And as a public service announcement, particularly in the unpredictable summer we're having in the United States - hydrate, for the love of the divine. Not drinking enough water is going to lead to symptoms such as nausea and headaches (or both).
Going to work on getting this out today, as I'm feeling a bit better now.
And as a public service announcement, particularly in the unpredictable summer we're having in the United States - hydrate, for the love of the divine. Not drinking enough water is going to lead to symptoms such as nausea and headaches (or both).
Regency Council - Take Time to Engage the Regent in Dialogue
Duration: 2 Turns
You will give the Regent this much - it's been very consistent with what it wants:
- 1. A champion to empower and eventually as a guardian to bring the Regent back home. The Regent is perfectly fine with said champion delaying the trip long enough to 'restore peace to the planet.' Heck, it would prefer it; apparently it's 'good training.' You're not sure you like the all out crises facing the Union described as a field training exercise, but what do you know. It still won't say who, as apparently while there's a good candidate or two on base, it's going to keep looking around just in case.
Fair enough, you suppose.
- 2. A chassis to serve as said champion's wargear. Though you're unlikely to see it come back, while the champion is still here helping out it's going to be what he or she takes into battle. It's going to be specifically modified by the Regent to serve its purpose.
You really hope it's nothing horridly complicated, but life hasn't been that kind to you.
- 3. It's perfectly willing to give you exactly enough technological boons to make the first two points happen. Which already serves Anna's purpose of wanting to fleece it for help in developing space travel. If it wants to go home, it's not going to be able to leave on its own power unless you just want to build a railgun and point it to Alpha Centauri or something.
This upcoming month you're taking the time to make sure you haven't missed any sort of hidden clauses or conditions before laying out what you're willing to do in exchange. It's a lengthy and time consuming process. But you're perfectly willing to pay that price to make sure you don't get screwed over.
You have a better idea of what the Regent wants. This will conclude at the end of Turn Two, Year Three.
Moderate Precautions. Sealed Room. White Noise Generator. Signal Jammers. Yes, this is your definition of 'Moderate Precautions' in this case.
Cost: 1 RP (One Time Investment)
Duration: 1 Turn
Chance for Breakthrough at Disadvantage (1d6+1d6 (Katarina), Threshold of 4-6 (Diana))
Handled entirely in-house, Unlocks New Actions
"...you do know this makes you look crazy, right, Sir?" Diana asks mildly from a terminal sealed off from the room.
"Yes. Don't care."
"This is a bit much, even for you, Sir," Katarina says disapprovingly from the same terminal. "We haven't even taken a direct look at the tablet."
"I'm perfectly okay with that," you reply. You ignore the knowing looks both girls give each other as you wait for the remote program to decrypt the tablet. "If I look stupid after all this is said and done, I'm okay with that too."
"Is he really that big of a threat?" Diana asks, one eyebrow raised.
"I don't know," you grumble, "And that's the part that's really bugging me." You notice that Sasaki, also in the room, is fairly quiet. "Nothing from him is rational. He supports the program, but then throws pies in our face for everything we do. Even the stuff that actively helps him. If he's just a political gloryhound, he's terrible at it. If he's a Westphalian sleeper agent, he terrible at that too; there's only so many ways to sneak in attacks into our neck of the woods now. And then he approaches me at Unity Station with his 'aw shucks' personality and drops this in my hands." You pause to take a breath. "So yeah. I don't know."
"His command staff meetings tended to be contentious," Sasaki says. You look up; you'd forgotten for a moment that she used to work for Armistead. "Many of his officers are from old families, lineages that go back to Unification. Some were clearly there out of..." She sighs in disgust. "...political connections rather than talent, though there were exceptions."
"And from what Anna's found, he's actively bringing in more of them." You shake your head. "This is absolutely not our lane. We're here to build a Super Robot, and deploy them against the enemies of the Union. We should not be dealing with any of this."
"I think it is a bit late for that," Sasaki says dryly.
"You don't say?"
Before you can add anything further, the other isolated console in the vault pings the completion of the decryption. "Okay, we can at least see what - "
You can't finish that statement, as the console abruptly bursts into sparks and flame. "Holy-!" You take a few steps back and hold your arm in front of your face as you feel the heat radiate from the remains of the console. Before long, however, fire extinguishers installed in the ceiling unveiled themselves and began to liberally spray over the offending area. "...so much for that," you grumble over the consistent hisses of the extinguishers. "Diana, did you find anything?"
