In the ashes of the singularity take control of a successor state. Fight your rivals and seek the answers as to why the Gleaming Age has come to a ruinous end.
That Gleaming Age (A Sci/Fantasy Historia Quest)
- Thread starter Happerry
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Turn 0-A
Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
For countless eons, mankind has wanted for nothing. Technology, grown in advancement until it was sufficiently advanced, met their every need and even desire with casual access to even the greatest of workings. Life grew and flourished in all the myriad ways man found interesting, and paradise was built not only one one world, but throughout uncountable stars.
But the gleaming age is over.
The question of whether it was some disaster, some great act of hubris, or even enemy action is beyond the ken of those that have lived through the fall, for their minds must be more focused on mere survival. For with the end of the infinite river of energy that mankind was delighted to dip their fingers into and drink as they wilt came the end of the gleaming towers and great works of civilization. Now for those that look upon the works of man, only ruin remains.
But mankind survives yet, where survivors have found shelter from the storm and the drought and the gnawing hungers they have never before known in those times when all they desired was but a thought away. They live clustered around the few remaining sources of energy that exist upon these broken worlds, those remaining power plants that are fit to power a fabrication center. And though the dream of the gleaming age might be over, mankind still turns towards their dreams for hope and succor.
For it is from the ancient dreams and stories and histories of Man That Was that the survivors, inexperienced and unaware of how to build a military, turned to in their time of need. Born again through the engrams of war, you are one of the few who have the traits needed for the successful and survivable use of this critical technology. By implanting the knowledge and will to use it into a volunteer it is possible to skip learning many of the lessons of war the long and hard way. Now the dreams and stories of mankind march once again into the cauldron of battle.
"Any last doubts?" The assistant sent to fetch you asks as the two of you gaze out over the starlit sky. It was an impressive view. It still was, really, even without the gleaming lights that once sprinkled the sky as advertisements shined down upon the world below from the rings above. Before the power went out for the first and last time, that was. And so, even though the view still was fit to take one's breath away, your enjoyment was poisoned by what you should have seen but didn't.
"No." You say, you decide as you rise from the bench you sat on. "We're… we're not winning this as we are. At best, it's an expensive draw. At the worst, that maniac…" You shake your head. "No. No doubts worth the words."
She sighs. "Just as headstrong as ever… I still remember, you know, when you wanted to learn how to drive a skyflitter." You nod. "They never did clean that crater up, did they?"
She chuckles with a nod before her smile fades and turns to lead the way to where you'll be given the engrams. "I hope you don't find a reason to change your mind then."
You're dreaming, you know that. Somewhere in yourself, you know that.
It doesn't keep you from crying as the towers fall. It doesn't keep you from crying as the heroes die. They die gallant deaths, brave and bold and bright, but die they do in the face of the shadow that looms over all. The engrams won't allow you to turn away from this, not as the monsters flood through every crack in the defenses and leave bloody red death behind, not as the warriors die and die and die holding the line but the line isn't held because the ones who hold it are all dead.
"Engrams are green, integration is proceeding within calculated norms…"
You see it over and over again, on the moon on the earth on realms stranger. You see the shadow rise and the fire come. You see the heroes stand and fight and never ever win as they are dragged down by the oncoming horde that seeks to turn all that has been built into ruin and rubble and ash. You see the war and the battle and the duel and in all aspects, you watch the bloody end. You see monsters in front of men and men driven before monsters and monsters that are men, heroes that fly and heroes that run and even heroes that swim.
"We're getting to the end of the cycle and there's been no worrying signs yet, start getting ready to bring him out of it-He's spiking! Emergency extraction! Now!"
And over and over again, you see it end.
A̴s͘ ͘t́ḩe̡̕ ̡q̴u̸̡͘e̴è́n ̴r͡a͏̢i̷s̸͜e͢s̛ h̛e̷̛r ̷wą́ņ̶d͘͝ a̢nd-̴͠͏
It's been a long night since the dream. You shift in your hospital bed, scowling out the window at the moons above for a moment before you twitch the curtains closed and sigh.
You still have that damn headache, the same one since the engrams… since you got the engrams. The healers say it will eventually, say that it's just because of the spike at the end that overloaded things.
Yet you still could swear you feel something tainted, something that's not supposed to be, just beyond the the limits of your sight.
They say that it's just a sign you aren't used to the engrams yet. You hope they're right.
Either way, you'll be out of here soon. Whatever the side effects, you have an engram now. You won't be left in the healer's halls for much longer. There's work to do awaiting you.
Not that being bed-bound has kept the work away either though. Even before you woke up after that spike at the end (and the memory you dare not remember stirs once more as you force your train of thought to think of something besides-), they were tapping the data as soon as the engrams stabilized to get initial pre-production started. It's not much yet, mostly just trying to make sense of the output, but there's already a few flash clones about. A bodyguard squad so far, essentially, silver mail gleaming in the mage-lights… no, electric lights, that's just the engram again.
You glance over at the door again, taking in the guard, Yes, gleaming silver mail over a padded cloth gambison (not enchanted, not yet, not like it should be, neither the mail nor the underlayer), a simple domed helm with earguards, good boots and gauntlets, a short blade at her side for close quarters work and a spear in hand, lightning waiting to be released at a foe.
Not the best you've ever worked with-ever remember working with, but a well enough equipped guardswomen of the kingdom. Or so your memories say.
Of course, there's not a lot of them yet either. Most of the production and enhancement effort since you were enchante-, no, had the engrams installed was for something more ambitious. At least according to the paperwork. If you had the timing right, she should be here just about-..., yes, by the sound of voices from beyond the door, your new champion was here as expected.
[ ][Champion] The Ritualist (Pacts made without even starlight to witness.)
-Ah, you see her now. Yes, the Ritualist, mistress of ceremony, caller upon oaths, lady of the stellar lights. You remember her well, and for all her lack of personal power, her wisdom and lore has turned more then one war's course… or so you recall. (The strategic stage choice. The rituals she works allows for more varied options or increased speed of execution… if you can pay for them. What ancient oaths may yet arise from neverborn times?)
[ ][Champion] The Blademistress: (What use is a dream, forsaken?)
-You remember the sword on her hip before you remember her face. Many the foe has fell to its tip, and more have been harvested by its edge. What bonds may hold the unbindable, what foe stand against the undefeated? Or so the dreams whisper under the fading moon. (The combat specialist. Few foes exist she can not cut down, but her skills outside of direct combat are more lacking. The will to bring justice with the strike of a blade.)
[ ][Champion] The Elementalist (What does it mean, for fire to hope?)
-Her presence is heralded by the air even before she enters the room, the breeze shifting and patterns of heat and cold radiating from her passage. Memories that never were whisper of the blaze that brings ruin to your foes and thunder that shelters against the enemy, come again. (A generalist choice, able to help in combat, lead troops, conduct research, and provide logistics support. If, of course, not as well as a specialist. What blood is shared between fire and ice?)
[ ][Champion] The Mystic (Lest the old blood prove true.)
-It's something of a struggle for her to fit her staff through the door, thing is far too tall as always, and the myriad of symbols on her robes, random and scattered at random, seems worth a laugh. But in the whispers of times that were not you remember advice, wisdom, and aid granted freely and with exacting placement. As should be expected of a visionary. (The information specialist, including both scrying and research as well as being a decent commander. Of course, her skills at direct action are more limited. At what price comes the vision too far?)
You smile, and hide the sorrow that strikes your heart. You made this sacrifice so that others would not need to, and yet here your best friend stands. Yet, by what right do you have to spurn her sacrifice after you made your own? No right at all.
And so you smile, and raise your voice in greeting as you put aside the last of the paperwork needed to prove you still remember who you are.
Name and gender, eh? Almost feels like an overused joke.
[ ][Identity] Personal (deciding who you are)
-[ ] Name (write in)
-[ ] "Are you a boy or girl?"
Champion
[ ][Champion] The Ritualist (Pacts made without even starlight to witness.)
[ ][Champion] The Blademistress: (What use is a dream, forsaken?)
[ ][Champion] The Elementalist (What does it mean, for fire to hope?)
[ ][Champion] The Mystic (Lest the old blood prove true.)
But the gleaming age is over.
The question of whether it was some disaster, some great act of hubris, or even enemy action is beyond the ken of those that have lived through the fall, for their minds must be more focused on mere survival. For with the end of the infinite river of energy that mankind was delighted to dip their fingers into and drink as they wilt came the end of the gleaming towers and great works of civilization. Now for those that look upon the works of man, only ruin remains.
But mankind survives yet, where survivors have found shelter from the storm and the drought and the gnawing hungers they have never before known in those times when all they desired was but a thought away. They live clustered around the few remaining sources of energy that exist upon these broken worlds, those remaining power plants that are fit to power a fabrication center. And though the dream of the gleaming age might be over, mankind still turns towards their dreams for hope and succor.
For it is from the ancient dreams and stories and histories of Man That Was that the survivors, inexperienced and unaware of how to build a military, turned to in their time of need. Born again through the engrams of war, you are one of the few who have the traits needed for the successful and survivable use of this critical technology. By implanting the knowledge and will to use it into a volunteer it is possible to skip learning many of the lessons of war the long and hard way. Now the dreams and stories of mankind march once again into the cauldron of battle.
— — —
"Any last doubts?" The assistant sent to fetch you asks as the two of you gaze out over the starlit sky. It was an impressive view. It still was, really, even without the gleaming lights that once sprinkled the sky as advertisements shined down upon the world below from the rings above. Before the power went out for the first and last time, that was. And so, even though the view still was fit to take one's breath away, your enjoyment was poisoned by what you should have seen but didn't.
"No." You say, you decide as you rise from the bench you sat on. "We're… we're not winning this as we are. At best, it's an expensive draw. At the worst, that maniac…" You shake your head. "No. No doubts worth the words."
