A Silent Claim (FT, TG for Entry) OOC Thread

[Democratic Colonies]

Well, I certainly wouldn't want to be in Tipton's space boots right now.

I do quite like your ABDs as well, they seem like very well thought out, cool little robots. Based on the description, it sounds like a few blasts from a shotgun or a DCSR-II should be enough to do some good damage to one, but both of those sorts of weapons are going to be in very short supply, as DC Navy doctrine doesn't seem too oriented around boarding/anti-boarding. The standard military sidearm is a perfectly MT-grade revolver, would I be correct in assuming one would need to empty most of the magazine at an ABD before any serious effect is seen?

I know it's not the most reasonable choice of sidearm, in spite of how I've tried to explain it in the writeup on the page I linked, but I just love the anachronism of literal space men/women using revolvers. For the same reason, I've written the DC military as apparently mounting the 40 mm Bofors gun on pretty much everything.

[United Citizens Republics]

You say well thought out, I say "I came up with them while I was writing the post". But thank you nonetheless.

In terms of knocking them out....the ABDs are built for speed and agility. As such, emphasis was placed on minimizing their weight, and this meant sacrificing armor. The external armor is about a fourth of an inch thick Titanium-V, which you are correct in assuming could shrug off multiple rounds from a MT-era revolver.

You're also correct about the rifle and the shotgun; a few good rifle blasts will knock the ABD right out, and a single point-blank-ish shotgun blast will turn them to scrap metal. They're definitely on the fragile end of the spectrum. But they can also roll at close to forty-five miles per hour! So it's catching them that's the problem.

[Xiscapia]

I just read your post, UCR, and I must say I'm quite enjoying how much Elena is enjoying seeing the DC force being crushed. I don't have any preference for how prisoners and things are divided up between UCR or Bloodstorm, but I'm sure it'll be interesting either way.

Xiscapia, did you want to post what your Bloodstorm mercs are up to while up to while Commander Cooper's Marines board Challenger? Will there be a competing boarding effort? Or shall I go ahead?

All Bloodstorm will really be doing is picking up escape pods and boarding the crippled corvettes, and they'll defer to the UCR's desire to board the Challenger. I expect they'll sit back and let the UCR troops and drones soak up the losses and do the dirty business of taking the crew, then see if they can't leverage a claim to the cruiser itself. So unless the DC people in the pods and shuttles are going to resist then I won't have much to say, so go on ahead.

[Democratic Colonies]

Xiscapia, feel free to RP DC personnel in the rescue pods surrendering as soon as their pods are pulled opened up and they come face to face with armed personnel. I think each pod should probably contain 8-12 people, and while they'll be armed with small arms and the very occasional officer's sabre, these can freely be taken possession of.

UCR, I'm very sorry, but as I was writing my post I recalled that one of the traits I had intended for the DC Navy was strong physical armour in contrast to fairly weak shields. I had intended for a greater reliance on armour rather than shields to fit in with the slightly lower tech, sometimes BSG-aping aesthetic of not-too-advanced-ness I'm going for. If Commander Cooper is willing to wait for a while then eventually the drills will make it through to allow for the deployment of the ABDs though. I'm not sure how long would be appropriate, however. Your post mentioned the pods as being "designed to pierce through just about anything," so assuming they're of similar capabilities as the rest of your technology, could we say it would take perhaps 20 minutes for them to bore through the hull plating?

If Cooper is willing to wait that long then I'll just make another post detailing the ABDs breaking through and wreaking havoc, but if not, then feel free to post as you please!

[United Citizens Republics]

Oh, hey, no problem! I really wasn't sure about your armor and whatnot...that's why I had Cooper wait to board in the first place. Just in case it took longer to bore through. So yeah, I'm more than happy to wait.

To simulate said time, I'll let Xis post first, and we could assume that that post covers the twenty minutes or so? Or whatever you had in mind, it's no problem.

OH! And just to be clear, because I think it was a bit confusing in my post....Cooper has/will activate all the cylinders except the two in the bridge. Those are for later.

[Democratic Colonies]

Oh, hey, no problem! I really wasn't sure about your armor and whatnot...that's why I had Cooper wait to board in the first place. Just in case it took longer to bore through. So yeah, I'm more than happy to wait.

To simulate said time, I'll let Xis post first, and we could assume that that post covers the twenty minutes or so? Or whatever you had in mind, it's no problem.

