Will we be able to direct who the private investigator investigates, with a [PI] vote analogous to the supercomputer vote? Or will he just tool along in the background largely without our input the way Emily Rice tends to do?
No it does not give you anything automatically. It gives you a unit that is good at taking actions related to Future construction and potentially an extra action if things go well.
Will we be able to direct who the private investigator investigates, with a [PI] vote analogous to the supercomputer vote? Or will he just tool along in the background largely without our input the way Emily Rice tends to do?
Yes. The private investigator will be somewhat similar to the supercomputer special actions only the private eye will be the only unit that can get assigned to those tasks. Furthermore the private eye can decide to investigate additional things independent from you but that is outside of your control (It is kind of a hybrid of the two things). That clarify how the option would work?
Risk management firm is automatic yes but it basically just gives you extra insights into what is going on
No it does not give you anything automatically. It gives you a unit that is good at taking actions related to Future construction and potentially an extra action if things go well.
Yes. The private investigator will be somewhat similar to the supercomputer special actions only the private eye will be the only unit that can get assigned to those tasks. Furthermore the private eye can decide to investigate additional things independent from you but that is outside of your control (It is kind of a hybrid of the two things). That clarify how the option would work?
"Hire a private investigator" is a DC 58 Stewardship action. Let's put Lex and at least one other Stewardship character on it next turn. Maybe two such characters- make it a megacollaboration likely to exploding-crit; we don't get many Stewardship exploding crits.
We'll give Cass "time off" to take a [Cass] action. Turn after that, we can have Lex directly teach Cass something, maybe something likely to help her with Diplomacy or maybe Stewardship, her current weakest relevant traits.
Okay so this turn I think we should focus on improving lex corp and the heroes under our employ as well as making them do jobs they would like to do. Except for Amazo that action is now a trap as making any further progress with it requires too many resources we should take actions related to it first before taking it.
for martial we should settle our obligations and also I think we should begin making efforts to further fortify lex corp although I would like to take a fortify metropolis action as well
[] Assist the US Government with the war effort in Santa Prisca
[] Fortify LexCorp tower
For Diplomacy do keep in mind we agreed to sponsor Creed Philips yet we do not know the guy we should take time to see who exactly we agreed to sponsoring and what his policies are.
[] Meet with Senator Creed Philips
We should also recruit scientists related in other fields as right now lex corp only has one hero physicist, two hero biologists, one hero botanist I want to recruit more scientists in other fields also we need more programmers as we are woefully under the curve in that area.
[] Recruit talented scientists
[] Recruit more programmers
We should also consult the DOMA on dealing with this invisible man
[] Consult with the DOMA
Now for stewardship I think that we should let our heroes do what they want and are good at. May as well get started on building more towers and hiring a P.I.
[] Build a new LexCorp building in Vienna
[ ] Finish construction of the LexCorp building in Kyoto
[ ] Release what you have
[ ] Develop and sell high fashion clothing
[ ] Build a secret lab in a remote location
[ ] Hire a private investigator
Onto intrigue we really only have two pertinent stuff finding a the invisible intruder and investigating further the unknown individual but I feel that we can just give the information of the unknown individuals to DOMA and let them deal with it
[] Investigate Bradford Sackett's death
Now Learning there are a always a ton of cool stuff to take but I think that the ones I most like to develop are
[ ] Learn about Kryptonite
We need to see if Kryptonite is truly safe or not before we start doing bigger things with it
[ ] Improve solar panels
We are already going green but not only can we easily complete this action but this may also be a chance to improve two of our heroes
[ ] Learn from the Red Tornado data
This action we should make ivo work on as this is related to amazo
[ ] Learn more about computers
Our super computer is not very super at all we should work on improving our knowledge of computers then make a new and better super computer
[x] Assist the US Government with the war effort in Santa Prisca
[x] Fortify LexCorp tower
[x] Meet with Senator Creed Philips
[x] Recruit talented scientists
[x] Recruit more programmers
[x] Consult with the DOMA
[x] Build a new LexCorp building in Vienna
[x] Finish construction of the LexCorp building in Kyoto
[x] Release what you have
[x] Develop and sell high fashion clothing
[x] Build a secret lab in a remote location
[x] Hire a private investigator
[x] Investigate Bradford Sackett's death
[x] Learn about Kryptonite
[x] Improve solar panels
[x] Learn from the Red Tornado data
[x] Learn more about computers
[X] Fortify LexCorp tower
[X] Assist the US Government with the war effort in Santa Prisca
[X] Recruit Lucy Lane as a personal lawyer
[X] Consult with the DOMA
[X] Build a new LexCorp building in Vienna
[X] Develop and sell high fashion clothing
[X] Release what you have
[X] Develop a social media platform
[X] Begin producing hologram technology
[X] Repair the damaged Supercomputer
[X] Build a secret lab in a remote location
[X] Build surveillance satellites
[X] Investigate the unknown individual
[X] Investigate Bradford Sackett's death
[X] Learn about Kryptonite
[X] Learn from the Red Tornado data
[X] The A.M.A.Z.O. project
For Diplomacy do keep in mind we agreed to sponsor Creed Philips yet we do not know the guy we should take time to see who exactly we agreed to sponsoring and what his policies are.
He's only one senator; he can't do much harm even if we turn out not to like his policies... Also, this is a Diplomacy action, which means it conflicts with the goal of doing Diplomacy actions elsewhere. Such as...
