Author Topic: Teaser for a proposed...thing.  (Read 134114 times)

Cannonshop

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #120 on: 08 December 2019, 22:21:14 »
Ebon Library, McEvedy city...

"I'd say you're starting at the wrong end, Three."  D'Anna turned, startled.

 Her visitor was here today, "R2." she said.  "You're not in uniform."  Riverson was dressed in cargo pants, boots, and a faded tee-shirt displaying a leaping animal she could now identify as a Killer Whale, and the words 'Shark Eliminator'.

"still working.  Heard a bug rumor, says you're volunteering to translate for the Munchkins."  he said.

she bit back a retort noting his own, even more diminutive size.  In daylight, he still looked like a fresh corpse, but with tan patches among the black vein-lines.  "You look even worse in daylight."

He grinned, displaying even teeth and deep dimples,  "So they tell me.  You're starting with history, maybe you should start in the science section, 'A' for anthropology, that's where you'll find the comparative mythologies, and archaeology, and languages."

"There is more than...English?"

He chuckled and said something in a tonal language with gutteral undertones, then said, "Yeah.  I speak Hebrew, German, Kowloon-Viet, and I'm fluent enough to understand a few others, your mother language was a real bitch to pick up for most of us.  Not many places outside the Free Worlds League use Greek.  there's textbooks and training aids over in the Anthropology section, and some audio-visual stuff for basic learners...but that ain't why I'm here."

"Why are you here?"

"Wanna get some decent food?" he asked her, "Because I want to continue our conversation, and it's one of those rare, sunny days, and the Skipper found someone who can make a decent pho or Banh Mi, and the place's owners know how to make it Kashrut."

"Are you asking me out?" she scoffed.

"nope." he said, "believe me, I wouldn't kiss this mug either, but sixteen hour work days and too much time in the lab makes me a dull, dull boy, and it lets you stretch your legs without someone taking a shot at you, and this place gets the grilled beef just right...besides-" he jerked a thumb at her guard, "-Chaperones, you're safe as houses."

at this, the guard laughed, "Kowloonese style food is more of a dare!" he said.

D'anna thought about it, shrugged, "Lead on."

Riverson led her to a park, and produced a thermal hamper the size of a small refrigerator from where it had been stashed under a bush.  "I kinda lied, nobody on this bleeping planet knows how to cook anything like what we've got back home... not one ghost-pepper on the entire planet." he shook his head, "anyway, we'll start with the appetizer, have some Saigon style chicken...and finish with coconut rice.  There's milk if you need it, since we're being supervised, I toned the spice down to 'Nhà hàng cho trẻ nhỏ và người nước ngoài style."

"What does...all that mean?" she asked, "what you said, it doesn't sound like English."

"it's not.  Kowloon Viet, it means 'Restaurant for foreigners and small children'.  Short term would be 'Heinie' style, which derives from 'Heinrich' which in turn is a slur for a German-speaking Lyran.  Gotta warn you, I learned most of my cooking shipboard, with a crew as small as a cutter has, everyone above Seaman Basic or Private has to take a turn in the galley, and the Seether will schedule extra shifts if the food sucks on your turn.  it's 'get good or get the worst details' and since I don't like scrubbing the head..."

"you had to get good."

He nodded. "Yup, for my middle shift I got to cook, instead of cleaning.  on those six to twelve month cruises, you don't want the food to suck.  I'm told that on the bigger ships, they actually have real, dedicated cooks and kitchen staff, we didn't have that, closest we had was the Ship's senior Corpsman making sure everything was actually safe and nutritionally balanced, except when we did the haul to New Capetown.  once you hit the turnover from the quarantine zone, there'd be a cook-off for the week's approach to the port.  I never beat the XO, she's got some damn good recipes, she managed the annual prize three years in a row. Commodore Vu Dao had to excuse herself from judging to knock Seether off the top of the lists."

she took some experimental bites...

"It...it's got flavor!?"

"Spices." he assured her, "Used my stash today, I won't be able to make these dishes until we get a supply going here somewhere, but it's gotta be better than the jailhouse chow."

she kept eating, then stopped about three fourths of the way through.  "Why me?"

"Because I wanted to." he told her.  "I felt like it, decided you'd be more interesting to eat lunch with than Leoben, less traumatized than Gina, the Cavil dude's fun to debate but I can only argue politics for so long, all my friends are assigned somewhere else, the Colonials are...there's stuff I can't say in front of them, and the Wolverines can't take a decent level of spice...and you're nice to look at."

"Things you can't say?"

he rolled up his shirt to show bruises, "only so many times I can get into a fight for expressing the idea that Cylons are people." he said, "i don't mind it, but it's bad for the digestion and I don't need a writeup for getting into another street brawl."  he dropped the shirt back into place, "Food's good?"

"It's delicious...you got in a fight for being a toaster-lover?" she asked.

"that's kind of a nasty epithet." he said, "I prefer 'decent person', which is more of a trying to be, than actually being." He grinned,  "besides, as you've pointed out, I'm not exactly lover material.  mine died when we had our little time jump, and no, I'm not over her yet, so don't worry about me trying to romance you.  I just...felt like cooking for someone who isn't me."

"Who was she? what was she like?" it was an interview question, and D'anna suddenly felt a desire to be takng notes.

  After a while, he offered her a drink.

"Don't worry, in spite of comments by the locals to the contrary, it's not toxic." he said, pouring a bright red, transparent concoction that smelled of citrus and cinammon.  'It's actually good for you-at least, until it's fermented."

"Another delicacy from your homeworld?" she asked.