I can wait for Xis to post, or if he'd rather not, I can post and indicate that 20 minutes have elapsed.

Also, I guess this would be a good time to ask, whatever happened to Overseer Nobu and the others that were originally on the planet being terraformed? Are they still just aboard the terraformer?

OH! And just to be clear, because I think it was a bit confusing in my post....Cooper has/will activate all the cylinders except the two in the bridge. Those are for later.

Sorry, I did misunderstand, I thought they were all going to activate at once! Will the ones at the bridge be boring down to prepare to release their ABDs later on then, or will they be completely inert, imbedded in the armour but not yet boring?

If they're not boring yet, I'll just make it so that those two enlisted people who heard the initial boring will be elsewhere in the ship.

[United Citizens Republics]

I am not sure about Nobu....that'd be up to Xis. As for the ABDs, the two cylinders in the bridge are boring in, but when they finish they won't deploy the ABDs like the rest are. Cooper is saving those.

[Xiscapia]

Xiscapia, feel free to RP DC personnel in the rescue pods surrendering as soon as their pods are pulled opened up and they come face to face with armed personnel. I think each pod should probably contain 8-12 people, and while they'll be armed with small arms and the very occasional officer's sabre, these can freely be taken possession of.

Okie dokie lokie. Will do.

Oh, hey, no problem! I really wasn't sure about your armor and whatnot...that's why I had Cooper wait to board in the first place. Just in case it took longer to bore through. So yeah, I'm more than happy to wait.

To simulate said time, I'll let Xis post first, and we could assume that that post covers the twenty minutes or so? Or whatever you had in mind, it's no problem.

I can wait for Xis to post, or if he'd rather not, I can post and indicate that 20 minutes have elapsed.

Also, I guess this would be a good time to ask, whatever happened to Overseer Nobu and the others that were originally on the planet being terraformed? Are they still just aboard the terraformer?

I can post in the interval, would make for a nice stopgap for those drones to get through anyway.

As for Nobu and his people, I imagine they would have evacuated the personnel and most valuable equipment from their facility and are back aboard the terraformer, assuming all went according to plan. The subplot I had there didn't turn out to be as interesting as I might have hoped, so I decided not to force myself or UCR to go through the motions and just focused on the mercenaries and the main plot. I expect eventually a DMI ship will come along and quietly pick them all up.

[Xiscapia]

So now should I wait for UCR to post or continue on with my bit?

[Democratic Colonies]

So now should I wait for UCR to post or continue on with my bit?

I think I should be fine to have the two parts going on concurrently, they shouldn't really impact one another, I think. UCR should know better though, as I'm just reacting to his moves at this point.

Also, while Nobu and his people might have been trimmed from the plot for now, they could still re-emerge later on, I suppose. Perhaps later at some plot convenient point they can point out that they've been there all along, even before the DC survey mission, and so neither UCR nor DC has a proper claim to the system?

[Xiscapia]

So now should I wait for UCR to post or continue on with my bit?

I think I should be fine to have the two parts going on concurrently, they shouldn't really impact one another, I think. UCR should know better though, as I'm just reacting to his moves at this point.

Also, while Nobu and his people might have been trimmed from the plot for now, they could still re-emerge later on, I suppose. Perhaps later at some plot convenient point they can point out that they've been there all along, even before the DC survey mission, and so neither UCR nor DC has a proper claim to the system?

Alright then. Fine by me.

As for the presence of Nobu's operation, it's possible. On the one hand, it would be DMI that would be staking the claim, not the Kitsune Empire, and the company, while powerful enough to field its own private fleet and army, doesn't have the kind of clout that, say, the Columbia Conglomerate does. On the other hand, I'm sure that DMI would press the issue if the execs thought that they could get a legitimate hold on the planet, or at least a slice of the pie. And even after that, the Kitsune Empire could very well campaign on DMI's behalf, a phrase which here means "try to take the planet for themselves, which is beneficial for DMI because they'd naturally be able to expand mining operations there." Whether that does happen or not depends on what y'all want, but it is feasible.

[United Citizens Republics]

DC.....if Tipton and her blockade near the airlock were to be, say, ordered to surrender by Commander Cooper on the threat that if they don't, more robots shall be deployed.....would that be enough?

I'm trying to do this as non-lethally as possible.

[Democratic Colonies]

DC.....if Tipton and her blockade near the airlock were to be, say, ordered to surrender by Commander Cooper on the threat that if they don't, more robots shall be deployed.....would that be enough?