She sighs. "Just as headstrong as ever… I still remember, you know, when you wanted to learn how to drive a skyflitter." You nod. "They never did clean that crater up, did they?"
She chuckles with a nod before her smile fades and turns to lead the way to where you'll be given the engrams. "I hope you don't find a reason to change your mind then."
— — —
You're dreaming, you know that. Somewhere in yourself, you know that.
It doesn't keep you from crying as the towers fall. It doesn't keep you from crying as the heroes die. They die gallant deaths, brave and bold and bright, but die they do in the face of the shadow that looms over all. The engrams won't allow you to turn away from this, not as the monsters flood through every crack in the defenses and leave bloody red death behind, not as the warriors die and die and die holding the line but the line isn't held because the ones who hold it are all dead.
"Engrams are green, integration is proceeding within calculated norms…"
You see it over and over again, on the moon on the earth on realms stranger. You see the shadow rise and the fire come. You see the heroes stand and fight and never ever win as they are dragged down by the oncoming horde that seeks to turn all that has been built into ruin and rubble and ash. You see the war and the battle and the duel and in all aspects, you watch the bloody end. You see monsters in front of men and men driven before monsters and monsters that are men, heroes that fly and heroes that run and even heroes that swim.
"We're getting to the end of the cycle and there's been no worrying signs yet, start getting ready to bring him out of it-He's spiking! Emergency extraction! Now!"
And over and over again, you see it end.
A̴s͘ ͘t́ḩe̡̕ ̡q̴u̸̡͘e̴è́n ̴r͡a͏̢i̷s̸͜e͢s̛ h̛e̷̛r ̷wą́ņ̶d͘͝ a̢nd-̴͠͏
— — —
It's been a long night since the dream. You shift in your hospital bed, scowling out the window at the moons above for a moment before you twitch the curtains closed and sigh.
You still have that damn headache, the same one since the engrams… since you got the engrams. The healers say it will eventually, say that it's just because of the spike at the end that overloaded things.
Yet you still could swear you feel something tainted, something that's not supposed to be, just beyond the the limits of your sight.
They say that it's just a sign you aren't used to the engrams yet. You hope they're right.
Either way, you'll be out of here soon. Whatever the side effects, you have an engram now. You won't be left in the healer's halls for much longer. There's work to do awaiting you.
Not that being bed-bound has kept the work away either though. Even before you woke up after that spike at the end (and the memory you dare not remember stirs once more as you force your train of thought to think of something besides-), they were tapping the data as soon as the engrams stabilized to get initial pre-production started. It's not much yet, mostly just trying to make sense of the output, but there's already a few flash clones about. A bodyguard squad so far, essentially, silver mail gleaming in the mage-lights… no, electric lights, that's just the engram again.
You glance over at the door again, taking in the guard, Yes, gleaming silver mail over a padded cloth gambison (not enchanted, not yet, not like it should be, neither the mail nor the underlayer), a simple domed helm with earguards, good boots and gauntlets, a short blade at her side for close quarters work and a spear in hand, lightning waiting to be released at a foe.
Not the best you've ever worked with-ever remember working with, but a well enough equipped guardswomen of the kingdom. Or so your memories say.
Of course, there's not a lot of them yet either. Most of the production and enhancement effort since you were enchante-, no, had the engrams installed was for something more ambitious. At least according to the paperwork. If you had the timing right, she should be here just about-..., yes, by the sound of voices from beyond the door, your new champion was here as expected.
[ ][Champion] The Ritualist (Pacts made without even starlight to witness.)
-Ah, you see her now. Yes, the Ritualist, mistress of ceremony, caller upon oaths, lady of the stellar lights. You remember her well, and for all her lack of personal power, her wisdom and lore has turned more then one war's course… or so you recall. (The strategic stage choice. The rituals she works allows for more varied options or increased speed of execution… if you can pay for them. What ancient oaths may yet arise from neverborn times?)
[ ][Champion] The Blademistress: (What use is a dream, forsaken?)
-You remember the sword on her hip before you remember her face. Many the foe has fell to its tip, and more have been harvested by its edge. What bonds may hold the unbindable, what foe stand against the undefeated? Or so the dreams whisper under the fading moon. (The combat specialist. Few foes exist she can not cut down, but her skills outside of direct combat are more lacking. The will to bring justice with the strike of a blade.)
[ ][Champion] The Elementalist (What does it mean, for fire to hope?)
-Her presence is heralded by the air even before she enters the room, the breeze shifting and patterns of heat and cold radiating from her passage. Memories that never were whisper of the blaze that brings ruin to your foes and thunder that shelters against the enemy, come again. (A generalist choice, able to help in combat, lead troops, conduct research, and provide logistics support. If, of course, not as well as a specialist. What blood is shared between fire and ice?)
[ ][Champion] The Mystic (Lest the old blood prove true.)
-It's something of a struggle for her to fit her staff through the door, thing is far too tall as always, and the myriad of symbols on her robes, random and scattered at random, seems worth a laugh. But in the whispers of times that were not you remember advice, wisdom, and aid granted freely and with exacting placement. As should be expected of a visionary. (The information specialist, including both scrying and research as well as being a decent commander. Of course, her skills at direct action are more limited. At what price comes the vision too far?)
You smile, and hide the sorrow that strikes your heart. You made this sacrifice so that others would not need to, and yet here your best friend stands. Yet, by what right do you have to spurn her sacrifice after you made your own? No right at all.
And so you smile, and raise your voice in greeting as you put aside the last of the paperwork needed to prove you still remember who you are.
Name and gender, eh? Almost feels like an overused joke.
[ ][Identity] Personal (deciding who you are)
-[ ] Name (write in)
-[ ] "Are you a boy or girl?"
— — —
Collected Vote OptionsChampion
[ ][Champion] The Ritualist (Pacts made without even starlight to witness.)
[ ][Champion] The Blademistress: (What use is a dream, forsaken?)
[ ][Champion] The Elementalist (What does it mean, for fire to hope?)
[ ][Champion] The Mystic (Lest the old blood prove true.)
National Status
Military Status
Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
Military Status
Arcadian First Expeditionary Force
1st Noble Banner (200/200)
-Captain:
-Conscript Infantry (decreased quality, doubled quantity)(200/200) - Minimal Casualties
-Confident Green
2nd Noble Banner (200/200)
-Captain:
-Conscript Infantry (decreased quality, doubled quantity)(200/200) - Minimal Casualties
-Confident Green
3rd Noble Banner (124/124)
-Captain:
-Line Infantry (100/100) - Minimal Casualties
-Assault Specialty (A focus on shock tactics and high speed aggression.)
-Artificer Weapon Platoon (6x Stormwind Projector Teams, 24/24) - Very Minimal Casualties
-Confident Trained
1st Combat Witch Wing (72/72)
-Elite Combat Witches (increased quality, decreased quantity) (24/24)
-Support personnel
-Healer Magi Detachment (24/24)
-Logistics Detachment (24/24)
-Confident Regular
Blademistress Evaine, Champion (1/1)
-Hero (1/1)
-Paragon of the Sword, Mistress of the Melee, Hunter of Horrors.
-Unbreakable Seasoned
Arcadian First Expeditionary Force
1st Noble Banner (200/200)
-Captain:
-Conscript Infantry (decreased quality, doubled quantity)(200/200) - Minimal Casualties
-Confident Green
2nd Noble Banner (200/200)
-Captain:
-Conscript Infantry (decreased quality, doubled quantity)(200/200) - Minimal Casualties
-Confident Green
3rd Noble Banner (124/124)
-Captain:
-Line Infantry (100/100) - Minimal Casualties
-Assault Specialty (A focus on shock tactics and high speed aggression.)
-Artificer Weapon Platoon (6x Stormwind Projector Teams, 24/24) - Very Minimal Casualties
-Confident Trained
1st Combat Witch Wing (72/72)
-Elite Combat Witches (increased quality, decreased quantity) (24/24)
-Support personnel
-Healer Magi Detachment (24/24)
-Logistics Detachment (24/24)
-Confident Regular
Blademistress Evaine, Champion (1/1)
-Hero (1/1)
-Paragon of the Sword, Mistress of the Melee, Hunter of Horrors.
-Unbreakable Seasoned
Last edited:
Turn 0-B
Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
[X][Identity] The Boy Who Would Be King
-[X] Erin Pendragon
-[X] Boy
No. of Votes: 6
[X] shaderic
[X] ALanos
[X] Astra Myst
[X] Babooie18
[X] Birthday
[X] DaLintyGuy
[X][Champion] The Blademistress: (What use is a dream, forsaken?)
No. of Votes: 9
[X] Babooie18
[X] Astra Myst
[X] Derpmind
[X] Desire
[X] Haruhi is Waifu
[X] Nanolyte
[X] NickAragua
[X] Parzival95
[X] RandyTrevelyan
-[X] Erin Pendragon
-[X] Boy
No. of Votes: 6
[X] shaderic
[X] ALanos
[X] Astra Myst
[X] Babooie18
[X] Birthday
[X] DaLintyGuy
[X][Champion] The Blademistress: (What use is a dream, forsaken?)
No. of Votes: 9
[X] Babooie18
[X] Astra Myst
[X] Derpmind
[X] Desire
[X] Haruhi is Waifu
[X] Nanolyte
[X] NickAragua
[X] Parzival95
[X] RandyTrevelyan
It looks wrong to see your oldest friend with a sword.
That's the first thought that strikes you, for all the dreams of the engrams whisper that the sight is correct, right, more then proper.
It looks wrong to see your oldest friend with a sword. It looks wrong to see her in armor, shining mail and cleanly forged helm alike. It looks wrong to see the eyes so often turned to the sky with dreams and hopes and plans for the future now turned towards the ground in the name of the swift stroke of death.