"Standby." The Defense AI studies the data from her vantage point. Unconnected as she is to the actual tablet - which you insist is only sensible, you're not risking malicious software into your base - you can see her frustration at having to read at the same speed as you or Sasaki. "...okay, got it," she says finally, after scanning through numbers and code that only make sense to her and her sisters. "There was some kind of malicious code in there. At least, that's the last thing the console picked up on before it terminated."
You try not to appear to be too smug despite the situation. Going by Sasaki's reaction, you probably failed.
"What would it have done?" Sasaki demands.
"Best guess? It would have at least tried to implant some kind of monitoring software," Katarina chimes in. "Worst case, it would have tried to outright destroy data or corrupt what it could find." She frowns at the thought. "Probably would have destroyed all the hard work we put in!"
"...General, what the hell are you doing?" Sasaki mutters as she picks up the charred remains of the tablet. "...hmm?"
"What is it?" you ask.
"There is a...message here," she says. She hands the tablet to you, but the words don't make any more sense.
"Ship unmanoeuverable. We will fight to the last shell."
"...well," you mutter. "...I still have so many questions."
Besides a cryptic message, you averted the insertion of malicious code into the base. But you get the feeling even this isn't as straightforward as it would be normally.
New Action Unlocked.
The showman approach worked before, right? Let's put on a bit of a show. Highlight the Centurion, but also include how it would operate in a wider battle, with Jackals, V-33s, the works.
Cost: 2 RP (One Time Investment)
Duration: 1 Turn
Chance for ?
1422, 16 January A.D. 2072
The Proving Grounds
"When I asked for a demonstration," General Li says wryly from the reviewing stands, "I wasn't quite expecting something like this."
You shrug. After what nearly took place, you needed something to take your mind off of it. "I could have given you a straight up 'this is the Centurion in a vacuum' demonstration, Sir," you explain, "But I highly doubt you're going to use it that way if you take it." You point towards the squadron of Centurions taking center stage in the mock battle unfolding before you both. Using a similar urban environment that you used for the Shade and Steed demonstration, you pit the Centurions as the showpiece of a wider engagement. Critical, but not likely to win on its own.
"More than likely, I figure you would want to use it as part of a bigger operation," you explain. The Centurions by now are rolling out of the city center, where Phalanxes have established a secure perimeter. Overhead, the TMUs are flying ahead towards a series of mock targets, unleashing ordnance to 'soften up the target.' "With the Centurions, they can provide fire support, their classic roles as a main battle tank, and-"
The Centurion force immediately configure into their mecha forms, where they proceed to lay waste into the remote-controlled Jackals and 'Truck-Mobiles' Wilde and Henry had scavenged from past scraps.
"-as melee combatants," you finish. "Though they can operate on their own without support, I wouldn't recommend it. They're more suited for knocking down big targets, like other tanks or fortifications instead of smaller targets like infantry or what have you. They can do it, but you probably have other options that are better at it."
"Hmm." Li Jun observes the rest of the demonstration without another word. His face is utterly still - you can't tell if he approves of anything that's going on, or if he's not so pleased. But you made your pitch, you showed him what it can do. All you can do now is just wait for him to make a decision.
When the 'end exercise' siren blares, he turns to you. "...to be frank with you," he says, "plenty of my staffers are advising against taking this."
"Any particular reason?" you ask. After dealing with the craziness of Armistead, this just doesn't have the punch to faze you. This seems to amuse Li Jun, though the flicker of emotion passes swiftly.
"Simply put, many of my officers are oldschool," he explains. "When you have that many combat arms officers in a staff, they'll tell you a bayonet charge up the hill or enough firepower from field artillery'll do the job." He shakes his head. "Unsurprisingly, they're the ones who just want newer versions of the Bulwark. I can see their point, seeing as it's familiar enough territory for them."
"I'm sensing a but here," you comment.
"You'd be right," Li Jun says. "My logistics officers are screaming at me to just 'take the goddamned configuring robot please god.'" You fail to suppress a chuckle. It's what you'd be telling your boss in their shoes too. "And I'm impressed enough with what I see." Pulling out his tablet, he input a few commands into it. "So have your people get with mine. I'm willing to make the arrangements to have a limited production run."
"I'll sweeten the deal for you some, Sir," you say. Sasaki had better thank me for this later. "There's this one program that we're about to run for pilots..."
Decent results, but not spectacular. General Li Jun is impressed enough that he's taking a limited production run. And he's interested in the Pilot Program that's about to launch.
Gain +2 RP for the next Six Turns, starting on Turn Two, Year Three.
Defense Force Actions
Setting the Banner
Cost: 1 RP Locked
Duration: 1 Turn
Chance for breakthrough (2d6, Threshold of 5-6)
Chance to unveil skills
Rolled: 2+6!
