gang has its own culture. Some are little more than thugs and tend to act the part. Others frame themselves as knights of the Wasteland, roaming on steel steeds…though whether they are saviors in shining armor or feudal overlords depends on the group. Some, especially those with revivalist leanings, take up the mantle of famous American mechanized units from the Ascension War and play at being actual military personnel. How successful they are and how strictly they maintain the fiction varies.
Though there are some general truths, ultimately every Road Gang is unique and operates in its own way.
In contrast, the Express is surprisingly consistent. Inspired by a fusion of some old American ideas, the Express is a network of service stations that serve as hubs for independent couriers. If you need something or someone delivered to a specific place as quickly and discreetly as possible, you turn to the Express. Its couriers can go where trains, boats, and airships can't. On the open road they're even faster than trains, and unlike conventional transports they are entirely off the books so aren't subject to inspection, recordkeeping, or other inconvenient entanglements.
The Express operates all across North America, but is entirely decentralized. No one is in charge of the Express, and each station is entirely independent. Anyone with the connections and resources can start a new station wherever they'd like, and there are no rules about how each station can or should operate. The real limit is the fact that if a station operates in a manner that is unfair or unsafe, they risk clients and/or couriers refusing to use it.
Couriers for the Express operate independently, taking the jobs they want and coming and going as they please. Stations provide them with easy access to food, supplies, shelter, parts, and the services of a skilled Technician, though none of these are free. An Express station is ultimately nothing more than a combined inn, garage, gas station, and job board. Couriers are not employees or even members, they're contractors and sometimes not even that. Some stations vet couriers before letting them take jobs, to make sure the station's reputation is protected, but most don't bother.
Stations are usually minimally involved in courier work. Those needing the services of a courier whisper into the right ears, a job goes up in the nearest station, a courier takes the job, and that's it. Some clients insist on face-to-face meetings before accepting a courier, others just do dead drops, but the station usually isn't concerned with the details. Stations often take a percentage or flat amount as a "finder's fee", either from the client, the courier, or both, but some stations don't charge anything and just post jobs.
The method of making a job request varies, usually based on how close a hub is to Imperial authority. Stations near or within British controlled regions tend to act like any other smuggling ring, operating through chains of catspaws or as extensions of organized crime. The station is well hidden and steps are taken to avoid letting law enforcement track anyone back to it. In contrast, those deep in the Wasteland often let just about anyone walk up and post a job. They operate openly and are usually deeply entrenched in the local community.
Location also impacts the sorts of jobs that are available.
Illicit hubs operating under the Empire's nose almost exclusively deal with illegal smuggling. Couriers are subtle and fast but can't carry nearly as much as a train or ship, so they are normally used for small but extremely valuable packages: secret communications, wanted fugitives, stolen radioactive material, etc. It is high risk, high reward, and usually requires long term relationships between clients and couriers to build and maintain trust.
Wasteland hubs are usually far more casual. Most of what couriers carry is mail, hopping from one settlement and farm to the next, picking up and dropping off letters and parcels for a few coins each. Other times they function as long-range taxis, carrying solitary travelers across the Wasteland far safer and faster than could be manage on food. There's not much less money in these mundane jobs, but there's a lot less risk of gangsters, automatons, or airships filling you with holes.
Couriers are well-loved in the Wasteland. A visiting courier is often the only way for isolated towns and villages to receive news of the outside world, which is usually more than worth the cost of a meal and a bed. They are also a major source of trade for farms and other settlements too small for even a merchant caravan to visit. Even something as simple as a book or a handful of bullets can be precious if there's no other way to acquire them.
When lives depend on a package or message getting through no matter what, the people of the Wasteland call on couriers. If a warlord is on the move, usually a courier is the one who raises the alarm and carries messages to coordinate a defense. If there is a disease outbreak, couriers are often the only hope of getting lifesaving medicine before people start to die.
Couriers do much to live up to this reputation. Their living depends on convincing total strangers to entrust them with extremely valuable and often volatile packages, based on nothing but the courier's word that they can get it to its destination intact and on time. Couriers will fight through bandits, push through storms, and blow past blockades to make their deliveries, because even one failure can sometimes be the end of a courier's career.