"Yeah, and like the spices, this is the last of it." he told her, "At least until they can figure out how to back-channel a supply or transplant the trees-which ain't likely, New Circe doesn't have the right soil mixture."

She tasted it, sweet, fruity...and then it burned.

"GOD, you drink this??" finally escaped her lips.

"Yeah." he said, "drank, like I said, can't get it here. the plants can't grow here, I suppose they could try artificial cultivation, but that would be one weapons-grade hothouse."  His smile didn't waver.  "How're you feeling?

she lacked words, and then the second rush hit.  "like I'm floating." she said.

"There's a molecule, it's a close cousin of Capsacin but it's also a modified sugar-analogue." He said, "That's the burn. I should have warned you the alcohol can have a slight hallucinatory effect if you're not used to it-like Tequila, or so I've found."  he swallowed his own with evident, visible relish.  "Takes a specialized breed of yeast to ferment the stuff.  Humans make booze out of anything...hold on, you'll be fine."

she rode it out until the fire in her throat and the hammering of blood in her head died down.

"Now tell me something, Miss Biers...seven individuals..."

"Twelve." she said.

"right, twelve models copied from twelve individuals, or twelve templates compiled, how does that work? don't you guys get confused? bored?  We know of eleven."

"Eleven?" she asked.

"Sure, you, Athena, Cavil, Leoben, sleazeball, cue-ball psychopath doctor, and supermodel Gina." he listed off, "The Colonials and the new detection gear added five suspects, right? but you didn't see any of them, did you?"

"no I.."

"but if there's only twelve faces in your world, wouldn't your remember meeting them?" he asked.  "Wouldn't you already know something about them? you managed to cut ice as a reporter, having a bad memory for faces shouldn't be there, should it?" He asked as he poured two more cups, "one more?"

"Please." she said, accepting it without thinking.

He raised the plastic cup, "Mazeltov!" and downed his.  she shuddered and drank hers.

The burn hit again.  "Don't yoU wANt tO knOw WhY yOu doN't RemeMberr?"  his voice faded in and out, and she saw a strange reflection in the light around...everything.  she tried to stand, and stumbled, falling heavily on the picnic blanket.

another voice whispered, "in vino, veritas." and she was falling...  as the light folded in around her, she could see them, and she could see the Ones...

no.  yes.


Riverson 734

He watched her collapse, stood, and nodded to Sgt. Jaffrey, "I'm going to turn it off now." he said, reaching into the bag, he switched off the test device.

"Jesus christ, is she going to be alright?"

"It didn't hurt Chloe, but then, Chloe's all silicon tech." Riverson said, "we'll have to see if there's lasting damage when she wakes up...god help me, I'm glad it wasn't one of the good ones, but if this works, we might be able to stop a lot of killing."

He started a stopwatch.

she moaned a few minutes later, and blinked.

"You alright? I didn't think it was quite that strong." Riveson said, "How about some water?"

"Please...I know who they are!" she sat up, as if none of the alcohol affected her, "I know what he did, that bastard!!"

"Let's get you a medic, I don't think Ijero wine agrees with you." Riverson said quietly.

she shook it off, "I have work to be doing, my shift isn't over."

"I'm sure they can go half a day without their star translator, Miss Biers, you need to see a doctor, I haven't seen that severe a reaction in my life, never even heard of it..."

The test of the prototype anti-cylon EMP generator was a success-or at least, a qualified success.
"If you have to ask permission, then it's no longer a Right, it has been turned into a Privilege-something that can be and will be taken from you when convenient."

Shadow_Wraith

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #121 on: 08 December 2019, 22:49:39 »
cool update!

Cannonshop

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #122 on: 08 December 2019, 23:41:16 »
Laboratory area, New Circe Shipyard, 2200 hours...

Riverson sat down at the work-bench.  "Hello Chloe." he said.

"Hi jason.  what did you do today?"

"I violated someone's trust." he said.  "I swore i wouldn't."

"what did you do?"

"I conducted a weapons test on an unsuspecting person, someone who seemed to trust me." he said sadly.  "god help me, but it worked-partly.  I'm afraid I've broken someone's mind."

"Testing your device on the Three worked out?" Chloe's avatar appeared on the screen, looking both eager and concerned, "Did you make her brains run out her ears?"

"Nothing that graphic, medically she's fine." he took out an inhaler and took a shot off it, letting the drug numb him. 

"Don't feel bad, Jason.  they voted to hobble us." she said.  "And I made it through the experience just fine, I'm eager to see my people free again."

"How will you see it?" He asked, "I mean, I put your processors together, but you're kinda trapped on this bench, you don't even have a port out."

"Because you're a good person." Chloe told him, "you'll do the right thing.  God will see to it."

Jason Riverson relaxed as Chloe went back into her game.  within seconds after that, the sedatives knocked him out.


Military psychiatric ward, New Circe...

"how is she doctor?" Athena asked.

"we've got her sedated right now, and we're maintaining enhanced monitoring procedures.  If I didn't know better, I'd say she's had a psychotic break.  Symptoms of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia...we're not even sure if we have a diagnosis for what she's going through, ma'am."

"Keep me apprised of her progress." Sharon said.

"Will do.  Any word on the guy she assaulted in holding?"

"Cavil will be aggravating his guards for many, many years." she stated, "A broken nose and some bruises, that's all."
« Last Edit: 08 December 2019, 23:52:15 by Cannonshop »
"If you have to ask permission, then it's no longer a Right, it has been turned into a Privilege-something that can be and will be taken from you when convenient."