It looks wrong.
But life itself has been wrong lately, and how can you not notice how she too flinches for a moment when she sees you in your uniform, so unlike the crafter's smock you once wore? If she is wrong then so are you.
But still, you mourn that it has come to this.
And so you keep your face steady and calm when she kneels and informs her lord that her blade awaits your commands. You both must play your roles, the roles given to you by the engrams if you wish to find that gleaming age reborn once more, and the minds of humanity turned again to hope instead of war.
Though, granted, first you'll have to make sure you survive the current troubles.
Rise, you ask of her… no, you command her as her lord. And rise your
You take her in, truly and fully for the first time, no longer distracted (or so you tell yourself) by memories of bygone times. You see her sword, bright steel showing the quality of her smith and inlaid with the runes to channel her mystic might (you see her sword, deadly metal forged from an alloy selected for superior physical characteristics built down to the atomic scale by the matter printer, access codes for the mesh inlaid under the surface as to use the sword as a control key). You see her dress, cut shorter in the front then the rear and even there reaching barely past her knees, adorned with the ribbons that show her rank and station, woven from the finest alchemical silk and with tokens of her valor shown (you see her dress, computational nanofabric scattered with local control clusters and left with a multipurpose broadband control array disguised as cosmetic streamers awaiting upgrades and specialized module installation). You see her face, tiara adorning her brow and sacred orbs woven into her twin tailed hair, meditative focuses and arcane devices as one (you see her face, mind-machine secure interface resting on her forehead to assist in fine control and emergency computational boost cores attached to her head through nanofiber links disguised as hair).
More esoteric senses take her in as well, allowing you to feel the weight of her power awaiting her will to tap it, the spiritual potency that can allow her blows to shatter walls and scythe through monsters, the awareness of a blademaster of all within their blade's reach (your integrated sensors reach and see the less obvious sights, taste the high capacity power core and attached micro-reactor embedded within her, echo off the reinforcements on her bones and woven through her flesh that allows her to take on vehicles and fortress at even odds, and are detected in turn by the compressed sensor array built into her skull).
And you know that just as you see her, she sees you.
You wonder what she sees almost as much as you don't want to know.
Now that you're out of the recovery ward, you've been given access to the current state of affairs, and it's worse then you originally thought. The data available is still essentially the same, granted, but experience, even experience faked and dreamborn, crafted from enchantment, er, the engrams, matters.
And that experience tells you that things are fucked.
This is the situation you find yourself in. Your faction of survivors is located on the west end of what was once the Arcadian Island Resort, clustered around the Tidal Power Cluster built into the base of the Arcadian Bridge that connects the island to the mainland with a 'mere' thirty mile span. The Tidal Power Cluster is supplemented by a limited amount of wind and solar plants produced since the collapse, but still remains the primary local power source that ensures the food-printers work and, unfortunately, that your faction's first commander maintains her forces in functional condition.
For you are not the only faction of survivors on this island. From the east end lay the island's other primary power source, a geothermal reactor plant that in the early time of the collapse found survivors had clustered around it for the same reason they clustered around the tidal generators on the west side. Unfortunately for you, them, and everyone else, while they also decided to create an Engram Commander, the process for them went… wrong.
The results of said 'going wrong' are what has kept the first commander and her droid forces from being able to do anything but maintain a grinding stalemate against the east, for the eastern commander has apparently succumbed to a full personality collapse under the weight of the engram's false memories. Now, in the name of their emperor, company upon company of nerve stapled flash-cloned conscripts swarm out from the east to purge what they consider heresy (basically everything) and force all they encounter into imperial compliance.
Opposing them are the forces of the First Commander, bearing the engrams of a nation known as the Confederation of Independent Systems. Her mass built droid armies stand in the way of the self proclaimed Krieg Commander, locked in a grinding war of trenches.
It is a war she is, as you can now see with the benefit of possessing actual (if false) experience, slowly losing. It is a loss of inches per month, generally speaking, but it is still a loss. A full sixty percent of the total power capacity of the island has been routed to her, with the remaining forty percent needed to sustain food production, medical support, and basic 'not freezing to death' quality of life functions for the assembled civilian population such as the essential three meals a day, the communal recreation fund, the educational holo-room, and so on. You know, the necessities of life (wait a minute, why does that feel off?). The enemy does not care about maintaining basic civilian quality of life, and so they are slowly grinding the First Commander down.
This is the real reason the expense of awakening a second commander has been improved, repurposing emergency energy reserves and risking crop failure from redirected power to fuel the creation of your own force. You must cross the bridge to the mainland, penetrate the crashed flying city that lies on its far end that has so far blockaded any efforts to explore or expand in that direction, and find either the additional resources or allies that can break the stalemate in the Arcadian Survivor's Commune's favor.
No pressure.
— — —
In the Gleaming Age, the time of the expansive factorized mass production line has long been over. Instead, production normally utilized advanced 3D printer arrays, capable of utilizing direct energy to matter transmutation to create the desired product, whatever that product is.
As such, as the Engram Commanders rise, the primary resource you and those like you must be concerned with is Energy. It is Energy that powers your forces, it is Energy that is used to create your force's gear and the arcane implants that let them use magic, and it is Energy which fuels the bio-vats from which clones are produced and flash trained to serve in your army.
Said army will be a vital part of your efforts to build a viable nation in these trying times, what with the struggle to acquire existing energy sources, technology, and fabrication capacity in order to get more of all of the above.
In terms of gameplay, the current basic unit is the company. Bought in companies with a number of slots for support platoons (two) plus a Specialization (rather than adding anything these affect how things function, replacing basic soldiers with additional specialists or altering gear loadouts to better function at specific tasks in return for lowered generalist functionality).
Unfortunately due to the demands of the ongoing trench war through the middle of the island, as B1 Battledroids clash with Imperial Guard Conscripts, you currently have no actual energy income as all power non-vital to civilian survival has been rerouted to support the CIS Commander.
Fortunately, you have been given access to all the emergency reserve power that has been built up during said grinding stalemate, a total amounting to eighteen (18) Energy with which you can purchase your starting forces. You'll need to use these forces to cross the expansive Arcadian Bridge to the mainland and find a power source to gain an actual income. Unfortunately, a formerly flying city has crash landed at the far end of the bridge and as a result of the damage the city's security forces have so far interdicted any attempts to explore or bypass said crashed city.
However, for those security forces to still be operational, they must have either an energy source of their own or some sort of energy reserve. If they can be subdued and said source or reserve claimed, the city would make a fine breach-head onto the continent from which further efforts could be mounted.
— — —
You have eighteen (18) Energy to produce forces with.Voting will be By Plan and By Plan Alone
Vote Template
[ ] Plan Name
-[ ] Unit Type (X Energy)
--[ ] Specialization or Support Attachment
-[ ] Unit Type (X Energy)
--[ ] Specialization or Support Attachment
-[ ] Unit Type (X Energy)
--[ ] Specialization or Support Attachment
INITIAL FORCE PRODUCTION LIST
Arcane Line Infantry/Noble Household Troops (3 Energy): The common soldier needed for holding territory and supporting every other unit. They consist of three combat platoons, a leadership squad, and a fourth platoon's worth of support personnel to keep the unit functioning. Troops are magically enhanced for superior physical capacity and armed with a variety of low level enchanted gear, mostly but not only limited to weapons.
-Company Champions (1 Energy): Adds a sprinkling of elite mahou shoujo throughout the unit as squad commanders and banner bearers for increased leadership and combat power.
-Household Mages (2 Energy): Adds a squad of support magi to the company, increasing the unit's strategic and logistical flexibility.
Heavy Arcane Guard/Royal Guard (6 Energy): High value equipment concentrated onto the best generally available troops. The expense of wide scale deployment of enchanted gear is only made worthwhile by the striking power of such a formation. They normally consist of three combat platoons, a leadership squad, and a support platoon to keep their high quality gear combat worthy.
-Company Champions (2 Energy): Adds a sprinkling of elite mahou shoujo throughout the unit as squad commanders and banner bearers for increased leadership and combat power.
Arcane Riders/Noble Cavalry Unit (3 Energy): A unit of noble household troops equipped with fine-bred steeds. Such mounts allow for easy travel over rough terrain without needing valuable fuel or mage attention, but greatly limit the amount of heavy equipment a company can carry.
-Arcane Engines (1 Energy): Trading in the enhanced horses for artificer created mounts comes with benefits to speed, carrying capacity, and toughness, but also limits the company due to the need for continual artificer support to keep these wondrous mounts functional.
Light Warbeast Host/Lesser Monster Packs (6 Energy): Lesser warbeasts designed more for speed and endurance then peak combat power, bringing vehicle level combat assets into the fight. Consists of four packs with attached handlers and a command/support squad to provide leadership.
-Heavy Warbeast Leader (2 Energy): Adds a heavy warbeast and an advanced handler to control it to the lead pack, providing enhanced combat power and toughness.
Heavy Warbeast Host/Greater Monster Packs (8 Energy): Heavy warbeasts fit to take and give astounding amounts of damage. While powerful they are not especially power efficient and can be hard to control leading to lower then desired combat endurance. But in the fight few can match them.
Sky Rider Squadron/Witch Militia Flight (1 Energy): Irregular infantry mounted on enchanted devices that allow for low level flight and given training for scouting and aerial survey efforts. They are low profile and hard to detect, but the young witches have very limited self defense capacity.
Air Mage Wing/Combat Witch Wing (4 Energy): Combat trained casters mounted on enchanted flying implements trained more for engaging other fliers or harassing ground forces then high intensity battles. They consist of three squadrons of twelve witches, plus ground based support crews.
-Company Champions (1 Energy): Adds a sprinkling of elite mahou shoujo throughout the unit as squad commanders and banner bearers for increased leadership and combat power.
