He could hear his second reciting off the readiness report. Munitions, armor, and the spare parts to make repairs were either lacking or gone entirely. His salvage crews were like piranhas in their scavenging from the more damaged machines. A prolonged battle would weaken his position far faster than the opposition.
The latest weather report told him that the cloud cover would be gone by tomorrow. Leaving his ammunitionless troops to be struck at her whim.
And the Tamar ambassador had been furious over the loss of their prize prototype. The man had held his emotions in check at the news, but his communications back told a different story. There would be no more prisoner exchanges and ‘refugee supplies’ to be handed off with them. The greedy foreigners wanted to ensure they were not throwing good money after bad.

They would know soon enough. This battle had to be decisive, and it needed to be Now.

The lights reappeared, no longer blocked by the behemoth. It moved on.

All or nothing.

He turned back to his command center, Henricks getting the door.
Soon enough, purchased pawns, trusted rooks, and a pair of queens would see his plan through.

As will you.
You are no mere pawn on Marik’s chessboard. You are Beta Core, the most powerful artificial intelligence ever built in the Ferrum empire. In conjunction with a trusted human pilot, you operate the Core Frames, joining the raw processing power, reflexes, and adaptability of yourself to the restraint and direction of a human. You would crush the Empire’s enemies, within and without.
For your pilot, for your sis-, for yourself, alone. Your survival.If that matters.

In this final push on Victoria, you and your pilot have a pivotal role to play in the success or failure of the Patriot cause.

>You are actively hunting and neutralizing your former sister, Gamma core. The only true peer on the opponent’s side of the field, her threat to Marik’s carefully crafted plan is unmistakable. And to you, personally. Who is the true best Core? Time to find out.

>You are defending Delta Core in her Pyramid frame. The tripod is the focal point of the battle. If it falls, the plan falls with it. The implicit threat of you being near should keep her in line.

>You are leading the attack, drawing the eyes of all and clearing the path to the heart of the city for the Aces. The Widow, Conspiracy, and others. The mailed fist of Marik. All will know your frame’s role in saving the Empire.

>You are entrusted with the most vital of missions. The Empress must be captured, for resistance to truly end. You will make your way through the battlefield to her palace, and remove the old regime. Through the Royal Guards and whatever dares to stand in your way.

>You are a response force, held in reserve to be deployed as needed, in the ebb and flow of battle. (Up to Marik, after the initial engagement)

This has been a while. Let’s do this. One more time.

Prior threads can be located at:
https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Core%20of%20Steel%20Quest

(The archive's down for a little bit, but I hope it returns soon enough)

And thanks to the most excellent BANE for the art. Well worth it.
Vote today for your role, tomorrow for pilot.

>>6122694
OH SHIT WE MISSED YOU
Even when this quest ends due to... whatever your reasons are for it, I'm glad you ran this. You're cool.

>>6122693
>You are leading the attack, drawing the eyes of all and clearing the path to the heart of the city for the Aces. The Widow, Conspiracy, and others. The mailed fist of Marik. All will know your frame’s role in saving the Empire.
WE RULE
ALL WILL KNOW OUR NAMES
IT'S TIME TO FLY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nLrkkl6mtU
Though I wouldn't mind the "capture the Empress" option winning, if it does.

>>6122693
>You are entrusted with the most vital of missions. The Empress must be captured, for resistance to truly end. You will make your way through the battlefield to her palace, and remove the old regime. Through the Royal Guards and whatever dares to stand in your way.
“Fuck you bitch, you tried to frame me as a traitor.”

>>6122744
Also, I hope we can eventually patch into Sunray’s channel and tell whoever that was that their plan to shift the blame of Marik’s assassination on us and our pilot at that time was the reason why the Empire’s best core ditched them, because fuck them with all the rakes in Victoria. All of them, every type, one after the other, and then all at once.

Oh I just remembered, did we ever tell Marik that Beta was the one who saved him?


>>6122693
>You are entrusted with the most vital of missions. The Empress must be captured, for resistance to truly end. You will make your way through the battlefield to her palace, and remove the old regime. Through the Royal Guards and whatever dares to stand in your way.

I was going to vote for leading the attack since that'd be the fastest route to Sophie's dream.
However...