We should also recruit scientists related in other fields as right now lex corp only has one hero physicist, two hero biologists, one hero botanist I want to recruit more scientists in other fields also we need more programmers as we are woefully under the curve in that area.
[] Recruit talented scientists
[] Recruit more programmers
We should also consult the DOMA on dealing with this invisible man
[] Consult with the DOMA
These three actions. Furthermore, we're already hard up for Diplomacy heroes because one of our best (Oswald) and one of our strongest second-string Diplomacy characters (Mari) are busy doing their 'personal interest' actions and are locked down where we can't get at them.
Now for stewardship I think that we should let our heroes do what they want and are good at. May as well get started on building more towers and hiring a P.I.
[] Build a new LexCorp building in Vienna
[ ] Finish construction of the LexCorp building in Kyoto
[ ] Release what you have
[ ] Develop and sell high fashion clothing
[ ] Build a secret lab in a remote location
[ ] Hire a private investigator
Finishing the LexCorp building in Kyoto is strictly a profitable investment (a 50% chance of accelerating completion by 5 turns, netting us on average +1.5 AP). But we'd need to put heropower into it if we want to be confident of success... and quite a bit of our Stewardship heropower is locked down on other projects
Onto intrigue we really only have two pertinent stuff finding a the invisible intruder and investigating further the unknown individual but I feel that we can just give the information of the unknown individuals to DOMA and let them deal with it
[] Investigate Bradford Sackett's death
The "unknown individuals" live in France. That is outside DOMA's jurisdiction, and it will take a US government agency time to convince the French government to do anything. Furthermore, DOMA (and the French government) will most likely respond to the unknown individuals by trying to kill them or imprison them. We have no compelling incentive to see those people killed or imprisoned. We may want to make a deal with them instead. They clearly know at least something we don't about telecommunications, and the fact that they killed people over our phone lines isn't the sort of thing that bothers Lex Luthor.
Now Learning there are a always a ton of cool stuff to take but I think that the ones I most like to develop are
[ ] Learn about Kryptonite
We need to see if Kryptonite is truly safe or not before we start doing bigger things with it
[ ] Improve solar panels
We are already going green but not only can we easily complete this action but this may also be a chance to improve two of our heroes
[ ] Learn from the Red Tornado data
This action we should make ivo work on as this is related to amazo
[ ] Learn more about computers
Our super computer is not very super at all we should work on improving our knowledge of computers then make a new and better super computer
"Improve solar panels" won't improve our hero units though it might make them happier; we are already researching kryptonite as an energy source and working on solar panels at the same time strikes me as comparatively redundant.
If we're going to spend AP on low-DC projects like that, there are a LOT of other possible choices.
[X] Fortify LexCorp tower
[X] Assist the US Government with the war effort in Santa Prisca
[X] Recruit Lucy Lane as a personal lawyer
[X] Consult with the DOMA
[X] Build a new LexCorp building in Vienna
[X] Develop and sell high fashion clothing
[X] Release what you have
[X] Develop a social media platform
[X] Begin producing hologram technology
[X] Repair the damaged Supercomputer
[X] Build a secret lab in a remote location
[X] Build surveillance satellites
[X] Investigate the unknown individual
[X] Investigate Bradford Sackett's death
[X] Learn about Kryptonite
[X] Learn from the Red Tornado data
[X] The A.M.A.Z.O. project
He's only one senator; he can't do much harm even if we turn out not to like his policies... Also, this is a Diplomacy action, which means it conflicts with the goal of doing Diplomacy actions elsewhere. Such as...
These three actions. Furthermore, we're already hard up for Diplomacy heroes because one of our best (Oswald) and one of our strongest second-string Diplomacy characters (Mari) are busy doing their 'personal interest' actions and are locked down where we can't get at them.
Finishing the LexCorp building in Kyoto is strictly a profitable investment (a 50% chance of accelerating completion by 5 turns, netting us on average +1.5 AP). But we'd need to put heropower into it if we want to be confident of success... and quite a bit of our Stewardship heropower is locked down on other projects
The "unknown individuals" live in France. That is outside DOMA's jurisdiction, and it will take a US government agency time to convince the French government to do anything. Furthermore, DOMA (and the French government) will most likely respond to the unknown individuals by trying to kill them or imprison them. We have no compelling incentive to see those people killed or imprisoned. We may want to make a deal with them instead. They clearly know at least something we don't about telecommunications, and the fact that they killed people over our phone lines isn't the sort of thing that bothers Lex Luthor.
"Improve solar panels" won't improve our hero units though it might make them happier; we are already researching kryptonite as an energy source and working on solar panels at the same time strikes me as comparatively redundant.
If we're going to spend AP on low-DC projects like that, there are a LOT of other possible choices.
The solar panel action is something we should take because kryptonite is a finite resource that can be used on other projects for every chunk of kryptonite powering a vehicle or a power plant is one that is not being uses against superman or a military weapon, or on other stuff whereas solar power is near infinite.
Fair enough on accelerating construction and the senator I am actually thinking of replacing those with a study corpse action wisper for karl and moon and teaching jinx magic.
He's only one senator; he can't do much harm even if we turn out not to like his policies... Also, this is a Diplomacy action, which means it conflicts with the goal of doing Diplomacy actions elsewhere.