This isn't a terribly safe mindset to have, particularly when venturing out into the Wasteland. Speed is a courier's best defense in most cases. Animals have no chance of catching a courier on the road, and most bandit ambushes are designed to intercept plodding stagecoaches. Some prominent couriers have even bragged about outrunning storms, though not all weather can be avoided. Most couriers don't die to fangs or bullets but to ice, slick roads, and other natural hazards.
Couriers usually prefer to run from fights, so their vehicles are more tuned for speed and practicality than violence and intimidation. This bleeds into the vehicles' spirits, who tend to be a bit more rational than those affiliated with Road Gangs. They're still quite crazy, but are at least less interested in spikes and running people over.
Pulp, sensationalist fiction tends to feature couriers as either smuggling scoundrels or dashing rogues. They are frequently pitted against villainous Road Gangs, since it allows for dramatic car chases, but in reality couriers and Road Gangs rarely clash.
Road Gangs use couriers almost as much as everyone else does, and couriers are often a good way to keep apprised of what's going on in and around their territory. Couriers always appreciate having another place to stop for fuel and a tune-up, and a courier friendly to a Road Gang may be able to use their supplies for a discount or even for free.
Even in less friendly circumstances, Road Gangs generally consider couriers to be more trouble than they are worth. More belligerent Gangs may insist on a toll for use of "their Highway", but they almost never specifically target a courier without a good reason.
Intercepting a courier requires significant investment in fuel and maintenance (high-speed chases cause a lot of wear). Couriers are skilled as a rule, so even with the advantage of numbers there's a serious risk of a Gang member (or worse, an irreplaceable vehicle) getting hurt or killed. If they just destroy the courier's vehicle with heavy weapons or force a high-speed crash, everything of possible value is also destroyed and the whole exercise is made pointless. Unless a Road Gang really wants what a courier is carrying or is desperate to stop the courier from delivering a message or package, it's usually easier to leave them alone.
The Empire is not fond of Highwaymen. Combustion engines are far dirtier than their steam and nuclear counterparts, so the general thought is that vehicles using such engines should be destroyed when possible. Even discounting the general British dislike for their vehicles, Highwaymen are almost universally considered criminals. The Empire sees no difference between Road Gangs and the dozens of other bandits and warlords that claim territory in the Wasteland, and the Exchange is officially classified as a "widespread decentralized smuggling ring".
While the official line is that Highwaymen are criminal outlaws that should be stomped out, the reality is a bit different. Putting an end to the Highwaymen would be complicated to the point of near impossibility and wouldn't really benefit the Empire. The colonies have no shortage of smugglers and gangs, after all. Since their vehicles will continue to slowly wear away and cannot be replaced once destroyed, the Empire is mostly content to let the Highwaymen burn themselves out.
Burning up in a glorious blaze of roaring engines and screaming tires is what they're good at, after all.
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*: This writeup assumes that the reports of cannibalism seen in the story are colonial propaganda.
Taking ethics out of the equation, cannibalism doesn't make sense as a long-term source of food. It functions as a last-ditch survival tactic, but you can't raise humans for the purposes of eating them. Meat livestock works because they eat what people don't. If cows ate what humans do you could just cut out the middleman and eat the cow feed. Raising human livestock would be a next negative for food, nevermind the health risks.
Targeting people outside the community also doesn't work. Travelers likely either aren't common enough to make reliable prey (meaning you need alternative food sources and thus won't need to cannibalize), or are so common their disappearance will be noticed and other travelers will avoid the area. Raiding nearby communities also only works short term, since it will inevitably result in your neighbors either getting overhunted, moving away, or banding together to destroy you.
Ritual cannibalism or as a taboo pleasure makes more sense, but not in the context of what we see in the story. The Wasteland has a lot more in common with the American West than it does with Fallout or Borderlands. There are families running trading businesses, towns with sheriffs and saloons, and even the US Army cosplayers are just professional mercs with a theme.
This tracks with the timespan. It's only been ~200 years, and there was no mass dieoff. While a lot was lost, people still remember who they were and where they came from. This makes it extremely unlikely for any community, gang, or cult to turn to ritual cannibalism, because the old taboos would still survive. Even if they did, everyone around them still has the taboo and isn't fond of having their hearts eaten to appease Trinity. Cannibal groups would likely have been wiped out by irate neighbors long before the story started.
While it is possible that an isolated community could secretly practice ritual cannibalism in such an internal and occasional way that no one else has realized it, it's very unlikely. Even if there were such a community, the cannibals would be no threat to others: if they were eating random travelers or their neighbors they likely would have been discovered before now.
