Lieutenant Fusilier in The Farthest Reaches

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ancusohm said:
Gah! This fic is absolutely amazing. I love all the little details (like the laser-coolant 'gunsmoke').

Also, things are so rough for Dora. She's got lots of martials skills but no social skills (at least not for human society), which makes her the opposite of the typical new officer. This makes the story a (pleasantly) agonizing mix of competence and social dread.

And she has such a mysterious (possibly tragic) past! At first, I wasn't sure if another machine character could even compete with Marie (from Maid to Love You), but Dora has carved out her own place in my heart!

Huh... since same-sex relationships are seen as more-or-less acceptable between machines, I wonder if queer humans consume erotica written for robots.
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i bet they do!

a thing to remember is that it's not as though queer relationships between humans is seen poorly, it just mostly isn't seen. Human society here is relentlessly heteronormative, so even though most people have no problem with it, it is still effectively marginalized simply because there's not a place usually carved out for it. imagine how tough meeting other queer people is in a society where most courtship is done through large mixers and blind dates?

I could very much see the machines ending up as inadvertent models for queer relationships for a lot of humans given few other examples. dora and bea coming in arm and arm probably got at least one or two guests thinking.
 
open_sketch said:
i bet they do!

a thing to remember is that it's not as though queer relationships between humans is seen poorly, it just mostly isn't seen. Human society here is relentlessly heteronormative, so even though most people have no problem with it, it is still effectively marginalized simply because there's not a place usually carved out for it. imagine how tough meeting other queer people is in a society where most courtship is done through large mixers and blind dates?

I could very much see the machines ending up as inadvertent models for queer relationships for a lot of humans given few other examples. dora and bea coming in arm and arm probably got at least one or two guests thinking.
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Oh no

Kennedy isn't just realizing that Dora likes girls

Kennedy is also realizing that Kennedy likes girls

It explains everything. Even why she's had such a horrendously bad time at these events! Not just the normal stress from unusual social situations, but also this romance thing that's just not happening at all, plus boys are super yucky but they keep hitting on her.
 
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open_sketch said:
i bet they do!

a thing to remember is that it's not as though queer relationships between humans is seen poorly, it just mostly isn't seen. Human society here is relentlessly heteronormative, so even though most people have no problem with it, it is still effectively marginalized simply because there's not a place usually carved out for it. imagine how tough meeting other queer people is in a society where most courtship is done through large mixers and blind dates?

I could very much see the machines ending up as inadvertent models for queer relationships for a lot of humans given few other examples. dora and bea coming in arm and arm probably got at least one or two guests thinking.
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Hmmm, I was going to ask why there wasn't a 'flag code' for 'I'm Gay, don't dance with me.' I guess that explains it! Though you still may need a signal for 'I'm Engaged, don't dance with me.'
 
Vehrec said:
Hmmm, I was going to ask why there wasn't a 'flag code' for 'I'm Gay, don't dance with me.' I guess that explains it! Though you still may need a signal for 'I'm Engaged, don't dance with me.'
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This is high society. Surely the least we can expect is that people keep abreast of the affairs of their community, and act appropriately?
 
open_sketch said:
Holy SHIT i like that so so much. Especially because it means the military music comes out only when it's really, really needed.
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If it's based off of frequency, that means bagpipes are going to be absolutely nuts, since the drones can be tuned to certain things. It also might mean that "I hear pipes" has similar meaning as "Things are SNAFU, FUBAR, and the shit has hit the fan".

Maybe there's an escalating severity of music that starts with drumline being equivalent to a really strong cup of coffee tea, drum and fife starts getting into strong stimulant territory, pipes are what happens if one mixed several very strong stimulants together (possibly with a crash afterwards), and low brass is artillery punch.
 
My headcanon is that the Big Dumb Space Regency keeps an elite and secretive order of bagpipe players on the motherworld, in the Scottish Highlands- perforce human, for obvious reasons. The area is like a nature preserve; no machines can enter for their own sanity's sake. The effect on Theos and Doras is indescribable; the only occasion when the pipes were ever deployed in recent history, the results were terrible and glorious in equal measure, to an extent that no man or machine ever spoke of, before or since.

It's Space Britain's secret weapon.

Ultima ratio Regency.

The bagpipes.
 
honestly sounds like a clever plot by the highlanders to finally get perfidious fuckin' Albion to leave them alone, i can respect it.
 
I'm not going to be distracted by the shipping (okay, maybe a little). I'm still waiting to find out what it was that the Lieutenant General's aide whispered to her! I hope it's first contact with space aliens.
open_sketch said:
"Not usually. Miles Beckham, Lieutenant in the 7th. This is my good chum Lieutenant Henry Rubin Turner. You have him to thank for inflicting me on you, Fusie, he's the one who wrote me about the opening in the 7th."

"I had to get him somewhere where I could keep an eye on him. We've been friends ever since he was a little boy and I was very confused." Turner said, and they both laughed at their in-joke which I very much did not understand. "But yes, greetings and all."
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And now that I've covered "Trans Character" on my open_sketch bingo sheet, I just need "Crippling Depression" and "Airplanes!" for a bingo!
open_sketch said:
I noticed a red-coated Maria, an officer's aide who bore the same heterochromia as the Lieutenant General, move swiftly up along the table and lean to her.
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Just noticed this. What a Maria thing to do - get modified to look the same as your charge so she feels less awkward.
 
Do spaceships count as airplanes? otherwise you're not getting it in this story since it seems like travel in this setting is pretty strictly spacecraft or ground travel, with no option for planes. Besides, with how spread out humanity is I doubt any planet has enough population to warrant local atmospheric transport. Maybe earth if it didn't just get ditched by humanity, but who knows.
 