I'm trying to do this as non-lethally as possible.

No, as Tipton will continue resisting as long as the ship's AI core is still being rigged up with explosives. Once that's done and she's either exploded the AI and all of it's secret files and such, or perhaps secured a guarantee that the AI will not be examined and then also has the AI boobytrapped somehow, then she won't really have any more reason to resist and should surrender in short order.

So far I've been deliberately making the process of rigging up the AI to explode a long process in order to give Tipton a reason to keep fighting, as to be honest, the lasers and pew pew and gunplay has been quite invigorating.

[United Citizens Republics]

Gotcha. Murderous death robot it is! Or, since I'm trying to be all nice and non-murdery, semi-aggressive incapacitation robot!

The UCR really likes robots, and the CC makes a killing on selling them to the military. Hence all the robots!

[United Citizens Republics]

Eeek. Apologies for the delay. I was frantically drawing up a website for my armed forces (since the built-in Factbook is sorta rubbish) and I forgot to post! I'll have something up by tonight.

[United Citizens Republics]

DC, I just posted about Cooper getting aboard and deploying the RCDs and other robotic terrors and whatnot. Do feel free to let me know just how easily we've crushed the defenses!

(Iz Jokes)

Also, Happy 4th! If you're American. And if you're not American, never mind!

[Xiscapia]

DC, I just posted about Cooper getting aboard and deploying the RCDs and other robotic terrors and whatnot. Do feel free to let me know just how easily we've crushed the defenses!

(Iz Jokes)

Also, Happy 4th! If you're American. And if you're not American, never mind!

Happy 4th!

[Steel Confessors]

Anyways, I might take a bit for an IC post as I'm in the middle of a PCS. I might be able to get some free time though during TDY.

I'm afraid I don't really know what you mean there - what is PCS and TDY?

In any case though, a bit of time before your IC entry would be best I think, as I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been looking forward to the boarding action that will be occurring shortly aboard DCNS Challenger! Once that's been resolved though, I feel the timing would be better for all involved, wouldn't you agree?

A PCS is effectively military ordered move to a new duty post.

Anyways, moving and securing housing, not to mention all the in-processing, was a bit of a hassle and bigger bother than I had previously expected. Now though, I'm expecting no real hindrance in participating aside from of course work. So, I hopefully will have an IC post up soon if it's cool?

[Democratic Colonies]

I think we're just on the tail end of the boarding of the last DC ship, and the aftermath to follow. Would you be willing to wait until that's done, so we can jump forward from that into your arrival?

EDIT: Also, Xiscapia, I did have some questions in response to your OOC statement in the thread about the DC prisoners. You mentioned that all of the captives will probably end up in Cyclone's brig, but with the DC Patrol Group originally having 8 corvettes, and with each corvette having maybe 30ish crew, that's around 250ish people. Can the brig accommodate that many? Also, will the prisoners remain restrained with cuffs and such in the brig? Also, is there anything that looks like it might be a method for potential escape from the brig?

EDIT EDIT: Also, UCR, I hope it's alright that I wrote up one of the RCD's as being damaged and having it's active cloak disabled. I didn't specify what sort of damage Tipton's sabre did to the RCD's shield, but I'm hoping that the potentially massive, steel shearing damage of a mono-molecular blade edge is counterbalanced enough by the rapid dulling of it to make it narratively balanced. As far as that goes I also don't really know how strong titanium-V is, aside from assuming it's stronger than regular titanium, so I figured that detail would be best left to you if you want to bother with it.

Feel free to have Tipton unconscious or conscious but dazed when Cooper and her people go in.

[United Citizens Republics]

I was gonna ask about Tipton....shall I just assume that the barricade was overrun, and everyone has been stunned/incapacitated? Or did you want a few of your men to escape deeper into the ship?

And yeah, I wasn't expecting the robots to come out of this without a few well-deserved war wounds. To be totally honest, I completely forgot I had given the RCDs active camouflage until I read your post.....so yeah. As I am not familiar with the cutting abilities of your sabers, I'll just say you sliced some hydraulics and badly damaged the rear EMP/Control module. And for future reference, Titanium-V is essentially regular titanium that has been infused with tiny diamond and nanocarbon particles and strands. It's sparkly and strong!