True. But we did promise Eiling to back him. Also given that our political interests already align with the General, meeting with the Senator would open up opportunities to increase our influence.
The solar panel action is something we should take because kryptonite is a finite resource that can be used on other projects for every chunk of kryptonite powering a vehicle or a power plant is one that is not being uses against superman or a military weapon, or on other stuff whereas solar power is near infinite.
Given that this is comic books, there are power sources more compact and useful for our purposes than solar power. We just have to find them.
With that said, I'm fine with pushing solar power eventually, but I don't think it should be a top priority at this time. We're still struggling with a pretty tightly limited action budget that's been expanding only slowly, and only allows us an average of about three actions per category. It's a necessity that we prioritize things with immediate utility, or things that are easy and likely to have high payoff.
EDIT:
Basically, that should be our criterion: "Is this action one of the three most important and useful things we are capable of doing in this category, on this turn, given the limits of our heropower? No? Then we should probably not be doing it, unless there is nothing equally important in another category."
True. But we did promise Eiling to back him. Also given that our political interests already align with the General, meeting with the Senator would open up opportunities to increase our influence.
It would, and I support doing it- but not right now.
I mean, @King crimson , is our failure to meet with Eiling counting as us breaking a promise to him? He seems pretty happy with us, so as far as I'm concerned we're doing all right.
I mean, @King crimson , is our failure to meet with Eiling counting as us breaking a promise to him? He seems pretty happy with us, so as far as I'm concerned we're doing all right.
No you already gave Creed Philips money. In fact in the little blurb about the action itself it states that you have already contributed to his campaign. You've fulfilled the bare minimum you needed to do.
[X] Fortify LexCorp tower
[X] Assist the US Government with the war effort in Santa Prisca
[X] Recruit Lucy Lane as a personal lawyer
[X] Consult with the DOMA
[X] Build a new LexCorp building in Vienna
[X] Develop and sell high fashion clothing
[X] Release what you have
[X] Develop a social media platform
[X] Begin producing hologram technology
[X] Repair the damaged Supercomputer
[X] Build a secret lab in a remote location
[X] Learn about robotics
[X] Learn more about engineering
[X] Build surveillance satellites
[X] Investigate the unknown individual
[X] Investigate Bradford Sackett's death
[X] Learn more about space
[X] Learn about Kryptonite
[X] Learn from the Red Tornado data
[x] Learn more about computers
[X] Consult with the DOMA
[X] Release what you have
[X] Develop and sell high fashion clothing
[X] Build a secret lab in a remote location
[X] Repair the damaged Supercomputer
[X] Learn from the Red Tornado data
[X] Build a new LexCorp building in Vienna
[X] Build surveillance satellites
[X] Develop a social media platform
[X] Investigate Bradford Sackett's death
[X] Learn about Kryptonite
[X] The A.M.A.Z.O. project
[X] Begin producing hologram technology
[X] Investigate the unknown individual
[X] Begin development of combat exosuit
[X] Learn more about space
[x] Recruit more programmers
[ ] Assist the US Government with the war effort in Santa Prisca
Why everyone wants to continue with Santa Prisca? Didn't we already get what we wanted from them? We have venom formula, made allies with Bane, greatly helped General and ensured his victory. We know that Bane doesn't want to become a hero unit, and there is nothing left there.
[ ] Assist the US Government with the war effort in Santa Prisca
Why everyone wants to continue with Santa Prisca? Didn't we already get what we wanted from them? We have venom formula, made allies with Bane, greatly helped General and ensured his victory. We know that Bane doesn't want to become a hero unit, and there is nothing left there.
[X] Learn magic yourself
[X] Build an orbital weapon
[X] Begin development of combat exosuit
[X] Attempt to recruit the Kryptonite Man
[X] Locate the Sword of Fan
[X] Locate Excalibur
[X] Search for hidden artifacts
[X] Build surveillance satellites
[X] Infiltrate the government
[X] Learn about more biology
[X] Learn about genetics
[X] Learn more about the brain
[X] Learn more about cybernetics
[X] Learn about chemistry
[X] Learn about physics
[X] Learn about Kryptonite
[X] Learn about robotics
[X] Learn more about engineering
[X] Learn more about computer
[X] Learn about magic
[X] Learn about possession
[X] Learn about flight
[X] Learn about Nth Metal
[X] Learn about cold
[X] Learn about mirrors
[X] Improve Kryptonite batteries
[X] Improve wards
[X] Learn from the Project Atom data
[X] Improve bone growth formula
[X] Improve augmentations
[X] Improve weapons
[X] Improve Lasers
[X] Improve Exosuits
[X] Improve combat robots
[X] The A.M.A.Z.O. project
[X] Fortify LexCorp tower
[X] Assist the US Government with the war effort in Santa Prisca
[X] Recruit Lucy Lane as a personal lawyer
[X] Consult with the DOMA
[X] Build a new LexCorp building in Vienna
[X] Develop and sell high fashion clothing
[X] Release what you have
[X] Develop a social media platform
[X] Begin producing hologram technology
[X] Repair the damaged Supercomputer
[X] Build a secret lab in a remote location
[X] Hide the Sword of Beowulf
[X] Build surveillance satellites
[X] Investigate the unknown individual
[X] Investigate Bradford Sackett's death
[X] Learn about Kryptonite
[X] Learn from the Red Tornado data
You are James Ewell Brown Stuart, a gentleman of Virginia, and men call you 'Jeb' for short.
