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​


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.
 
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[X] Admiral Kawamura Masashi, an older officer who was instrumental in the composition of the modern Akitsukuni Navy. The man spent considerable time in Albia two decades ago and became utterly obsessed with their, at the time, brand-new torpedo rams, and despite their increasingly glaring obsolescence in modern combat his development and study program continues to suck up funds like a whirlpool. If somebody can finally convince the old coot to let it go, that's millions of yen freed up for R&D like this.

Who knows, we might convince him to see reason!
 
[X] Admiral Kawamura Masashi, an older officer who was instrumental in the composition of the modern Akitsukuni Navy. The man spent considerable time in Albia two decades ago and became utterly obsessed with their, at the time, brand-new torpedo rams, and despite their increasingly glaring obsolescence in modern combat his development and study program continues to suck up funds like a whirlpool. If somebody can finally convince the old coot to let it go, that's millions of yen freed up for R&D like this.

It's true that this seems like the most difficult of the lot. But frankly, it's also the one that needs to be done the most, for the good of the entire Navy. With a world war breaking out, we can't afford to be shoveling money into a fireplace like this; we have to run a leaner, meaner organization than that, or we're in a whole mess of long-term trouble.
 
[X] Rear Admiral Uramoto Tanjiro, who is overseeing the holding squadron used to manage various ships severely damaged during the war until decisions are made about repairs or scrapping. With a stroke of his pen, the weeks-long process of getting a vessel inspected and released for use as an installment testbed could be shortened to a single signature. Unfortunately, the man would prefer to see as many damaged older vessels scrapped as possible to justify funding for more modern replacements.
 
Nuew said:
Thank you both for the new chapter!


We voted for them to have not joined when we went through the Panama Canal. It's diagetically justified as the political part of the government not yet being quite willing to jump in so soon after the last war, but they might do so later. IIRC the alliance with the Allied Kingdom is still active, they just haven't yet called the Akitsuini in on their request.


This seems like a good idea to me. It also seems easier to manage given we can support scrapping the rest of the ships as long as we get one, especially since we can try to have that one ship be redesignated as some sort of experimental ship and share it with everyone else designing something. Does mean we won't have it for testing as often as we'd like, but it's a useful place to compromise down to.
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Not just that but he wants more modern ships. Him signing off on us getting one beat up rustbucket so we can test new AA systems directly feeds into creating those more modern ships.
We can even bring our model and talk his ear off about our own AA experience and the future of AA in the Navy.

[X] Rear Admiral Uramoto Tanjiro, who is overseeing the holding squadron used to manage various ships severely damaged during the war until decisions are made about repairs or scrapping. With a stroke of his pen, the weeks-long process of getting a vessel inspected and released for use as an installment testbed could be shortened to a single signature. Unfortunately, the man would prefer to see as many damaged older vessels scrapped as possible to justify funding for more modern replacements.
 
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[X] Rear Admiral Uramoto Tanjiro, who is overseeing the holding squadron used to manage various ships severely damaged during the war until decisions are made about repairs or scrapping. With a stroke of his pen, the weeks-long process of getting a vessel inspected and released for use as an installment testbed could be shortened to a single signature. Unfortunately, the man would prefer to see as many damaged older vessels scrapped as possible to justify funding for more modern replacements.
 
buli-buli said:
I'm still weighing our chances, but I do have a line of argument figured out.

We need to keep the Navy ahead of the perfidious Air Force! If we cannot shoot down those stupid planes, people might start to think they are more useful than honest naval vessels!
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Swap war stories, tell him about what it was like being on a torpedo boat, and how bad it was getting in close enough to launch self-propelled torpedoes, and see if you can't get him to draw the conclusion that attempting to close to ramming range is a waste of a perfectly good armored hull.