Good success! Gains 'Cavalier's Pupil!'
Now Accepting Internships...
Cost: 1 RP Locked
Duration: 1 Turns
It's finally finished.
The new Pilot Exchange Program stands adjacent to the promenade of the DFRI campus grounds and the dormitories. Within are the latest, up to date (and quite frankly sadistic, since Sasaki had her way with the scenario programming) simulators, lecture rooms, and service-specific support for the pilots of the varying branches of the EUDF.
Your staff are already geared to rotate in and out to give their own lectures and feedback to the pilots. Callaghan is already lined up to serve as a part-time training cadre (because of course he is, he's the best pilot you've got right now) along with Tellison. Though their goal is to provide training and simulator feedback, you have another motive in mind; as the services are very likely to send the experienced and best talent they can (if just for the prestige), your staff will be able to pick their brains as to the goings on of the wider EUDF and what they're facing against. That, and you can probably at least pick out raw talent to poach acquire identify and promote to DFRI service.
You already are expecting the ground pounders from General Li Jun's outfit to arrive for early acclimatizing to the Centurions, and you wouldn't be surprised if Colonel Bernard decides to send his own V-33 pilots to come by. Well, more than they have already; a few Marine technicians have already arrived to offer feedback on the new design the Engineers are cooking up, as you already agreed to with Bernard. Whether more show up (which is a possibility with the FRC) remains to be seen.
Of course, however, given that this is the DFRI, Wilde couldn't help but add his own little embellishment to the new complex. Above the entrance is emblazoned a simple, but dispiriting tagline:
ABANDON ALL HOPE,
ALL YE WHO ENTER
You...honestly can't bring yourself to tell him to take it down.
Starting next turn, you will gain a chance to identify promising pilots to recruit!
New Actions unlocked!
Reaction Force
Cost: 1 RP Locked (1 RP Locked Next Turn)
Duration: 2 Turns
Unlocks New Actions. Will Reveal Hot Spots around the world that may benefit from your attention.
Work continues apace on the Reaction Force concept you and Sasaki had come up with earlier. This is greatly sped along by support from the Intelligence Services; more than anyone, they're quite in touch with the particular hotspots in the world. When Anna discovered what it was that you were planning, she forwarded that straight to her superiors, who are more than happy to let you know what exactly needs a Super Robot to quash it.
Work is slowed, however, because after the 'incident' you are taking your time with ensuring secure communications are a thing. The last thing you want is for someone to deliberately feed you bad information.
Now Diana at least isn't calling you crazy. To your face.
You'll take what you can get.
This will finish at the end of Turn Two, Year Three.
Engineering Actions
Building a Seeker
Cost: 3 2RP (Streamlined Production Applied; 1 RP Locked Next Turn)
Duration: 3 Turns
Chance for Breakthrough at Disadvantage (1d6 + 1d6 (Maritime Expeditionary Corps Commission), Threshold of 5-6)
Rolled: 2+5!
Nothing exciting, but nothing spectacularly wrong either. Lana is taking the lead on this project.
The Marines are...bemused.
For one thing, they've never been yelled at by a sentient AI.
One poor idiot decided to mutter curses about her in her native language. Sasaki deleted the records that followed, but apparently Lana is now very good at cursing right back in fluent Shanghai Chinese.
Cultural exchanges aside, the Marines are mostly on board with what Lana is attempting. The idea is quite simple: take the basic V-33 TMU, and streamline it into something better. Something that can fulfill the same missions, but with more flexibility - such as hands.
So far, nothing special has emerged, but there's also no complications either. It's been all parties just going back to the drawing board and seeing what works, and what doesn't. And they're finding a lot that doesn't, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The more they find that would clash with their design intent now, the fewer problems the live version is going to face.
You should see something soon.
Decent results so far. This will finish by end of Turn Three, Year Three.
Science Actions
ESP Theory - Heavy Investment - "Sam here. So for our last test on this run, we're going to see what happens if we try to route the psychic energy towards different parts of the Super Robot. We'll start with innocuous things like the servos and the limbs, then we'll go on to something crazy. Like the generator."
Cost: 1 RP Locked
Duration: 1 Turn
Chance for breakthrough (2d6, Threshold of 5-6)
Rolled: 2+6! It...uh, glows. It's doing something to the materials, but we're going to need further testing.
"Sam here."
"So on further testing, we've determined that you can apply enough psychic energy to introduce effects into inert materials. We're staying away from K-Class right now due to the mishaps we've had, but we've figured out a few things."