Lesser Skybeast Host/Airborne Monster Packs (6 Energy): Light warbeasts can be adapted for flight and airborne operations to create a Skybeast Host. Like their ground bound brethren they are grown more with an eye towards speed and operational stamina then maximized combat power, and while adapted for airborne combat they are not true specialists in that field. However they are still almost as capable on the ground as a normal warbeast host is.
Support: Various kinds of supporting troops that can be attached to a field formation. Max two per Company.
-Combat Magi Detachment (2 Energy): A general support platoon that consists of specialized Combat Magi capable of deploying direct or indirect advanced combat effects. They provide the company with generalized enhanced support. (Infantry)
-War Engine Detachment (2 Energy): A platoon's worth of light arcane war engines like lighting ballista or implosion cannons that can be used for anti-warbeast or vehicle support.
-Artificer Weapon Platoon (2 Energy): Adds a platoon of crew served enchanted weapons and the artificers needed to use and maintain them. A middle ground option between infantry scale gear and proper enchanted war engines in both power and mobility.
-Healer Magi Detachment (2 Energy): A medically trained mage and their assistants, utilizing basic tools and medicine to treat field wounds rather than merely stabilize the patient or slow their death until they can be moved to the rear. Providing support on a scale fit to benefit a company is somewhat energy expensive however..
-Logistics (1 Energy): Trained beasts and conscripted labor troops to strengthen the logistical support train of the unit.
-Reinforced (1 Energy): Two additional platoons of soldiers are attached to the formation as basic combatants. Can serve as security troops for warbeast handlers or flight capable units if attached to such.
Specialization : A company can be specialized in several ways. This specialization gives advantages, but always has a trade off. Unless said otherwise a company can have only one specialization.
- CQB: A greater emphasis on close quarters combat and capability. Replaces lighting projectors with enchanted blades, an increased supply of close combat talismans, additional melee training, a wider distribution of shields, and so forth .
- Long Range: A greater emphasis on long ranged skirmishing and accuracy, giving the unit enhanced indirect fire capacities and generally increasing their ability to function in ranged combat. This comes at expense to close-action capability due to diversion of troops and functionality.
- Sapper: Additional engineering kits and explosive experts are added at the squad level, as well as a diversion of mage training into geomancy, earthmoving, trap detection, and so forth, or the mutation of warbeasts for constructive purposes. Useful for creating and bringing down obstacles.
- Assault: Lighter equipment and emphasis on shock tactics to achieve rapid aggressive attacks rushing at the enemy. The unit becomes offensive-oriented with fewer options defensively.
- Communications: Additional messaging gear and specialists are added to the unit, improving coordination between components and with other units. Also adds tactical scying capabilities.
- Conscripts: Deliberately using low-grade vatforms and equipment quality to field more troops. Doubles unit size at a cost to quality.
- Elites: Cutting unit size to allow for more growth and development time for the vatform troops. Improved neural implants, skill downloads, and equipment gives a sizable bonus to quality at the cost of decreasing the unit size by a third and increasing dependence on the supply line.
Turn 0-C
Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
You overlook your new army uneasily. It's a poor muster, when all is said and done. Only three units of Household troops, and two of said units…
Well, they mustered, so it's better than nothing, but you have to resist the urge to flinch at the sight of a wand with silver foil peeling off the oak beneath. Don't those idiots know what that does to the power flows? Really, you don't know what those households are thinking showing up like that, even the lowest nobility should be able to afford better than tha-...
Wait, wait. Right, no, you ordered that. Conscript units, less energy expenditure from the budget oriented implants and gear needed for them, lower standards in the clone vats resulting in faster growth resulting in larger unit sizes, you don't need to go find their nobles and strangle them for giving you such utter trash- No, no, not their fault. Don't let yourself get wrapped in character enough to forget it.
Forcing yourself to look at what you have, rather than what you wish you did, you walk up to a trooper and take them in. The face that looks at you is young. Too young, some would say, midteen faces glancing at you with curiosity and trustthat you've never earned as you try to place their ages more precisely before you give it up for lack of experience as your memories conflict within. For a moment a sense of discontinuity opens within you, part of you rejecting this while another part considers it regrettable but normal. Normal for children to go off to war to kill and die in the name of queen and banner, when the enemy hammers at the walls to deny any future to all those within. A necessary sacrifice. For all that, the young man is girded in alchemically reinforced (otherwise known as ballistic fiber) cloth armor with a number of metal plates over the thighs, chest, and head. In one hand a short spear is gripped, crystal blade gleaming dully, while the other is covered by a shield of metal faced wood lacking the normal silver-gold adornments on which enchantments would be anchored. On their waist lies a short handaxe of acceptably worked iron, lacking the enchantments of more noble materials but still functional. When you move on, the young soldier slumps in palpable relief.
In the wake of confronting the normality of children in combat, the chance to shift your attention to your third company is met with a sense of relief. You really need to find out who's household banner it is, because unlike the other two household units who've rallied to your muster… er, who've been trained and produced for this venture, they're actually properly equipped. As you walk past them in the unit inspection, you note the abundance of bracers and rings over more ranged foci, the extra shield talismans, the ribbon-patterns that indicate specialists in burst movement and short duration flight and nod with satisfaction. Of course they also possess light hand weapons as backup tools, though as proper household troops they possess more variability then the unified gear of the massed levies, each warrior armed and equipped as befits their skills by their lord or lady.
Your main complaint about your third banner is simply that you wish you had more of them, when all is said and done. With the levies making up the bulk of your force, having a solid close assault banner at your disposal to actually take ground could be lifesaving. The artificer crew attached to the unit and the stormwind projectors they service aren't anything to scoff at either, giving the unit additional punch from the lightning arcs the projectors chain across enemies. Not the most useful things versus targets with heavy defenses, but good at dealing with the swarms some dark lords put out (oh powers you can smell the smell even though you never smelled it).
Now if only you could remember the name of this banner's noble... Well, you're sure it will come to you eventually. You'll have to make sure to mention her in your dispatches to the crown, being as she's the only one who showed up with a properly equipped banner. The other two banners, well, if you mention them it won't be to their benefit. The assault banner would be best fit to escort your champion on whatever mission you assign her, though to be fair it is also true that the other two banners are in far more need of help and oversight.
Lastly beyond the Household Troops lies what is probably your true trump card. A full wing of combat witches on attachment from her highness to represent the importance of this front-, a full wing of elite broom riding air witches you mean, the highest costing force asset you've produced, brooms held proudly and ready for mounting, black cloaks enchanted to resist enemy scrying and reduce the rider to but a shadow in sunlight while in combat, tall hats enchanted to protect them from blinding sun glare, and each witch bearing a pouch or satchel full of battle consumables, whether they be potions, talismans, or stranger connections. Limited in staying power, to be sure, but an intensity of firepower you are well pleased to possess, and would be pleased to possess even without the specialist medical witches arrayed behind the combat witch squadrons, themselves flanked with the rumbling groans of the logistical units labor-beasts (reptilian quadrupeds with blunt faces that Blademistress Evaine dug out of a genebank provided by your allied Commander), flanks adorned with mana crystals to recharge reserves and pack upon barrel of combat-items for use in the fighting.
It's not enough, not nearly enough numbers going by the data gained from the war to the east, but it's what you have and it is what you shall have to use despite the irregular desire to strange whatever nobles let their household troops degrade until they could only provide massed levies to the muster. But going by the war records you may well be glad to have them and their large ranks, needed to cover territory and frontage and occupy the enemy.
Or so says the war to the east, and that is the war your people have learned from. Even your engram agrees that numbers matter. No matter how great a champion is, they can only be in one place at one time. Well, in any sane condition but not even the most crazed dark lord would dare to open a paradox war, right? No matter how assured a champion's victory may be, if the enemy fixes them in place with enough foes and yet still has enough to flow past them, that victory may yet become but the ashes of those you meant to defend. No matter how many may end up sacrificed in doing so.
And so, with one final salutations and flourish to and from you to your forces, you and they begin to travel down the Arcadian Bridge to seek their destiny at the fallen city of Sky-Dorado, the City of Adamant. For a moment your nerves itched at the back of your brain, fake combat trained instincts whispering to you that something is wrong, something is off, before you grow puzzled. Why are you surprised that the population hasn't turned out to cheer for their protectors? War is nothing to cheer about… right?Wrong, whispers the back of your mind, for why would one ignore their family as they risk all?
Normally, experience tells you you'd need to consider civil affairs during your missions, for to ignore civilization in these trying times is to see it fall, but given your utter lack of spare energy and actual civilians, this isn't something you need to deal with right now.
Military Production
Normally, experience tells you that you really need to spend some attention on logistics and other affairs of Military Production, to keep the muster going and your armies reinforced. Normally, you have actual resources to do that with and production sites to use them. Right now you don't and can't.
Military Affairs
Normally you'd need to balance effort and resources spent on these with your other concerns, but right now the question would be 'what other concerns'? This is a combat operation, not a strategic interval.
As such, you'll need to get right into the current mission.
You, Evraine (in her full war panoply), and your banner officers are arranged in a quickly erected shelter set atop what was once a residence. The engraved stone balcony is now overlooking the just seized bridgehead into the city, broken buildings spilled across where the massive span connected to the shore. The area is not fully secured, as levy troops methodically pick through fallen structures to ensure nothing is missed, but it's secured enough to plan your next steps. If you leaned your head around the structure, off of the broken ceramic and metal that was once the end of the balcony, you would be able to see the field base that your assembled soldiery was operating out of. Tents, mostly, with some walls arranged via magical might to shelter more… volatile, equipment.
