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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As an aside...

[ ] A look at the Academy from one of the cadets we inspired. [
[ ] I'd like to see how Haruna's mom is handling her daughter being in active combat both on a personal level and a political one. We saw that newspaper's attack on Haruna last post. I'd like to see how her mom handles similar attacks.
​
and similar snippet votes are not really doable. We don't go outside of Haruna's viewpoint in this quest.
 
open_sketchbook said:
As an aside...

[ ] A look at the Academy from one of the cadets we inspired. [
[ ] I'd like to see how Haruna's mom is handling her daughter being in active combat both on a personal level and a political one. We saw that newspaper's attack on Haruna last post. I'd like to see how her mom handles similar attacks.
​
and similar snippet votes are not really doable. We don't go outside of Haruna's viewpoint in this quest.
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I understand the POV issues but it could be done when she gets shore leave for a few days for example by some miracle her mom is waiting for her at the docks and the have a long talk at a tea bar

P.S what happened to her dad where is he in all this. Did I miss something
 
3-21: You sank my battleship
  • Threadmarks
    • You shoveed yourself into the radio hutch and hurriedly beginning tapping out a message using the Vail code key, desperately hoping that it will be enough to get your fellow sailors to pay attention.

    ENEMY FLEET IN SIGHT. WITHDRAW IMMEDIATELY. ​

    Messages flew back and forth. It was a confused mess. Some acknowledged the signal, others didn't reply, still others asked for clarification. The airwaves were so busy that you could barely pick out a signal to determine what one ship wanted.

    Not your job, you just had to keep them appraised, and you tried to do so with an emphasis on the sheer scale of the incoming enemy forces. Three battleships! There was confusion, but it sounded like some of the destroyers were moving out now, which was a relief. The last thing the Navy needed was another pointless last stand.

    Kenshin came back down from the top of the tower after about a half an hour, as the last destroyers were pulling out, and revealed to you a part of the plan you weren't let in on: there was a relief force coming. Mochizuki was leading a task force up the coast as well, with the hope of capitalizing on the attack and maybe even opening the way to land troops in the port. They didn't tell anyone, because submarines had a bad tendency to get beached, so it was strictly need to know. And now you needed to know, because they'd just gotten close enough for I-02 to act as a relay between the oncoming ships and the destroyers.

    At the communication post, you were in the center of a lot of frantic communication between the submarines, the destroyers, and the incoming forces. The plan, which sounded like it was being frantically improvised between Admiral Fushimori, his flag captain Katsura Tokimoro (who happened to be your uncle), and Captain Funabashi Katakzau leading the destroyers, was for the destroyers to try and bait the enemy force towards the shore as they escaped, leading the enemy fleet into the freshly laid mines where they could be engaged with their backs to land by the reinforcements. You and your men were franticly relaying these instructions back and forth through secure code, which, even though it was just replicating existing messages, took a lot longer than just transmitting, and it made the slow motion dance of escaping ships fighting free of the port and oncoming reinforcements from both sides seem even more pressing.

    You felt the sub turning as you worked, not quite sure what was happening. Where were you going now? Why? Those weren't questions you normally asked or got answers to, then Kenshin appeared looking serious.

    "Signal Mochizuki, tell them we have torpedoes left and we're ready and willing to fight."

    "Yessir." The message was sent and agonizing minutes later you finally got a reply, which you had to laboriously decode.

    GOOD HUNTING. ENGAGE THE ENEMY AT YOUR DISCRETION. ​

    It was just what Kenshin had wanted to hear. The sub, you thought, was going faster than it ever had. Maybe it was the eagerness of the crew to come to grips with the enemy at last. You stepped away from the radio, leaving your subordinates to manage things as Kenshin summoned you into the conning tower. Pointing off the bow, he started talking about positions. You were following the wake of the enemy fleet, your own ships would be intercepting them--no doubt soon, if everything went to plan.

    "What's going to happen is that once battle is joined, ships are going to need to pull back out of the fight. Damage, engine troubles, whatever, screened by the rest of their fleet. Vulnerable. Perfect targets for us. Hell, if they're moving away at speed, they might even put their nets up. We might bag us a battleship." He said, half to himself more than anything.

    That was an exciting thought, if a sobering one. Torpedoes had done some strange things to naval combat, warping doctrine ever since a tiny steamboat with a bomb on the end of a stick turned out to be able to sink ten thousand ton ships. Normally, destroyers and other escort vessels screened for the heavier ships, their light guns knocking out torpedo boats before they could get close, but a disengaging ship was almost certainly unescorted to keep more guns in action…

    Well, that might change after today, if things went well. You watched the little grey shapes and the black smoke from their stacks crawl closer across the horizon, the boat turning to arc behind them. Whatever happened, history was about to be made.

