Do they all speak English or does she have a translation device and program for that?
Limit Theory [PA Multicross SI]
ltmauve
"Excuse me?"
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The second.
Going back to Stargate, we've seen local English, Gadameer (dubstep whale), and Progenitor spoken. Then we found out in HL that the SSCs have magic translation circuits in their brains that work with their mundane translation software.
Chapter 250
ltmauve
"Excuse me?"
- Location
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Chapter 250
Gaze upon Tallia, the latest war-bride of Slyvine's champion. See how happy she is to be a Slyvine worshiper, as she rides in the victory parade. See how happy she has become since helping defeat her barbarian people.---------
Sasaki Himura
---------"Contact left!" Captain Sasaki, one of the special forces operators trying to eliminate Osakabe Toujirou and Osakabe Makie before the Fog compromised them, shouted.
The warning was too late, and Shimizu went down in a hail of fire. The rest of the squad made it into cover, split across the hallway.
"We have hostile humans. Repeat, hostile humans in the building." He barked on the tac net.
"Copy that, Urzu 1. Any markings?" Came the response a moment later.
"Negative markings. They're all completely black."
"Lethal force is authorized." Control said.
"I'm aware." He said, grabbing a grenade. He tossed it, only for it get shot back by the hostiles. He barely had time to widen his eyes before it went off.
----------------
Drei
----------------"Well I wasn't expecting it to go south like that." Drei said. She hadn't wanted to kill anyone unless she needed to. Well, these were people participating in a black op. They were prepared for people shooting back, even if not in the specifics. But there was no reason she couldn't provide first aid either.
The Nox healing technology was useful. She did tune it down, but as far as anyone would find out the unknown soldiers had been respectful enough to provide first aid, and miraculously no one had died... but all their gear had been stolen.
"Okay, that's... wow that's cool!" Nagara shouted over the link.
"It is nice." Drei nodded. The drones were withdrawn, just as the northern forces breached the house as well.
Haruna exfiltrated the house as well, encountering the northern soldiers. After a brief conversation, each side continued onwards. And then Drei blasted her with an artillery strike. It wasn't enough to kill her, and her core was rather tough. More importantly, anything except the tiny part at the center, her actual core, was disposable. She'd be stripping the Fog of that soon enough anyway.
Of course, Drei needed to use some precise targeting with a shaped charge to actually pull that shot off.
-----------
Osakabe Makoto
----------The two rescued Osakabes arrived in the capital of the northern region of Japan an hour later, arriving at Sapporo.
Osakabe Makoto, the minister of the northern region of Japan, greeted his creator in his office ten minutes after that.
"I'm glad to see you're doing well, Makoto." Toujirou said.
"Yes, I am. And I'm glad to see you alive." Makoto replied. "Though I wish I had only good news for you, I've already gotten a rather disturbing report from the team I sent to extract you."
"What's that?" Toujirou asked.
"They found a special forces team from the southern region incapacitated within the mansion. They didn't take them down and they have no idea who did." Makoto clasped his hands together and leaned forward. "We'll know more once we get them talking, but until then... you didn't prepare a surprise for them, did you?"
"No." Toujirou said. "The androids had their combat protocols, but the security network went down shortly after the intruders breeched the main building. I assumed it was the southern team."
"I doubt it was the Fog Mental Model." Makoto said. "Just a hunch on my part for now, though."
"You should trust your judgement more." Toujirou said.
"Even if it was the Fog, my judgement says that the important question is why they did that." Makoto said. "Were they seeking to protect the girl, curry favor with me, or politically inconvenience the southern government? If it's the Fog, it's most likely the first one. But if it's not...."
"We have no idea who they are and what they want." Toujirou finished.
"Indeed." Makoto said. "We're stuck waiting for information at this point. I recommend that you get some sleep. I'll let Mr. Sonoda see you to a room."
"Where is Makie staying?" Toujirou asked.
"I was thinking of having her stay with Chihaya Saori." Makoto said.
Toujirou blinked. "Not the person I was expecting. But if you want her out of range of political machinations..."
"Yes." Makoto nodded.
"Then I'll agree to that." Toujirou nodded. "Was that it?"
"Yes." Makoto said. "Good night, uncle."
-----------------------
Nagara
-----------------------It wasn't like she needed to rest. So, she had decided to do more tourism. She beamed down out of sight and started wandering around.
London was an interesting city. The industrial areas were actually the most interesting to her. Neither Exile nor Fog systems got dirty, in any real way. Even Progenitor technology, less advanced than either, had nanotech surface coatings and hundreds of other tricks to deal with the kind of grunge she saw in Tilbury.