As could be expected of a fallen sky city, Sky-Dorado lies in ruins, with most structures at least partially collapsed. Travel through the city is not a simple undertaking with the roads covered in rubble or wreckage of structures or vehicles alike, and limited amounts of combat damage can be seen in some places showing that the city has not been peaceful since its landing. More dangerous and more valuable then broken stone is the shattered machinery of the city, most but not all drained of energy and scavenged for spare parts by the local population. Even broken as the city is, it remains a treasure trove of potential feedstock and scavengable resources.
Only the most basic intelligence has been gained so far through initial levy exploration and fast overflights, but enough intelligence has been gained to be aware of several objectives that could be pursued from hereon as well as the types of foes you can likely expect to encounter. As with most cities in the Gleaming Age, Sky-Dorado possessed a considerable force of androids for city upkeep and functions, which most definitely includes security androids given that a squad of said security androids threatened off your initial scouts when they got too close to the city core. As well, even the originally civilian androids have had their learning programs stressed and overloaded by the cataclysm, and now commonly sport improvised combat modifications to their original frames. Lastly, the city seemed to have possessed at least some number of larger constructs done up in a theme of stone and noble metals, worked in a fashion you do not recognize offhand. While most of these seem specialized for construction, even a limited number of vehicle grade security golems are no laughing matter for your current forces to face. Only the Sky Witches are in possession of the weapons needed to reliably bring down such foes, though Evaine is of the opinion your assault company wouldn't be helpless if chance brought them against the golems.
The first objective is that of the shore-side tidal generators. Just like the island of Arcadia, the 'shore-side' to the bridge also possessed and operated a cluster of tidal power generators which if still intact would give your forces some vitally needed power production. Of course, they are also buried under the ruins of the city and initial probes have reported a considerable number of combat adapted civilian androids dwelling within the underuins that will have to be punched through or otherwise dispersed in order to seize the tidal generators. In many cases their behavior seems almost feral, learning programs overwhelmed by the magnitude of the changes that have befallen their home. Few if any seem open to diplomacy.
The second objective is the city's central power reserves. While the zero point energy tap is as nonfunctional as all the rest (you can see the crater left from where it exploded even from the mustering ground, forming the main crack that resulted when the city impacted the ground) the city possessed a considerable array of solar power panels as a backup supply and they all feed into the central reserves. Well, they all do now that the security forces have requisitioned them from the local housing units. If it was captured, all of that power would be yours. Of course it is also the center of reported enemy activity as both the security androids meant to guide visitors around the city and the larger scale security and construction automatons found within the city need a continual supply of power to keep functioning, resulting in the reserves being heavily garrisoned. While it will be a direct fight, a battle to seize the reserves will be of high intensity, and therefore likely high in casualties.
The third possible objective is the city's 'Green Quarter', the sky gardens where the city grew its food and other plant-originating resources. These plants would feed your soldiers and while any resulting reagents would almost certainly be of very low grade (or, as Evraine reminds you after a second of thought, provide some biofuel to turn to usable energy), being able to support the home island with additional food and organic feedstock would be of considerable morale value and encourage the allocation of additional resources to your expedition. The downside is that unlike the other two options the sky gardens cover a considerable area of the city, and will be difficult to defend properly. Especially as many civilian or security androids alike seem to be occupying the area for whatever reason, if in a widely scattered pattern, and rooting them all out could take a considerable amount of time.
And so the choice comes to you. Which of the three objectives should be pursued with which forces?
Your companies are listed Here.
Each company may only be assigned to one of the following task
[ ] Tidal Plants : Tunnel fighting against the broken and desperate for a prize with unclear functionality.
-[ ] Companies
[ ] Central Reserve : One army against another, a minimal maneuverability deathmatch for the core of the city.
-[ ] Companies
[ ] Sky Gardens : A wide spread and target rich environment, not as bad as jungle fighting but still a war of numbers and unending minor clashes.
-[ ] Companies
Air units are less tangible than their ground bound brethren, and instead get missions when tasked with direct support of ground operations.
Air Priority
While powerful, your unit of Sky Witches can only be in one place at one time. What should they focus their efforts on achieving?
[ ] Dedicated Support Operations - Choose a specific unit to go all in on supporting.
-[ ] Which Unit?
[ ] Medical Evacuation - Wait for people to start taking injuries and evacuate the casualties to the medical platoon.
[ ] Ground Support - Be on call for airstrikes in general.
[ ] Aerial Superiority - Ensure no enemy fliers interfere with operations.
[ ] Aerial Reconnaissance - Provide air based scouting and informational warfare superiority.
Well, they mustered, so it's better than nothing, but you have to resist the urge to flinch at the sight of a wand with silver foil peeling off the oak beneath. Don't those idiots know what that does to the power flows? Really, you don't know what those households are thinking showing up like that, even the lowest nobility should be able to afford better than tha-...
Wait, wait. Right, no, you ordered that. Conscript units, less energy expenditure from the budget oriented implants and gear needed for them, lower standards in the clone vats resulting in faster growth resulting in larger unit sizes, you don't need to go find their nobles and strangle them for giving you such utter trash- No, no, not their fault. Don't let yourself get wrapped in character enough to forget it.
Forcing yourself to look at what you have, rather than what you wish you did, you walk up to a trooper and take them in. The face that looks at you is young. Too young, some would say, midteen faces glancing at you with curiosity and trust
In the wake of confronting the normality of children in combat, the chance to shift your attention to your third company is met with a sense of relief. You really need to find out who's household banner it is, because unlike the other two household units who've rallied to your muster… er, who've been trained and produced for this venture, they're actually properly equipped. As you walk past them in the unit inspection, you note the abundance of bracers and rings over more ranged foci, the extra shield talismans, the ribbon-patterns that indicate specialists in burst movement and short duration flight and nod with satisfaction. Of course they also possess light hand weapons as backup tools, though as proper household troops they possess more variability then the unified gear of the massed levies, each warrior armed and equipped as befits their skills by their lord or lady.
Your main complaint about your third banner is simply that you wish you had more of them, when all is said and done. With the levies making up the bulk of your force, having a solid close assault banner at your disposal to actually take ground could be lifesaving. The artificer crew attached to the unit and the stormwind projectors they service aren't anything to scoff at either, giving the unit additional punch from the lightning arcs the projectors chain across enemies. Not the most useful things versus targets with heavy defenses, but good at dealing with the swarms some dark lords put out (oh powers you can smell the smell even though you never smelled it).
Now if only you could remember the name of this banner's noble... Well, you're sure it will come to you eventually. You'll have to make sure to mention her in your dispatches to the crown, being as she's the only one who showed up with a properly equipped banner. The other two banners, well, if you mention them it won't be to their benefit. The assault banner would be best fit to escort your champion on whatever mission you assign her, though to be fair it is also true that the other two banners are in far more need of help and oversight.
Lastly beyond the Household Troops lies what is probably your true trump card. A full wing of combat witches on attachment from her highness to represent the importance of this front-, a full wing of elite broom riding air witches you mean, the highest costing force asset you've produced, brooms held proudly and ready for mounting, black cloaks enchanted to resist enemy scrying and reduce the rider to but a shadow in sunlight while in combat, tall hats enchanted to protect them from blinding sun glare, and each witch bearing a pouch or satchel full of battle consumables, whether they be potions, talismans, or stranger connections. Limited in staying power, to be sure, but an intensity of firepower you are well pleased to possess, and would be pleased to possess even without the specialist medical witches arrayed behind the combat witch squadrons, themselves flanked with the rumbling groans of the logistical units labor-beasts (reptilian quadrupeds with blunt faces that Blademistress Evaine dug out of a genebank provided by your allied Commander), flanks adorned with mana crystals to recharge reserves and pack upon barrel of combat-items for use in the fighting.
It's not enough, not nearly enough numbers going by the data gained from the war to the east, but it's what you have and it is what you shall have to use despite the irregular desire to strange whatever nobles let their household troops degrade until they could only provide massed levies to the muster. But going by the war records you may well be glad to have them and their large ranks, needed to cover territory and frontage and occupy the enemy.
Or so says the war to the east, and that is the war your people have learned from. Even your engram agrees that numbers matter. No matter how great a champion is, they can only be in one place at one time. Well, in any sane condition but not even the most crazed dark lord would dare to open a paradox war, right? No matter how assured a champion's victory may be, if the enemy fixes them in place with enough foes and yet still has enough to flow past them, that victory may yet become but the ashes of those you meant to defend. No matter how many may end up sacrificed in doing so.
And so, with one final salutations and flourish to and from you to your forces, you and they begin to travel down the Arcadian Bridge to seek their destiny at the fallen city of Sky-Dorado, the City of Adamant. For a moment your nerves itched at the back of your brain, fake combat trained instincts whispering to you that something is wrong, something is off, before you grow puzzled. Why are you surprised that the population hasn't turned out to cheer for their protectors? War is nothing to cheer about… right?
— — —
Civil AffairsNormally, experience tells you you'd need to consider civil affairs during your missions, for to ignore civilization in these trying times is to see it fall, but given your utter lack of spare energy and actual civilians, this isn't something you need to deal with right now.
Military Production
Normally, experience tells you that you really need to spend some attention on logistics and other affairs of Military Production, to keep the muster going and your armies reinforced. Normally, you have actual resources to do that with and production sites to use them. Right now you don't and can't.
Military Affairs
Normally you'd need to balance effort and resources spent on these with your other concerns, but right now the question would be 'what other concerns'? This is a combat operation, not a strategic interval.
As such, you'll need to get right into the current mission.
You, Evraine (in her full war panoply), and your banner officers are arranged in a quickly erected shelter set atop what was once a residence. The engraved stone balcony is now overlooking the just seized bridgehead into the city, broken buildings spilled across where the massive span connected to the shore. The area is not fully secured, as levy troops methodically pick through fallen structures to ensure nothing is missed, but it's secured enough to plan your next steps. If you leaned your head around the structure, off of the broken ceramic and metal that was once the end of the balcony, you would be able to see the field base that your assembled soldiery was operating out of. Tents, mostly, with some walls arranged via magical might to shelter more… volatile, equipment.