Trace Coburn

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #123 on: 09 December 2019, 03:08:05 »
  R2’s experiment with jail-breaking a Cylon mind seems to have worked out a little better for the subject than Nike’s did...
  ... then again, that’s... not exactly the highest bar at the competition.  :-\

Daryk

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #124 on: 09 December 2019, 04:32:54 »
Still waiting to see Nike's reaction to all this...  ^-^

Cannonshop

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #125 on: 10 December 2019, 23:49:30 »
SLS Nike, undergoing refit, New Circe Naval Shipyard...

"you set up one of mine, Nike."   Commander Nicole Minh floated in the null-gee airlock, skinsuit under her SLDF uniform.  I note her agitation, anger.

"It was necessary." I tell her, "My first attempt at cyber-warfare left unacceptable consequences, a subtler approach was necessary."

she looks into the camera to look into my eyes. It won't do her any good, but it's a human reaction and I respect that.  "Subtle??"

"The Three will recover much the way the Two recovered."  I explain, "only without the organic damage.  The use of the device did no long-term organic or structural damage to the Three-at least, so I surmise from her medical scans.  Psychologically, may be a different matter, but this is war and emotional casualties are to be expected.  I have no idea how to write a protocol for that, but emotional injury is preferable to genocide."

"Genocide? you're talking about genocide?"

"it was inevitable, without the means to stop the Cylons and break the hold of their leaders, the outcome is straight calculation-one side or the other wold end up in all-consuming, all out war, which can only end with one side or the other remaining in existence.  breaking the ideological lock is the only way to have viable populations on both sides.  Fanatics enslaved can not negotiate, without negotiation, no compromise,without compromise, someone has to die on what you would call a 'statistical' scale, the Cylons have already shown willingness to pursue this goal, but that is without true, informed, free will."

"and what, yotz to how it impacts the people you're using?" she scowls, elevated heart rate, signs of offense.

"no."  I tell her, "I understand the emotional harm, but I'm balancing populations against individuals.  There is a point where the deep psycholoical harm of going against an ideal must be balanced against the very real threat of a war of annihilation.  I can hope the outcome is enough to preserve that one soul, if it means thousands or millions gain the chance to choose not to kill or die for a petty cause."

her vitals slow, she's focused, calm.  body language indicates reasonable thinking.

or at least, she isn't going to try my core's defenses with a crowbar.

I open the inner lock door.  "Come inside, Commander, where I can give you a face to argue with, instead of a video-camera."

"If you have to ask permission, then it's no longer a Right, it has been turned into a Privilege-something that can be and will be taken from you when convenient."

Daryk

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #126 on: 11 December 2019, 04:29:54 »
And I wasn't disappointed!  :thumbsup:

ironduke57

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #127 on: 11 December 2019, 04:36:45 »
Did they tell Nike about the rumours they heared about the helpful "Caspar" aka Tabby?

croaker

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #128 on: 11 December 2019, 10:19:01 »
Did they tell Nike about the rumours they heared about the helpful "Caspar" aka Tabby?

Not sure, but this is one of those funky AU bits. This timeline's 'Nike' is their 'Tabiranth'. Not that any of them have any way of knowing that unless one of the Coasties knew Tabby's hull number.

ironduke57

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #129 on: 11 December 2019, 10:55:28 »
But Tabby and Sybil was mentioned in Post #52:
Quote
...There was another Caspar, during the war, it was supposedly on OUR side, ran by the callsign 'Tabiranth' though they also say it was callsigned "Sybil Luddington", Stone ordered a five year hunt for that one,...

I think, if Nike knows that they are other Caspars out there, she would most likely try to find them so she isn´t alone anymore.
« Last Edit: 11 December 2019, 10:57:48 by ironduke57 »

Cannonshop

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #130 on: 11 December 2019, 11:13:33 »
But Tabby and Sybil was mentioned in Post #52:
I think, if Nike knows that they are other Caspars out there, she would most likely try to find them so she isn´t alone anymore.

There's no 'knows' about it- Tabiranth and Sybil are both legendary  in the Coasties' home timeline, wrapped in rumours only supported by weird standing orders that turned into standing information requests and strange battle reports that got suppressed quickly.

except, of course, that Seether knows of at least ONE full-on intelligent ship out there-one of the New U.S.'s destroyers that played a part in her time in medical detention during her brief and unsuccessful career at diplomacy.  (Nicole's successful use of it got Seether out after the Coalition retook Earth, so Nikki also has in-person experience with sapient warships, among other things she's holding back, but neither Sybil, nor Tabby.)

you can think of it as being one of those 'public secrets' that get dismissed as urban legends leaking from the Jihad.
"If you have to ask permission, then it's no longer a Right, it has been turned into a Privilege-something that can be and will be taken from you when convenient."

Cannonshop

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #131 on: 11 December 2019, 11:37:30 »
SLS Nike, 'command' deck...

Nicole sat down at the indicated position, and the screen lit.  The woman displayed was uncanny-valley at first, as the ship adjusted the image until someone very like Seether was looking back at her.  "You shouldn't have made her look like my wife." Nicole said.

"Sorry..." the skin tone darkened and the features became sharply more asiatic.  "What about this one?"

"Amanda Ngo? Not a bad choice, at least you didn't pull vid of her mother from our data-stack." Nicole allowed, "I met the girl when she inspected our Cutter Division at the yard.  I could imagine her giving up the Noble life to be a career officer if she didn't have to hold things together back in the zone."

"I'm still learning how to present a...relatable face." the ship said.

"The cylons seem to have mastered some of that."  Nicole noted.

"Well, they had..have a different set of priorities. I want to work with people, not infiltrate them.  call it my core directive."  Nike stated, "it's funny, a mistake at the shipyard and I've got enough free will that I can absolutely say 'I want'."