"One: right now, it takes a lot of psychic energy to do anything. Right now, our landmark achievement with steel is making it glow naturally. That's it. Five hours of continued concentration resulted in a glowing steel ingot. Now don't get me wrong, it's very pretty to look at, and I'm probably keeping it in my office as a showpiece, but not exactly what we were looking for. Sure, it's looking like it's slightly denser, but that's not exactly conclusive."
"Two: It DOES suggest that we can introduce changes into materials that are linked to the MMI. But we just don't know how, just that it's possible. It's something we're going to have to look into."
"Now we're going to send those notes to the Kaiju Biotech boys in the other test. But on further inspection, we chose not to try supercharging the generator with psychic energy. We know it's possible to do now, but I just don't have the budget for lab #3. That'll be for next time."
"Sam Carlson, we're done here."
ESP can introduce new properties into inert materials. You know it CAN, you just don't know HOW exactly yet. New Actions Unlocked!
Kaiju Biotechnology - Medium Investment - "Sam here. So we tried the whole 'strengthen K-Scale' with Psychic Energy, and we had two exploding labs. I sure as hell don't have a budget for a third one, so we're testing this one outside, and everyone's wearing a K-Suit."
"So new test while the budget lasts, and within our hypotheses: can we introduce new elements into K-Class directly using Psychic Energy?"
Cost: 1 RP Locked
Duration: 1 Turns
Chance for breakthrough (2d6, Threshold of 5-6), Ivanna is supporting
"So taking those notes from the ESP boys, I think we've hit a breakthrough. We knew K-Class responds to psychic energy, but we understood that as the mind simply lumping the things into part of the machine."
"Well, turns out you CAN alter it pretty heavily, but you're going to need a lot of psychic energy to do it. Not as much as, say, the shiny new steel ingot I've got in my office, but enough to make you want to eat fifteen hamburgers after you're done."
"Further testing's shown that enough concentration and intent from the pilot can do interesting things to the K-Class. Make it tougher than diamonds? Done, for a few seconds. You want to conduct even more electricity? You can do that for a split second. Bottom line is, we're finding very tiny results. But they're tangible results."
"This isn't anything we can use just yet. But this opens up whole new avenues of research for us. We'll keep you posted."
"Sam Carlson, we're done here."
Enough psychic energy can and will alter K-Class Materials temporarily before reverting to their 'default' state. This is going to require more research, though.
New Actions unlocked!
Kaiju Biotechnology - Medium Investment - Dragon Horn Analysis - "The acidic build-up's stopped; the deep freeze's held it in its tracks. The last sample we had was frozen for almost a year before we started studying it. This is fairly fresh. Let's see what we can find out, boys and girls."
Cost: 1 RP Locked (1 RP Locked Next Turn)
Duration: 2 Turns
Chance for breakthrough (2d6, Threshold of 5-6)
Sam here. The fresher you catch the kaiju, the more malleable the samples are. Who knew?
Bottom line: Sam is taking advantage of the fact that you have the Dragon's Horn in secure deep freeze to try and combat the acidic buildup faster.
And he might be onto something.
Having had long enough to study the acidic buildup in slow motion, it's actually fairly simple for Sam to react to it this early in its development. He's working with Max - of all people - to create something that will eliminate the acidic failsafe before it can go any further than it already has.
You're a little terrified that Max's solution is to introduce a bit of Kausen energy pulse into a minute injection.
You're incredibly terrified when Sam agrees.
You're...staying the hell away from the Kaiju Labs until March, thank you.
Good news: they found a way to combat the acidic buildup early.
Bad news: Max's solution is being taken seriously.
Oh dear.
I'll introduce some flavor text for the Super Robot construction next update. I'd do it now, but I have to be off soon.
Oh, yeah. Whoops. Guessed the wrong German battleship. Checking wiki, Scharnhorst signalled, "We will fight on until the last shell is fired." Close enough that I muddled the two up.
Aren't you all glad we did this without lining up more targets for the malware attack?
Curious quote there though. The implication is "We're quintuple fucked at this point, but we'll keep shooting until we're out of bullets"
And pretty much confirmation that Armistead is someone's puppet, but that he has enough will of his own to hint at least that something is terribly wrong.
Aren't you all glad we did this without lining up more targets for the malware attack?
Curious quote there though. The implication is "We're quintuple fucked at this point, but we'll keep shooting until we're out of bullets"
And pretty much confirmation that Armistead is someone's puppet, but that he has enough will of his own to hint at least that something is terribly wrong.
I don't think that the reference to a Nazi ship was coincidence, and says a lot about what he thinks of his puppetmasters. I wonder what they've got on him?