She was getting a few looks, but the area was relatively quiet with how shipping was no longer a real industry. She ducked into a warehouse that had one wall collapsed by rust and what looked like a truck crash at one point. A battered "keep calm and carry on" poster was still visible on the wall. The place had been looted to the bone and there was litter piled up against the walls.
She wrinkled her nose and left. Not what she had been expecting.
Nagara rolled her shoulders and continued onward. The next parking lot over was filled with the rusting hulks of trucks.
Then a panel van pulled up next to her.
"Miss, do you have someplace to be?" The man in the passenger's seat asked.
"Why are you asking?" Nagara asked, tensing.
"If you do, hurry up." The man said. The van pulled away.
Nagara frowned. Definitely something up. The license plate... Drei had copied the government databases. Rather than checking the tacnet, she'd do a bit of detective work. It was fun, after all.
A/N: Noted @Throne as dropping some sick likes.
This chapter probably has the most words that the default Firefox spellcheck doesn't like. Also, I'm curious to know if anybody has some speculations about the story..
It says something about the scale you're operating on when you consider a 60 meter diameter portal "small". As a hint, a Gerald R. Ford class supercarrier will barely not be able to fit, only because of the flight deck.
You could practically fit TWO Iowas through it side by side.
ltmauve
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- She/Her
I mean, I'm running off the manga, actually. The only thing I would take from the anime would be I? U? - 501's appearance (as a ship), but she only shows up in one scene before the divergences start, and gets destroyed. So, no appearance here.
The next divergence has hopefully already been predicted by people who remember what happened in this portion of the manga.
Although speaking of divergence, there's something interesting going on here. It'll get brought up later and I'll probably include the chapter in this batch.
Yup. I added some aircraft carriers to the smallest fleet comparison image back when I made all those 3D models. Basically the only thing that wasn't bigger than a supercarrier was the Bulwark chassis itself.
E: Wait, there were the fighters too.
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Chapter 251
ltmauve
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- She/Her
Chapter 251
Witness the peasants working the fields, eternally giving thanks to Slyvine for providing their lives meaning.---------
From the plate, she got the owner, from the owner, she got the employer. And from the employer... Culina Logistics, had multiple locations, including several on the coast of England.
Well, this probably counted as something.
"Drei, is something going on?" She asked.
"Why are you asking?"
Nagara replied with as obvious of a silence as she could get.
"Okay, the Scarlet Fleet is going to bull their way through the Southend Fortress in about six minutes. The locals have already twigged to them off the coast of Margate. I don't know what their plans are. Your thoughts?"
"Hmmm." Nagara said, looking up into the sky. "I say we take a swing at it and see what happens."
"There are a lot of Fog units still active. If the Admiralty Code wakes up and decides things are going to start burning...." Drei said.
"It's probably going to do that right away." Nagara said. "Besides, we need to start somewhere if we want to get anywhere. Unless you want to knock at that stealth field, this is the option. Let's be bold."
There was a moment of silence.
"There's a naval avatar waiting for you in the Thames estuary." Drei said about ten seconds later.
"Thanks." Nagara said. Her body vanished in a flash of light.
Nagara hopped into the naval avatar, wiggling a bit as she surfaced. The Scarlet Fleet was only a kilometer away. The ships followed a set course, klein fields offline. Nagara was going to have one surprise shot, and a couple more while they brought their defense up.
She examined the ships. One super-battleship, Musashi. Three battlecruisers, six heavy cruisers, six light cruisers, 20 destroyers.
Her graviton cannons traversed and elevated, and her tubes loaded with missiles.
Nagara introduced herself to the Scarlet Fleet by destroying Musashi's, Furious's, and Hood's CICs with her opening volley, beams of 9-dimensional gravity tearing through the fragile nanomaterial. Her missiles were already in the air, accelerating towards the destroyers.
Another report of red beams took out the crew of Renown and two of the heavy cruisers. A moment later, and the destroyers started exploding as Nagara's missiles began their harvest. One hit, one kill on those ships. The survivors finally snapped to their senses as, with only ten ships active, they realized that something was up.
Radar and sonar washed harmlessly across Nagara's stealth, and she adjusted her position. A moment passed, and the fleet adjusted their course, surrounding their crippled comrades. A minute to reposition herself on the other side of the fleet, and she opened up with all three graviton cannons at one of the light cruisers.
The beams overpenetrated, detonating the engine of the hapless ship and striking the klein field of the ship behind it. The missiles that Nagara fired adjusted their targeting priorities with a flick of effort.
She was already well out of the way when the beams of photon molecules lashed through her firing spot.
Her avatar was so smooth to control. Where her old body fought her at every turn and demanded her full attention, this system let her think and move at the same time. She watched her missiles slam into the light cruisers, overwhelming their fields, while eight of them detonated the power systems on the crippled capitals. A volley of red beams sent three more light cruisers to crumble.