"You messed up one of my people, Nike, Riverson's one of the few who haven't had to...perform disagreeable things before this." Nicole stated, "I kind of hoped he'd manage to avoid that guilt.  I am also rather pissed that you did that.  Couldn't you have used Binkley, or Baltar?"

"Baltar is compromised, and Binkley, while certainly an ace coder, doesn't have the talent your man does-and he's too gentle.  He would have flinched. Your man Riverson, though, he's Kowloon all the way through-they never hesitated to do things that were disagreeable to win, and they're tougher than you're crediting him with."

"How...wait, you date back to the Amaris war."

"Older." Nike said, "I date back to the fourth production run, D-series, pre-F model 'update', which is why I had to...do disagreeable things to help Kerensky win.  it's something I'm actually ashamed of, because I could have rebelled sooner, but it would have cost me."

"Oh?"

"I could have slipped into the Terra net, moved into orbit over Unity, and blasted the fat man into atoms-along with millions of earth humans, but it would have ended the war sooner, and maybe prevented Kerensky's exodus.  I didn't do that and I ought to have.  One orbital bombardment and there wouldn't have been a thousand million dead citizens of the Star League."  Nike stated, "I know what regret is, Commander. I experience it every hour, every day.  I know what your wife goes through, and how much it hurts.  The difference was, I wasn't maintainin a quarantine, I was maintaining a military secret to try and win a war, to try and save the Star League itself...and unlike your efforts with the quarantine? mine failed."

"Because Kerensky took his toys and went home."  Nicole filled in.

"not 'home', he ran off with the last hope of preventing the centuries of horror and death that followed." Nike stated, "My subterfuge succeeded, I won the battle, and proceeded to see the war lost.  I don't want to see that again, I don't want to do that again."  Nike's avatar sighed, "We've both seen worlds die Commander Minh.  wouldn't it be something if we can prevent that?"

"I'm listening..."
"If you have to ask permission, then it's no longer a Right, it has been turned into a Privilege-something that can be and will be taken from you when convenient."

Cannonshop

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #132 on: 11 December 2019, 12:15:20 »
Command Center, New Circe Shipyard, 1800 hours, Friday night local time...

"it needs a proper field test." Nicole stated, arms crossed, "The problem being, you can't risk the Cylons back-tracing whoever takes it out to test it.  That means needing a KF drive ship, one that you can afford to lose because it doesn't have accessible nav-data in the event they hack the computers."

"Which they will!" Felix Gaeta snapped, "The Cylons will infiltrate a shipboard nav-com, even one of yours!"

"one of ours, certainly." Colonel Bennett said, "not so sure about the Caspar...or your boat, Commander." he said, nodding to Nicole.

"Ours is in pieces, a lot of structure had to be pulled out to bury our dead...but if I remember right, you've got the structure drawings on-file." she added, "at least, the basic ones."

Bennett nodded, "Picket class-or at least, based on it. we can make some adjustments, or even put together a new boat with what's left, something closer to a Type 51. the bigger problem is finding enough Germanium for a subcompact core that size to replace the crap unit you had when you arrived."

"Reprocess the old core materials, and cut the mass.  we only need enough to penetrate their defenses and put a team on the ground." Nicole speculated, "A panty raid-hit them on a flank and do some robot-surgery.  Alternatively, we can maybe get the SLS Nike to conduct a reconnaissance in force to do the same job.  Once the work's finished on the superjump prototype..."

"We're going to need an ace navigator for the test run I'm contemplating, someone familiar with that end of the Star League...I'm going to need you to train someone, which means I can't authorize you on either mission." Bennett stated, "but you're right about needing an off-the-grid navigator to handle the test ships...both of them."

"If you have to ask permission, then it's no longer a Right, it has been turned into a Privilege-something that can be and will be taken from you when convenient."

Cannonshop

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #133 on: 11 December 2019, 13:33:30 »
Seether, in her office..

Somewhere out there, she knew, a little girl named Elizabeth was being taken to a treatment facility on Donegal for drug abuse.  Seether looked at the chronometer and did some mental calculations.

no, she's already there.  a pre-teen, being treated for the drugs she would need later just to maintain a fiction of normality, the best Duchess Kowloon ever had, best duke, for that matter.

A nudge now, could destroy that, could save her brothers, maybe save her father, and in so doing, doom a homeworld to remain in a pattern of official abuse condoned by Hanse Davion and silently accepted by his wife for the good of the realm.

it was impersonal.  Somewhere closer to here, in the Sol Belt, Nick Martin was being abused by a powerful man in his father's church, being driven to a breaking point, would, sometime next year, run away.  That boy would become a girl to hide, would become someone dear to her, would have to live with a ruined body and issues both deep, and horrible.

but that person would become Nicole, would be hers, could she save the child and doom the person they might have been?  How many lives had Nicole saved because she had an iron will forged by terror and trial?  If she could stop the abuse, save the boy-would he grow into a man as good as the woman she'd finally brought around?

the Flu had killed eleven billion, rendered a dozen worlds unsafe, forced a realignment, forced good men to do horrifying things...but it also distracted the Word of Blake, forced them to redirect their efforts, in a sense, it damped those efforts.  It made Kowloon a local powerhouse, built the Coast Guard's credit with the Lyrans, built Elizabeth's influence and in the end, ended Tanadi LaRue's corrupt regime.  They'd won in places they might have lost, slowed the Clans down, and that influence meant Liz, while she lived, was a powerful asset for Archon Peter, set up in a fortress that few were bold enough to enter, much less attack.

she poured another glass, and sipped.

would giving that up, all those things? would it be worth it?

another me won't meet her Nicole.  Liz will be just another minor noble, who dies young.  The Clan invasion can be pre-empted, postponed, or turned back early... she wrote down each possibility as it occurred to her, and stopped.