As could be expected of a fallen sky city, Sky-Dorado lies in ruins, with most structures at least partially collapsed. Travel through the city is not a simple undertaking with the roads covered in rubble or wreckage of structures or vehicles alike, and limited amounts of combat damage can be seen in some places showing that the city has not been peaceful since its landing. More dangerous and more valuable then broken stone is the shattered machinery of the city, most but not all drained of energy and scavenged for spare parts by the local population. Even broken as the city is, it remains a treasure trove of potential feedstock and scavengable resources.
Only the most basic intelligence has been gained so far through initial levy exploration and fast overflights, but enough intelligence has been gained to be aware of several objectives that could be pursued from hereon as well as the types of foes you can likely expect to encounter. As with most cities in the Gleaming Age, Sky-Dorado possessed a considerable force of androids for city upkeep and functions, which most definitely includes security androids given that a squad of said security androids threatened off your initial scouts when they got too close to the city core. As well, even the originally civilian androids have had their learning programs stressed and overloaded by the cataclysm, and now commonly sport improvised combat modifications to their original frames. Lastly, the city seemed to have possessed at least some number of larger constructs done up in a theme of stone and noble metals, worked in a fashion you do not recognize offhand. While most of these seem specialized for construction, even a limited number of vehicle grade security golems are no laughing matter for your current forces to face. Only the Sky Witches are in possession of the weapons needed to reliably bring down such foes, though Evaine is of the opinion your assault company wouldn't be helpless if chance brought them against the golems.
The first objective is that of the shore-side tidal generators. Just like the island of Arcadia, the 'shore-side' to the bridge also possessed and operated a cluster of tidal power generators which if still intact would give your forces some vitally needed power production. Of course, they are also buried under the ruins of the city and initial probes have reported a considerable number of combat adapted civilian androids dwelling within the underuins that will have to be punched through or otherwise dispersed in order to seize the tidal generators. In many cases their behavior seems almost feral, learning programs overwhelmed by the magnitude of the changes that have befallen their home. Few if any seem open to diplomacy.
The second objective is the city's central power reserves. While the zero point energy tap is as nonfunctional as all the rest (you can see the crater left from where it exploded even from the mustering ground, forming the main crack that resulted when the city impacted the ground) the city possessed a considerable array of solar power panels as a backup supply and they all feed into the central reserves. Well, they all do now that the security forces have requisitioned them from the local housing units. If it was captured, all of that power would be yours. Of course it is also the center of reported enemy activity as both the security androids meant to guide visitors around the city and the larger scale security and construction automatons found within the city need a continual supply of power to keep functioning, resulting in the reserves being heavily garrisoned. While it will be a direct fight, a battle to seize the reserves will be of high intensity, and therefore likely high in casualties.
The third possible objective is the city's 'Green Quarter', the sky gardens where the city grew its food and other plant-originating resources. These plants would feed your soldiers and while any resulting reagents would almost certainly be of very low grade (or, as Evraine reminds you after a second of thought, provide some biofuel to turn to usable energy), being able to support the home island with additional food and organic feedstock would be of considerable morale value and encourage the allocation of additional resources to your expedition. The downside is that unlike the other two options the sky gardens cover a considerable area of the city, and will be difficult to defend properly. Especially as many civilian or security androids alike seem to be occupying the area for whatever reason, if in a widely scattered pattern, and rooting them all out could take a considerable amount of time.
And so the choice comes to you. Which of the three objectives should be pursued with which forces?
Your companies are listed Here.
Each company may only be assigned to one of the following task
[ ] Tidal Plants : Tunnel fighting against the broken and desperate for a prize with unclear functionality.
-[ ] Companies
[ ] Central Reserve : One army against another, a minimal maneuverability deathmatch for the core of the city.
-[ ] Companies
[ ] Sky Gardens : A wide spread and target rich environment, not as bad as jungle fighting but still a war of numbers and unending minor clashes.
-[ ] Companies
Air units are less tangible than their ground bound brethren, and instead get missions when tasked with direct support of ground operations.
Air Priority
While powerful, your unit of Sky Witches can only be in one place at one time. What should they focus their efforts on achieving?
[ ] Dedicated Support Operations - Choose a specific unit to go all in on supporting.
-[ ] Which Unit?
[ ] Medical Evacuation - Wait for people to start taking injuries and evacuate the casualties to the medical platoon.
[ ] Ground Support - Be on call for airstrikes in general.
[ ] Aerial Superiority - Ensure no enemy fliers interfere with operations.
[ ] Aerial Reconnaissance - Provide air based scouting and informational warfare superiority.
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Turn 0-D
Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
It would be completely accurate to say that you are stalling. The banners have once again assembled, pulled back from disparate duties, patrols, and probes to the temporary camp. Ranks and files of spear points catch the rising sun on their edges as their wielders shift in place, visible from your improvised command center. Climbing vines from one planter or another frame your view of the soldiery marshaled before your raised viewpoint and are backlit by the holoprojector being run by two automatons from your fellow commander.
Before you lies the corpse of the city of Sky-Dorado. Today many of your troops will give their lives in order to impose your vision of order on the city. It is quite a maudlin thought, and clashes badly with the glee you incongruously feel about the chance to "prove yourself". Funny, that anyone could take glee in the suffering of others. Yet, despite that, you and your engram could agree on one thing: it was a shame that the cost had to be paid in the blood of your people.
[Synch Rate UP - Progress gained towards the first General trait.]
The clamshell heads of the technical aides whir, attracting your attention as they track Evaine's careful steps over to you.
"Erin?" Her tone is light but serves the same purpose as an elbow to the side. This event is inevitable,having been ordered by those above you, and putting it off further would be a poor start to the campaign.
"Yes." You answer, brushing aside her concern and striding out onto the balcony to address your troops. Flanked by the captains of your banners and in the appropriate wear for one of your station (despite the overwhelmingly protective nature of your light armor rather than being built for combat) you stop as the soldiers, no, YOUR soldiers snap to attention. Ready to receive your last remarks before executing their orders.
You pause, standing there, as instincts of this age and another clash. Violence, one memory-life preaches, is not and should never be the answer. Violence, another world replies, is a necessary fact of life and is no different than any other honorable professions. For a second revulsion attempts to rise, revulsion and horror at what the world has become. And then it is gone, forced under by adreamed life of necessity.
"Today." You tell your army "We go to war. We go to war for those we have left behind, those in need of food, shelter, and energy. Today, we secure our food supplies and begin the pacification of this fallen city. It is broken and ruined and in pain, and we will bring an end to that which can not be saved and save that which can be saved. In Arcadia's name, we march for life. For light. For hope!"
You pause, catching your breath. "Today." You proclaim. "We begin a struggle that will not end until the Gleaming Age is reclaimed."
-[X] Sky Gardens :
--[X] 1st Company
--[X] 2nd Company
-[X] Air Priority
--[X] Dedicated Support Operations
---[X] Sky Gardens
A trio of security androids are the ones to try to halt the wave of Arcadian soldiery at the designated ingress point. It seemed that small teams of a handful of soldiers are not considered to be the same as nearly a half thousand. Perched on ledges and wall tops the physically undamaged shells gave their order to turn back from "an emergency area". If they were capable of seeing the absurdity of the demand it was not apparent, as armor and weapons detailed to look like enchanted stone flared with color.
With the enemy in front of them the Arcadian levies hardly needed the orders from their command units. Spears were leveled and the crack of lightning projectors filled the air. With bolts bracketing their positions the androids reacted with smooth efficiency; jumping forward to engage their foes. To their minds they must have been containing a riot before anyone was injured.
As the regular levies flinched backward their command sections swept forward in their stead, exhorting their troops to follow in their footsteps. Blessed with the grace of their liege ladies the two noble officers and their squires put lie to the facade the androids put forward, carving through decorative armor and withstanding the nonlethal mechanisms they struck back with in a furious melee that the machines did not, could not, back down from.
Once the particle effects from stunners and enchanted blades faded, and the officers finished chiding their charges for their inaction, the operation continued. Files of Arcadian levies went down passable alleys and streets to emerge onto patches of greenery to confront their guardians. Civilian androids in garden wear were not true threats, despite their myriad of tools designed to corral and beat back the plants they tended to. Chain-blades, high frequency shears, soil drills, and weed whackers were weapons of terror but the androids holding them had no skill in their use (verses people). Straight rushes against choke points, an utter absence of effective duck and cover verses the Arcadian's ranged fire capacities, and a tendency towards target fixation that ignored alternate routes were the most noticeable issues, but by no means were the only signs that their military ineptitude so far managed to outmatch that of the levies.
In any remotely even match, numbers wise, actual soldiers no matter how badly trained were more than equal to malfunctioning and insane civilian androids. And with almost half a thousand soldiers dedicated to this front the Arcadian expedition had numbers to spare. Numbers which proved needed as the true extent of the territorial expanse of the Sky Gardens made itself clear, stretching the levies farther and farther as the perimeter of claimed territory extended. It is here that the oversight and fast response capabilities of the 1st Combat Witch Wing would prove invaluable, their high flying elites capable of keeping watch on substantial numbers of scattered conscripts and capable of relieving any unit that came under the sort of multi-directional or overwhelming assault that risked overwhelming them in less time then it took for them to call for assistance.
Many of the levies were saved by the witches during the fighting, their wide-brimmed hats and traditional black robes signs of hope and victory alike as they struck from on high when the levied in mass soldiers of the first and second banner needed their support. Most often this was needed not versus the gardening androids that serviced the Sky Gardens, gone insane from the disaster, but the security response forces that were attempting to resolve what they saw as a massed public disturbance. While armed and equipped for riot control over true combat akin to those androids met on the border-zone of the Sky Gardens, they were still superior foes in comparison, capable of functional tactics and understanding of lines of fire and attention in ways not matched by farming specialists or surviving civilian servitors.