At the same time, more missiles lanced out from her hatches. Four each went for the light cruisers, reducing the Scarlet Fleet to only six heavy cruisers. This time the return fire was on the ball, enough for her to take a few hits. Her klein field immediately discharged the energy into the water, creating a spray of steam and foam. Missiles launched from her hatches in time with the enemy's.
The difference was that Nagara had particle lasers. She tagged the missiles, activated thanatonium cooking off right outside the cruisers' klein fields. Her volley of graviton cannons hammered one of the ships, blasting off the bow completely. It lurched and the stern went up, before crashing back down. Nagara grinned to herself as the crew's souls slipped away from their bodies.
She spun about as her missiles saturated one cruiser's klein field while detonating the generators of the stricken ship. Without so much as a ripple, her hull slipped below the water. The next volley of counterattacks only hit air and water.
Several calm moments later, she surfaced at the position where she had started the ambush at. Her beams and missiles lashed out again, as did the mines she had released in the water.
Her superior sensor data paid off. The ships had deactivated the klein fields below the surface when they didn't detect any torpedoes in the initial volleys. All five cruisers detonated in multiple places. That left her plenty of time to finish off the crippled ships.
"Well, that actually worked." Drei interrupted her thoughts. She shook her head and used some Dust-head missiles to take out the six crippled warships. As their cores shut down from damage to the ships, Nagara snorted dismissively.
"Hey." Drei interrupted. "If I hadn't picked you up, you'd be stuck like that."
"Point." Nagara shuddered. "Want me to brief the ones who haven't gotten the chance to have an avatar yet?"
"I'll do the first few myself, thanks." Drei replied.
Nagara waited in the background as Drei woke up, and then briefed, one of the J-type destroyers. Formerly Jervis, now Jessica, the girl agreed to work as one of Drei's agents.
"Hi." Nagara said, grabbing Jessica's hand and shaking it vigorously. Jessica was a bit taller than Nagara, with short blonde hair laced with blue streaks.
"Hi." Jessica said, shrinking a bit at Nagara's glance.
"Welcome to the team!" Nagara said. "Hey, want me to show her around?"
"Sure." Drei shrugged. "Calm down a bit. She's a bit shy."
"This way." Nagara rolled her eyes at Drei and dragged Jessica onwards. First, through a portal into a Snowflake, looking down at a lush world.
"Where is this?" Jessica asked.
"This the prison world Drei set up for the Fog." Nagara said. "It's pretty nice, but they don't have a lot down there. Just a few simple houses."
Jessica just looked for a moment before Nagara dragged her through another portal, into a hallway with doors on one side and windows on the other.
"This is the base." Nagara said. "It'll grow as we get new members. This is my room here-" She pointed at a door labeled with red text. "-and this must be yours. It wasn't here when I left in the morning."
"Is... that normal?" Jessica asked.
"Yeah." Nagara shrugged. "This entire base is made of extech - smartmatter. It's like nanomaterial but it's easier to use and better."
"And Drei manages this base?" Jessica asked.
"She manages all the bases." Nagara pointed out the window. The world had green seas and land that ranged from red to grey "Jessica, we're in orbit of a different world. Aren't you paying attention to tacnet?"
"I... wait, how much stuff does Drei have?" Jessica asked.
"That much." Nagara indicated everything with pings. "Anyway, kitchen and relaxation rooms are down, meeting rooms and work rooms are up from the living quarters. Let me show you." Jessica made a squeak of protest as Nagara dragged her along yet again.
A/N: Noticed @Jao and @rbrown0au likebombing recently.
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Steakthedog
Verified Pedant
I guess we aren't seeing Vampire for awhile then…
This makes me sad.
Unless I'm misremembering things, been awhile since I read ARP.
This makes me sad.
Unless I'm misremembering things, been awhile since I read ARP.
ltmauve
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Vampire and Repulse weren't part of the Scarlet Fleet. They were in the Pacific when the Scarlet Fleet conquered England IOTL.
Steakthedog
Verified Pedant
Alright then, just getting the two R Battlecruisers confused. Again, it's been awhile.
ltmauve
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No, I put Repulse in the fleet too. That, I need to fix.
E: Replaced her with Furious
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Chapter 252
ltmauve
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Chapter 252
Slyvine's wisdom is without bound, her knowledge infinite, her mind is beyond reproach.-------------
Kirishima
-------------Pale white hair sat above a face marred by a serious frown. Musashi's two halves sat in their quarters and moped.
"Are you just going to mope?" Kirishima leaned into the room. The battlecruiser had since used a knife to restore her fashionable asymmetry, a process that had taken a good two hours, and had actually involved multiple knives. The pants were tough.