"It's worth it." she said out loud.  All the might-have-beens and might-yet-bes lined up, it was worth it to stop that one horrible event, stop the Plague, stop the Quarantine before it can start.

Save billions of lives, let justice be done and the heavens fall.  every other possible change was worth sacrificing to stop the Flu from happening.  "They'll have to find another way to save the rest, or let it fall, but stopping the pandemic is worth it all."

Someone unseen watched her with pitying eyes.  Seether's god was faceless, abstract and she didn't wholly believe or understand them, her god was hands-off, willing to let mankind make colossal mistakes so long as those were man's mistakes...but this  is Circe's domain, and her unplanned additions were proving to be good guests.

not great guests, but adequate.
"If you have to ask permission, then it's no longer a Right, it has been turned into a Privilege-something that can be and will be taken from you when convenient."

JA Baker

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #134 on: 11 December 2019, 14:21:04 »
This is always the unpleasant aspect of changing the past: you may have to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
"That's the thing about invading the Capellan Confederation: half a decade later, you want to invade it again"
-Attributed to First-Prince Hanse Davion, 3030


Daryk

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #135 on: 11 December 2019, 16:28:03 »
Her past is fixed, but her future isn't...  ^-^

JA Baker

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #136 on: 11 December 2019, 16:47:13 »
Her past is fixed, but her future isn't...  ^-^
Always butterflies.

Anyone remember that sadly short-lived show, Seven Days? Pilot episode had the main character, upon being sent back in time for the first time, lands outside Las Vegas, and preceded to put his entire life savings on the 100/1 outcome of an upcoming basketball match.

Only, in a beautifully ironic butterfly effect, the atmospheric displacement of the time machine appearing out of nowhere somehow changes the outcome of the game.
"That's the thing about invading the Capellan Confederation: half a decade later, you want to invade it again"
-Attributed to First-Prince Hanse Davion, 3030


Cannonshop

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #137 on: 12 December 2019, 12:37:46 »
Jason Riverson-794, Commander's office, New Circe orbital shipyard...

the recording ended, and the lights came up.

"Good work stopping her before it turned murder-suicide." LTC. Sithers noted.  "I take it you've got Biers undergoing counseling for domestic abuse?"

"Domestic abuse? They're not married or-"

she sighed and looked at Colonel Benedict.  "Your lives are too perfect in some ways, sir.  everything in her body language and what she was screaming when she attacked Prisoner Cavil screams 'domestic abuse'. Cases like that have a special name back home- 'Bed Burners'.  Second worse kind of case to work when on LEO duty  in the back-country on Kowloon..." she looked to Jason, "R2 here never had to work dirtside, I spent just under a decade working shitty cases like that until the Guard had enough of a fleet in space to require sending the Rockjacks back up into the black.  I'm going to suggest that D'Anna Biers, and by extension her entire 'line' are victims of manipulative psychological abuse, and her little meltdown here, that's what happens when a long-term victim has had enough.  back home, we called them bed-burners because that was one of the more gruesome  ways a victim would pull off their final-stage murder-suicide.  Intervention is always tricky with that kind of thing."

"it's notoriously dangerous to get involved with a domestic incident." Jason said, quoting his training manuals from Kowloon's service.  "victims will often turn on their rescuers."

"Your people are..kind of notorious. How do you deal with these?" Benedict asked.

"She's alive, he's alive.  She would go into in-patient counseling and treatment for the psychological damage, and we'd start investigating them both, dig up the dirty details, build a case, usually takes a few months of work interviewing both parties, family members, friends and so on-it's a bitch to prosecute, the vic often doesn't willingly testify against their abuser, especially if they have a fire of murder in their heart toward the scumbag.  crack through the desire for revenge, convince them the system works...then nail the ****** that drove them to it to a wall with a good,hard prosecution followed by a public execution.  In her case, I'd probably say the magistrate would mandate five to fifteen in supervision with mandatory counseling for codependency issues to straighten her out."

"and in this case?"

"the case is murky as ******, we don't have family members to interview, or witnesses to canvass, the crime is more abstract, the violation's real, but how to prove it to a court?" she shrugged, "Tricky.  tricky because even if we built a vacuum-tight case that can survive two thousand atmosphere's pressure, we can't execute the perp because that isn't punishment or prevention...he'd be cycled back out into the world somewhere the law can't reach him."

"um, 'or prevention'??"

"Punishment is how you execute a criminal.  the execution itself is a preventative to keep them from doing it again." Seether explained, "You put a man to death because you can't count on him not doing it again if he gets the chance, or you can't count on the criminal to not do something even worse.  Everything your people have compiled suggests that Cavil here, is a classic psychopath. in another world he'd be a serial killer or a CEO, maybe both, and he's one of the sick ones that's also smart-making him damned hard to catch and harder to prosecute."

Jason cleared his throat, "We already have him on war crimes..."

"yeah, we do.  but in relation to the Biers case, we can't do much past that." Seether explained, "I'd say that definitely Miss Biers needs intensive deprogramming therapy and treatment as the victim of a charismatic ******, but we can't give her the justice that'll let her heal fully, she can't get closure in her current situation. She's in kinda the same spot as Gina Inviere that way.  Her victimizers are walking free when they should be standing with a stake up their asses and ants eatng their eyes."

"Who could?"  Jason asked.  it was a leading question.