    ---

    You were barely in sight of the battle when it was joined. The main fleet came barreling out of the mist and rain with Mochizuki in the van and five other massive battleships trailing her. She was an inspiring sight with the giant blue pennant on her main superstructure streaming behind her with its patriotic motto and the naval ensign snapping from her masts. The sky was filled with the black coal smoke from the stacks, which created a dark cloud over the formation. It was like a storm coming.

    Then battle was joined as first cruisers began to fire on each other as the scouting forces felt each other out and the battleships let loose thunderous volleys of gunfire at each other. It was hard to see what exactly was happening, positioned as you were--you could make out the battle lines and the swirling movement of lighter ships but little else. Thankfully, everyone was so focused on the battle that none of the Caspians were looking for a little lonely submarine trailing in their wake.

    At the edge of the battle, cruisers were dueling with each other as well and the thunder and light of the big guns made the whole ocean look like a thunderstorm. Kenshin was next to you on the conning tower and you felt intensely privileged to be here, to see this decisive battle playing out. You were excited--surely, surely this would be the blow that would be the end of the war. You knew that your destroyers were surely trying to fight their way out of the harbor still, but it was hard to tell what exactly was happening this close to the shore, with the rising line of the hills inland stopping you from making out any clear idea of where they were.

    There was a flash of gunfire again and one of the cruisers trailing the main battle line, Caspian you thought, started to lose way, deck illuminated by flames which made it hard to see what was happening beyond her. It had been fifteen minutes. Now twenty, and you could make out destroyers charging between the battlelines, their light guns spitting cobalt chloride blue and barium peroxide yellow back and forth in sheets of colour that fell like rain. Then one of the Caspian battleships--second in their line, you could see, was turning away from the battle and barreling on towards the shore a few miles away, turning in a tight circle that made you suspect the rudder had been hit. As you watched another pair of shells detonated against her aft deck, causing a turret to collapse through its ring and into the deck, though kept her forward motion.

    "One of theirs dropped out!" You shouted and the conning tower crew let out a cheer. You were winning! Had to be. Another cruiser on fire and you weren't sure whose it was, but she was listing heavily and you could see men scrambling along her deck. Spirits, it was horrifying. Beautiful, but horrifying, this battle of giants, thunderclaps and lightning rolling out of the thinning morning fog. That out-of-control battleship was going full speed: they had to have some kind of communication breakdown. It plowed into the shore at full speed, the incredible momentum carrying it up the rocky beach entirely even as it shed its undersides from the force of it.

    "Think there'll be anything left for us?" You turned your head aside to speak to Kenshin, then whipped your head back towards the battle as you heard a distant roaring boom that echoed across the waves, so loud it briefly drowned out every other sound. One of the sailors who was watching the battle still (despite being told to watch his sector of ocean) let out a low moaning sound of horror.

    What had that been? You pressed your eyes to your binoculars and tried to focus on the battle again. There was a dissipating cloud of smoke and sea vapors, pieces falling into the ocean and sending up spray all around. You desperately tried to find a ship to help you find out what had happened and then a sick feeling hit your stomach. You wanted to vomit. You couldn't find the Mochizuki. No sign of the bravely fluttering blue banner, no hint of the imposing ramparts of her superstructure.

    "Oh Spirits," another voice said quietly and Kenshin glared. The quiet murmur of conversation died away. Kenshin's face was pale but he was doing his best to look stern and unaffected.

    The Mochizuki was gone. The realization was sinking in now, really and truly. The pride of the Akitsukuni Navy, the biggest and most modern warship to ever come out of the Akitsukuni yards had been destroyed. Blown up somehow by Caspian shells as it led the vanguard of the fleet against them. The realization was like a physical blow that threatened to knock you to the deck. The cream of your graduating class's young ensigns, gone. The future admirals and chiefs-of-staff of a generation all wiped out. The finest gunnery officers and most skilled engineers. With them was your own uncle Tokimoro, the flag captain, who had undoubtedly gone down with his admiral and with his ship. Cousins, at least four of them in various positions, were also gone.

    You felt sick. How could this happen? How could there be nothing left?

    "We're going in there." Kenshin muttered. You looked over, still shaken.

    "Wha-"

    "We're going! Prepare to dive! I want a battleship!" He said. The conning tower cleared, each of you sliding down the rail one after another. You took one last glance out over the ocean to the gap in the lines, the still-rising cloud of black smoke, and then you ducked inside the hatch and it swung shut with a clang.

    ---

    Ten minutes later, you were stalking the Caspian lines. The hydrophone was useless here, just a constant buzz from shells hitting the water and engines all around. The radio antenna was retracted smooth into the hull. There was just the periscope sticking just out the water, hunting for targets.