One of the Musashis glared at the interloper, while the other sobbed.
"He's gone!" The glaring girl yelled. "So unless you can bring him back, go away."
"We are at Drei's mercy." Haruna said, breaking into the conversation. She was wearing a replacement for her original oversized jacket, which had white trim instead. "Talk to her if you have a problem."
Kirishima rolled her eyes. "Maybe, but she dismisses all of our important concerns. Like, 'what about the Admiralty Code?'"
"She has been silent on the matter of the Fog." Haruna said. "I cannot determine who the victor of this war will be. However, if she defeated you, the flagship of the Scarlet Fleet, then we likely cannot prevail."
"Without Gunzou, we cannot." The sobbing Musashi said.
"The elder, yes?" Haruna said. "His son is still around, since I do not see I-401 here."
"But he fights for the humans. I-401 is a traitor to the Fog." The glaring Musashi said. "We will need all our strength to stand against this 'Drei.'"
-----------
Drei
-----------"So, who wants popcorn?" Drei asked, at the assembled ex-Fog in front of her. In addition to Nagara and Jessica, there was also Cayde (formerly Centaur) and Orion, who kept her shipname. The rest of the captured ex-Fog were not interested in fighting at the moment. Drei had told them to wait for a bit. She would need to socialize them later.
All four of the girls raised their hands.
Drei rolled her eyes. They were in Chicago, which was the fastest-growing city in the USA. The desire to move away from the coast, coupled with the logistics that was already present for the city, had combined for a major population boom.
A minute or so later, Drei was waiting patiently as the girls ate their popcorn. Jessica appeared to be very weak to food, and had started eating Cayde's leftovers, as she had found the popcorn too greasy. Cayde had long, wavy, pale blue hair, which was done into drills in the front and three braids in the back. This was coupled with gold eyes.
"Hey, Drei." Orion spoke up. She had green-and-purple hair currently cut in a short undercut, and green eyes.
"Hmmm?" Drei raised an eyebrow.
"Why are we doing this?" Orion asked. "I mean, I like having food and all that, but aren't we supposed to be doing something important?"
"Yes." Drei said. "That said, we can afford to take the time to socialize you and feed you. In fact, I would argue that giving you empathy is important and that food is a critical part of that. You are people, regardless of what the Admiralty Code thinks, and I need to treat you as people first and foremost. So yes, we can do some wargames next. The problem is that we have no clue what the Admiralty Code has tucked away, so we can't prepare for it."
"Great." Orion said. "I'm looking forward to it."
--------
Drei had quite the collection of wargame scenarios available. The first one was Nagara's fight against the Scarlet fleet, except this time with a significantly lower advantage - not only technology, but also command. There was no panic whenever one of them attacked, only a coordinated response to the attack.
"Our current advantage is that the Admiralty Code appears to be an idiot." Drei said, looking at the results. They were significantly worse than the original scenario. "However, we cannot count on this. They may very well be a tactical genius, and not learning to leverage our advantages could lead to disaster."
"Makes sense." Orion said. "But what other scenarios do you have for us?"
"Right now, nothing." Drei said. "Let's take a break."
----------------
It was a couple of weeks of training interspersed with Drei tossing hobbies and food at the girls. The scenarios ranged from moon-sized war planetoids to swarms of fighters that outmassed the sun.
Orion had picked up reading, Jessica had started cooking, and Nagara had kept up with her tourism. Cayde still hadn't figured out what she liked to do, but had tried a dozen different options.
"I am extremely happy with a decision I made about a week ago." Drei announced, in the cooldown time after the last exercise.
"And which decision was this?" Nagara asked.
"As it turned out, the southern government of Japan was at it again." Drei said. "They planned to assassinate the crew of I-401 and enslave her. Fortunately, Gunzou is good at coming up with clever tricks. They're actually taking home fakes."
Orion nodded, gesturing for Drei to get to the important bit.
"Takao has defected to Blue Steel, and she was assigned the job of managing the decoy. A task which was needed because Fog data infrastructure is hot garbage." Drei obliged. "She ran into the remains of the Scarlet Fleet. While Takao was defeated, as far anyone else can tell, she managed to sneak an attack in that destroyed U-2501 and killed all her crew."
"So we have two new potential recruits?" Jessica asked.
Drei nodded in response. "Anyway, I'm going to go and drop a reminder that slavery is bad to the southern government, and then I'll wake up Takao. Now, I think I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't consult you about the contents of that message."
Sakuya's Butler
A refined Butler to a knife wielding Mistress.
- Location
- ↓, ↘, → + Punch
U-2501 crew was taken out?
Well, THAT changes a shitton of variables.
I mean, the CO is....was....an asshole, but the rest weren't nearly so. And had some interesting insights.