From this, we can conclude that the report of Vejas stomping out a community that was eating passing travelers was either an outright lie or an exaggerated excuse. Vejas is canonically a major power that has been going for over 150 years. There's no way a community of active cannibals could have existed in proximity to such a large city for that long without someone noticing before now.
A far more likely explanation is that Vejas is expanding its influence and the settlement didn't want to play ball. Vejas made a violent example out of them, and used the excuse of non-existent cannibalism to justify it. The nearby communities get the actual message ("This could be you if you defy us"), while everyone else sees Vejas as a noble protector. The British, who certainly don't know any better, pick up the story and further sensationalize it.
Lurid tales sell newspapers, after all, and they need to reinforce the idea that they are saving America from the Wasteland's savagery instead of brutally exploiting and suppressing it for their own gain.
In fairness, all spirits are odd. Wasteland cars are odd even by spirit standards, but you are correct that "insane" is probably the wrong word to use.
From a Watsonian perspective, Wasteland vehicles are potentially the most traumatized spirits we've seen.
Weetie was traumatized just by having her cars switched out, and those are designed to be changed. Now imagine the trauma of a car having its entire engine ripped out and replaced with something it was never designed to use. And the trauma never stops. They are Frankensteins ripped apart and put back together with parts from their dead (well, departed) siblings. They use a battered, scavenged part until it wears out or gets destroyed, and then a new one gets slotted in. Panels get taken off, put back on, replaced with crude armor, then the armor is taken off again later. Their fuel situation is basically a person drinking nothing but flat soda and booze, then shooting up with drugs (nitrous, etc) when they need a boost. The grace of the US Highway System is the only reason they don't shake themselves to bits on the roads, and she's a half-dead mess.
They've seen the world end, labored to get their drivers to safety while everyone else died, and then watched their drivers die too. Over, and over, and over. Cars aren't like boats or trains, with large crews that can maintain continuity even as people leave, retire, or die. They have a handful of operators, and some only have one driver at a time. It's very personal. They were also built before our modern safety standards, so instead of the car wrecking and the passengers surviving (as the spirits would prefer) the car survives and the passengers die. I'm sure the spirits do what they can to protect their people, but the Wasteland is a dangerous place and Highwayman is a dangerous profession. After 200 years most cars probably know what it is to have their driver impaled on their steering column or have someone wipe their passenger's brains off the faded leather interior.
Most of the spirits we've seen are gentle, good-natured, and quite naive. "Ditzy" might be a good descriptor, at least for Weetie and Sparky. Wasteland vehicles are different. They aren't smarter but they've been through more, pushed through more. They are cracked, often quite literally, and it's only going to get worse. They cope in different ways: denial and delusions of invulnerability, a despite need to live in the moment, etc, but they've all got trauma and it absolutely shows.
From a Doyalist perspective, this was my chance to bring the wasteland punk aesthetic into a setting where punk never existed.
I wanted to be very explicit that the standard post-apocalyptic psycho raiders we see in Mad Max, Fallout, Borderlands, and other media don't exist in this setting. It was important that they not exist, because if the people of the Wasteland live at the mercy of crazed marauders then colonial narrative is true. The colonizers really are stepping in to restore civilization and protect helpless people from bloodthirsty savages.
This is the usual excuse in the real world: sure the conquistadors were murdering bastards, but the Aztecs were performing mass human sacrifice! Wiping them out was a good thing, even if they did it for the wrong reasons! None of that bullshit here. There were no raiders, there is no excuse. The reclaiming of America was a naked land grab, and all the lurid stories of Wasteland savagery are nothing more than propaganda to justify it, just like all the real-world stories portraying indigenous tribes as murderous savages worshipping dark gods.
But wasteland punk is a big part of the genre, and let's be honest. It is a very cool aesthetic. I really didn't want to lose it, so I gave it to the car spirits.
"Punk" is not a word we can use to describe any of the spirits we've met thus far. As mentioned, they tend to be good-natured and ditzy. Midway isn't, but Midway is far vaster than a simple car. At best a car would probably be about at the same level as Weetie or Sparky. To make the cars punk they needed to act the part (it's as much attitude as it is accessories), so I needed an explanation for why they don't act like other spirits.
Why, they're crazy, of course!