You were long, bitter months recovering from your wounds at Yellow Tavern, and sometimes you still stare in shock at the hook affixed to the stump of your left forearm, as though you have never seen it before. The wound dug across your back by the other bullet that struck you down pains you still, and weakens you.
And yet, you can ride, and you can shout, and that is all you truly need to command men in battle.
But by the time you and your escorts slipped south from Richmond and across the Appomattox river to rejoin Lee, there was little left for you to command. The proud cavalry of the South have, in battle after battle, been whittled away to almost nothing in your absence, the flower of aristocratic manhood laid low by the crackling, mechanical death of the Luthor guns.
War isn't what it used to be.
Recommended Listening: Machines, by All Good Things
Hands to the sky, I swore I'd try searching for a better life.
They would take us far from home, far from all the things we know.
Used to feel my body shake, I won't ever break another bone.
We ran out of luck, I know; now we're indestructible.
There's nothing more you can do, so you can run if you want to...
Petersburg, Virginia
December 8th, 1864
You peer up through the periscope, out of your hidden dugout- carefully hidden, from Union observation balloons. This will be the third time the federals' self-propelled iron redoubts come to take a bite of the Confederate lines. General Lee may not have been able to find a way to stop them- yet- but they're too large and obvious to be entirely hidden, even if the enemy usually keeps them out of direct artillery fire until they're ready to attack. Any hour now, at the latest tomorrow, the monsters will come.
The abatis obstacles of tangled branches that Lee had counted on to slow attacking Union infantry mean nothing to these infernal machines, which crunch over them like elephants plodding through the bush. The only thing that seems to slow them down significantly is the trenches themselves. All but the narrowest slit trenches present an obstacle that the steam chariots founder in, without engineer detachments on foot with to hastily break down the trench walls with shovels or throw down improvised bridges of heavy timbers.
(We are machines)
Starting with a stone cold heart, we don't need to breathe!
(We are machines)
Cities of resistance falling under our feet!
(We are machines)
Metal and emotionless, no battlefield can hinder us!
'cos we are we are machines!
There are a lot of trenches between here and the heart of Petersburg- but not enough, at the rate that the federals have pressed the attack. Mere pick-and-shovel work won't stop their slow advance and the brutal scything fire of the steam chariots' Luthor guns.
The Artillery Corps' gunners have potted a few of the steam chariots- their armor won't stop a cannonball. But even being holed by a cannonball only usually puts the things out of action, and shrapnel-bullets do nothing to them. Worse yet, even sluggish as they are, they're outside the gunners' experience. Artillerymen train to hit moving targets the size of a marching block of infantry, or fixed targets the size of a small house- but something as small or smaller than the latter, and moving like the former, is quite the challenge. Gun carriages aren't built for it, if nothing else.
Sooner or later, all along the sectors of trenches assaulted, though, the consequences have been much the same. A few steam chariots were stopped by artillery fire, a few more seem to have simply bogged down in the mud. Most units held their trenches against the first steam chariot attack until the vehicles were well up to the trenches themselves, pouring bursts from their endless repeaters down into dugouts and slaughtering any men who tried to form up outside them to repel the Union regiments following on.
But whereas before the days of the war machines southern men might have stood to fight the bluebellies hand-to-hand, the fear of the whistling, chuffing, crackling mechanical beasts had come too close to unmanning them. The federals carried trench after trench unopposed, as soon as their men were sighted following up the lumbering charge of the steam chariotry. Then they set up their Luthor guns to hold the ground they'd gained, and with the bloody-handed placidity they'd shown all these months under Grant, waited.
Remember the way we used to feel, before we were made from steel?
We will take the field again, an army of a thousand men!
It's time to rise up, we're breaking through now that we've been improved.
Everything has been restored; I'm ready for the art of war.
There's nothing more you can do, so you can run if you want to...
To make matters worse, even men ordered not to bother firing on the steam chariots, as General Mahone tried in the fighting around the plank road in the second attack, often did so. And in so doing, they allowed their fire to be drawn, allowed the infantry right up to their trenches. Discipline holds only so far in the face of steam chariots. The things are purely terrifying, especially to simple country boys who may never have even seen a locomotive, or any piece of machinery larger and more complex than a waterwheel, until they left their farm to go to war. If not for their trust that Marse Robert would find a way to stop the things, the Army of Northern Virginia's rank and file might have shattered by now.
They fight on. But more than one southron rifleman, priding himself on his marksmanship, has wasted ball after ball trying to shoot the things "through the heart." You've heard rumors of a few sharpshooters who killed the endless repeater gunners that crouch behind slits in the machines' armor plate and lay down patterns of death- but those may only be rumors. Some say that the gunners fight with a trick arrangement of mirrors and can't be gotten at… and you'd call them liars except for the existence of the periscope in your own hands- hand and hook, rather.
During the second attack, some of Mahone's men broke and ran for the rear trenches before the enemy steam chariots had gotten within a hundred yards. That did them no good- it only exposed them to the fire of the automatic guns. You would be darkly surprised if the bluebellies lost as many men in that battle as the South did- and the Army of Northern Virginia can ill afford to trade men with the butcher Grant at one-to-one, let alone worse odds than that.