Of course, after the Sky Gardens were taken would come the no easier task of securing the Arcadian Expeditionary Force's new territory. The very feature that made the gardens an attractive prospect for an assault, their sprawling fields of green, made keeping out intruders an effort of constant toil. Even without the many street level accesses that needed to be secured and garrisoned, a myriad of service tunnels stretched throughout the gardens to allow for ease of transport for the gardening androids and their heavy machinery without intruding upon civilian transport areas which were in themselves also connected to the city's utility work passages. While a large amount of these access ways ended up just as broken and shattered as the city streets from the fall, a surprising amount were still traversable in one form or another. This resulted in a continual brushfire containment effort against the farming androids whom continued to pop up throughout the Sky Gardens as time went on, attempting to return the gardens to the patterns they considered correct instead of the farming patterns used by the expedition.
While tiresome, this insurgency was not a true threat to the expedition's control over the Sky Gardens, but until the city could be brought fully under the Arcadian First Expeditionary Force's control it would result in the continual need for active garrisoning and defense of the gardens entire to prevent the loss or replacement of desired crops, whether they be of food or biofuels, with flowers or other more aesthetically pleasing plant choices.
More delicate is the discovery of more than a dozen human survivors holed up in a former flower conservatory, guarded by a batch of reprogramed security androids. Paranoid and unfriendly, they are insisting that your forces remain at least a block away from their base on pain of aggression.what happened to them, to make them so untrusting? you can't imagine why but you can in the engram's whispers.
But the Sky Gardens, and what grows within, are now under your nominal control.
[Sky Gardens conquered. Now comes the issue of holding them. A number of injuries and a smaller number of fatalities were taken from the locals. The Combat Witch Wing is proving highly useful for spotting potentially dangerous concentrations of force and allowing for countermoves to be made]
-[X] Tidal Plants:
--[X] Third Company
--[X] Blademistress Evaine
Beneath the city, it is less dark then one would originally expect. There's no sunlight making its way through broken stone and metal, but the fires of the crash smolder yet. Much of the undercity was dedicated to machinery that was less than picturistic to have above, and the crash wrought havoc upon it all. Arcs of lightning from the broken iron illuminate the darkness fitfully where the flames do not flicker, dimly visible through the smoke or worse that chokes the passages regardless of light.
It was between these quiescent wrecks that a lone figure picked their way through. Embedded sensors threw back the gloom and idly traced power lines that still carried some sort of charge. A useful ability, given the denizens of these artificial caves…
Two power signatures flared as androids silently rose from ambush positions, arms spreading into lethal implements to disable and disassemble the intruder in their territory. A simple sweep of Evaine's blade cut through one's processor, sheering off the legs of the other with a twist of the wrist. Alloys forged for impact resistance and holding an edge, powered by electromotive fibers, tested the structural materials of pre-Collapse service units and found them wanting. Standing above the corpse of a feral foe and the scuttling half of another, the Arcadian Blademistress couldn't help but feel the same. Her implanted memories were in agreement: this was pest control, not honorable combat.
An almost silent whistle cuts through the air, causing Evaine to turn with her sword driven through the chest of the crawling robot as the commander of the third banner company salutes the Blademistress from the rear of the chamber. "No problem with the lurkers my lady?" She asks as she takes in the scene. "As expected of our lord's champion then. I am lucky to bear witness to such skill."
Behind her the rest of the third company's command squad file into the room, the bodyguard warriors moving to take custody of the bodies at a motion from their commander as she stands at attention to make a report. "We're continuing to encounter roughly the same levels of resistance as was last reported, mistress. The androids down here are mostly broken and desperate, but any that are still alive generally are the ones that have figured out how to actually be dangerous so we're taking some losses despite most of them being civilian models."
"But we're still spending more time clearing a safe passage for the company than we're spending fighting." The noble says with a shrug as the androids corpses are taken out the door behind her to join the other ones collected so far for disassembly, sorting, and recycling. "Between the cave-ins, the fires, and the spills of whatever alchemical gunk they were using for their workshops this is the kind of job that calls for a professional mage-engineer unit. We're doing our best, but… progress is slow. This just isn't what we were trained for."
With her report finished, the noble falls silent, shifting only slightly during the time spent waiting for Evaine's reaction.With body language that reminds Evaine of nothing less or more then a child waiting for their parent's reaction.
After a short moment, spent cleaning her blade of oil, Evaine nods. "Nothing new then, as you said. We'll press on." And, Evaine doesn't say, hopefully your trust in me will continue to remain unneededfor dare she fail again?.
And press on the company does, Evaine at their head, winning victory against whatever foe dared test her down in the darkand so the children worship once more but mostly spending her time in overwatch as the company attempts to find or forge a safe path through the wreckage. With the Blademistress in command no level of opposition that is possible by the native androids can meaningfully slow the unit's progress, but it was never the androids down here that were the main impediment.
Eventually the Generators are found, covered in wreckage and trapped in stagnant, dark water. Here the largest cluster of undercity androids is found, feeding and surviving off the remaining reserves of power held by the generators, but like those before they die to Evaine's bladeas well as the rest of the Assault Company, but that's not what the stories say is it?, her legend growing once more.
To get them operational they'll have to be repaired, a relatively simple job for a properly equipped team if not a small job, the waterways cleared out, a job which will not be simple or easy given the amount of wreckage needing to be moved, and probably hardest of all a safe and guarded way of transmitting the power to the surface will have to be rebuilt.
But despite those issues, the mission is a success.
[Tidal Generators functional but clogged by junk, and will need clearing.]
In the aftermath of the two missions, the seizing of the Sky Gardens and Tidal Generatorsas brute force becomes the world's coin you and Evaine meet once again in the headquarters section. New long ranged scrying arrays holo-radio sets, installed during the days of campaigning, now line one wall. Injured troopers recovering from wounds man the stations to coordinate outlays of precious supplies only now beginning to be replenished by seized stocks of power and provide a low murmur of activity to accompany the meeting.
On the face of things the battle has gone well. Swathes of the fallen city have turned blue on the maps and the nearby turbines have heavily guarded technicians prodding the machinery to see what it will take to get them operational again.
Your engram lent skill tells you a different story.
While any enemy group was located and purged through a combination of air strikes and ground teams, lone combatants are an ever present threat both in the city as stragglers return to their posts or activate from their maintenance cradles now that their competitors are no longer pulling power as well as in the turbine depths as androids creep into now vacant territory to seek power and parts from your soldiers. While open battle has ended, this conflict is far from over. Garrison posts will be a chronic necessity for some time though not necessarily a tactical necessity.
Speaking of which, there is a vital choice to make. With the seizure of a sizable amount of growing space and the accompanying variety of biological organisms, exotic and otherwise, alongside the feeble sparks the turbines contained that had yet to be accessed by the undercity dwellers it is possible to sit back, reorganize, and replenish the losses generated by the campaign, replace combat consumables on your combat witches, and engage in some number crunching to allow for new combat units to be fielded.
Conversely, it could be time to gather all your forces and crack the last bastion of organized resistance in the city. For one, it is unknown what conditions those of your troops that were overpowered and dragged off by security automata might be suffering. For another, it is likely that some sort of reaction will be had once a constant level of skirmishing begins to keep hold of your new territory.
[ ] Initiate the battle for the Central Reserves.
[ ] End this combat phase and begin the first strategic turn.
[Writing Prompt: Wars are not just fought by units, but by people. Who are they that fight by your order? This includes leaders (company captains), banner specific uniforms and flags, and what the formations have done "before" they were Arcadian levies (ie, the false memories of the "land" they hail from). The nature of your nobles will inherently influence that of the banners they command.]
With much credit to DaLintyGuy for their assistance.
Before you lies the corpse of the city of Sky-Dorado. Today many of your troops will give their lives in order to impose your vision of order on the city. It is quite a maudlin thought, and clashes badly with the glee you incongruously feel about the chance to "prove yourself". Funny, that anyone could take glee in the suffering of others. Yet, despite that, you and your engram could agree on one thing: it was a shame that the cost had to be paid in the blood of your people.
[Synch Rate UP - Progress gained towards the first General trait.]
The clamshell heads of the technical aides whir, attracting your attention as they track Evaine's careful steps over to you.
"Erin?" Her tone is light but serves the same purpose as an elbow to the side. This event is inevitable,
"Yes." You answer, brushing aside her concern and striding out onto the balcony to address your troops. Flanked by the captains of your banners and in the appropriate wear for one of your station (despite the overwhelmingly protective nature of your light armor rather than being built for combat) you stop as the soldiers, no, YOUR soldiers snap to attention. Ready to receive your last remarks before executing their orders.
You pause, standing there, as instincts of this age and another clash. Violence, one memory-life preaches, is not and should never be the answer. Violence, another world replies, is a necessary fact of life and is no different than any other honorable professions. For a second revulsion attempts to rise, revulsion and horror at what the world has become. And then it is gone, forced under by a
"Today." You tell your army "We go to war. We go to war for those we have left behind, those in need of food, shelter, and energy. Today, we secure our food supplies and begin the pacification of this fallen city. It is broken and ruined and in pain, and we will bring an end to that which can not be saved and save that which can be saved. In Arcadia's name, we march for life. For light. For hope!"
You pause, catching your breath. "Today." You proclaim. "We begin a struggle that will not end until the Gleaming Age is reclaimed."