Being nuts is part of the whole wasteland savage thing anyway, and it worked really well with the lore I was developing. The drivers are (mostly) sane, it's the vehicles who want to jump off cliffs screaming "WITNESS ME!!!!". It's a different kind of appeal from the Moe ditzes we've seen, but it keeps the rules of the setting regarding machine complexity and mental acuity. Cars aren't smarter, they're just wilder.
It also let me get more creative with the vehicles themselves. I was struggling to find ways to justify how these things looked after so long in the Wasteland, because the logistics to keep them "stock" don't work but modifications are very traumatic to spirits. But if the spirits are "crazy" the vehicles can be crazy too, and we're back to the usual assortment of armor, flames, and spikes people expect from post-apocalyptic cars. I could also avoid some of the horror implications of what this was doing to the poor spirits: they're weird enough that they're actually into being modified now! Self-modification is pretty punk, after all.
In short: savage post-apocalyptic raider girls seemed like good additions to the setting, and savage post-apocalyptic raider girls aren't any fun if they aren't a little crazy.
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Edited to correct a small but very poorly placed typo.
The spirit of a telephone rested in Miss Young's ear as she listened to the dispatch reports. Shots fired. Multiple casualties. Reports that the local mafia – some Cubano branch that had snaked into mainland America under the nose of the Imperial Navy – had gotten involved. She pursed her lips.
Things were not going to go quietly.
She turned to one of the calculating machines that she had been given, her prosthetic fingers clicking quietly against her hip as she thought. "Dispatch the following orders to the naval airbase," she said, her voice quiet.
"Yes ma'am!" The calculating machine said – working through the cipher system that encoded all communications. She hummed quietly, then started to tap at the telegraph station.
Miss Young frowned as she waited.
Her superiors were not going to be happy about this. But…
"She's beginning to actualize," she murmured, quietly. "We need…we need…" She paused, then looked over at the other calculating machine, which had been compiling the reports that their various spies and agents had been gathering over the past few days. She snapped her metal fingers, pointing at the curvier, slightly bulkier spirit. "Give me the report on Maryfort again."
"Okie dokie!" The calculator hummed and flipped through various pages. She picked up one and handed it to Miss Young. She read through it – the transcript of the Hundred and First that had been sending information to the Empire for the past three years, the reports he had gathered from his comrades who had no idea that he was an informer, the additional context put in by technicians who were loyal and had been given the data and given a chance to think and theorize about what it meant. She grinned, slowly.
"Begin a new ciphered order," she said, turning to the other machine. "And remind me, is Captain Horne still in the local airspace?"
"Y...Yes, ma'am!" the spirit said, smiling. "He's not being returned to London for his court-martial until the end of the week."
"Countermand that and put him in charge of the…" Miss Young considered her options. "...the Indefatigable."
"Um, ma'am, the Indefatigable is currently captained by Captain Shriveman," the calculating machine said, sounding confused. "What, um, uh, what rational should I send for his removal?"
"Send it under the following cipher code and you won't need a rational," Miss Young snapped.
The calculating machine wilted slightly under her tone. "Okie dokie…" she said, sounding quite frightened as she turned back to her telegraph. She started to tap away.
***
Nix walked after Zimmerman, her hand on Enterprise...no...on Midway's shoulder, keeping the robed spirit at her side and at pace, despite Midway's shocked expression. "We need to get out of the city," Nix said, her voice firm. "But the trolley stations are going to be watched and then- what are you doing?"
Zimmerman was advancing towards a signifier of just how nice this neighborhood was; A small steam automobile, parked in front of a house that was even nicer and larger than Nix's niece. Nix's stomach knotted. She was still not sure if leaving her niece, her niece's husband, and Rudi behind had been the right decision – they could still be used as hostages, they could be threatened...but Rudi had been hurt, Jessie had been completely unwilling to leave her home, Ed had been totally confused about what had been going on. Leaving them behind to declaim Nix as a traitor and criminal and, thus, be rendered irrelevant to the schemes of the Mechanical Turks all had seemed quite rational at the time, but...but…
Zimmerman hadn't responded.
"I said-" Nix started.
Zimmerman punched the glass window of the car in and reached in to begin opening the door.
"Oh great," Nix muttered.
The front door of the house burst open and a wood paneled, black rubber and fierce little spirit came springing out, furiously hissing and spitting. "What the freaking heck are you doing!?" she roared, her voice shockingly deep for her short stature.