And yeah, I'm thinking that he's been underselling us in order to act as cover. The rebel force that drove through his lines unchallenged had no idea what they were getting into, after all, and it ended with one of their top men getting murderized pretty hard. He's definitely a traitor, but hes being deliberately incompetent in order to fuck over their plans.
I wouldn't be surprised if his insistence on having Sasaki monitor us was to get her out of that place.
Hrrm...The bismarck...Now that's a thing that bodes ill, frankly.
DOUBLY so because it suggests the Navy's got problems as well...
...
SOoo I had an idea for an omake but it's also occurred to me that ESP weirdness/power has considerably advanced if people are allowed to focus for 5 hours on something given the previous 2-hour limit Sam had going. Also-busy. But something's on it's way.
An expy at 'best,' which would be intense because what would the Abyssals be then? Straight out of Lovecraft? Machines out for Revenge against humanity? Shadow abomination mixed with Tech?
The Earth Union has presided over thirty years of peace, prosperity, and growth. Healing the scars left behind by the Unification Wars and the Day of Starfall, the Earth Union has brought the world together for the betterment of mankind. With technological innovations in medicine, space exploration and commerce, mankind is poised for greatness.
But it is also on the precipice of ruin. For even now, in what would be our Golden Era, those jealous of the Earth Union's success would bring down the dreams of peace to ruin.
Next turn is likely to come tomorrow or Monday (depending on whether this dehydration attack decides to come for another run and whether or not I'm rolling at Disadvantage).
' Heck, it would prefer it; apparently it's 'good training.' You're not sure you like the all out crises facing the Union described as a field training exercise, but what do you know. It still won't say who, as apparently while there's a good candidate or two on base, it's going to keep looking around just in case.
- 2. A chassis to serve as said champion's wargear. Though you're unlikely to see it come back, while the champion is still here helping out it's going to be what he or she takes into battle. It's going to be specifically modified by the Regent to serve its purpose.
- 3. It's perfectly willing to give you exactly enough technological boons to make the first two points happen. Which already serves Anna's purpose of wanting to fleece it for help in developing space travel. If it wants to go home, it's not going to be able to leave on its own power unless you just want to build a railgun and point it to Alpha Centauri or something.
"His command staff meetings tended to be contentious," Sasaki says. You look up; you'd forgotten for a moment that she used to work for Armistead. "Many of his officers are from old families, lineages that go back to Unification. Some were clearly there out of..." She sighs in disgust. "...political connections rather than talent, though there were exceptions."
You can't finish that statement, as the console abruptly bursts into sparks and flame. "Holy-!" You take a few steps back and hold your arm in front of your face as you feel the heat radiate from the remains of the console. Before long, however, fire extinguishers installed in the ceiling unveiled themselves and began to liberally spray over the offending area. "...so much for that," you grumble over the consistent hisses of the extinguishers. "Diana, did you find anything?"
" You point towards the squadron of Centurions taking center stage in the mock battle unfolding before you both. Using a similar urban environment that you used for the Shade and Steed demonstration,
Unsurprisingly, they're the ones who just want newer versions of the Bulwark. I can see their point, seeing as it's familiar enough territory for them."
What about using the newest tank and making a Variable Configuration of it for maximal overkill? Also, would the 1 RP demonstration have been more succesful?
Work continues apace on the Reaction Force concept you and Sasaki had come up with earlier. This is greatly sped along by support from the Intelligence Services; more than anyone, they're quite in touch with the particular hotspots in the world. When Anna discovered what it was that you were planning, she forwarded that straight to her superiors, who are more than happy to let you know what exactly needs a Super Robot to quash it.
"One: right now, it takes a lot of psychic energy to do anything. Right now, our landmark achievement with steel is making it glow naturally. That's it. Five hours of continued concentration resulted in a glowing steel ingot. Now don't get me wrong, it's very pretty to look at, and I'm probably keeping it in my office as a showpiece, but not exactly what we were looking for. Sure, it's looking like it's slightly denser, but that's not exactly conclusive."
"Further testing's shown that enough concentration and intent from the pilot can do interesting things to the K-Class. Make it tougher than diamonds? Done, for a few seconds. You want to conduct even more electricity? You can do that for a split second. Bottom line is, we're finding very tiny results. But they're tangible results."
Having had long enough to study the acidic buildup in slow motion, it's actually fairly simple for Sam to react to it this early in its development. He's working with Max - of all people - to create something that will eliminate the acidic failsafe before it can go any further than it already has.
You're a little terrified that Max's solution is to introduce a bit of Kausen energy pulse into a minute injection. You're incredibly terrified when Sam agrees.
It's fine. 
