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If Mahan Could See Us Now

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Simon_Jester said:
Hm. Discussion time.

Why aren't the ships shelling us already?

There has to be a reason. Either they're being threatened by other ships further out in the harbor ("If you fire on the city we will set you ablaze at your moorings"), or the crews aren't committed enough to the revolt to shell loyalist positions.

...

Another issue is that we can't realistically secure the armory indefinitely if the rebels are numerous enough. Are we going to have to blow the place up?

Come to think of it, the rebels may not be shelling us in large part for fear of hitting the naval stores.
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Keep in mind that both sides believe that they are fighting for their country. Damaging the infrastructure and possibly hitting any civilians still in the city would be against what they the cause they believe they are fighting for. Even if they absolutely know for certain a building or area the loyalists are in naval guns are not known for pinpoint accuracy some of those shells can and probably will go wide.
 
10ebbor10 said:
No such thing as loyalists in this battle. The personal union died with the King, so de jure there are now 2 seperate states., Kevia and Vanmark.
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Artificial Girl said:
Wouldn't it devolve to his heir? Or the Queen of Stolrussia?
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I mean, they MUST have covered this possibility in the pre-nuptials. King and queen just don't marry and unite their realms into a single personal union without making provision for what happens after one or both of them dies.
 
[X] Write-in: Send a message and try and convince the marines around the gate to pull back to the armoury.

Rationale: The armoury is more valuable, a more defensible position and the multiple gates means that the gate defended by marines has little value. Once rallied, we might even have enough numbers to push on the ships without having to abandon the armoury.
 
[X] Push towards the gates to relieve the marines there.

Cruiser crews are 900-2500 in this era? I don't think we have the ability to retake ships.
 
Sure, but the way on and off a boat is just like, a walkway. A guy with a rifle can prevent people from just strolling aboard and going for a joyride.
 
open_sketchbook said:
Sure, but the way on and off a boat is just like, a walkway. A guy with a rifle can prevent people from just strolling aboard and going for a joyride.
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Problem being that the rebels are already aboard from the sounds of the update.
HMS Sophia said:
As the sun goes down the men you had sent to the docks return. Or at least, two of them do, one carrying the other. He's badly wounded and your first urge is to get him stabilised before you can even take a report. When the report comes it is even worse news. The Docks and the ships which remain in port are held by forces loyal not the Varnmark or the King but to Kevia and some of them are already flying the traditional Kevian jack's rather than the newer ones that had been issued after the union was formed. At least half of the ships were missing, however, including three of the huge battleships. Not sunk, but not in port. You hope they have chosen the right side.
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Looks like over half the fleet is loyal, which suggests there's not a great deal that the fleet will be doing; both halves are pinned here; the revolutionaries can't leave, and the loyalists need to keep the revolutionaries pinned.
 
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C3P7: The Gate is Down
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    • This update contains Deadnaming, Misgendering and general Transphobia. Treat with caution.

    No-one had ever thought to teach the young officers who had gone to school to command the Kevian Navy about ground combat, about the pressure and the silence, about the tense moments as dawn broke, and about the waiting. You are discovering it all first hand as your city, your home, burns around you. Sporadic gunfire echoes off the walls and down the streets every few minutes and makes the idea of taking any rest difficult. At least it is just rifle fire.

    In the afternoon of the second day, the Major calls you into a storeroom he has turned into an ad-hoc command post. There is another junior officer there, another marine with a rifle slung over his back and a sour look on his face.

    "-If they're going to hit the armoury, they'll come up these two roads." The younger man is saying as you walk in, pointing to a map dotted with red and blue. Polyapavlosk looks stark outlined in black and grey with a troubling amount of what can only be known rebel positions.

    "Leytenant Mikhailova, meet Leytenant Medyedev. We were just going over the situation as it stands." The Major gestures first to his colleague and then the map.

    "As I was saying, these two roads will be where they'll come from if they're coming from the docks. Unless they just sit there and hold fast."

    "Then what do we do?" you ask, ready to trust in the men who have experience in this sort of thing.

    "We have to hold the armouries." The Major replies, firm.

    "Aye Sir, we do," Medyedev is thoughtful, fingers tugging at his thin beard, "But this place might as well be a fortress. If we barricade the doors you could hold it with five men against five hundred."

    "And we have almost fifty." You'd become acutely aware of how many men and women were crammed into this small space over the last twenty-four hours. "We could fight back with numbers like that."