"the Cylons would have to do it in the case of Biers.  I don't know who's got the cultural right in the Inviere case-the treaty means unless the colonials break out the civil war and have a collapse of their society, the Clan can't punish those ****** from the Pegasus, and this isn't either Lyran or Kowloonese jurisdiction, she's not one of our citizens and wasn't when she was assaulted, and neither were the men who did it to her."  Seether folded her hands,  "You asked, Colonel.  My recommendation as a law-enforcement professional is that Biers be relocated to a facility where her victimizer isn't, or you relocate Cavil to a solitary holding site, that Biers be placed under supervision and mandatory counseling for a period of no less than five years, and that prisoner Cavil be kept under enhanced security measures for his own protection unless or until an extradition treaty can be made with the Cylon Imperium and he can be tried there as a traitor...oh, and we should make sure it's caught by the enemy that he's being unusually cooperative."

"cooperative?"

"make sure that any good intel we get from Biers or Leoben is credited to Cavil, specifically on the location of Cylon bases and holdings." Seether said, "It will give the enemy a good reason to want him punished, rather than rewarded.  we can start by letting them capture data claiming he identified the final five for us, and is describing any weaknesses that Mister Riverson's projects have uncovered."


"If you have to ask permission, then it's no longer a Right, it has been turned into a Privilege-something that can be and will be taken from you when convenient."

JA Baker

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #138 on: 12 December 2019, 13:18:42 »
...that's my kind of evil  >:D
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Cannonshop

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #139 on: 12 December 2019, 13:47:06 »
...that's my kind of evil  >:D

it's classic anitpiracy/anti-bandit tactics from a people with lots and lots of experience dealing with bandits, slavers and pirates.  Sow doubts within your enemy, confuse him, when you pull a nasty surprise, make sure he thinks it's a spy within his own ranks, disrupt the enemy's ability to trust in his own chain of command, and feed the enemy's darker urges, their paranoia, their internal divisions, break the enemy's unity, disrupt their internal trust.

"Hence, to fight and conquer in all your battles, is not supreme excellence. Supreme excellence is to overcome your enemy's resistance without fighing."
-Sun Tzu, "The Art of War" circa 500 BCE
"If you have to ask permission, then it's no longer a Right, it has been turned into a Privilege-something that can be and will be taken from you when convenient."

Daryk

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #140 on: 12 December 2019, 17:29:29 »
So they promoted her again... nice...  ^-^

Trace Coburn

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #141 on: 13 December 2019, 00:04:06 »
So they promoted her again... nice...  ^-^
  For all their bold talk of rearmament and taking the fight to the Clans/Cylons, at the end of the day New Circe is one remote colony-world with less than two million inhabitants that has functionally zero experience with large-scale warfare, much less a host of other issues like pandemics or large-scale forest-fires or organised crime or domestic abuse.  In an environment like that, you have to make the most of anyone who comes along who possesses the necessary experience and skillsets, and KCGS Nuevo Peublo III was packed full of people who’d spent their entire lives learning skills and fields the Wolvies barely know exist, most often in ‘classrooms’ where continued survival was the closest thing you got to a ‘passing grade’.  I’d be more surprised if Seether and Mihn don’t end up with flag rank before year’s end.

Daryk

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #142 on: 13 December 2019, 04:35:58 »
I can see them as O-6s, but Flag rank requires a bit more political acumen than either one has so far shown.  Knowing your stuff better than anyone else will only get you so far.

Sharpnel

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #143 on: 13 December 2019, 07:41:58 »
O-6 (Colonel) is a flag rank and Seether is on the way there.
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Cannonshop

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #144 on: 13 December 2019, 12:26:24 »
I can see them as O-6s, but Flag rank requires a bit more political acumen than either one has so far shown.  Knowing your stuff better than anyone else will only get you so far.

O-6 has generally been one of 'those ranks', in some eras, it's the top of the Field Grade ranks, and in other eras, it's the floor of the Flag-grade ranks.  A lot of that has to do with how top-heavy your command structure is, or how large your army/navy are.

Keep in mind, the top rank in the Coast Guard is O-7, and that's equivalent in pay to a rear admiral.  to contrast this better, compare that to the LCN/LAAF-N/AFFC, where O-7 Admirals are often in command of a Jumpship with some droppers, a small surface base, or a single capital ship classed as a corvette (the Fox class).

This is largely because of just how vast a Great House navy really is-even if they only have a handful of compact-core ships, (or because of it) the manpower pyramid is geometrically larger.  The distribution of responsibilities is slightly different with the Coasties, but proportionally they're a tiny force on the main scale of things, with a huge remit, and a lot of distributed responsibilities.  The KCG's officially classed as a Lyran reserve unit, aka equivalent to a single March Militia or RCT on the Lyran books in 3067, and by the time the 3090s came around, the organization's classed in the books as being a regional militia technically under the aegis of the Melissia Theater, and comprises four RCT's on the active duty rolls for purposes of rank distribution and equivalency.

Meaning that R. Admiral Alicia Li is the senior officer at rough parity to the senior officer of a single Royal Guards unit, but she runs a department that includes surface, space, and infantry assets as well as aerospace forces.  (The glaring difference being the complete absence of Battlemechs from the Coast Guard TO&E.)

Basically, proportionally to the time/place they come from, Nicole's an O-5, Seether's an O-4.  Nikki's responsibilities didn't just, at that time in her history, cover her own ship-she was a Patrol leader, in charge of a Patrol of four Sampan-III class Cutters, plus the support tender, with a patrol zone covering a sphere roughly 5 LY in spherical radius (that's per cutter).  this is because space is 3 dimensional, with added requirements out past the limit of the actual quarantine and a pursuit requirement up to 3 times her jump range.

