Castles of Steel - Lesbians Good, Imperialism Bad

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Lieutenant Arisukawa Haruna

Balance Stats
❁ • ❁ Work / Life ❁ • ❁
❁ • ❁ Warrior / Princess ❁ • ❁
❁ • ❁ Radical / Respectable ❁ • ❁

Tactical Stats
Gunnery 0, Navigation +2, Command +2, Technology -4, Personal -2, Strategy +3

Stress: 3​


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PLEASE READ THE QUEST RULES BELOW

You collectively vote on the actions of Arisukawa Haruna, the first woman to serve openly in the Imperial Akitsukuni Navy.

This quest is set in a universe which is much like our own circa 1910, but with different politics, cultural norms, and ideas about gender and sexuality, as well as some unusual and advanced technology in places.

We are using this quest to explore themes like breaking the glass ceiling, divergent outlooks on gender and sexuality, colonialism and imperialism, and the place of royalty.

Content Warning
This quest goes some dark places.

There is violence, often explicit, often unfair, often against undeserving targets.

There are not always good options forward. The protagonist is not necessarily a good person.

There is implied content and discussion of sexual harassment and assault.

This is a world where people are often racist, sexist, queerphobic bigots. Sometimes, even the PC and the people they are friends with.

Voting Rules

We will tell you if write-in votes are allowed. If we do not say that write-ins are allowed, they are not. This is to prevent people from unrealistically hedging their bets.

You may proposal other options in a non-vote format, subject to approval, on non write-in votes.

We will tell you when a vote allows approved voting. If we don't say the answer is no, pick an option. We like making people commit.

Discussions makes the GM feel fuzzy.

Game Rules
When we ask you for a roll, roll 3d6. You are aiming to roll equal or under the value of your stat. If you succeed, Haruna gets through the situation with no real difficulties. If you roll above the target value, Haruna will still succeed, but this success will cost her something or add a complication.

Whenever Haruna loses something or faces hardship from a botched roll, she takes Stress. The more Stress Haruna has, the more the job and the circumstances she's in will get to her, and it'll be reflected in the narrative. Haruna must be kept under 10 Stress: if she reaches 10 Stress, she will suffer a breakdown and the results will not be great for her.

Haruna loses stress by taking time for herself, by making meaningful progress on her dreams, and by kissing tall, beautiful women.

Meta Rules
Author commentary is in italics so you know it's not story stuff.

Please don't complain about the system or the fact we have to roll dice. We've heard it before, we've heard it a thousand times across multiple quests. We're not going to change it, and it wears at our fucking souls.

Just going "oh noooo" or "Fish RNGesus Why!" is fun and fine. Complaining at length because you didn't get what you want less so.

If you have a question, tag both @open_sketchbook and @Artificial Girl. If you only tag one of us, you will be ignored. Seriously, we both write this quest.

And yes this is an alt-history type setting with openly gay and trans people, ahistoric medicine, and weird politics. Just... deal, please?

This quest employs a special system called Snippet Votes. Please read this post for more information.
 
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Nah, it's 2 entirely different things.

One tries to get the monitor to chase a fleeing ship that's no longer a threat. The other doesn't reveal the sub at all, but tells the entire crew of the Monitor they're in the firing line.
 
10ebbor10 said:
Nah, it's 2 entirely different things.

One tries to get the monitor to chase a fleeing ship that's no longer a threat. The other doesn't reveal the sub at all, but tells the entire crew of the Monitor they're in the firing line.
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The point remains that the monitor is ill-suited to maneuvering and may opt to instead just shoot at us. I suppose it helps in that we'd be able to stay lower in the water and so hopefully dodge the return fire that way? Still not convinced it'd motivate them to actually move.
 
The point is to fire while submerged. They can't shoot at something if they don't know where it is.
 
10ebbor10 said:
Here's an alternative idea.

[] Torpedo while submerged, but don't arm the torpedo.

Because I really doubt the crew is going to sit there and stay put after they hear a torpedo bouncing of the hull. They will start trying to make evasive maneuvers, which should pull them out of position.
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That's pretty clever. I think it could work.

I've got another, sillier idea: we shoot at it with the deck gun.

Now, hear me out.

We're in a sub, so we're a very small, very low target. We are benefiting from poor visibility since it's still pretty dark out. They are a weird little coastal monitor with a really huge gun. A gun probably too big to operate with any sustained accuracy on a ship that size. Beyond that, this is a pre-WWI ship, and a relatively small one for the size of gun it mounts, so the guns probably aren't especially good or particularly long. Surprisingly, there's a pretty decent chance our deck gun's maximum range exceeds their gun's effective range, especially under these conditions.

