Castles of Steel - Lesbians Good, Imperialism Bad

Voting is open
Reader mode
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​


Click here for the winter version!

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.
 
Last edited:
[X] Plan First Things First.
-[X] Maintenance
-[X] Medical Care
-[X] Care
-[X] Recoaling

First priority is to make sure the ship doesn't sink. Then to make sure as few people as possible die. Then we can esnure the rest of the crew is okay and rested up ready for work. Only when all that is done should we attempt recoaling.
Recoaling is the least priority if the ship is damaged. If it doesn't get done, then Akishimo can still be towed back to port. Provided it is still afloat.
 
Last edited:
Wiadi said:
Yeah, no. We can help out with this but it absolutely will happen with or without our involvement. Unless you assume that just literally nobody is in charge of medicine I guess, but that seems probably wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

People are in charge of crew transfers between ships. Specifically, we are.

Artificial Girl said:
Everyone had to be signed over when they crossed to make sure nobody ended up where they weren't supposed to be. And that fell under your job as princess of book-keeping.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...


Artificial Girl said:
[ ] Medical Care: There was no word on casualties yet, but there was no way their little ship could keep up. Those men needed treatment. You'll need to coordinate with the ship's doctor to get wounded men aboard, though triage isn't technically in your job description.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It's pretty much explicitly said that we need to coordinate in order to get those men on board. If we don't coordinate, if we don't sign of on the transfer of crew, then they will stay put on the crippled destroyer.
 
Last edited:
10ebbor10 said:
It's explicitedly said that we need to coordinate in order to get those men onboard. If we don't coordinate, if we don't sign of on the transfer of crew, then they will stay put on the crippled destroyer.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Okay yes but I don't think "just do the bare minimum to get them on the boat" requires putting it as first priority. That only was a problem this time because we put R&R dead last. If you put Medical Care as first priority then I'm reasonably confident (based on the "isn't technically in your job description" bit) we'll end up assisting in more depth.
 
Wiadi said:
Okay yes but I don't think "just do the bare minimum to get them on the boat" requires putting it as first priority. That only was a problem this time because we put R&R dead last. If you put Medical Care as first priority then I'm reasonably confident (based on the "isn't technically in your job description" bit) we'll end up assisting in more depth.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The last time we put transferring crew last, those people ended up waiting hours. I see no reason to assume why it would now be different. I'm fine if you decide to put it second, maybe even third. Just acknowledge that putting it last will mean the wounded will get screwed over.
 
I'm open to the argument that we should move Medical Assistance up to spot 3 but I'm not a fan of putting it any higher than that - like others have been saying, it's something that is going to happen whether or not we direct it - we'd just be helping out.
 
10ebbor10 said:
The last time we put transferring crew last, those people ended up waiting hours. I see no reason to assume why it would now be different. I'm fine if you decide to put it second, maybe even third. Just acknowledge that putting it last will mean the wounded will get screwed over.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's different now because it's an emergency. Protocol is one thing during a standard resupply but I don't think anyone's going to be harassing obviously wounded men for a piece of paper.
 
Shebe Zuu said:
like others have been saying, it's something that is going to happen whether or not we direct it - we'd just be helping out.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I've seen evidence to believe that is the case, and found plenty to indicate otherwise.

Anyway, based on last turn, we can estimate what the priorities do.

Last turn, the order was :

1. Maintenance
2. Recoal
3. Victuals
4. R&R

That translated into :

1. Brief conference then crew deployed.
2. Personal supervision until the process was underway.
3. Random group of people left to deal with this issue without support, complaint forwarded to captain.
4. Not looked at at all until hours later.

Based on this, I see little evidence of the claims that putting healthcare first will result in us personally engaging in triage. We didn't personally shovel coal or do maintenance last turn, we supervised as much as needed to be done, and then moved on.

Honestly, people seem to be relying on wishful thinking. Thinking that putting a critical activity into the failure slot won't cause it to fail, because it's critical and people wouldn't let that happen.
 
Last edited:
10ebbor10 said:
I've seen evidence to believe that is the case, and found plenty to indicate otherwise.

Anyway, based on last turn, we can estimate what the priorities do.

Last turn, the order was :

1. Maintenance
2. Recoal
3. Victuals
4. R&R

That translated into :

1. Brief conference then crew deployed.
2. Personal supervision until it worked.
3. Random group of people left to deal with this issue without support, complaint forwarded to captain.
4. Not looked at at all until hours later.

Based on this, I see little evidence of the claims that putting healthcare first will result in us personally engaging in triage. We didn't personally shovel coal or do maintenance last turn, we supervised as much as needed to be done, and then moved on.

Honestly, people seem to be relying on wishfull thinking. Putting this critical activity into the failure slot won't cause it to fail, because it's critical and people wouldn't let that happen.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Because other people will be doing it because that's literally their jobs. We have medical teams on board, but they're not our subordinates and if their actual officers aren't complete incompetents this is what they're going to be worrying about.
 
Shebe Zuu said:
Because other people will be doing it because that's literally their jobs. We have medical teams on board, but they're not our subordinates and if their actual officers aren't complete incompetents this is what they're going to be worrying about.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

[ ] Medical Care: There was no word on casualties yet, but there was no way their little ship could keep up. Those men needed treatment. You'll need to coordinate with the ship's doctor to get wounded men aboard, though triage isn't technically in your job description.

We can bugger of right after and get on with doing other things(triage is not our job), but it is explicitly said (and clearly indicated on the previous turn) that getting people from Ship A to Ship B is our job.