Grimly, Lee and his generals- yourself included- have realized that neither rifle nor artillery will prevail against the new infernal machines. Not against these impossible contraptions that simply must be the work of the mad genius, Luthor.
(We are machines)
Starting with a stone cold heart, we don't need to breathe!
(We are machines)
Cities of resistance falling under our feet!
(We are machines)
Metal and emotionless, no battlefield can hinder us!
'cos we are we are machines!
Where shot and shell do not avail, it'll have to be cold steel and courage, or as close to it as you can hope to come.
And that is why General Lee has given you this task. Not of reassembling his battered and hopelessly outnumbered cavalry corps, but of putting together a new thing in the world, a band of gallants, of professional dragon-slayers.
The Corps of Grenadiers.
Today will mark the fifth day of steady battle, as the grim, grinding engines of war commanded by Grant's grim, grinding will close on the siege lines around Petersburg. You know that all your hasty planning, retrenchment, and improvisation of arms will be needed on the morrow.
Even monsters of steel can be killed, by a brave man who fights with all he has.
Can't they?
Recommended Listening: Fiddler's Green, traditional song of the U.S. Cavalry
Entrenchments, 1st Company, Richmond Grenadiers
December 9, 1864
You blow the whistle, then drop it to hang on a string about your neck. All along the line, other bands of grenadiers are doing much the same- but this one is yours to lead, for you will send no man to brave danger you yourself would not face. You charge out of a well hidden dugout, knowing that the steam chariots advance has passed your line, but that no Union man on foot approaches close, for fear of the storms of bullets the Southern soldiers pour vainly onto the machines' armor.
To the federals, two score picked men at your back must seem to have risen up out of the earth, like the spartoi, sprung from sown dragon's teeth. The soldiers in blue are taken aback, for precious seconds.
The steam chariot looms in front of you- smaller, seen up close, than you had imagined. Large, like an elephant, but not mountainous. Were the thing not made of steel and blazing fire, it would frighten you not at all.
But it is, and it does- somewhat. Time seems to slow, your eyes taking in everything. The pockmarked, dented steel, the shouts and squeals of iron upon iron, the gunners surely intent on what is in front of them and with no ability to see what is happening to their sides. The name painted on the side of the war-machine, sloppily daubed on in whitewash.
Voodoo Queen.
You feel some strange recognition, as though something is waiting for you, has always been ready, a certainty in your mind, a sense of greeting and fate.
Hello, cavalryman.
You falter, but briefly, and none notice. You are a gentleman of Virginia, a cavalier, and your martial spirit rallies you before others realize your courage is less than perfect. You'd die before you admitted otherwise. You nearly have, more than once before. And here, today, yours is a company of forty picked men, many of them heroes and gentlemen, to watch your back. Thirty turn, laying down fire against the Union engineers that follow the iron beasts as servants. Their fusillade is quick and heavy, a mass of fire from shotguns, revolvers, and repeating rifles- many of them captured, but for this, they'll do. They'll have to.
Powder smoke swirls, and ten grenadiers rush the steam chariot from close range. Some hurl smoke-bombs to further confuse the enemy's long range rifles. That was a good decision; Lee had had the horrified vision of enemy Luthor gunners turning their weapons on their own fighting chariotry, confident that the flesh of men standing close by would be rent asunder, even as the steel vehicles themselves were unharmed, or even unmarked.
From a few hundred yards away, you can here a rapid succession of rings and clangs and screams. Exactly that is happening, you fear, to another grenadier company, less fortunate or less quick with its smoke grenades than yours. But no time to think about that, when you personally lead an attack. The Cavalier spirit of the Old Dominion carries you forward, though you fight dismounted against something as strange and terrifying to your men as Hannibal's war elephants must have seemed to the Romans of old.
Hannibal was beaten. The legions overcame the elephant. These things can be overcome, too.
Acting on instinct, you leap forward to grapple with the steam chariot, your back screaming at you. Your hook tangles in one of the handholds crudely bolted to the armor to allow men to enter the machine's fighting-compartment, and with a painful heave of your intact right arm you pull yourself up on top of the steel roof. You claw your revolver out of its holster, tangling the barrel against the hook where once you had a hand. Then, sprawled awkwardly over the hot metal of the infernal machine, recoiling for a split second as a wordless voice whispers into your mind.
You and I are the first to meet on these terms, cavalryman.
You yank wildly at the hatch- it isn't locked or barred. Four shocked men clad in blue uniform tunics gape up at you. They're cramped together, squinting awkwardly through slits that provide little field of view, tending two Luthor guns and a steam engine. Such is the noise of the rumbling wheels and engine and the occasional bullets clanging off the chariot's armor that they seem not to have even noticed you leaping onto the machine. Your good right hand seizes the pistol and points it downwards, blazing away. Ricocheting lead and spraying blood fill the inside of the fighting compartment.
You crab sideways, reaching down with your hook to hoist a powder charge by its strap. You stabilize the charge with your left arm, the stump paining you greatly but not enough to matter now. You strike a reeking, sulfurous match on your boot. You light the fuse, then drop it through the hatch and turn to jump.
We belong together, cavalryman.
You slip, sprawl, your leg dropping through the open hatch in a painful, straining, unnatural posture, You strain to pull yourself free- your trouser leg has caught on something, and as you try to twist to get a good grip on the cloth with your right hand, the muscles in your back spasm, capable of no more in their wounded state.