    "Not the docks though. Even if they're just keeping our boys holed up they'll still have the numbers over us even if we took every man-jack. But we could punch out towards the gate here and reconnect with the marines we know are there." the Leytenant traces a line from the armoury to the gate you had made an attempt on the day before. "Plus it would mean a route of communication and egress out of the port if we need it." The Major makes a harrumphing noise, "Like it or not, Sir, we might not be able to hold forever. We have to be realistic."

    You stopped thinking about anything to do with the fight. The idea that you might have to abandon your positions that you might not win here, hadn't even crossed your mind. But now it had.

    "We'll just have to fight to make sure that doesn't happen." You are trying to put on a brave face for the two other officers. They don't seem convinced.

    "We will." The Major agrees. "I'll give you ten marines and fifteen sailors, both of you, but not today. We wait two days to see if they come to us, then I'll give you your head. Agree'd?"

    "Aye, Sir." Medyedev says. All you can do is nod. You're going to be commanding troops in battle, for your nation and your home. You couldn't be more terrified.


    On day three the shelling started. It was neither sustained nor accurate, but shells began falling around the armouries and beyond. The Major suggested it was simply harassing fire from small guns hidden out in the city, not from the ships in port. It could still be the prelude to an attack though, and you spent four hours stood to in readiness as the fire slowly diminished until it was just the occasional random shot.

    You sought out Sasha as soon as you could, seeking comfort in what was perhaps the only shred of normality in this whole mess.

    She was smoking in a back corner, arms folded across her chest as Vasily gesticulates sharply at her. It isn't until you get closer that you can hear what he's saying.

    "What is this? This mockery of god, this cheap imitation of a woman." His voice is sharp, the anger layered in every word.

    "I am who I have to be." She fires back, voice leaden, dull. It is not the first time she has heard these sort of things.

    "Have to? You choose your own blasphemy. It is distasteful to the extreme. And you still think you can stand by our sides? These men and women should not be forced to suffer your presence."

    "They do not suffer my skill with a rifle nor my talent for the battlefield."

    "You're a disgrace, Alexander. I can't believe I called you comrade." He spits at her feet. A moment later her hand hits his face in a resounding slap, the noise making more than one prurient onlooker who had been attracted by the argument look away.

    "I make my own choices, Vasily Petrov, and they are mine alone. If you wish to forget me, do so. I already thought you were dead." She pushes past him and stalks off. For a moment you have the urge to confront him despite your uncertainty as to the reason for her upset, to punish and embarrass him further, but there's no way you can leave Sasha on her own. You chase after her without hesitation.

    Her turn catches you by surprise and you stumble into her, unable to stop in time. She catches you by the shoulder and backs you against the wall. The space between you in this dark stone corridor is so little that you can feel the heat of her and see the tears on her face in obscene detail.

    "Do you want to hurt me too, little Valya?" She asks, the venom she is trying to put in her voice overwhelmed by the pain. It is enough to break your heart. You reach for her and she bats your hands away. "You can call me a monster. An Invert. Everyone else does."

    "Sasha, I wouldn't."

    "Then what is it, huh? Am I fascinating? A curiosity, a freak? None of these words hurt anymore." The magnitude of the agony behind her eyes says otherwise.

    "None of these things." You had figured things out before Vasily's vicious words. It was difficult not to notice the cut of her jaw, the growl of her voice. Such things were as well regarded in Europa as your love of a woman's beauty and for the longest time you were ashamed to admit you had fallen into that mode of thinking. And yet Sasha had shown you simply by her presence that not only was she woman, but more so than many you have met.

    So you understand the anger, and the pain, in some ways. It is fear.

    "I cannot understand you. You noble, pretty fool, you understand so little and yet you stand." She says and for the first time her words find purchase. Their bite is sharp.

    "Of course I stand," You bite back, "This world does not welcome me either, Sasha, but I walk it by God's will."

    "You'll spend a long time walking alone."

    "If I must, then I must. But I'd be happier if I was able to walk it with you."

    She goes silent, looking into your eyes as you looks into hers. Her hand comes up to cup your face, the difference in height between you made more apparent by proximity. Suddenly her lips skim yours in the most chaste of kisses.

    "For some reason, Koshka, I believe you." She whispers in your ear.


    The push for the gate is well planned, well thought out, and terribly executed. You led the sailors up one street, the marines moving up another with Sasha by your side. Each group had a machine-gun, rifles, grenades, and a clearly defined mission.

    None of that helps when you walk straight into an ambush.