Their gun might be broadly comparable to one of the following:
The 12-inch mark VIII, notably, was actually fitted to some WWI monitors. Also, the image wikipedia has for it has a goat standing on top for some reason.

There's a wide range of ranges here, but a takeaway I'm seeing is effective range might well be in the 10-15 km range. Under these conditions and against a sub, I think that's wildly optimistic.

Our gun, on the other hand, is a little 100mm deck gun. It might be broadly comparable to one of these:
The last two are notable for actually having been used as submarine deck guns.

The takeaway here is that they probably (but not necessarily!) outrage us in theory, but under the current conditions we can very likely make splashes in their vicinity from farther away than they stand any reasonable chance of hitting us. Sure, if they hit us we all die and if we hit them they might not even notice, but what does that matter? From their point of view, if we start shooting at them, from extreme range, they figure they've successfully prevented a submarine attack and we're taking out our frustration on them and/or don't know how to submarine because insert racist views here, and if we think we can just shell them with impunity we've got another thing coming. Or something like that. Anyway, if we keep it up for long enough, keeping moving and maybe diving and resurfacing elsewhere later if it looks like they stand a chance of hitting, we can maybe draw them out of position when they get fed up with just sitting there as we shoot at them.
 
brmj said:
That's pretty clever. I think it could work.

I've got another, sillier idea: we shoot at it with the deck gun.

Now, hear me out.

We're in a sub, so we're a very small, very low target. We are benefiting from poor visibility since it's still pretty dark out. They are a weird little coastal monitor with a really huge gun. A gun probably too big to operate with any sustained accuracy on a ship that size. Beyond that, this is a pre-WWI ship, and a relatively small one for the size of gun it mounts, so the guns probably aren't especially good or particularly long. Surprisingly, there's a pretty decent chance our deck gun's maximum range exceeds their gun's effective range, especially under these conditions.

Their gun might be broadly comparable to one of the following:
The 12-inch mark VIII, notably, was actually fitted to some WWI monitors. Also, the image wikipedia has for it has a goat standing on top for some reason.

There's a wide range of ranges here, but a takeaway I'm seeing is effective range might well be in the 10-15 km range. Under these conditions and against a sub, I think that's wildly optimistic.

Our gun, on the other hand, is a little 100mm deck gun. It might be broadly comparable to one of these:
The last two are notable for actually having been used as submarine deck guns.

The takeaway here is that they probably (but not necessarily!) outrage us in theory, but under the current conditions we can very likely make splashes in their vicinity from farther away than they stand any reasonable chance of hitting us. Sure, if they hit us we all die and if we hit them they might not even notice, but what does that matter? From their point of view, if we start shooting at them, from extreme range, they figure they've successfully prevented a submarine attack and we're taking out our frustration on them and/or don't know how to submarine because insert racist views here, and if we think we can just shell them with impunity we've got another thing coming. Or something like that. Anyway, if we keep it up for long enough, keeping moving and maybe diving and resurfacing elsewhere later if it looks like they stand a chance of hitting, we can maybe draw them out of position when they get fed up with just sitting there as we shoot at them.
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The monitor isn't the only ship in the port, you know?
 
Incidentally, the monitor is either a really dumb tumblehome ship (a design where the hull slopes inwards over the waterline, resulting is a very stable design sort of resembling a submarine's hull form which, if tipped too much, will promptly capsize and sink) or this. I'm guessing the latter. Either way, it's a really bad design, and its guns are considerably worse than other estimates, being the 1870s not the 1890s.
Edit: Incidentally, the Novgorod was not the last circular ship built by Russia - a larger monitor (named after Admiral Popov, who designed the things) was also built a few years later, with twice the displacement tonnage and 12 inch guns. It was about as good a vehicle as the Novgorod, in much the same ways.
 
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TortugaGreen said:
Incidentally, the monitor is either a really dumb tumblehome ship (a design where the hull slopes inwards over the waterline, resulting is a very stable design sort of resembling a submarine's hull form which, if tipped too much, will promptly capsize and sink) or this. I'm guessing the latter. Either way, it's a really bad design, and its guns are considerably worse than other estimates, being the 1870s not the 1890s.
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Okay, that's... pretty special. Yeah, I'm betting it's that thing. It's silly enough that I can't imagine the GMs not using it at some point, and it perfectly fits everything we've been told about this ship. In that case, the guns are probably something more comparable to this: RML 11-inch 25-ton gun - Wikipedia and we very likely outrange it, even leaving aside its abysmal rate of fire and likely limited ability to hit moving targets. Depending on what the coastal defense guns are, that may not actually matter, but there is a good chance that they are either small or something obsolescent and pulled from an old ship. This is a remote port on the absolute fringe of the empire, after all. Good guns are needed for ships.