"Nix, deal with her," Zimmerman snapped.
"Oh my god," Nix groaned as Midway shook her head from side to side in slow shock. The spirit of the automobile stalked forward, glowering at the large, broad shouldered form of Zimmerman. Before she could start laying into her verbally – or physically for that matter – Nix stepped between the two. Her voice was soft. "Hey, hey, hey, I'm sorry about the window. She's such a brute…" She slid her hand along the rubbery-smooth cheek of the spirit. Her voice was soft. "I've never met an automobile as sleek and smart as you. Are you a new model?"
The automobile, like most high performance machines that didn't require a crew, had an ego to boot. She puffed up her slender little chest as if she was a tire being pumped up and beamed. "I sure am!" She said. "I'm a Bucephalus brand Chariot II, one of the best new steam powered automobiles ever. I was taught to mostly eat corn-oil too, I can run all around town on a thimble. Also, I have airbags." She smirked. "And anti-theft devices. I know telephones, and they'll listen if I scream really loud…"
"Amazing," Nix murmured, softly. Her eyes glittered and she smiled. "how long has it been since you've been serviced?"
"Pff, I don't need to be serviced yet, I'm only a few days off the production line – I'm basically perfect!" Chariot II said, her voice dripping with absolutely adorable arrogance.
"Did you now?" Nix asked. "Well, I can still do some little checks, right?" Her hand slid along Chariot II's belly. The automobile squirmed and bit her lip.
Nix "unlocks" the car using her quick fingers
"You're trying to distract me from the fact your dumb jerk...friend is...she…" The spirit gasped as Nix's fingers found the sopping wet folds of her cunt. Just being this close to a Technician could have that effect on spirits. She thrust her fingers in and crooked slightly, finding the center of the little car's pleasure. Her mouth opened and the spirit's head rolled back as she moaned, bucking her hips slightly. "Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!" She moaned, quivering as her hips bucked against Nix's questing, thrusting fingers. Nix knew she had limited time. She had to work fast. She leaned forward, kissing the spirit's hard, rubbery nipples, sucking one, then the other as her thumb found the clit and rubbed it. Touching it caused the physical engine on the car to sputter and hiss, then finally start to buzz and click as the rapid boiler-piston system caught and engaged. Zimmerman grunted and nodded while Nix thrust two more fingers, deep inside of Chariot II.
That was enough. The spirit cried out a single note of pure, wordless pleasure and went limp against the garage door. Nix gently lowered her rump to the pavement, kissing her on the forehead and drawing her cum-slick fingers from the spirit's snatch. She smiled. "Thanks, honey," she purred.
"Mmmhm…" the spirit mumbled sleepily as Nix jogged to shotgun, opening the door with her clean hand, absently licking her fingers clean with a quick swipe of her tongue.
"Good work," Zimmerman harrumphed.
"Jealous?" Nix asked, smirking slightly, letting her British accent get just a bit thicker – she had picked up quite a lot of the Yankee's tones in her time in America, but she knew that the more educated tones of her youth would irritate the bigger woman. Zimmerman shot her a glower that made Nix think she might have made a mistake – that glower had a certain...edge to it…
Then Zimmerman almost drove the car into its own spirit. The engine sputtered and the vehicle lurched forward a few inches before stopping. The transmission snarled and gnashed.
"Christ and her Clockwork, what are you doing!?" Nix snapped.
"Don't you know how to drive?" Midway snapped.
"I...it seemed so simple in the old books," Zimmerman said, flushing as she looked down at the large lever and the clutch and the several peddles down below.
"Get the bloody hell out of the driver's seat!" Nix snapped. Zimmerman shifted her bulk – fortunately, she had brushed the shattered glass out of the way. Nix scrambled over the controls, sat down, and Zimmerman got into the passenger's seat. As she did so, she held her hand back.
"Thompson," she said.
Midway reached into her robes and withdrew one of the Thompson sub-machine guns that they had snagged from the mobsters. Zimmerman took it and checked the bolt, clacking it back and letting it slide back into place with the magazine firmly seated.
"Please, don't shoot unless we absolutely have too," Nix said, throwing the Chariot II into reverse.
The car puttered out, down the road, around the corner – and a shadow fell across it. Nix craned her head, her brow furrowing...and swore.
"Oh hell!" she said.