[Democratic Colonies]

There were only about 20 people at that barricade outside the airlock, so I think we might as well just say they were all taken, either alive by the droids, or by your Marines when then come in, however you want to do it. The rest of the crew are in similar sorts of barricades and ambushes, all sort of in a route towards the AI core chamber. They would be easily overrun as well, even more easily than the one Tipton was at was, so if you are making a drive for the AI you can RP smashing through them and/or just summarize it with minimal losses on your end, horrific near complete losses with lots of surrenders on my end, until you reach the core itself at which point I'd like to have it go back to both RPing it like we did for the airlock.

Most of the people between the airlock and the AI core are just armed with Rhino revolver sidearms, and almost all of them are loaded with .38 Special, which is not a particularly powerful MT revolver round. If this round is incapable of penetrating your Marine's armour, which it very well might not be, then we can just have lots of people surrendering everywhere on the way to the AI core without actual fighting after this fact gets out.

As far as mono-molecular blade edges go, I'm imagining the ones DC uses as basically being the same as the ones used in Warhammer 40,000 or the Star Wars Extended Universe in that they're ridiculous super sharp blades that can cleanly slice metal anime-style, as the blade edge is literally penetrating the space in between the individual molecules of the target. Taken on the face of it, it sounds godmody, but I attempt to balance it with the fact that the blade edges begin to dull immediately due to the fragile nature of the edge, and so the blade degrades to MT-level sharpness very quickly, and also with the fact that it is still just a blade and thus is very hard to actually use against an enemy with a gun who is willing to shoot you before you can run up to him and stab or bayonet him.

[United Citizens Republics]

Alright so, before I start writing anything, let me just outline it here:

The Marines will take a few minutes to secure the prisoners (including Tipton), then load them onto the shuttles. Then they'll do what they can to patch up the bots before moving towards the AI core. I'll have them have an initial encounter with your revolver-equipped guys, and from there...well, could go two ways.

- Either I'll just RP your guys radioing to the rest that their weapons are ineffective, resulting in the mass surrender you mentioned
- Or you can RP your guys during the first encounter and resulting surrender, up until my guys arrive at the door to the AI core

I'm fine either way really. Actually, you did a better job RPing my robots than I did so....kudos! Just let me know which you'd prefer. And as much as I'd love to let your guys get in some kills.... the Marine's armor was designed to withstand much larger rounds than a .38 Special. So out of sure cannon for my own abilities, I'm afraid your revolvers may as well be peashooters. Except against the ABDs. The .38 Special can knock them out with focused fire.

On the god-mod scale, super swords are pretty benign in my opinion. I have essentially teleporting warships, so I'm not allowed to call BS on anyone.

[Steel Confessors]

I think we're just on the tail end of the boarding of the last DC ship, and the aftermath to follow. Would you be willing to wait until that's done, so we can jump forward from that into your arrival?

Feel free to have Tipton unconscious or conscious but dazed when Cooper and her people go in.

Yeah just fine with it. Just give me a heads up when its all taken care of.

[Democratic Colonies]

Alright so, before I start writing anything, let me just outline it here:

The Marines will take a few minutes to secure the prisoners (including Tipton), then load them onto the shuttles. Then they'll do what they can to patch up the bots before moving towards the AI core. I'll have them have an initial encounter with your revolver-equipped guys, and from there...well, could go two ways.

- Either I'll just RP your guys radioing to the rest that their weapons are ineffective, resulting in the mass surrender you mentioned
- Or you can RP your guys during the first encounter and resulting surrender, up until my guys arrive at the door to the AI core

I'm fine either way really. Actually, you did a better job RPing my robots than I did so....kudos! Just let me know which you'd prefer. And as much as I'd love to let your guys get in some kills.... the Marine's armor was designed to withstand much larger rounds than a .38 Special. So out of sure cannon for my own abilities, I'm afraid your revolvers may as well be peashooters. Except against the ABDs. The .38 Special can knock them out with focused fire.

If it's alright, I feel it would probably be faster if you were to RP the DC crew finding their revolvers ineffective and surrendering en mass. I'd love to read more about your Marine armour and how it protects the wearer, and really, it'll be probably be a pretty quick bit, and I'd rather just compress the people surrendering and then being secured by your Marines into one post than have one post for the surrender and then you having to make another for the securing and actually dealing with them. You've let me have a lot of fun tearing apart your drones, have some fun tearing apart my crew!