After all, we are a war heroine who did genuinely serve on a torpedo boat that got hit badly in a fleet action, are we not?
 
open_sketch said:
There are plenty of officers who would rather see a whole squadron of modern enemy battleships bearing down on them than yet another 6 am visit from a procurement officer who won't quit.
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Oh, this is a good one. It made me laugh.

I've dealt with these kinds of people in my IT job... It really does become easier to just go "FINE, here's a virtual machine, don't come crying to me when you break it ok?"
 
I'm torn between Tanjiro and Masashi... Tanjiro would be the easiest one to ply for useful results for the job we're here to do, but Masashi... if we can get him on side (a mix of the 'perfidious airforce!' and 'war stories about torpedo boating' probably would get us in at least) it will redirect the resorces to unfuck many things and just overall be extremely helpful to not just our current initiative, but whatever the next few ones are.
 
[X] Rear Admiral Uramoto Tanjiro, who is overseeing the holding squadron used to manage various ships severely damaged during the war until decisions are made about repairs or scrapping. With a stroke of his pen, the weeks-long process of getting a vessel inspected and released for use as an installment testbed could be shortened to a single signature. Unfortunately, the man would prefer to see as many damaged older vessels scrapped as possible to justify funding for more modern replacements.
 
[X] Rear Admiral Uramoto Tanjiro, who is overseeing the holding squadron used to manage various ships severely damaged during the war until decisions are made about repairs or scrapping. With a stroke of his pen, the weeks-long process of getting a vessel inspected and released for use as an installment testbed could be shortened to a single signature. Unfortunately, the man would prefer to see as many damaged older vessels scrapped as possible to justify funding for more modern replacements.
 
[X] Admiral Kawamura Masashi, an older officer who was instrumental in the composition of the modern Akitsukuni Navy. The man spent considerable time in Albia two decades ago and became utterly obsessed with their, at the time, brand-new torpedo rams, and despite their increasingly glaring obsolescence in modern combat his development and study program continues to suck up funds like a whirlpool. If somebody can finally convince the old coot to let it go, that's millions of yen freed up for R&D like this.
 
[X] Admiral Kawamura Masashi, an older officer who was instrumental in the composition of the modern Akitsukuni Navy. The man spent considerable time in Albia two decades ago and became utterly obsessed with their, at the time, brand-new torpedo rams, and despite their increasingly glaring obsolescence in modern combat his development and study program continues to suck up funds like a whirlpool. If somebody can finally convince the old coot to let it go, that's millions of yen freed up for R&D like this.
 
[X] Rear Admiral Uramoto Tanjiro, who is overseeing the holding squadron used to manage various ships severely damaged during the war until decisions are made about repairs or scrapping. With a stroke of his pen, the weeks-long process of getting a vessel inspected and released for use as an installment testbed could be shortened to a single signature. Unfortunately, the man would prefer to see as many damaged older vessels scrapped as possible to justify funding for more modern replacements.

Lovely to see an update! I think having a test bed is the best gain for hopefully a not too onerous amount of effort.
 
[X] Rear Admiral Uramoto Tanjiro, who is overseeing the holding squadron used to manage various ships severely damaged during the war until decisions are made about repairs or scrapping. With a stroke of his pen, the weeks-long process of getting a vessel inspected and released for use as an installment testbed could be shortened to a single signature. Unfortunately, the man would prefer to see as many damaged older vessels scrapped as possible to justify funding for more modern replacements.
 
[X] Rear Admiral Uramoto Tanjiro, who is overseeing the holding squadron used to manage various ships severely damaged during the war until decisions are made about repairs or scrapping. With a stroke of his pen, the weeks-long process of getting a vessel inspected and released for use as an installment testbed could be shortened to a single signature. Unfortunately, the man would prefer to see as many damaged older vessels scrapped as possible to justify funding for more modern replacements.

Should be easy to do, all we're arguing is we save one or two older vessels to test on before sending them to the scrappers.
 