-[X] Sky Gardens :
--[X] 1st Company
--[X] 2nd Company
-[X] Air Priority
--[X] Dedicated Support Operations
---[X] Sky Gardens
A trio of security androids are the ones to try to halt the wave of Arcadian soldiery at the designated ingress point. It seemed that small teams of a handful of soldiers are not considered to be the same as nearly a half thousand. Perched on ledges and wall tops the physically undamaged shells gave their order to turn back from "an emergency area". If they were capable of seeing the absurdity of the demand it was not apparent, as armor and weapons detailed to look like enchanted stone flared with color.
With the enemy in front of them the Arcadian levies hardly needed the orders from their command units. Spears were leveled and the crack of lightning projectors filled the air. With bolts bracketing their positions the androids reacted with smooth efficiency; jumping forward to engage their foes. To their minds they must have been containing a riot before anyone was injured.
As the regular levies flinched backward their command sections swept forward in their stead, exhorting their troops to follow in their footsteps. Blessed with the grace of their liege ladies the two noble officers and their squires put lie to the facade the androids put forward, carving through decorative armor and withstanding the nonlethal mechanisms they struck back with in a furious melee that the machines did not, could not, back down from.
Once the particle effects from stunners and enchanted blades faded, and the officers finished chiding their charges for their inaction, the operation continued. Files of Arcadian levies went down passable alleys and streets to emerge onto patches of greenery to confront their guardians. Civilian androids in garden wear were not true threats, despite their myriad of tools designed to corral and beat back the plants they tended to. Chain-blades, high frequency shears, soil drills, and weed whackers were weapons of terror but the androids holding them had no skill in their use (verses people). Straight rushes against choke points, an utter absence of effective duck and cover verses the Arcadian's ranged fire capacities, and a tendency towards target fixation that ignored alternate routes were the most noticeable issues, but by no means were the only signs that their military ineptitude so far managed to outmatch that of the levies.
In any remotely even match, numbers wise, actual soldiers no matter how badly trained were more than equal to malfunctioning and insane civilian androids. And with almost half a thousand soldiers dedicated to this front the Arcadian expedition had numbers to spare. Numbers which proved needed as the true extent of the territorial expanse of the Sky Gardens made itself clear, stretching the levies farther and farther as the perimeter of claimed territory extended. It is here that the oversight and fast response capabilities of the 1st Combat Witch Wing would prove invaluable, their high flying elites capable of keeping watch on substantial numbers of scattered conscripts and capable of relieving any unit that came under the sort of multi-directional or overwhelming assault that risked overwhelming them in less time then it took for them to call for assistance.
Many of the levies were saved by the witches during the fighting, their wide-brimmed hats and traditional black robes signs of hope and victory alike as they struck from on high when the levied in mass soldiers of the first and second banner needed their support. Most often this was needed not versus the gardening androids that serviced the Sky Gardens, gone insane from the disaster, but the security response forces that were attempting to resolve what they saw as a massed public disturbance. While armed and equipped for riot control over true combat akin to those androids met on the border-zone of the Sky Gardens, they were still superior foes in comparison, capable of functional tactics and understanding of lines of fire and attention in ways not matched by farming specialists or surviving civilian servitors.
Of course, after the Sky Gardens were taken would come the no easier task of securing the Arcadian Expeditionary Force's new territory. The very feature that made the gardens an attractive prospect for an assault, their sprawling fields of green, made keeping out intruders an effort of constant toil. Even without the many street level accesses that needed to be secured and garrisoned, a myriad of service tunnels stretched throughout the gardens to allow for ease of transport for the gardening androids and their heavy machinery without intruding upon civilian transport areas which were in themselves also connected to the city's utility work passages. While a large amount of these access ways ended up just as broken and shattered as the city streets from the fall, a surprising amount were still traversable in one form or another. This resulted in a continual brushfire containment effort against the farming androids whom continued to pop up throughout the Sky Gardens as time went on, attempting to return the gardens to the patterns they considered correct instead of the farming patterns used by the expedition.
While tiresome, this insurgency was not a true threat to the expedition's control over the Sky Gardens, but until the city could be brought fully under the Arcadian First Expeditionary Force's control it would result in the continual need for active garrisoning and defense of the gardens entire to prevent the loss or replacement of desired crops, whether they be of food or biofuels, with flowers or other more aesthetically pleasing plant choices.
More delicate is the discovery of more than a dozen human survivors holed up in a former flower conservatory, guarded by a batch of reprogramed security androids. Paranoid and unfriendly, they are insisting that your forces remain at least a block away from their base on pain of aggression.
But the Sky Gardens, and what grows within, are now under your nominal control.
[Sky Gardens conquered. Now comes the issue of holding them. A number of injuries and a smaller number of fatalities were taken from the locals. The Combat Witch Wing is proving highly useful for spotting potentially dangerous concentrations of force and allowing for countermoves to be made]
-[X] Tidal Plants:
--[X] Third Company
--[X] Blademistress Evaine
Beneath the city, it is less dark then one would originally expect. There's no sunlight making its way through broken stone and metal, but the fires of the crash smolder yet. Much of the undercity was dedicated to machinery that was less than picturistic to have above, and the crash wrought havoc upon it all. Arcs of lightning from the broken iron illuminate the darkness fitfully where the flames do not flicker, dimly visible through the smoke or worse that chokes the passages regardless of light.
It was between these quiescent wrecks that a lone figure picked their way through. Embedded sensors threw back the gloom and idly traced power lines that still carried some sort of charge. A useful ability, given the denizens of these artificial caves…
Two power signatures flared as androids silently rose from ambush positions, arms spreading into lethal implements to disable and disassemble the intruder in their territory. A simple sweep of Evaine's blade cut through one's processor, sheering off the legs of the other with a twist of the wrist. Alloys forged for impact resistance and holding an edge, powered by electromotive fibers, tested the structural materials of pre-Collapse service units and found them wanting. Standing above the corpse of a feral foe and the scuttling half of another, the Arcadian Blademistress couldn't help but feel the same. Her implanted memories were in agreement: this was pest control, not honorable combat.
An almost silent whistle cuts through the air, causing Evaine to turn with her sword driven through the chest of the crawling robot as the commander of the third banner company salutes the Blademistress from the rear of the chamber. "No problem with the lurkers my lady?" She asks as she takes in the scene. "As expected of our lord's champion then. I am lucky to bear witness to such skill."
Behind her the rest of the third company's command squad file into the room, the bodyguard warriors moving to take custody of the bodies at a motion from their commander as she stands at attention to make a report. "We're continuing to encounter roughly the same levels of resistance as was last reported, mistress. The androids down here are mostly broken and desperate, but any that are still alive generally are the ones that have figured out how to actually be dangerous so we're taking some losses despite most of them being civilian models."
"But we're still spending more time clearing a safe passage for the company than we're spending fighting." The noble says with a shrug as the androids corpses are taken out the door behind her to join the other ones collected so far for disassembly, sorting, and recycling. "Between the cave-ins, the fires, and the spills of whatever alchemical gunk they were using for their workshops this is the kind of job that calls for a professional mage-engineer unit. We're doing our best, but… progress is slow. This just isn't what we were trained for."
With her report finished, the noble falls silent, shifting only slightly during the time spent waiting for Evaine's reaction.
After a short moment, spent cleaning her blade of oil, Evaine nods. "Nothing new then, as you said. We'll press on." And, Evaine doesn't say, hopefully your trust in me will continue to remain unneeded
And press on the company does, Evaine at their head, winning victory against whatever foe dared test her down in the dark
Eventually the Generators are found, covered in wreckage and trapped in stagnant, dark water. Here the largest cluster of undercity androids is found, feeding and surviving off the remaining reserves of power held by the generators, but like those before they die to Evaine's blade
To get them operational they'll have to be repaired, a relatively simple job for a properly equipped team if not a small job, the waterways cleared out, a job which will not be simple or easy given the amount of wreckage needing to be moved, and probably hardest of all a safe and guarded way of transmitting the power to the surface will have to be rebuilt.
But despite those issues, the mission is a success.
[Tidal Generators functional but clogged by junk, and will need clearing.]
In the aftermath of the two missions, the seizing of the Sky Gardens and Tidal Generators
On the face of things the battle has gone well. Swathes of the fallen city have turned blue on the maps and the nearby turbines have heavily guarded technicians prodding the machinery to see what it will take to get them operational again.
Your engram lent skill tells you a different story.
While any enemy group was located and purged through a combination of air strikes and ground teams, lone combatants are an ever present threat both in the city as stragglers return to their posts or activate from their maintenance cradles now that their competitors are no longer pulling power as well as in the turbine depths as androids creep into now vacant territory to seek power and parts from your soldiers. While open battle has ended, this conflict is far from over. Garrison posts will be a chronic necessity for some time though not necessarily a tactical necessity.
Speaking of which, there is a vital choice to make. With the seizure of a sizable amount of growing space and the accompanying variety of biological organisms, exotic and otherwise, alongside the feeble sparks the turbines contained that had yet to be accessed by the undercity dwellers it is possible to sit back, reorganize, and replenish the losses generated by the campaign, replace combat consumables on your combat witches, and engage in some number crunching to allow for new combat units to be fielded.
Conversely, it could be time to gather all your forces and crack the last bastion of organized resistance in the city. For one, it is unknown what conditions those of your troops that were overpowered and dragged off by security automata might be suffering. For another, it is likely that some sort of reaction will be had once a constant level of skirmishing begins to keep hold of your new territory.
[ ] Initiate the battle for the Central Reserves.
[ ] End this combat phase and begin the first strategic turn.
[Writing Prompt: Wars are not just fought by units, but by people. Who are they that fight by your order? This includes leaders (company captains), banner specific uniforms and flags, and what the formations have done "before" they were Arcadian levies (ie, the false memories of the "land" they hail from). The nature of your nobles will inherently influence that of the banners they command.]
With much credit to DaLintyGuy for their assistance.
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