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TortugaGreen said:
Do spaceships count as airplanes? otherwise you're not getting it in this story since it seems like travel in this setting is pretty strictly spacecraft or ground travel, with no option for planes. Besides, with how spread out humanity is I doubt any planet has enough population to warrant local atmospheric transport. Maybe earth if it didn't just get ditched by humanity, but who knows.
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You know, I believe Flying Circus was getting some space modules written for it?
 
TortugaGreen said:
Do spaceships count as airplanes? otherwise you're not getting it in this story since it seems like travel in this setting is pretty strictly spacecraft or ground travel, with no option for planes. Besides, with how spread out humanity is I doubt any planet has enough population to warrant local atmospheric transport. Maybe earth if it didn't just get ditched by humanity, but who knows.
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Airships were invented in the 1850's and hot air balloons existed for a while before that, so we can reasonably expect there to be some crazy high tech dirigibles floating around here and there.

After all, there has to be someway to put a turbo mansion on a gas giant.
 
We actually have planes!
open_sketch said:
Lieutenant Kennedy's guns were sweeping the enemy line, the flying guns burning sharp lines through the enemy while the gravitic howitzers threw out bombs that exploded into submunitions high above.
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The guns fly. Presumably because they have a line-of-sight trajectory but need to be able to fire over the heads of the infantry.

Okay, fine, they're probably actually antigrav-helicopter gunships, but, like, that counts, right? It says right there that they fly!
 
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kennedy's batteries
  • Informational
    • Vebyast said:
    We actually have planes!

    The guns fly. Presumably because they have a line-of-sight trajectory but need to be able to fire over the heads of the infantry.

    Okay, fine, they're probably actually antigrav-helicopter gunships, but, like, that counts, right? It says right there that they fly!
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    It's also a pun of sort!

    "Flying Batteries" or "Flying Guns" were     units of light cannons and munitions wagons which could be towed very quickly by a small number of horses, allowing for their rapid redeployment on an active battlefield. Gunners were trained to unlimber and make ready their guns very quickly, meaning they could be brought up to where they would be most effective.

    Kennedy's Flying Guns are a battery of three high powered direct energy laser cannons and their trailers (big power packs) on repulsors, towed by something a lot like the speeder bikes in Return of the Jedi, so they can do the same thing, just way, way faster. And yes, hover fairly high off the ground to fire over obstacles. The downside is that this is very much cutting edge technology, and they keep breaking down.

    Her other guns are 'gravitic howitzers', which are stubby coilguns which use artificial gravity systems like on their ships and stations rather than electromagnitism to throw projectiles out to very far ranges. The advantage of such a system is the composition of the materials inside have no bearing on its ability to be fired, allowing them to use a dizzying array of shell types modelled on the various weird cannon shells of the Napoelonic era, but futuristic! We've already seen     shrapnel shells which have submunitions, but I imagine they have all the greatest hits of ball, canister, grapeshot, chain shot, heated ball, spider shells... there's even nothing stopping them from being double-loaded!

    These, I imagine, have     pedrail wheels, and are towed by kettenkrads. As you may have noticed, any open, single occupant vehicle in the setting is classified as a horse, to the point where they've utterly replaced actual horses.
     
  • Informational
    • open_sketch said:
    These, I imagine, have pedrail wheels, and are towed by kettenkrads. As you may have noticed, any open, single occupant vehicle in the setting is classified as a horse, to the point where they've utterly replaced actual horses.
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    I LOVE THIS SETTING
    open_sketch said:
    It's also a pun of sort!

    "Flying Batteries" or "Flying Guns" were     units of light cannons and munitions wagons which could be towed very quickly by a small number of horses, allowing for their rapid redeployment on an active battlefield. Gunners were trained to unlimber and make ready their guns very quickly, meaning they could be brought up to where they would be most effective.
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    Hah, I was expecting a pun! Something about it just smelled right, lol.
    open_sketch said:
    Her other guns are 'gravitic howitzers', which are stubby coilguns which use artificial gravity systems like on their ships and stations rather than electromagnitism to throw projectiles out to very far ranges. The advantage of such a system is the composition of the materials inside have no bearing on its ability to be fired, allowing them to use a dizzying array of shell types modelled on the various weird cannon shells of the Napoelonic era, but futuristic! We've already seen shrapnel shells which have submunitions, but I imagine they have all the greatest hits of ball, canister, grapeshot, chain shot, heated ball, spider shells... there's even nothing stopping them from being double-loaded!
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    Sweeeeeet. The wacky ammo loads of the Napoleonic era are some of my favorite parts of artillery history. They're just so weird. Like the way there are youtube channels that literally do nothing but load weird junk into shotgun shells, but cannons instead. :D
     
    ah shit I was in class so I saw what vebyast said and couldn't reply before sketch got there, but I can confirm it got me: I instinctively took flying guns to mean light artillery pieces when i read it and then saw that post thirty minutes ago and went "oh right of course. they're literally flying. because regencypunk."

    cue palm to face or something similar
     
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    open_sketch said:
    Her other guns are 'gravitic howitzers', which are stubby coilguns which use artificial gravity systems like on their ships and stations rather than electromagnitism to throw projectiles out to very far ranges. The advantage of such a system is the composition of the materials inside have no bearing on its ability to be fired, allowing them to use a dizzying array of shell types modelled on the various weird cannon shells of the Napoelonic era, but futuristic! We've already seen shrapnel shells which have submunitions, but I imagine they have all the greatest hits of ball, canister, grapeshot, chain shot, heated ball, spider shells... there's even nothing stopping them from being double-loaded!
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    Depending on the design of the gun, you might not even need a breach. You could have an open-ended tubes, and accelerate everything that comes through.

    Would give a new meaning to continuous fire.
     
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