On the god-mod scale, super swords are pretty benign in my opinion. I have essentially teleporting warships, so I'm not allowed to call BS on anyone.

You should feel free to call BS on anyone at any time! I'm fairly new to FT, but from what I've read, I understand that people calling BS on each other as appropriate is basically the core that makes NSFT work!

Yeah just fine with it. Just give me a heads up when its all taken care of.

We shall keep you posted!

[Xiscapia]

EDIT: Also, Xiscapia, I did have some questions in response to your OOC statement in the thread about the DC prisoners. You mentioned that all of the captives will probably end up in Cyclone's brig, but with the DC Patrol Group originally having 8 corvettes, and with each corvette having maybe 30ish crew, that's around 250ish people. Can the brig accommodate that many? Also, will the prisoners remain restrained with cuffs and such in the brig? Also, is there anything that looks like it might be a method for potential escape from the brig?

Sorry, I must have phrased that poorly. All the captives that the Cyclone picks up will end up in its brig. I assume that the Bigshot also got more than its fair share of prisoners, and if both of those ships ran out of room (a possibility -the Bigshot is, ironically, not all that big nor equipped for keeping large numbers of prisoners) I assume that another one of two ships from the Bloodletters would have come out to help. As for the state of the DC personnel when they enter the brigs (they would have gotten more-or-less the same treatment on the Bigshot) the cuffs would be removed once they were placed inside their cells. I'll paint you a picture of the cells themselves:

About ten feet high, six across and twelve long, with pretty much everything except the bedding and toilet paper made of metal. Extremely spartan, just four fold-out cots to a cell mounted against the bulkheads with the lower two directly underneath the upper two and a single toilet. The only luxuries are toilet paper and the fact that the bunks are rather large (meant for people who average anywhere between six to eight feet in height for the Bigshot and Cyclone) though this is mitigated by the fact that the prisoners would have been shoved in six to eight people to room. The entryway hatches are solid and also made of metal, with no windows or anything like that but a single slot in the doorway wide enough to accommodate a food tray (or gun barrel). The only other feature is a small black bulb in the upper corner near the ceiling, which can be correctly guessed to be a surveillance camera with microphone and speaker.

Unless any of the DC personnel can fit themselves through the food slot or down the toilet there's no immediate way out of the cells. They can't hear much of anything from the other cells or even the corridor outside on account of the thick metal bulkheads, and as much as the guards normally interact with them they might as well be trapped and alone. Naturally the wardens can see and hear everything that happens in the cells thanks to the sensor suite, so there are a few surefire ways to draw their attention, including messing with aforementioned electronics (standing on one of the cots to get a closer look, covering it with toilet paper, throwing foodstuffs at it, etc.), faking illness or injury or by simply speaking aloud and saying they have information to trade. Any of those would get the guards to come down and open the cell to investigate, and it's possible that one/some/all of them might be then removed as a result. Suffice to say it would be difficult for them to then escape because they've got armed and power armored guards on them, but they can get the guards to come to them and even open the cell by being sufficiently annoying/deceptive/enticing.

As far as mono-molecular blade edges go, I'm imagining the ones DC uses as basically being the same as the ones used in Warhammer 40,000 or the Star Wars Extended Universe in that they're ridiculous super sharp blades that can cleanly slice metal anime-style, as the blade edge is literally penetrating the space in between the individual molecules of the target. Taken on the face of it, it sounds godmody, but I attempt to balance it with the fact that the blade edges begin to dull immediately due to the fragile nature of the edge, and so the blade degrades to MT-level sharpness very quickly, and also with the fact that it is still just a blade and thus is very hard to actually use against an enemy with a gun who is willing to shoot you before you can run up to him and stab or bayonet him.

On the god-mod scale, super swords are pretty benign in my opinion. I have essentially teleporting warships, so I'm not allowed to call BS on anyone.

Aye, I have to echo what UCR says here. Your regular old bladed weapon is generally completely useless in FT combat, what with people running around with power armor and personal shields, so it's totally fine to jack up a sword to make it cut through that sort of thing. The Xiscapians use vibro-generators on their weapons, which is different from mono-molecular edges in principle but has the same effect when you're slicing 'n dicing. So don't worry about it. Sword fights are cool!

You should feel free to call BS on anyone at any time! I'm fairly new to FT, but from what I've read, I understand that people calling BS on each other as appropriate is basically the core that makes NSFT work!

It's funny when you put it like that, but you're not entirely wrong...