Zimmerman frowned down at her Thompson, then out the window...at the HMS Indefatigable. The massive bulk of the airship loomed overhead – and she was just as powerful, just as deadly, just as modern as Nix remembered from Burned York. They must have gone through a patrol along the coast...and now they were down here. As she watched, the airship shifted its engines and started to skim ahead of them with a low rumbling noise. The nadir turrets aimed down at them – at the city. Nix's eyes widened and she slammed down on the brakes. The car stopped with a squeal of rubber on the road and Makhá smiled cheerfully – amiably, even.
"Why are we stopped?"
Nix frowned. "They're aiming naval guns at us."
"They wouldn't open fire on downtown New Austin," Zimmerman said, her voice confident. "They lack my purpose. They lack my clarity of vision."
Nix slowly turned her head to glower at her. "Zimmerman, can you stop being insane for five seconds?" she snapped.
The belly of the Indefatigable opened and a set of parachutists dropped from it. The lightly armored but heavily armed men in bright red and green sailed down and landed with a series of soft thumps, their chutes blowing away as their auto-release catches snapped off and they were able to fan out around the vehicle. Royal Marines were some of the best trained soldiers in the world – and they had weapons to prove it: They carried sleek, deadly automatic rifles that looked as if they had come from the latter days of the Ascension War, rather than modern bolt action weaponry, and their faces were concealed behind gas masks and goggles. Three of them went around to the back, and two aimed at the front, and all of them started shouting.
"Throw the gun out! Hands up! Hands up! Hands up!"
Zimmerman tensed. But Nix hissed at her. "Do it!" Zimmerman clenched her jaw. "Do it!"
"Midway shall see them slain," Zimmerman whispered.
She dropped the Thompson and lifted her hands. One of the marines snatched the door open, grabbed the sub-machine gun and tossed it away with a brusque movement. "Hands behind your head! Behind your head!" He shouted. Zimmerman put her hands behind her head, Nix doing likewise.
Makhá looked concerned. "Should we?" she asked.
"I…" Midway looked from the masked marine to Nix. Nix shook her head subtly.
Zimmerman though, spoke firmly as two marines reached in and began to haul her out of the chair. "You face not merely the wrath of a Radwarden, but also, the terrible power of Midway herself. The finest moment of America on the high seas shall burn your ship to the keel."
"Shut up," the marine snapped.
Zimmerman was forced to her knees.
Nix was forced to her knees.
Midway stood in the center of the marines. They treated her as most non-technicians treated machines. They didn't see her as a threat, but they didn't see her as a person. They just let her and Makhá stand beside the stolen car. Makhá's hood kept her concealed – and Nix was fairly sure that if the Mechanical Turks saw her, they would immediately steal her away, to study. To learn. But her eyes were only on Midway. Midway was looking from her...to the marines...to the surrounding buildings. Her eyes were wide.
Nix tore her gaze from Midway.
For a moment, she saw them too.
A young child, face mashed against the glass.
Two women – a wife and her visiting friend – gaping on the porch.
A newsboy, caught in the blazing heat of the sun, who had hit his bike's brakes and was goggling at the display.
Midway saw them all.
And she saw Maryfort, burning.
She dropped to her knees and put her hands behind her head, bowing it down low.
Nix felt a quiet sense of relief – she wasn't sure if they would survive this. But scripture said that even spirits had souls – and she didn't want Midway to carry any more weight on hers.
Zimmerman snarled and started to stand.
A hammer blow from the butt of a rifle cracked into her head and, like a toppling redwood, she smashed to the pavement.
***
"You're not required here."
The female voice was familiar. Cold. Cruel. Nix could hear it through the hood thrown over her head, even with her arms tied behind her back. She squirmed a bit as she was held fast by two royal marines – they stood as still as statues. Then she cocked her head – she could hear faint ticking sounds. Those weren't marines.
"I am the Captain of this vessel," a sneering voice spoke, his voice the kind of arrogant received pronunciation that made Nix think of either posh or would-be-posh. She wasn't sure which was worse. "I have every right to view the prisoners." He humphed. "This spirit is rather the worse for wear. A rather old rust bucket of an airship, hmm? What ship are you?"
"Fuck you, limey," Midway snapped.
"Take it off," the female voice said.
The bag swept off Nix's head.