The point @andrewopk raised is also noted, but I will point out that the monitor is blocking the only deep channel into the harbor. Any other ship bigger than a torpedo boat or something would probably need it to move out of the way to get out. If it moves out of the way, the other sub can escape.
 
Also, if the monitor starts shooting at us, a truly unreasonable number of other ships are ALSO going to start shooting at us, firing over the monitor if they have to, I suspect.

I like the fake distress call idea, because we're Signals, we're Subterfuge-ey, and this is a Subterfuge-ey Signals option. On the one hand, it exposes us to nasty risks. On the other hand, so do most of the plans that involve artillery duels.

TortugaGreen said:
Incidentally, the monitor is either a really dumb tumblehome ship (a design where the hull slopes inwards over the waterline, resulting is a very stable design sort of resembling a submarine's hull form which, if tipped too much, will promptly capsize and sink) or this. I'm guessing the latter. Either way, it's a really bad design, and its guns are considerably worse than other estimates, being the 1870s not the 1890s.
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Even so, the round ship is grumpy and adorable and I kind of want it to live. :p
 
Just torpedo the thing.

1) A monitor for a coastal submarine is a good trade, and they may still escape.

2) If I'm reading the update correctly, the monitor is positioned such that sinking it may block the harbor.
 
This isn't Hollywood. A torpedoed ship takes tens of minutes to hours to sink. The ship's captain is going to move it to firefighting and/or safe beaching/dock.
 
SAGrognard said:
This isn't Hollywood. A torpedoed ship takes tens of minutes to hours to sink. The ship's captain is going to move it to firefighting and/or safe beaching/dock.
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Which may be obstructed by mines, mind you. And then the minelayer's got itself in trouble if it hits a mine, which it very well might considering the presence of mines in the port.
 
SAGrognard said:
This isn't Hollywood. A torpedoed ship takes tens of minutes to hours to sink. The ship's captain is going to move it to firefighting and/or safe beaching/dock.
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Depends on the yield of the torpedo, and the location of the hit. The HMS Barham for example, was a WWII battleship that got hit by 3 torpedoes, and it sank, capsized and exploded within 5 minutes.

Given that the ship is stationary, it means we can aim perfectly with no chance to miss. Four torpedo hits are going to sink it rapidly.
 
I'm hesitant about faking a presumably civilian distress call, as that seems fairly borderline between a ruse de guerre and a violation of the rules of war. Mainly in that it seems to be making use of an action that might normally be "protected."

@Artificial Girl, @open_sketchbook, are either of you willing to give a statement on whether it would qualify as a ruse de guerre or a violation?
 
Faking a distress call is indeed probably illegal. And if they find out, then that's a lot of people in distress who're going to get screwed over.

Ideally though, we should be able to slip the net, and they'll never be able to prove a thing.
 
I for one am against a fake civilian distress call , if otoh we make it appear as if it was a military ship getting lax with radio discipline , they ship out and run into the mines that might give us the chaos that we want .
Especially as it Is noted that most sailors are pressganged serfs.
 
Miner238 said:
So this is off topic, but I found something that might be of interest to this quest. Its a concept for a Soviet super sub which looks like it could have existed at one point. I was wondering if you guys think it would be possible for the Akitsukuni to build this beast of a sub at some point.

Project P-2
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This thing seems made-up.

Imperial Japan did build the I-400, which had roughly the same dimensions (bit bigger actually), if nowhere near the same ridiculous amount of weaponry. Frankly, I don't think you can stuff that much stuff in a submarine and still have it be functional.
 
13th Fleet said:
I'm hesitant about faking a presumably civilian distress call, as that seems fairly borderline between a ruse de guerre and a violation of the rules of war. Mainly in that it seems to be making use of an action that might normally be "protected."

@Artificial Girl, @open_sketchbook, are either of you willing to give a statement on whether it would qualify as a ruse de guerre or a violation?
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Pretending to be a civilian vessel in distress would be considered a violation of the rules of war, yes. Pretending to be a military vessel is much fuzzier.
 
[] Torpedo while submerged, but don't arm the torpedo.

This seems like an okay option, though still a little risky. Perhaps if we also added to it that if they don't move another pair of armed torpedoes is sent to blow it up.

Another option could be to send the coastal subs to spread out and start harassing as much Caspian coastal shipping (small cargo ships, fishing boats etc) as possible and hope that the Local commander sends out some Destroyers to try and drive them off. If we get lucky they will have to move the monitor to let the tin cans out an our sub can escape. Maybe some of the DDs might even hit a mine or two.
 
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