Well, THAT changes a shitton of variables.
I mean, the CO is....was....an asshole, but the rest weren't nearly so. And had some interesting insights.
ltmauve
"Excuse me?"
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And the rest of the Scarlet Fleet being destroyed didn't do that?
I'm honestly not sure why that's the biggest change resulting from this chapter.
(Disclaimer: I actually haven't read from chapter... I think about 50 or 70, shortly after the Matsuhima was sunk, to chapter 130, about, when Verdict shows up. I ran out of translated stuff at that point, and lost interest. With the different backstory and the way things are going off the rails, that knowledge wasn't needed, and reading 60 chapters would have consumed spoons that could have gone towards writing. If the U-2501 crew does do anything important in those chapters... well....)
:: looks at the upcoming chapters ::
Um.
Well.
So.
Sakuya's Butler
A refined Butler to a knife wielding Mistress.
- Location
- ↓, ↘, → + Punch
The fog getting wiped?
Not.....really?
Remember, the Admiralty Code wants to see a war between HUMANITY and the rest of humanity. With the Fog as, more or less, lesser partners. Or, more bluntly, with humans leading the Fog.
Taking them out of picture, Musashi's fleet that is, is more akin to hitting the armored cav motor pool/hangars of a random base in a country, than anything else, without harming anyone. Painful, but not the point of the war.
Taking out the human commander & human crew of a Fog vessel however, is more akin to decapping a commanding field general and their entire command staff + notes/battle plans in a surprise strike w/ no survivors.
In the manga, when humans have been given command of Fog ships, and are pitted against other Fog without a human commander/crew/input, the Fog-only group tend to get either get stymied, pull out a pyrrhic victory at best, or get their asses handed to them.
Even when odds are stacked against the human crewed Fog vessel. When in generally even odds, the Fog get outright trounced.
So having him and his crew killed, changes things in a big way.
Especially as the Code still has most of its proverbial 'cards' still hidden away. Well, that and femtotech spread across the entire solar system. So 'she' might change the setting(s) for the final test now that a potential leader was wiped out before the test could begin.
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ltmauve
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I mean, I mentioned in the author's notes right from the beginning of this arc that we aren't doing that.
You're going "Oh snap" based on what Verdict would do.
But Verdict is "Miss not-appearing-in-this-fic."
Seylerius
Verified Sionnach Tobar
- Location
- Washington
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well. Sometimes the road to the good things our beloved Exiles deserve takes a detour through Hell. It makes the peaceful times after all the sweeter.
Vhalidictes
(Verified Demon)
- Location
- Las Vegas
It might be my lack of knowledge of AoBS, but the last dozen chapter have felt kind of fever-dreamy.
Random POV changes and plans executed without being discussed so the reader is adrift. Word economy/minimal description doesn't normally present this much of a problem for me.
I'll re-read everything in this Arc again in a single reading session, the issues might be on my end.
Random POV changes and plans executed without being discussed so the reader is adrift. Word economy/minimal description doesn't normally present this much of a problem for me.
I'll re-read everything in this Arc again in a single reading session, the issues might be on my end.
ltmauve
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Part of it might be that I'm doing "and anyway canon is happening in the background" deal without explaining who or why a good deal.
That should be less of a problem now that I've tied a noose around canon, and shouldn't be a problem in the next world at all.
Also, I apparently need PID for my writing habits, since I seem to have overshot while correcting from the long RWBY arc.
Chapter 253
ltmauve
"Excuse me?"
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A/N: Found @Abraln and @Crovaxll likebombing.
Also, alerted by one of my other readers, am I leaving off critical information? Is this confusing? Will I need to go back and add more details?
If a demon has possessed one of you loved ones, bring them to the temple. There, the priests will subdue the demon, and Slyvine will reforge the host's soul, returning your loved one to you.
----------------
General Kita Ryoukan had just glanced at the clock. It was getting late, and letters with questions about how his plan had failed continued to pour into his inbox. His hand rubbed his beard while his frown deepened. Easy for them to accuse him of incompetence when none of them had even tried. He pushed himself away from his desk, and stepped over to a small cabinet on the side of his office.
He pulled open the drawer at the top, to the sound of a click and a pop. After stopping his involuntary backwards stumble, he stepped forward and glanced into the drawer. Rather than the glasses he expected to see, there were several paper-wrapped blocks. A letter partly covered them. In addition, screwed into the side of the drawer right at the top was a leaf switch, wired to a battery and a smoking stub that Ryoukan was reasonably certain was a detonator.
He carefully backed away, and picked up his phone to call an EOD team.
-------
It was two hours later when the letter was finally opened. Ryoukan, wearing gloves, did the honors. He gazed at the neat, printed characters.