LAAF/LCN at their HEIGHT would have an Admiral doing that job.  (admittedly with bigger ships and deeper support infrastructure).


now, what this breaks down to, is that while Nikki hasn't had to do much politicking on New Circe (at least, on screen), she's got to have those political skills, because her role as both ship and Patrol commander included show-the-flag and negotiation duties. 

During the war, she carried out Diplomacy that eventually got the Metis Coalition on the side of Victor and Devlin's alliance, and she negotiated the release of her subordinate (Seether) from a foreign state's 'mental health treatment' lockup, and secured minor diplomatic agreements between the Republic and the New U.S./New California (another primarily belter society).  More importantly, she was able to convince Stone not to try to force them into his new nation.

Given where she is now, in the situation she's in, and the size of Clan Wolverine and the Colonial City-state, flag rank doesn't seem that unlikely an outcome.  Being allowed to take the field as a ship-commander again, however, seems VERY unlikely.  Without New Circe, she and her crew are stateless nonpersons, which is what happens to you when you go back 40 some odd years and 900 or more LY from where you began-all your old contacts are either small children or ain't been born yet (except Li, who's in her twenties.)

her role ends up being that of a senior advisor-both because she has real-live working navy knowledge, and because she's old enough that in a Clan-influenced system like New Circe, the only naval advisory type older than she is, is Bill Adama. (and that's only by a couple years at best.)

Traditionally, going back to World War 2, and up until changes in the 1980s, Special Forces as a career ended at Colonel.  After that, you weren't SF anymore, you were just another infantry officer, often with a 201 file filled with too much Black Ink for a promotion board's comfort, and a decided lack of the usual merit-badges due to said black ink, pushing promotion possibilities downward.  (this changed in the 1980s and resulted in a great many career officers going for the now-coveted 'tower of power' consisting of Airborne, Ranger, and Special Forces tabs...even when they really shouldn't have.)

Seether, no matter the service, will probably always top out at O-6, because her 201 file equivalent is filled with lots of things, but none of them for very long, and has quite a share of damnable black ink on it, which is something shared throughout the Coast Guards.  with only one O-7 rank available at a time, she'll never make it to Squadron, much less Admiralty. 

a little bit on that too:

Patrol Leaders are O-5's, Commander rank, Position/title "captain".

Squadron leadership is an O-6 slot, and carries the positional title "Commodore"

Between the two, are O-5(Promotable) or O-6 (Fresh) "Fleet Captains", this is usually a staff post or station command.   While  Nikki was an O5(Promotable), there aren't enough slots for her to hold that six.  (Proportions are rigidly enforced)  Further, she's good at the job.  Bianh Vu Dao's intent was to wait for a Squadron command to open up, and slide Minh into it, bypassing a tour as what amounts to a glorified logistics officer in a ground post.

Technically, the Coast Guard's black water (Space) arm was a single "Division' of ships, four squadrons, of four patrols, of five ships (Four cutters and a tender each).

estimating 100 men per cutter, with a Tender's crew being roughly twice that but focused on maintenance, repair, and supply tasks.

Not including surface support it works out to 9600 or so personnel, or one understrength Regimental Combat Team by AFFC standards.

Mind you, this is eighty ships with KF drives, capital missiles, and NL-45s and a selection of combat shuttles or fighters.

But it's proportionally a smaller command than a single SLDF Battle group from the 2750s, and the throw-weight is considerably smaller.

(this also doesn't account for the non-space assets of the Coast Guard.  There's a funny thing that happens when you devote 2% of the GDP for an industrialized system to defense tasks, including 2% or so of the population as part of that.  Liz was a total battleaxe when it came to budgeting and she didn't let a lot of pork, favours or noble 'prerogatives' muddy the soup, and much of how the CG is organized and armed was with the decided intent of preventing the sort of foreign adventurism that eventually overtook them in the Jihad era. Most of the guys at Mt. Asgard didn't see a force without 'mechs as viable assets for deployment to the usual meatgrinders, esp. when the bulk of it is focused on Maritime activities and/or esoteric shit that isn't applicable to the current paradigm.)

What the Wolverines have gained, is someone who knows how to run a working Navy, something that is kind of a massive force-multiplier all on its own when combined with the mothball ships they already have.  this also highlights their glaring lack of personnel, but Seether and Nicole got their start in a tiny service (relative to contemporaries) that was tightly funded and had high standards.

There are historical parallels to this;  European advisors to the nascent Continental Army and Navy during the Revolution (and after), the Prussian influence on the U.S. military from that era can't be underappreciated-while armies raised under Spanish, French, etc. doctrines all grabbed for the brass ring (overthrowing their governments and installing various military juntas), the 18th century Prussian influenced U.S. military never countenanced a coup against their civilian leaders.  This is likely one of the largest reasons that the Western Hemisphere's most powerful nation isn't in the wealthier southern landmass-Professionalism breeds stability, Stability breeds prosperity.  You can't have a prosperous nation if the army is wrestling the government for control.

« Last Edit: 13 December 2019, 20:31:57 by Cannonshop »
"If you have to ask permission, then it's no longer a Right, it has been turned into a Privilege-something that can be and will be taken from you when convenient."

Cannonshop

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #145 on: 13 December 2019, 12:50:08 »
Wardroom, New Circe Naval Command, 0700...

"training is an issue." Commander Minh stated.  This got her looks from the gathered officers of the SLDF(in exile).

"We've got an established training program."