Miss Young stood across from her – but her ruined arm had been replaced with a gleaming prosthetic, glittering and fantastical. She tapped her metallic fingers together, the soft tock tick tick of them loud in the small receiving chamber. The floor shifted under Nix's feet and the faint rumble of engines all combined to make her sure she was on the Indefatigable. But the captain wasn't...who had the captain been? Nix had met him, but so much had happened, she couldn't remember his name. Shives? Shine? Something with an Sh sound...she shook her head and glanced around the room again – and there she was. The zebra-striped spirit of the ship stood behind and to the left of him, looking rather concerned, but she was still showing deference to him. Her eyes and Nix's eyes met.
"Well, she's a Yank spirit, I see," the Captain said.
Something about him was familiar. She had seen his face somewhere. Nix frowned at him.
"Captain Horne, you are dismissed," Miss Young said, her voice quiet.
"Captain Horne?" Nix asked, her brow furrowing. "Not Jonathan Horne?" she asked. "I read about him in the papers."
"Baseless slander, I assure you," he said, his voice dripping with smug condescension.
"Leave. Now." Miss Young said, her voice flat. She turned and her eyes and the Captain's eyes met. The Captain's lip curled – but he didn't respond. Instead he turned and walked out, leaving Nix alone with...she craned her head left and right and saw the men holding her shoulders were actually automatons. The calculating engines that wore the heavy armor that made them so strong and deadly had their faces covered with thick metal masks – dehumanizing them to make it harder for, say, a technician to sweet talk them. She gulped as Miss Young walked over, looking Midway up and down.
She nodded.
"You know her name," she sai1d, turning to face Nix.
"Midway," Nix said. "She's the Battle of Midway."
"There are others like her – sleeping out there. Kursk. Stalingrad. Normandy. Many of them have been destroyed or dismantled or even plain forgotten about. But Midway...Midway, Midway, Midway is special." She smiled, turning and touching Midway's cheek with her clawed finger. "The total triumph of airpower. The first naval battle in human history where not a single ship on either side saw the other. A logistic train stretching around the world…" She licked her lips. "Do you know what we can do with Midway?"
"Kill Colossus?" Nix asked. "Destroy the Fortress? I don't think even Midway can stand up to the Lady Trinity…"
Miss Young chuckled quietly. "I...hmm…" She cocked her head a bit to the side. "You know, I always thought that Mr. Jeremiah talked too much. He loved to give speeches and to brag and strut around. That's how that carpet-munching nun got the drop on him." She smiled, slightly. "And so, right now, I have this burning urge to explain it to you. Cause it's...it's quite fascinating. A remarkable fusion of theology, machinery, and the goals of our master." She smiled, slightly. "Instead, I am going to have you killed."
Nix gulped. "If I'm going to die-"
"If you lay a hand on her head," Midway growled. "I will rip this airship apart with my bare fucking hands."
Nix blinked.
"We're not over New Austin anymore," Midway said, her voice even. Furious.
"...you can do it, too," Miss Young said. "Just as we hoped. Very well. Throw her in the brig."
"Midway, whatever-" Nix started, but then a bag thumped over her head. She felt the unfeeling hands of the machines dragging her away. She was dragged back through the ship, through a doorway. Her heels kicked and she struggled, trying to move. But then she was brought to a stop.
The hood came off her head again and she saw that the two automatons were both holding her by a door.
It did not lead to the brig.
"Oh bloody hell," Nix whispered.
"W-we're sorry," one of the spirits said, her voice muffled behind the mask. "That's the code word that Miss Young uses."
"What's her plan? What's she doing?" Nix whispered.
"Well...we can't tell you!" the other calculating machine said.
"I'm a bloody technician!" Nix almost sobbed. "Please, just, just…" She closed her eyes. She wished she had the telephone that Miss Rhina had given her. She wondered what, if anything, the journalist had learned from her distant observations. She felt like she would never get to learn now. "Just tell me. I don't want to die like this."
"Well, we know that we're going to Poland after this," the first calculating machine said. "To some town called-"
"We can't tell her that!" the second machine said.
"Please, please, you're nice spirits, I know that much," Nix said. She knew she was begging, pathetically. But she couldn't think of anything else but how strong their steel hands were. Their gripping strength. The fact that they didn't quite understand what death was. She gulped, and looked left and right between the two machines.
The first said. "It's called Warsaw!"
"No, that's the first stop," the other said.