"GO! GO!" you scream to the others. Who knows how much ammunition these things carry; if your grenadiers don't hurry, they'll be caught in the blast! Several hesitate for a moment as you struggle to tear himself free- you look down, straining with all the might of your maimed body, and for seconds you do not see whether they stay or go.
There are a few moments left now, just before the fuse reaches the powder-charge. Just before the exploding powder keg makes Voodoo Queen the first armored fighting vehicle to be wrecked by a man-portable antitank weapon. Just before it makes you the first man to do the deed, to destroy an armored fighting vehicle while fighting on foot... and to perish in the attempt.
And in those seconds, you hear the hungry words that will rule your eternity.
The spirit of the cavalier will be shackled, now, to the shade of the steel beast, and the shade of the beast to the spirit of the cavalier.
Die with me, cavalryman.
Halfway down the trail to Hell, in a shady meadow green,
The souls of all dead troopers camp near a good old-time canteen.
And this eternal resting place is known as Fiddlers' Green.
Marching past, straight through to Hell, the infantry are seen,
Accompanied by engineers, artillery and marines,
For none but the shades of cavalrymen dismount at Fiddlers' Green....
Though some go curving down the trail, to seek a warmer scene,
No trooper ever gets to Hell ere he empties his canteen,
And so rides back to drink again, with friends at Fiddlers' Green.
When man and horse alike go down beneath the saber keen,
Or in a charge of fierce melee you stop a bullet clean,
And the hostiles come to get your scalp, just empty your canteen-
And put your pistol to your head, and go to Fiddlers' Green!
[X] Learn magic yourself
[X] Build an orbital weapon
[X] Begin development of combat exosuit
[X] Attempt to recruit the Kryptonite Man
[X] Locate the Sword of Fan
[X] Locate Excalibur
[X] Search for hidden artifacts
[X] Build surveillance satellites
[X] Infiltrate the government
[X] Learn about more biology
[X] Learn about genetics
[X] Learn more about the brain
[X] Learn more about cybernetics
[X] Learn about chemistry
[X] Learn about physics
[X] Learn about Kryptonite
[X] Learn about robotics
[X] Learn more about engineering
[X] Learn more about computer
[X] Learn about magic
[X] Learn about possession
[X] Learn about flight
[X] Learn about Nth Metal
[X] Learn about cold
[X] Learn about mirrors
[X] Improve Kryptonite batteries
[X] Improve wards
[X] Learn from the Project Atom data
[X] Improve bone growth formula
[X] Improve augmentations
[X] Improve weapons
[X] Improve Lasers
[X] Improve Exosuits
[X] Improve combat robots
[X] The A.M.A.Z.O. project
You are James Ewell Brown Stuart, a gentleman of Virginia, and men call you 'Jeb' for short.
You were long, bitter months recovering from your wounds at Yellow Tavern, and sometimes you still stare in shock at the hook affixed to the stump of your left forearm, as though you have never seen it before. The wound dug across your back by the other bullet that struck you down pains you still, and weakens you.
And yet, you can ride, and you can shout, and that is all you truly need to command men in battle.
But by the time you and your escorts slipped south from Richmond and across the Appomattox river to rejoin Lee, there was little left for you to command. The proud cavalry of the South have, in battle after battle, been whittled away to almost nothing in your absence, the flower of aristocratic manhood laid low by the crackling, mechanical death of the Luthor guns.
War isn't what it used to be.
Recommended Listening: Machines, by All Good Things
Hands to the sky, I swore I'd try searching for a better life.
They would take us far from home, far from all the things we know.
Used to feel my body shake, I won't ever break another bone.
We ran out of luck, I know; now we're indestructible.
There's nothing more you can do, so you can run if you want to...
Petersburg, Virginia
December 8th, 1864
You peer up through the periscope, out of your hidden dugout- carefully hidden, from Union observation balloons. This will be the third time the federals' self-propelled iron redoubts come to take a bite of the Confederate lines. General Lee may not have been able to find a way to stop them- yet- but they're too large and obvious to be entirely hidden, even if the enemy usually keeps them out of direct artillery fire until they're ready to attack. Any hour now, at the latest tomorrow, the monsters will come.
The abatis obstacles of tangled branches that Lee had counted on to slow attacking Union infantry mean nothing to these infernal machines, which crunch over them like elephants plodding through the bush. The only thing that seems to slow them down significantly is the trenches themselves. All but the narrowest slit trenches present an obstacle that the steam chariots founder in, without engineer detachments on foot with to hastily break down the trench walls with shovels or throw down improvised bridges of heavy timbers.
(We are machines)
Starting with a stone cold heart, we don't need to breathe!
(We are machines)
Cities of resistance falling under our feet!
(We are machines)
Metal and emotionless, no battlefield can hinder us!
'cos we are we are machines!
There are a lot of trenches between here and the heart of Petersburg- but not enough, at the rate that the federals have pressed the attack. Mere pick-and-shovel work won't stop their slow advance and the brutal scything fire of the steam chariots' Luthor guns.