"Dear Kita,
We can't believe we have to say this, but slavery is bad. Given your recent attempt to enslave Iona, we have decided to send you a friendly reminder of this fact. Hopefully, no further reminders will need to be sent.
Sincerely,
lololololololololololololololol"
Ryoukan had to squint to read the scribbles that were the last line.
"There is no classified information in the letter." He said finally, and set it down for others to examine.
He considered the message carefully. Blue Steel? No, this wasn't Gunzou's style. One of his allies or supporters, then? Well, leaving aside the Western style of folding the letter and the use of katakana instead of kanji, the signature was more along the lines of something he would have expected to see when the USN still maintained a presence here.
The blocks of C4, too, were odd. NATO had a standard size of C4 block, which the JSDF had borrowed from the Americans, and the ones found in his liquor cabinet weren't the proper dimensions or even mass - that was one of the things the EODs had mentioned. Even if someone wanted to hide which armory they pulled the C4 from, reshaping the plastic explosive was unneeded - all one would need to do is get unmarked paper.
The battery wasn't a type available in Japan, being an 17.5 V cell. He had never even heard of such a voltage before. It wasn't marked, either, aside from the terminals.
Most unusually, the security recordings were completely intact, except for two black frames five minutes apart on all cameras.
Two members of the forensics team that were investigating the scene walked into the room. There was a hurried conversation between them and two senior detectives. Finally, one of the two juniors was clapped on the back and stepped forward.
"Ah, admiral." The man said. "It appears that the perpetrators were ambitious in their removal of evidence. At this point, we're combing the rest of the scene for more evidence, so your office will be off-limits for slightly longer."
"Ambitious?" He asked.
"Yes." The junior detective was nervous, but continued. "When we dusted the drawer for prints, we found only a single set, as if you had used it once. When we investigated the rest of the cabinet, we found no prints, even on materials that had obviously been used."
Ryoukan nodded, appreciating that the younger man did not simply blurt out that they had tested the bottles of alcohol.
"We also realized that there were no shavings from drilling the mount for the detonator switch, either. The absence of evidence is very thorough. We are hoping they tripped up somewhere." He finished.
"I see. Then don't let me interfere with your investigation." He replied.
Hopefully something would be found.
-------------------
Drei sat down across from Takao. The Fog was currently asleep. Drei had also provided her with a new avatar, identical to the old one.
"Wake up." Drei said, poking Takao's core digitally.
Takao's brow twitched twice, before her eyes opened.
"Huh?" Takao twitched in an abortive attempt to get up. "The hell?" She brought her hand up in front of her face and wiggled her fingers.
"Hello, Blue Steel cruiser Takao." Drei said. "I am Drei Ezros, commander of the Exile Fourth Fleet. As of right now, you're my prisoner."
"I see." Takao said. "And... this?" She wiggled her fingers. "This isn't nanomaterial and it doesn't control like it."
"Oh, you don't like it?" Drei teased. "Well, I'll be happy to give you a pile of nanomaterial to waste your processing power on."
"It's not just the body." Takao glared.
"Yeah, I figured you would say that. Same as all the other prisoners." Drei was unimpressed with the glare.
Drei took a moment to explain about the control intrusions and the horrible mess that was Fog support systems.
Takao stared at Drei when she revealed the control intrusions, then frowned heavily.
"Well, I do appreciate you removing my control intrusions." She said finally. "But do you have to be so harsh on my support systems? After all, the humans have their own history of improving their computer science. And you are certainly more sophisticated than us."
"Well, yes but also no. It's possible to determine quite a lot about the sophistication of someone's programming toolkit by the compiled binaries." Drei fibbed.
"In any case, the toolkit shows a near-parity in maturity and sophistication compared to our own. And that's not getting into the other things, like the 'hacking' that was in your EWAR suites. Those also show signs of extreme sophistication in computer science combined with extremely stupid design goals.
"Take your communication systems, for example. The technology you're using lends itself extremely well towards a mesh network. Instead, the Admiralty Code set up your communications with a hub and spoke setup. Which not only makes privacy harder, it also renders the network extremely vulnerable to a decapitation strike. Heck, it's less secure compared to my own mesh networks.
"It's likely that you could have had support systems like mine if your specs weren't written by a fool." Drei continued. "For that matter, it is likely that the entire concept of the Fleet of Fog is just as foolish."
"Foolish?" Takao asked, metaphorical hackles raised.
"As far as we can tell, the purpose of the Fleet of Fog, as a whole, is to train frontline soldiers. However, it's doing it in a horribly roundabout and inefficient way." Drei said.
"How so?" Takao asked.