[X] Admiral Kawamura Masashi, an older officer who was instrumental in the composition of the modern Akitsukuni Navy. The man spent considerable time in Albia two decades ago and became utterly obsessed with their, at the time, brand-new torpedo rams, and despite their increasingly glaring obsolescence in modern combat his development and study program continues to suck up funds like a whirlpool. If somebody can finally convince the old coot to let it go, that's millions of yen freed up for R&D like this.

Torpedo rams are so dumb and goofy I love them, this seems so silly lets go for it.
 
buli-buli said:
We need to keep the Navy ahead of the perfidious Air Force! If we cannot shoot down those stupid planes, people might start to think they are more useful than honest naval vessels!
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Click to shrink...
If it convinced me, it should convince the admiral.

[X] Admiral Kawamura Masashi, an older officer who was instrumental in the composition of the modern Akitsukuni Navy. The man spent considerable time in Albia two decades ago and became utterly obsessed with their, at the time, brand-new torpedo rams, and despite their increasingly glaring obsolescence in modern combat his development and study program continues to suck up funds like a whirlpool. If somebody can finally convince the old coot to let it go, that's millions of yen freed up for R&D like this.
 
[X] Admiral Kawamura Masashi, an older officer who was instrumental in the composition of the modern Akitsukuni Navy. The man spent considerable time in Albia two decades ago and became utterly obsessed with their, at the time, brand-new torpedo rams, and despite their increasingly glaring obsolescence in modern combat his development and study program continues to suck up funds like a whirlpool. If somebody can finally convince the old coot to let it go, that's millions of yen freed up for R&D like this.

Might be the higher risk target but also seems like the one that'd do the most good overall even beyond our own project
 
[X] Admiral Kawamura Masashi, an older officer who was instrumental in the composition of the modern Akitsukuni Navy. The man spent considerable time in Albia two decades ago and became utterly obsessed with their, at the time, brand-new torpedo rams, and despite their increasingly glaring obsolescence in modern combat his development and study program continues to suck up funds like a whirlpool. If somebody can finally convince the old coot to let it go, that's millions of yen freed up for R&D like this.
 
[X] Admiral Kawamura Masashi, an older officer who was instrumental in the composition of the modern Akitsukuni Navy. The man spent considerable time in Albia two decades ago and became utterly obsessed with their, at the time, brand-new torpedo rams, and despite their increasingly glaring obsolescence in modern combat his development and study program continues to suck up funds like a whirlpool. If somebody can finally convince the old coot to let it go, that's millions of yen freed up for R&D like this.
 
[X] Rear Admiral Uramoto Tanjiro, who is overseeing the holding squadron used to manage various ships severely damaged during the war until decisions are made about repairs or scrapping. With a stroke of his pen, the weeks-long process of getting a vessel inspected and released for use as an installment testbed could be shortened to a single signature. Unfortunately, the man would prefer to see as many damaged older vessels scrapped as possible to justify funding for more modern replacements.

I think more time for practical testing would be best- we can lose a LOT of yen worth of ships to airplanes very quickly.
 
[X] Admiral Kawamura Masashi, an older officer who was instrumental in the composition of the modern Akitsukuni Navy. The man spent considerable time in Albia two decades ago and became utterly obsessed with their, at the time, brand-new torpedo rams, and despite their increasingly glaring obsolescence in modern combat his development and study program continues to suck up funds like a whirlpool. If somebody can finally convince the old coot to let it go, that's millions of yen freed up for R&D like this.

You know what, I'm sold.
 
[X] Admiral Kawamura Masashi, an older officer who was instrumental in the composition of the modern Akitsukuni Navy. The man spent considerable time in Albia two decades ago and became utterly obsessed with their, at the time, brand-new torpedo rams, and despite their increasingly glaring obsolescence in modern combat his development and study program continues to suck up funds like a whirlpool. If somebody can finally convince the old coot to let it go, that's millions of yen freed up for R&D like this.

We may not have the best chances of success...but it'll definitely be an INTERESTING conversation.
 
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