The Artillery Corps' gunners have potted a few of the steam chariots- their armor won't stop a cannonball. But even being holed by a cannonball only usually puts the things out of action, and shrapnel-bullets do nothing to them. Worse yet, even sluggish as they are, they're outside the gunners' experience. Artillerymen train to hit moving targets the size of a marching block of infantry, or fixed targets the size of a small house- but something as small or smaller than the latter, and moving like the former, is quite the challenge. Gun carriages aren't built for it, if nothing else.
Sooner or later, all along the sectors of trenches assaulted, though, the consequences have been much the same. A few steam chariots were stopped by artillery fire, a few more seem to have simply bogged down in the mud. Most units held their trenches against the first steam chariot attack until the vehicles were well up to the trenches themselves, pouring bursts from their endless repeaters down into dugouts and slaughtering any men who tried to form up outside them to repel the Union regiments following on.
But whereas before the days of the war machines southern men might have stood to fight the bluebellies hand-to-hand, the fear of the whistling, chuffing, crackling mechanical beasts had come too close to unmanning them. The federals carried trench after trench unopposed, as soon as their men were sighted following up the lumbering charge of the steam chariotry. Then they set up their Luthor guns to hold the ground they'd gained, and with the bloody-handed placidity they'd shown all these months under Grant, waited.
Remember the way we used to feel, before we were made from steel?
We will take the field again, an army of a thousand men!
It's time to rise up, we're breaking through now that we've been improved.
Everything has been restored; I'm ready for the art of war.
There's nothing more you can do, so you can run if you want to...
To make matters worse, even men ordered not to bother firing on the steam chariots, as General Mahone tried in the fighting around the plank road in the second attack, often did so. And in so doing, they allowed their fire to be drawn, allowed the infantry right up to their trenches. Discipline holds only so far in the face of steam chariots. The things are purely terrifying, especially to simple country boys who may never have even seen a locomotive, or any piece of machinery larger and more complex than a waterwheel, until they left their farm to go to war. If not for their trust that Marse Robert would find a way to stop the things, the Army of Northern Virginia's rank and file might have shattered by now.
They fight on. But more than one southron rifleman, priding himself on his marksmanship, has wasted ball after ball trying to shoot the things "through the heart." You've heard rumors of a few sharpshooters who killed the endless repeater gunners that crouch behind slits in the machines' armor plate and lay down patterns of death- but those may only be rumors. Some say that the gunners fight with a trick arrangement of mirrors and can't be gotten at… and you'd call them liars except for the existence of the periscope in your own hands- hand and hook, rather.
During the second attack, some of Mahone's men broke and ran for the rear trenches before the enemy steam chariots had gotten within a hundred yards. That did them no good- it only exposed them to the fire of the automatic guns. You would be darkly surprised if the bluebellies lost as many men in that battle as the South did- and the Army of Northern Virginia can ill afford to trade men with the butcher Grant at one-to-one, let alone worse odds than that.
Grimly, Lee and his generals- yourself included- have realized that neither rifle nor artillery will prevail against the new infernal machines. Not against these impossible contraptions that simply must be the work of the mad genius, Luthor.
(We are machines)
Starting with a stone cold heart, we don't need to breathe!
(We are machines)
Cities of resistance falling under our feet!
(We are machines)
Metal and emotionless, no battlefield can hinder us!
'cos we are we are machines!
Where shot and shell do not avail, it'll have to be cold steel and courage, or as close to it as you can hope to come.
And that is why General Lee has given you this task. Not of reassembling his battered and hopelessly outnumbered cavalry corps, but of putting together a new thing in the world, a band of gallants, of professional dragon-slayers.
The Corps of Grenadiers.
Today will mark the fifth day of steady battle, as the grim, grinding engines of war commanded by Grant's grim, grinding will close on the siege lines around Petersburg. You know that all your hasty planning, retrenchment, and improvisation of arms will be needed on the morrow.
Even monsters of steel can be killed, by a brave man who fights with all he has.
Can't they?
Recommended Listening: Fiddler's Green, traditional song of the U.S. Cavalry
Entrenchments, 1st Company, Richmond Grenadiers
December 9, 1864
You blow the whistle, then drop it to hang on a string about your neck. All along the line, other bands of grenadiers are doing much the same- but this one is yours to lead, for you will send no man to brave danger you yourself would not face. You charge out of a well hidden dugout, knowing that the steam chariots advance has passed your line, but that no Union man on foot approaches close, for fear of the storms of bullets the Southern soldiers pour vainly onto the machines' armor.
To the federals, two score picked men at your back must seem to have risen up out of the earth, like the spartoi, sprung from sown dragon's teeth. The soldiers in blue are taken aback, for precious seconds.
The steam chariot looms in front of you- smaller, seen up close, than you had imagined. Large, like an elephant, but not mountainous. Were the thing not made of steel and blazing fire, it would frighten you not at all.
But it is, and it does- somewhat. Time seems to slow, your eyes taking in everything. The pockmarked, dented steel, the shouts and squeals of iron upon iron, the gunners surely intent on what is in front of them and with no ability to see what is happening to their sides. The name painted on the side of the war-machine, sloppily daubed on in whitewash.
Voodoo Queen.
You feel some strange recognition, as though something is waiting for you, has always been ready, a certainty in your mind, a sense of greeting and fate.
Hello, cavalryman.