If we don't do it, then the wounded will just lie around on the destroyer, while our medical team sits around twiddling their thumbs.

Under your plan, we'll spend a few hours looking after loading coal on a sinking ship, before we even look for wounded. (Incidentally, putting coal in slot 3 is dangerous. Slot 3 still gets done, but done badly. You don't want to badly load heavy coal on a listing ship. That's a great way to roll it. You should either lower or raise it's priority.)
 
Last edited:
10ebbor10 said:
Read.

[ ] Medical Care: There was no word on casualties yet, but there was no way their little ship could keep up. Those men needed treatment. You'll need to coordinate with the ship's doctor to get wounded men aboard, though triage isn't technically in your job description.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm aware of what the option says. What I'm telling you is that it's absurd to think that our crew is going to refuse to take obviously wounded men who are in the care of the ship's doctor aboard just because we didn't give them a piece of paper. In an emergency situation like this, normal protocol isn't going to be adhered to like the gospel.

If you're that worried about it I'll move it into the 3rd slot but honestly you're making a huge deal over something that other people are better equipped to handle than we are.
 
Shebe Zuu said:
I'm aware of what the option says. What I'm telling you is that it's absurd to think that our crew is going to refuse to take obviously wounded men who are in the care of the ship's doctor aboard just because we didn't give them a piece of paper. In an emergency situation like this, normal protocol isn't going to be adhered to like the gospel.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Our men aren't going to be taking wounded men aboard. They'll be doing maintenance or loading coal or stuff like that. The things you assigned higher priorities. As the option clearly says (and as the previous turn indicated), the priority indicates what our men are going to be doing.

If the ship's doctors have to move the patients themselves, then they can't treat them at the same time. I'll also take ages before they're all aboard. Maybe some can shamble over on their own.

Shebe Zuu said:
Just to confirm I'm not being an idiot - @Artificial Girl , @open_sketchbook , we're not the one's responsible for the ship's medical teams correct? So someone will be treating the wounded, even if we don't give it our direct attention.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Our ship has an infirmary of 16 beds. What medical teams? We'll have a doctor, maybe an assistant or two, and that'll be it.
 
10ebbor10 said:
Our men aren't going to be taking wounded men aboard. They'll be doing maintenance or loading coal or stuff like that. The things you assigned higher priorities. As the option clearly says (and as the previous turn indicated), the priority indicates what our men are going to be doing.

If the ship's doctors have to move the patients themselves, then they can't treat them at the same time. I'll also take ages before they're all aboard. Maybe some can shamble over on their own.



Our ship has an infirmary of 16 beds. What medical teams? We'll have a doctor, maybe an assistant or two, and that'll be it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
My point is that we have people who's job is medical care, and none of them are us - we're not the only officer on the ship and we have an important job to do in making sure the destroyer doesn't sink and in finding places to put all the extra crew we're about to take on. Just because we didn't personally oversee the triage effort doesn't mean nobody is going to do it.
 
To me, what this ultimately comes down to is that we need to do our job, and we need to trust our fellow officers to do theirs.
 
Shebe Zuu said:
Just to confirm I'm not being an idiot - @Artificial Girl , @open_sketchbook , we're not the one responsible for the ship's medical teams correct? So someone will be treating the wounded, even if we don't give it our direct attention.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Correct. The ship has a medical officer (also a doctor) and medical personnel. Though you have a lot of hands under your command who are good at moving things around and so very useful at getting people who can't move under their own power from point A to point B in a mass casualty event, since you can assume that a certain amount of the medical orderlies, nurses, etc. will be occupied with actually treating the wounded.
 
So, kind of as assumed. If we don't order our men to help, then they won't bring the patients to the ship. The medical personnel has to go and get them themselves(to be fair, a bit better than I assumed), but it's still something that they don't have sufficient personnel to do rapidly. I maintain my position that medical care should be a high priority task (1-2).
 
Last edited:
Shebe Zuu said:
My point is that we have people who's job is medical care, and none of them are us - we're not the only officer on the ship and we have an important job to do in making sure the destroyer doesn't sink and in finding places to put all the extra crew we're about to take on. Just because we didn't personally oversee the triage effort doesn't mean nobody is going to do it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Medical care is not our job. Supplies are our job. Transfer of people to the tender is our job.

For the medical people to do THEIR jobs, we need to do OUR job, because they will need supplies, and they will need to transfer the wounded to the tender.

Conversely, maintenance of the destroyer is ALSO not our job, because our job is supplies and transfer of supplies and personnel.

Here's what I suggest. We DO need to save the ship from sinking. Care for the wounded is a top priority, second only to (arguably not even that) to stopping the ship from sinking.

So that's first and second. It would be unconscionable for us to create a situation where ordinary tired sailors (those covered under Care) are being brought aboard while there are delays in getting wounded sailors aboard. Care is third, but definitely third behind preventing the destroyer from sinking and caring for the wounded.

We can NOT afford to be the kind of bureaucratic jackass who ignores bleeding men whose lives are in danger for want of medical care because it's "not our job" to provide medical care. We get the supplies together to maintain the ship before we even get there, we focus our effort on the wounded, THEN we worry about relatively mundane operations like the crew of a damaged ship getting to bathe


[X] Plan First Things First.
-[X] Maintenance
-[X] Medical Care
-[X] Care
-[X] Recoaling
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Voting is open
Back
Top