    You were forced to watch as men and women who had placed their trust and faith in you were cut down in seconds, their lives snuffed out by hot lead and cruel steel. The rest dive for cover and the screams of the dying undercut the sudden excruciating sound of fighting. Rebel soldiers in windows, behind walls, around corners put down an absolute fusillade of fire which overwhelms every notion of training you have had and kicks in your basest instincts.

    If your academy days had failed to prepare you for the interminable boredom of soldiery, then they had certainly not given you the slightest insight into what actual combat is like. You cower in a doorway with your rifle clutched to your chest like a child's toy. You dimly remember thinking that this was no example to set the men and women under your command and yet what else can you do.

    Time passes. The battle rages. You hide. People die. Blood spills. You hide. Eyes sting. Lips crack. You hide.

    A hand on your shoulder. Dragging you upright. Voice in your ear, screaming, screaming something, something important.

    "Shoot! Shoot or die, you fucking fool." Sasha shakes you into reality and pushes you out and into the firing line. Your rifle comes up to your shoulder just as you practiced, the trigger pull difficult but smooth and the crack loud enough you can hear it even over all the other sound.

    The shooting only slows when the rebels pull back, not repulsed but withdrawing without a sound. Suddenly you are alone amongst the wounded and bleeding soldiery, amongst expended brass and broken brick, amongst the detritus of war. It is a very different experience than you had expected. Sasha, somehow unharmed, says something. You can't hear her so you gesture vaguely at your ears.

    "We need to find cover before nightfall!" She shouts. You nod and she shakes her head. Instead of waiting for the order, she grabs your arm and gathers the others, some carrying the seriously injured on their shoulders, and leads you all into a nearby house. She props you upright in the corner and you are asleep before her hands are off you.

    The morning will bring new challenges. How do you face them?
    [ ] The only options is stealth. We cannot be drawn into more fighting.
    [ ] Speed is essential. We push the gate as soon as we are ready.
    [ ] Caution is key. If we must fight, we will do so on our terms.
    [ ] Write in (subject to GM approval)
     
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    • [X] Caution is key. If we must fight, we will do so on our terms.

    Well that went… badly. We're definitely going to need to conserve our strength from here.
     
    P.s. I'd especially enjoy feedback on the second part of this update, tho the whole update would appreciate commentary.
     
    [X] Speed is essential. We push the gate as soon as we are ready.

    Oof I really drank the dysphoria juice with this one. I think it's really effective though--also gives a solid contrast to the way things work elsewhere say in ADQ or Castles. I look forward to seeing how Sasha and Valya weather the future c:
     
    [X] Caution is key. If we must fight, we will do so on our terms.

    Well, Vasily is having a very understandable reaction. Obviously we're going to put him way the fuck over there so there aren't any problems in this manner for a while.
     
    HMS Sophia said:
    P.s. I'd especially enjoy feedback on the second part of this update, tho the whole update would appreciate commentary.
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    I love this style of writing combat because it's so real. You don't see the enemy if you're ambushed, you just pull yourself together and put bullets down range as much for the comfort of the recoil as the idea of "fire superiority."

    HMS Sophia said:
    Excuse me.
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    Understandable, not acceptable. The relationship between soldiers in the field is one of the closest bonds there is, and for one of them to go down a road that your intolerant society views as - what's the word I'm looking for - monstrous, that you've been conditioned to think is unnatural and horrid, is like a huge betrayal. He's being a huge douchebag about it, but not an unexpected douchebag.

    You get what I'm saying here, right? I know this is a very sensitive topic for Gaya writers, and I think it's actually a fascinating bit of drama with a lot of depth, but I don't want to get too close to saying "this guy isn't a dick" since he is.

    ninjaedit: Also don't know if that's what 7734 is saying, but it's how I see it.
     
    HMS Sophia said:
    Excuse me.
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    Someone's he's intimately familiar with has, at their core, changed. Change is painful, and the closer someone is to you the more this change hurts you. Yeah, he's being an ass about it, but the fact is someone who's basically family at this point has irrevocably altered themselves in quite possibly the most drastic way possible and y'know there's a certain shock reaction. Maybe he'll get over it, maybe he won't- but until then he's justified in not being comfortable with the change.

    Does this make him randomly lashing out at Sasha acceptable? No. That doesn't change the fact that he is internally justified for his emotions, though, and the fact is barring a lot of time and healing or catharsis this isn't changing because of that internal justification.
     
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