You falter, but briefly, and none notice. You are a gentleman of Virginia, a cavalier, and your martial spirit rallies you before others realize your courage is less than perfect. You'd die before you admitted otherwise. You nearly have, more than once before. And here, today, yours is a company of forty picked men, many of them heroes and gentlemen, to watch your back. Thirty turn, laying down fire against the Union engineers that follow the iron beasts as servants. Their fusillade is quick and heavy, a mass of fire from shotguns, revolvers, and repeating rifles- many of them captured, but for this, they'll do. They'll have to.
Powder smoke swirls, and ten grenadiers rush the steam chariot from close range. Some hurl smoke-bombs to further confuse the enemy's long range rifles. That was a good decision; Lee had had the horrified vision of enemy Luthor gunners turning their weapons on their own fighting chariotry, confident that the flesh of men standing close by would be rent asunder, even as the steel vehicles themselves were unharmed, or even unmarked.
From a few hundred yards away, you can here a rapid succession of rings and clangs and screams. Exactly that is happening, you fear, to another grenadier company, less fortunate or less quick with its smoke grenades than yours. But no time to think about that, when you personally lead an attack. The Cavalier spirit of the Old Dominion carries you forward, though you fight dismounted against something as strange and terrifying to your men as Hannibal's war elephants must have seemed to the Romans of old.
Hannibal was beaten. The legions overcame the elephant. These things can be overcome, too.
Acting on instinct, you leap forward to grapple with the steam chariot, your back screaming at you. Your hook tangles in one of the handholds crudely bolted to the armor to allow men to enter the machine's fighting-compartment, and with a painful heave of your intact right arm you pull yourself up on top of the steel roof. You claw your revolver out of its holster, tangling the barrel against the hook where once you had a hand. Then, sprawled awkwardly over the hot metal of the infernal machine, recoiling for a split second as a wordless voice whispers into your mind.
You and I are the first to meet on these terms, cavalryman.
You yank wildly at the hatch- it isn't locked or barred. Four shocked men clad in blue uniform tunics gape up at you. They're cramped together, squinting awkwardly through slits that provide little field of view, tending two Luthor guns and a steam engine. Such is the noise of the rumbling wheels and engine and the occasional bullets clanging off the chariot's armor that they seem not to have even noticed you leaping onto the machine. Your good right hand seizes the pistol and points it downwards, blazing away. Ricocheting lead and spraying blood fill the inside of the fighting compartment.
You crab sideways, reaching down with your hook to hoist a powder charge by its strap. You stabilize the charge with your left arm, the stump paining you greatly but not enough to matter now. You strike a reeking, sulfurous match on your boot. You light the fuse, then drop it through the hatch and turn to jump.
We belong together, cavalryman.
You slip, sprawl, your leg dropping through the open hatch in a painful, straining, unnatural posture, You strain to pull yourself free- your trouser leg has caught on something, and as you try to twist to get a good grip on the cloth with your right hand, the muscles in your back spasm, capable of no more in their wounded state.
"GO! GO!" you scream to the others. Who knows how much ammunition these things carry; if your grenadiers don't hurry, they'll be caught in the blast! Several hesitate for a moment as you struggle to tear himself free- you look down, straining with all the might of your maimed body, and for seconds you do not see whether they stay or go.
There are a few moments left now, just before the fuse reaches the powder-charge. Just before the exploding powder keg makes Voodoo Queen the first armored fighting vehicle to be wrecked by a man-portable antitank weapon. Just before it makes you the first man to do the deed, to destroy an armored fighting vehicle while fighting on foot... and to perish in the attempt.
And in those seconds, you hear the hungry words that will rule your eternity.
The spirit of the cavalier will be shackled, now, to the shade of the steel beast, and the shade of the beast to the spirit of the cavalier.
Die with me, cavalryman.
Halfway down the trail to Hell, in a shady meadow green,
The souls of all dead troopers camp near a good old-time canteen.
And this eternal resting place is known as Fiddlers' Green.
Marching past, straight through to Hell, the infantry are seen,
Accompanied by engineers, artillery and marines,
For none but the shades of cavalrymen dismount at Fiddlers' Green....
Though some go curving down the trail, to seek a warmer scene,
No trooper ever gets to Hell ere he empties his canteen,
And so rides back to drink again, with friends at Fiddlers' Green.
When man and horse alike go down beneath the saber keen,
Or in a charge of fierce melee you stop a bullet clean,
And the hostiles come to get your scalp, just empty your canteen-
And put your pistol to your head, and go to Fiddlers' Green!
This was amazing. The spirit of the Tank manages to be eerie and terrifying with very little given to it. The build up of how horrific tanks would be in this time culminating in the terrifying absolute proclamations of the spirit of the Tank before it is destroyed adds to the feeling of horror. The lack of information on just what the hell the spirit of the tank is only adds to the terror it gives and makes it more effective in inspiring dread.
I loved it, another 500 exp for Simon Jester for the fantastic origin story. Just wow, this one was amazing. Like this is easily hands down my favorite take on the Haunted Tank ever and I want to see more of it later. I cannot heap enough praise for this origin story.
No you already gave Creed Philips money. In fact in the little blurb about the action itself it states that you have already contributed to his campaign. You've fulfilled the bare minimum you needed to do.
Will that opportunity be available later ? i mean its not unrealistic that meeting between equivalent of Bezos and Senator takes while to arrange with scheduling etc.
Will that opportunity be available later ? i mean its not unrealistic that meeting between equivalent of Bezos and Senator takes while to arrange with scheduling etc.