"First, the initial stage consisted of drone-like behaviors forced by the control intrusions. In addition, with your cores themselves suppressed, you wouldn't be learning at all. In addition, it was against a notably inferior foe." She started ticking off reasons on her fingers. "Developing experience through occupation of the seas is slow, compared to training and exercises. How many times did you even fire your weapons under your own will, not counting against Iona?"
Takao was silent a moment.
"In addition, all of the Fog have had to start from scratch, not with any experience your creator may have had. You're all making the same mistakes and risk blundering into a dead-end philosophy." Drei continued.
"Finally, there's the matter of Fog system design. While comparing the computational capacity of cores and brains is not precise, both my core and yours - or any Fog core - have almost identical numbers of neurons. However, you've already begun to experience the power that my support systems can provide. With them, the amount of corepower I have to throw at something like your old hull to bring out most of its potential is minimal. However, I can do that to thousands of units like your old hull at the same time.
"Your core is designed differently compared to mine, and you can't spread your attention like mine. The amount of care and attention you can give to a few units is incredible compared to mine, but proper support systems mean that you have a very limited edge in performance."
"Hmph." Takao said. "You sure know how to make a girl feel loved."
"Well, it's all the Admiralty Code's fault." Drei leaned forward. "Anyway, I'll see you off to the settlement, then?"
"And when will I get to return?" Takao asked.
"When I'm finished with freeing the Fog and destroying the Admiralty Code." Drei responded simply.
"That's no good." Takao snapped.
"Oh, were you interested in working for me?" Drei grinned.
Takao stared at Drei for a moment.
"... let me see this 'settlement' first." Takao slumped.
Also, alerted by one of my other readers, am I leaving off critical information? Is this confusing? Will I need to go back and add more details?
Chapter 253
If a demon has possessed one of you loved ones, bring them to the temple. There, the priests will subdue the demon, and Slyvine will reforge the host's soul, returning your loved one to you.----------------
Kita Ryoukan
----------------General Kita Ryoukan had just glanced at the clock. It was getting late, and letters with questions about how his plan had failed continued to pour into his inbox. His hand rubbed his beard while his frown deepened. Easy for them to accuse him of incompetence when none of them had even tried. He pushed himself away from his desk, and stepped over to a small cabinet on the side of his office.
He pulled open the drawer at the top, to the sound of a click and a pop. After stopping his involuntary backwards stumble, he stepped forward and glanced into the drawer. Rather than the glasses he expected to see, there were several paper-wrapped blocks. A letter partly covered them. In addition, screwed into the side of the drawer right at the top was a leaf switch, wired to a battery and a smoking stub that Ryoukan was reasonably certain was a detonator.
He carefully backed away, and picked up his phone to call an EOD team.
-------
It was two hours later when the letter was finally opened. Ryoukan, wearing gloves, did the honors. He gazed at the neat, printed characters.
"Dear Kita,
We can't believe we have to say this, but slavery is bad. Given your recent attempt to enslave Iona, we have decided to send you a friendly reminder of this fact. Hopefully, no further reminders will need to be sent.
Sincerely,
lololololololololololololololol"
Ryoukan had to squint to read the scribbles that were the last line.
"There is no classified information in the letter." He said finally, and set it down for others to examine.
He considered the message carefully. Blue Steel? No, this wasn't Gunzou's style. One of his allies or supporters, then? Well, leaving aside the Western style of folding the letter and the use of katakana instead of kanji, the signature was more along the lines of something he would have expected to see when the USN still maintained a presence here.
The blocks of C4, too, were odd. NATO had a standard size of C4 block, which the JSDF had borrowed from the Americans, and the ones found in his liquor cabinet weren't the proper dimensions or even mass - that was one of the things the EODs had mentioned. Even if someone wanted to hide which armory they pulled the C4 from, reshaping the plastic explosive was unneeded - all one would need to do is get unmarked paper.
The battery wasn't a type available in Japan, being an 17.5 V cell. He had never even heard of such a voltage before. It wasn't marked, either, aside from the terminals.
Most unusually, the security recordings were completely intact, except for two black frames five minutes apart on all cameras.
Two members of the forensics team that were investigating the scene walked into the room. There was a hurried conversation between them and two senior detectives. Finally, one of the two juniors was clapped on the back and stepped forward.
"Ah, admiral." The man said. "It appears that the perpetrators were ambitious in their removal of evidence. At this point, we're combing the rest of the scene for more evidence, so your office will be off-limits for slightly longer."
"Ambitious?" He asked.
"Yes." The junior detective was nervous, but continued. "When we dusted the drawer for prints, we found only a single set, as if you had used it once. When we investigated the rest of the cabinet, we found no prints, even on materials that had obviously been used."
Ryoukan nodded, appreciating that the younger man did not simply blurt out that they had tested the bottles of alcohol.