    With no other duties, Kenshin had you beside the periscope with John's book, identifying ships. Trying to pick a target. You had four torpedoes, and you'd need all of them to secure a kill. You'd been equipped for minelaying, so that was all there was, so you had to make it count. You had to make sure your target went down.

    Battleships and cruisers deployed torpedo nets during battle, which were literally just rope netting (or in the Caspian case, wire) on metal or wooden spars that hung below the waterline. They could only be used while the ship was stationary or moving slowly, which at this point both lines were, dressed around disabled ships. The Akitsukuni vessels looked like porcupines with their wooden spars held high, while the Caspian ships had long, flat metal spars nearly flush with the waterline. You would have to be careful with your angles and ranges--if you weren't cautious, you might hit your own ships.

    Those Caspian nets were more effective, but they didn't cover the very rear of their ships. They couldn't: there were components in the way. There was almost no chance a torpedo boat could make such an attack anyway: they'd need to get through the lines, past the screens, and make a long turn at speed before making their attack. What were the odds of that?

    So there you were, stalking behind the lines, four armed torpedoes at the ready, four choice targets available, only one of which could be targeted.

    You had the book out and had identified all four ships. The Katerina Velikaya, Imperator Pavel I, Imperator Nikolai, and the venerable Pobeda. You were looking over their profiles, trying to figure out what would be the best target. Kenshin was tracking them and maneuvering the boat around obstacles and moving ships, so there you were, under a small electric light, trying to work out which ship was most valuable to the enemy, which might be their flagship.

    The Katerina Velikaya was one of their newer ships, three-stacks and with a massive forward turret with two large guns. It was thus far almost completely undamaged, its armoured frame having shaken off a lot of fire, and it was holding the right flank of the enemy line (relative to you; from their own perspective they were in the vanguard), but because of that it was surrounded by a veritable cloud of support ships. It'd be a hard shot: you might just end up getting one of the artillery frigates which were loitering behind it, lobbing shells from their centerline guns.

    Imperator Pavel I was an older vessel with a pair of single-gun turrets on the front and a variety of small casemates along the side, skewed broadside to the fight and pouring fire toward the Akitsukuni line. It had inflicted terrible damage on the destroyer squadrons, and had simply turned to reveal the second set of guns as damage had knocked out the port armament. There was a gap in the starboard netting, the best shot you'd have, but she was almost out of steam already. A possibly easy kill, but one that might not have a huge effect on the battle.

    Imperator Nikolai was almost certainly their flagship. Not just because it was new, but because the rear of the tower had a characteristic red stripe which would mark it to allies, but probably not enemies. It had taken a bad hit to the prow and the forward turret was jammed, taking its two main guns out of action, so it was hanging back to coordinate instead. It wasn't toothless though, with a quartet of flank turrets still firing high-angle shots out like clockwork. You could get it, but there was a catch: the looming shape of a fast cruiser on its flank, which had just finished turning a valiant charge by a trio of heavy torpedo boats into scrap with the rapid-fire cannons on its bulbous flank turrets. They'd be on you in an instant, and there was no way to get away.

    Pobeda was a squat, square grey mess of a ship with a single large stack near the rear. The whole ship seemed heavy to the rear, for the simple reason that the front of the ship contained a gigantic, muzzle-loaded casemate gun, one of the largest in the world, which was why the old thing was still in action. In between shots, it dipped under the deck to be reloaded by a hidden crew, then was raised up again. Honestly, it was pretty brave of them to even think of sending this thing into battle against more modern vessels! You had no way of knowing, but you imagined if anything could have killed the Mochizuki, it was one of its massively oversized shells, perhaps plunging down through the thinner armor of Mochizuki's deck and into a magazine. A flash fire of that sort is the only thing that could explain the way Mochizuki had just… vanished. Perhaps this could be vengeance.

    The question was, which should be the target--you needed to advise Kenshin on the best choice.

    [ ] Katerina Velikaya
    [ ] Imperator Pavel I
    [ ] Imperator Nikolai
    [ ] Pobeda    ​
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Pobeda
    ​
    The third choice sounds like a specifically-suicide-mission sorta thing. The second is just too meaningless, and the first... well, maybe. First or fourth.
     
    [X] Katerina Velikaya

    Pobeda     sounds like it may have killed our flag, but it probably isn't too staggeringly effective usually, and probably has an extremely slow rate of fire. Let's go for the modern combatant.

    Also unless this universe's Russian has dropped grammatical gender (which does seem plausible) it should probably be Katerina Velikaya.

    [ ] Are there any other fleets with Pobeda like designs in their fleet?

    On another note, when did torpedo nets disappear? Did they get entirely replaced by bulging, or did they stay around into the 30s and 40s at all?
     
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    [X] Imperator Nikolai

    There's a chance we could get away with it, and if not, it's still an excellent trade from the navy's perspective. Not the smart choice from an individual perspective, certainly, but it would be a sacrifice with an actual purpose to it.

