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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


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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[x] Spike the guns and run.

Actually, going to agree. Discretion is the better part of valor.
 
[x] Spike the guns and run.

Someone mentioned about being in the middle of our artillery strikes. Not a fan of that, or overly heroic final last stand shenanigans.
 
[x] Spike the guns and run.

We screwed up the tactics roll, this is the consequence. Let's not double down...
 
[X] My orders are to hold this position. We're holding this position. Are you in?
-[X] ... Contingent on the Army officer convincing his men to stand. If he can't, blow the guns and retreat.

With our guns and our position, we can shred the front-runners of any Caspian assault and give the rest of the formation pause. Considering the poor discipline in OTL Imperial Russia's infantry at this time, I expect them to stay out of the line of fire and on their bellies upon seeing Yuri and his platoon get turned into mist.

However, as soon as we run out of ammunition or if there's some sort of mechanical problem with the guns themselves, our position becomes untenable when some lucky lad pokes his head up and notices us trying to get out of dodge or switching to small-arms. At that point, all we've done is given the rest of the Caspians personal incentive to bayonet any prisoners once they overrun the position.

This is where the Army officer and his troops come into play. If they can be convinced to remain with us, we have a group of riflemen who can retreat to the next hill while we suppress the enemy with our pom-poms, then give us cover while we spike the guns and run to their position. This way, we can at least say we used the guns and did our part to stem the assault while ensuring they remained out of enemy hands. If they're not with us, however, I don't expect to be able to extricate ourselves from this quagmire without a bullet to the back.
 
[X] My orders are to hold this position. We're holding this position. Are you in?
-[X] ... Contingent on the Army officer convincing his men to stand. If he can't, blow the guns and retreat.

I mean, I feel like this might be more likely to win than spiking the guns, and someone has to sound even a slight note of caution.
 
[X] My orders are to hold this position. We're holding this position. Are you in?
-[X] ... Contingent on the Army officer convincing his men to stand. If he can't, blow the guns and retreat.
 
This is probably the best plan. Shoot until we're out of ammo, spike the guns, then run for it. Maybe the officer will be able to convince his men that without this rearguard action the Caspians will gun them down while they flee.

[X] My orders are to hold this position. We're holding this position. Are you in?

Also, I loved this update. I think it captured the horror and absurdity of trench warfare.

I really hope we get a chance to clear things up with Min-Seo. I'm not sure she understood what all happened, and there are so many ways this could go wrong.
 
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[X] My orders are to hold this position. We're holding this position. Are you in?
-[X] ... Contingent on the Army officer convincing his men to stand. If he can't, blow the guns and retreat.
 
[X] My orders are to hold this position. We're holding this position. Are you in?
-[X] ... Contingent on the Army officer convincing his men to stand. If he can't, blow the guns and retreat.
 
[X] My orders are to hold this position. We're holding this position. Are you in?
-[X] ... Contingent on the Army officer convincing his men to stand. If he can't, blow the guns and retreat.
 
[X] My orders are to hold this position. We're holding this position. Are you in?
-[X] ... Contingent on the Army officer convincing his men to stand. If he can't, blow the guns and retreat.
 
[X] My orders are to hold this position. We're holding this position. Are you in?
-[X] ... Contingent on the Army officer convincing his men to stand. If he can't, blow the guns and retreat.

Agreed. This hits the sweet spot between discretion and valor.
 
[X] My orders are to hold this position. We're holding this position. Are you in?
-[X] ... Contingent on the Army officer convincing his men to stand. If he can't, blow the guns and retreat.

This is basically "spike the guns, but with plausible deniability". I doubt average army grunts are in the mood for a last stand unless we play commissar.
 
I doubt average army grunts are in the mood for a last stand unless we play commissar.

Eh, they may just be stupid enough to stay and fight.

I mean, it's one thing to run away to the fight.
It's another to run away from the fight when the Navy is staying.
And it's yet another thing to run away from a fight when the Navies's only female officer is staying.
 
[X] My orders are to hold this position. We're holding this position. Are you in?
-[X] ... Contingent on the Army officer convincing his men to stand. If he can't, blow the guns and retreat.
 
Eh, they may just be stupid enough to stay and fight.

I mean, it's one thing to run away to the fight.
It's another to run away from the fight when the Navy is staying.
And it's yet another thing to run away from a fight when the Navies's only female officer is staying.

In that case, we're probably in for a heroic death :V
 
In the interest of going for the best story?

[X] My orders are to hold this position. We're holding this position. Are you in?

I do not think this is wise, but I do see Arisukawa viewing herself as wanting to set an example to the cowardly, mud covered army.
 
The thing is, if the Army runs, it's not merely a dangerous exercise to try to hold the position, but basically pointless. In that sense, I could argue that even the 'My Orders' vote basically could be argued to have the latter as a caveat, since if the army runs that's basically it for her chances to even do anything with her insane risk.

So I guess it depends.

@open_sketchbook , @Artificial Girl , for the plain [] My Orders vote, would she go along with that even if all of the army people ran instead of standing with her?
 
[X] My orders are to hold this position. We're holding this position. Are you in?
-[X] ... Contingent on the Army officer convincing his men to stand. If he can't, blow the guns and retreat.
 
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