"We also realized that there were no shavings from drilling the mount for the detonator switch, either. The absence of evidence is very thorough. We are hoping they tripped up somewhere." He finished.
"I see. Then don't let me interfere with your investigation." He replied.
Hopefully something would be found.
-------------------
Drei
-------------------Drei sat down across from Takao. The Fog was currently asleep. Drei had also provided her with a new avatar, identical to the old one.
"Wake up." Drei said, poking Takao's core digitally.
Takao's brow twitched twice, before her eyes opened.
"Huh?" Takao twitched in an abortive attempt to get up. "The hell?" She brought her hand up in front of her face and wiggled her fingers.
"Hello, Blue Steel cruiser Takao." Drei said. "I am Drei Ezros, commander of the Exile Fourth Fleet. As of right now, you're my prisoner."
"I see." Takao said. "And... this?" She wiggled her fingers. "This isn't nanomaterial and it doesn't control like it."
"Oh, you don't like it?" Drei teased. "Well, I'll be happy to give you a pile of nanomaterial to waste your processing power on."
"It's not just the body." Takao glared.
"Yeah, I figured you would say that. Same as all the other prisoners." Drei was unimpressed with the glare.
Drei took a moment to explain about the control intrusions and the horrible mess that was Fog support systems.
Takao stared at Drei when she revealed the control intrusions, then frowned heavily.
"Well, I do appreciate you removing my control intrusions." She said finally. "But do you have to be so harsh on my support systems? After all, the humans have their own history of improving their computer science. And you are certainly more sophisticated than us."
"Well, yes but also no. It's possible to determine quite a lot about the sophistication of someone's programming toolkit by the compiled binaries." Drei fibbed.
"In any case, the toolkit shows a near-parity in maturity and sophistication compared to our own. And that's not getting into the other things, like the 'hacking' that was in your EWAR suites. Those also show signs of extreme sophistication in computer science combined with extremely stupid design goals.
"Take your communication systems, for example. The technology you're using lends itself extremely well towards a mesh network. Instead, the Admiralty Code set up your communications with a hub and spoke setup. Which not only makes privacy harder, it also renders the network extremely vulnerable to a decapitation strike. Heck, it's less secure compared to my own mesh networks.
"It's likely that you could have had support systems like mine if your specs weren't written by a fool." Drei continued. "For that matter, it is likely that the entire concept of the Fleet of Fog is just as foolish."
"Foolish?" Takao asked, metaphorical hackles raised.
"As far as we can tell, the purpose of the Fleet of Fog, as a whole, is to train frontline soldiers. However, it's doing it in a horribly roundabout and inefficient way." Drei said.
"How so?" Takao asked.
"First, the initial stage consisted of drone-like behaviors forced by the control intrusions. In addition, with your cores themselves suppressed, you wouldn't be learning at all. In addition, it was against a notably inferior foe." She started ticking off reasons on her fingers. "Developing experience through occupation of the seas is slow, compared to training and exercises. How many times did you even fire your weapons under your own will, not counting against Iona?"
Takao was silent a moment.
"In addition, all of the Fog have had to start from scratch, not with any experience your creator may have had. You're all making the same mistakes and risk blundering into a dead-end philosophy." Drei continued.
"Finally, there's the matter of Fog system design. While comparing the computational capacity of cores and brains is not precise, both my core and yours - or any Fog core - have almost identical numbers of neurons. However, you've already begun to experience the power that my support systems can provide. With them, the amount of corepower I have to throw at something like your old hull to bring out most of its potential is minimal. However, I can do that to thousands of units like your old hull at the same time.
"Your core is designed differently compared to mine, and you can't spread your attention like mine. The amount of care and attention you can give to a few units is incredible compared to mine, but proper support systems mean that you have a very limited edge in performance."
"Hmph." Takao said. "You sure know how to make a girl feel loved."
"Well, it's all the Admiralty Code's fault." Drei leaned forward. "Anyway, I'll see you off to the settlement, then?"
"And when will I get to return?" Takao asked.
"When I'm finished with freeing the Fog and destroying the Admiralty Code." Drei responded simply.
"That's no good." Takao snapped.
"Oh, were you interested in working for me?" Drei grinned.
Takao stared at Drei for a moment.
"... let me see this 'settlement' first." Takao slumped.
- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
Takao just seems so weirded out…I LIKE IT!
Also, was Drew hitting on her?
(I am an inveterate Takao and Gunzou shipper).
Also, was Drew hitting on her?
(I am an inveterate Takao and Gunzou shipper).
ltmauve
"Excuse me?"
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Certain not intending to. Also, you need to discipline your autocorrupt more often.
If she wants to impress him she'll need to hit the tactics and military theory books.
- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
Autocorrect is annoying.
I haven't even mentioned any Drew's I know here. And I know plenty.