    I figure we take the shot, crash dive, and hope they are too busy with the giant battle going on all around them to start dropping depth charges. Still a risk, but a calculated one.
     
    Raw90 said:
    [X] Katerina Velikiy

    Pobeda     sounds like it may have killed our flag, but it probably isn't too staggeringly effective usually, and probably has an extremely slow rate of fire. Let's go for the modern combatant.

    Also unless this universe's Russian has dropped grammatical gender (which does seem plausible) it should probably be Katerina Velikaya.

    [ ] Are there any other fleets with Pobeda like designs in their fleet?

    On another note, when did torpedo nets disappear? Did they get entirely replaced by bulging, or did they stay around into the 30s and 40s at all?
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    Thanks for the correction. I'll fix the voting option.

    And according to my research, there were ships using nets up through WW2.
     
    [X] Katerina Velikiy
    In war as in prison, find the biggest gal in the room and beat her absolutely senseless to demoralize the rest.
     
    [X] Imperator Nikolai

    Going for the Katerina is the high-risk high-reward option from the perspective of the overall battle. Filling her full of holes will have the most effect on the battle, but it also is the target the I-02 is most likely to fail to hit. The Nikolai is an easier target to hit but is more liable to go poorly the I-02. That's a risk I'm willing to take. It will also still have a significant impact on the battle, being the probable enemy flagship and it is a similarly modern ship to the Katerina.
     
    Trying to decide between Katerina Velikiy and Imperator Nikolai.

    13th Fleet said:
    [X] Imperator Nikolai

    Going for the Katerina is the high-risk high-reward option from the perspective of the overall battle. Filling her full of holes will have the most effect on the battle, but it also is the target the I-02 is most likely to fail to hit. The Nikolai is an easier target to hit but is more liable to go poorly the I-02. That's a risk I'm willing to take. It will also still have a significant impact on the battle, being the probable enemy flagship and it is a similarly modern ship to the Katerina.
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    OneirosTheWriter said:
    [X] Imperator Nikolai

    And then DIVE DIVE DIVE!
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    I guess we can dive.

    [X] Imperator Nikolai
     
    [X] Katerina Velikaya

    Sinking the flagship at this point only helps if we kill the enemy admiral and his staff, and we're not aiming at the right part of the ship to have a realistic shot at sinking her that quickly.

    For the Katerina, even if we only hit her with one or two torps we still probably make a mess out of her propulsion, requiring her to head back to the nearest port for repairs. And ultimately our goal here is to force as many enemy ships to have to brave the minefield as possible; if she's undamaged, they could just transfer coal from other ships and send her to a more distant but less heavily mined port. Badly damaged with enemy submarines known to be in the area means she either limps into the nearest port or she accepts that she's going to be sunk.
     
    The Sandman said:
    [X] Katerina Velikaya

    Sinking the flagship at this point only helps if we kill the enemy admiral and his staff, and we're not aiming at the right part of the ship to have a realistic shot at sinking her that quickly.

    For the Katerina, even if we only hit her with one or two torps we still probably make a mess out of her propulsion, requiring her to head back to the nearest port for repairs. And ultimately our goal here is to force as many enemy ships to have to brave the minefield as possible; if she's undamaged, they could just transfer coal from other ships and send her to a more distant but less heavily mined port. Badly damaged with enemy submarines known to be in the area means she either limps into the nearest port or she accepts that she's going to be sunk.
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    At the same time, it's going to disrupt their planning by virtue of "get out of there" if the ship's sinking.
     
    [x] Pobeda

    take down the big guns to get the big glory.

    [ ] Now that war is on and more bodies are needed, surely the academy will take more people in? Specifically, a certain love interest of ours?
     
    [x] Pobeda
    Fuck your superweapon! Also, this:
    [ ] The submarine crew capture a Caspian... Person. They seem remarkably okay with being a prisoner.
     
    bdun140 said:
    [ ] Pobeda
    Fuck your superweapon! Also, this:
    [ ] The submarine crew capture a Caspian... Person. They seem remarkably okay with being a prisoner.
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    Pobeda seems less a super-weapon and more an oddity. Something with dubious actual utility in naval combat aside from really good luck like they got this time, and probably much better suited to shore bombardment. Pobeda might possibly have been built to fight conventional ships with the intent of outranging them and only needing to land a shot or two, but if so that's probably been well and truly shown to not be a viable strategy if absolutely everything else (rate of fire, mobility, armor, fire control technology, firing arc...) is against you. I wouldn't be surprised if the ship was instead built to crack big, scary fortifications someone or other was building or something of the sort. With a gun like that, and built before the battleship arms race pushed armor really thick, that makes more sense to me.
     
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