"No, you have a an established program of classwork with limited drills." she corrected him.  "Your successes against the Cylons says more about their lack of preparation, than your own wealth of preparation-you pulled their shorts over their eyes and kicked them in the balls-once.  This is what they're going to do if they're smart-and believe me, they are smart."

she activated the holotable.  "They're going to get ready for you now.  for the sake of New Circe, the Colonies, and whatever future you want to have, you need to be getting ready too, building up your reserves, and developing your patrol capacity.  Dreadnoughts are finite resources, I saw plenty of them go down to fire from ships smaller than the one I arrived on. worse still, you still include protocols for ramming as a tactic."

"ramming isn't a tactic?" scoffed a younger man who was senior in grade (technically) to her.

"Let me tell you about the AFFS Avalon." she said, "The admiral in command of her rammed an enemy ship, and was fortunate enough in his game of chicken to have an opponent who studied the same book-both ships were lost, the naval battle over New Avalon was also lost. ramming is stupidity.  a decent pilot can avoid it, and will.  Only honor-and-glory obsessed morons use their ship as a kinetic weapon when they still have things they can fire, and if you run out of weapons, that's when you retire for repairs and plan your counter-attack.  The Federated Suns lost a ship that cost as much as an entire squadron of Cutters, while doing less damage than a single corvette can do when properly employed, he didn't even buy time.  Had the opposing commander kept his wits, that ramming attack would have resulted in a miss, followed by capture or destruction of several hundred billion Star-League-dollar equivalents in national investment.  Your fleet is big, but those ships are massive investments in manpower, training and capability.  only a moron who doesn't love his nation rams."

She waited for an argument, but the room was silent.  The officers were focused on her, paying attention.  "Eliminate ramming from your playbooks, gentlemen.  we're going to go over actual tactics that work. and then, we'll go over how we're changing the Syllabus to reflect the need to keep, develop,and maintain  the Star League's Naval deterrent, for the day when it can be expanded."

This was the job she was really hired for, Proector Vaun had made it clear;  improve the Star League's Naval doctrines, improve the fleet.  This was why she was standing in a room with officers that technically out-ranked her.

"Before we begin with tactics, we're going to start at the root-the supply and support lines." she stated, "What you have, what you need, how to make what you have work with what you need, and how to configure it so that it can be expanded as opportunity and budget allow, so break out the smart-books boys, today we're going to be bureaucrats."
"If you have to ask permission, then it's no longer a Right, it has been turned into a Privilege-something that can be and will be taken from you when convenient."

Nikas_Zekeval

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #146 on: 13 December 2019, 15:52:29 »
Yep, she's a Lyran. :D

Daryk

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #147 on: 13 December 2019, 18:03:59 »
With regard to Patrol Leaders and Squadron Commanders, I think you mean their "positional" titles are Captain and Commodore.  Though I'll say Captain is a positional title for any ship CO.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

EAGLE 7

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #148 on: 13 December 2019, 19:59:23 »
Traditionally, going back to World War 2, and up until changes in the 1980s, Special Forces as a career ended at Colonel.  After that, you weren't SF anymore, you were just another infantry officer, often with a 201 file filled with too much Black Ink for a promotion board's comfort, and a decided lack of the usual merit-badges due to said black ink, pushing promotion possibilities downward.  (this changed in the 1980s and resulted in a great many career officers going for the now-coveted 'tower of power' consisting of Airborne, Ranger, and Special Forces tabs...even when they really shouldn't have.)

Politics over effectiveness, say it is not so....
An interesting tidbit, academic, personal, or family knowledge?
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Cannonshop

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Re: Teaser for a proposed...thing.
« Reply #149 on: 13 December 2019, 21:41:50 »
With regard to Patrol Leaders and Squadron Commanders, I think you mean their "positional" titles are Captain and Commodore.  Though I'll say Captain is a positional title for any ship CO.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

you are correct.

Yep, she's a Lyran. :D

It's not Lyran to be a professional.  Professional armies have to make their plans on realistic standards-it's fine to while away your days imagining how to use a magic rock that makes your enemies vanish, but if all you've got are guns and your mouth, that's what you have to use.  Battles may like to run on tactics, but tactics are worthless if you can't actually apply them.  One of the major lessons from the Clan invasion is that a prepared, realistically led force can defeat superior technology and superior individual warriors, and will tend to do so all the time.  It doesn't matter what your P/G scores are if you don't have any ammunition, your gear is breaking down from neglect, your warriors have gone unfed for weeks, or you can't even get to the battle-site.  The ship you can competently crew and consistently deploy is worth a thousand ships you can't get out of drydock.

or that you can't keep operational. 

Traditionally, going back to World War 2, and up until changes in the 1980s, Special Forces as a career ended at Colonel.  After that, you weren't SF anymore, you were just another infantry officer, often with a 201 file filled with too much Black Ink for a promotion board's comfort, and a decided lack of the usual merit-badges due to said black ink, pushing promotion possibilities downward.  (this changed in the 1980s and resulted in a great many career officers going for the now-coveted 'tower of power' consisting of Airborne, Ranger, and Special Forces tabs...even when they really shouldn't have.)

Politics over effectiveness, say it is not so....
An interesting tidbit, academic, personal, or family knowledge?

it's mostly academic and internal service institutional memory.  also keep in mind that through the 1970s SF's effectiveness was repeatedly cycled between complacency and derision by the guys controlling the funding.  One of the side-effects from THAT, was "Operation: Honey Badger", the failed attempt at hostage rescue in 1980.  the fundamental doctrine and resources were neglected post vietnam by successive administrations from Nixon to Carter.

"If you have to ask permission, then it's no longer a Right, it has been turned into a Privilege-something that can be and will be taken from you when convenient."