Warsaw. The biggest city in Poland under the Reich. Nix wasn't sure why clinging to that knowledge made her feel more at ease. More like she had a say in what happened next. Because she didn't. She didn't have a say in anything at all. She gulped as she heard footsteps. The spirits both hurriedly stood more at attention as Miss Young arrived, her smirk cold.
"Strip her," she said. "We can use articles of clothing as proof she's still around."
The two spirits got to work. One of them took off Nix's wrist bindings...and when Nix's shirt came off, and her leggings were tugged down, Nix noticed that the spirit didn't put the bindings back on. She wasn't sure how much that would matter. She didn't even know if it was intentional, or of it was an oversight. She didn't know. But she clung to hope.
Miss Young shook her head slowly. "I genuinely do not know how the hell you've serviced machines for so long as this." She said. "A woman. Touching other women." Her lip curled in disgust.
One of the calculating engines opened the side hatch. The howling wind outside bit deep and Nix shouted over the din.
"It's because at least I, unlike the male technicians, can find the-"
god, this is the perfect cliffhanger ending to the chapter, I can just hear the trans-Atlantic accent announcing next week will be the stunning conclusion to the latest predicament in the serial radio play Nix and the Ghosts in the Machine. And remember, buy General Electric, or you're a Communist!
I find it strange that villains smart enough to just kill protagonist without gloating first can be stupid enough to mess with incarnation of industrialized genocide. Felt bad with human life existing on Earth?
I find it strange that villains smart enough to just kill protagonist without gloating first can be stupid enough to mess with incarnation of industrialized genocide. Felt bad with human life existing on Earth?
You know, there's this direction all of these huge spirits are going in that suggests maybe what the Mechanical Turk are doing will absolutely backfire, because they believe in the thing they've created and it definitely seems designed to kill a whole hell of a lot of people.
A previous chapter already mentioned that there was a spirit during the war that was "like a combination of a slaughterhouse and a locomotive," which seemed like a pretty clear reference to the concentration camps.
A previous chapter already mentioned that there was a spirit during the war that was "like a combination of a slaughterhouse and a locomotive," which seemed like a pretty clear reference to the concentration camps.
I forgot that. But, in my defense until recently we were under the impression the Spirits were tied to discreet technological marvels/terrors.
Individual vehicles, machines, or weapons.
Holocaust did get a mention earlier, but I'd really hoped the other Three had ripped her to bits before now. They can't have not known she existed, and a machine designed for genocide is enough of a threat I'd expect they'd have taken steps some time in the last 200 years.
Still, we know that strong enough spirits can survive the loss of any physical mechanisms, so there might not have been anything they could do to kill her besides containment (and how do you contain something like that?) and hoping she eventually fades on her own. Considering this is Holocaust...that's not happening any time soon.
If there were ever a candidate for some one-on-one time with Trinity, though...
Holocaust did get a mention earlier, but I'd really hoped the other Three had ripped her to bits before now. They can't have not known she existed, and a machine designed for genocide is enough of a threat I'd expect they'd have taken steps some time in the last 200 years.
Still, we know that strong enough spirits can survive the loss of any physical mechanisms, so there might not have been anything they could do to kill her besides containment (and how do you contain something like that?) and hoping she eventually fades on her own. Considering this is Holocaust...that's not happening any time soon.
If there were ever a candidate for some one-on-one time with Trinity, though...
True, if Holocaust was under the Nazi's control. Though Holocaust going wild might have been even more alarming.
I'm assuming Holocaust was an accidental creation, since most spirits are byproducts and avatars of what they represent. You build a warship to have a warship, not to get a warship spirit.
While the knowledge might just have been lost, the fact that complex logistical systems can also be spirits is not common knowledge. I'm guessing the Nazis implemented their campaign of genocide entirely ignorant of the spirit it would create. I suppose it could have been a conscious attempt to create the ultimate killer, but I don't like that interpretation because it softens the true horror of the Holocaust. If it was a mass sacrifice to make a superweapon then there was a point to it. It's still evil, but it's a means to an end. The Holocaust is so vile because the murder was the entire point. There was no real strategic benefit, no advantage to be gained from it. It was a huge logistical operation of industrialised cruelty and murder launched entirely because a group of people really wanted certain other groups of people to die.
Humans killing millions to manifest a god of genocide isn't nearly as scary as humans accidentally manifesting a god of genocide because they decided to kill millions for their own stupid reasons.