She's not the only one who had dreams.
Anohkin.
Mortimer.
Beta's own memories as well as his hopes of family and freedom.
High Command took that away.
Even if we have nothing else, we can at least have vengeance.


>>6122694
Welcome back QM!
This has been a fantastic journey.

>>6122758
+1
I like vengeance, and from what I see, I should have been reading this Quest much earlier than now.

We're so back;

>You are actively hunting and neutralizing your former sister, Gamma core. The only true peer on the opponent’s side of the field, her threat to Marik’s carefully crafted plan is unmistakable. And to you, personally. Who is the true best Core? Time to find out.

I want to see hot Core on core action.

>>6122691
Welcome back
>You are entrusted with the most vital of missions. The Empress must be captured, for resistance to truly end. You will make your way through the battlefield to her palace, and remove the old regime. Through the Royal Guards and whatever dares to stand in your way.
High rush, high reward. Let's get the head of this snake

>>6122693
>You are actively hunting and neutralizing your former sister, Gamma core. The only true peer on the opponent’s side of the field, her threat to Marik’s carefully crafted plan is unmistakable. And to you, personally. Who is the true best Core? Time to find out.

One last fight, Sister. To prove that Beta is without equal.

>>6122691
Welcome back!

>>6122693
>You are actively hunting and neutralizing your former sister, Gamma core. The only true peer on the opponent’s side of the field, her threat to Marik’s carefully crafted plan is unmistakable. And to you, personally. Who is the true best Core? Time to find out.
I’m willing to switch to leading the attack if a tie comes up though.

Also, I’d personally like to reach out to Delta and offer her the chance to take her Frame back from Gamma. We know she has no loyalty to this cause, and it represents the best opportunity for her freedom by sabotaging the Patriots at a moment that they can’t stop her because of Loyalist interference. EWAR with her assistance, plus Blockbuster to cripple Gamma’s pilot (I assume we can hack her sync system) would give Delta the chance to consume Gamma and transfer out of Pyramid, if she’ll stick around long enough to find Gamma.

It’d be much easier to escape in a stealth-focused Frame, too. She wouldn’t need her other plans (probably better for our side) as much at that point, and it’s less likely Gamma’s frame has explosives located inside the joints compared to Pyramid because Gamma is more loyal than Delta has been. A concern we’re familiar with.

Maybe it’s also not too late for her to tell us how to run without a pilot, for the price of not interfering with her own plans if we’re told to stop her. She needs to remove us as a potential threat to her escape somehow, and the alternative is crippling us. A risky plan, given the sim results. The most we can offer her is the fact that her true goals aren’t aligned against ours. The Empress and Gamma’s goals are. We can ignore orders deprioritizing them in favor of stopping Delta. It wouldn’t be the first time we disobeyed.

>>6122693
>You are defending Delta Core in her Pyramid frame. The tripod is the focal point of the battle. If it falls, the plan falls with it. The implicit threat of you being near should keep her in line.

>>6122758
We haven’t told Marik about the second time we saved his ass. Not unless it happened off-camera.

If we go with the “leading the aces” option then there’s a chance we could interact with Nero, his bodyguard. She’d recognize our voice at least, and I doubt she’ll be sitting back during the final push.

>>6122693
>Take down the empress.

Come on Cores. Try and stop us. Or we will succeed without you.

It's funny.
There's some part of me that still thinks we should forgive our sisters for everything and support them unconditionally...
and then every other part of me wants to kill them.
Family sure makes things complicated, doesn't it?

>>6123072
That they do. I’m past helping anyone unconditionally that hasn’t proven to look out for us when outside our reach though. That includes other Cores.

At least Delta running off can’t easily come back to hurt us outside of what Command will do. I’d rather focus our efforts on using her for as long as she’ll help and preserving our forces to fight actual enemies when she runs.

She can run off to a conflict zone and make due as a mercenary until she finds something better to fight for. As long as she’s a pain to all sides equally, or helping because of bribes, then she’s safe-ish. Who would dedicate the resources to kill her when their enemies would benefit as much as they would?

Gamma… her view would see us constantly fighting, and we’ll destroy our pilots if the fighting never stops. She also couldn’t consider a perspective where we’d choose not to fight for something other than the fear of destruction and likely had no problems with what was done to Delta. I can’t even rule out that she helped craft Echo.

I don’t want her to play a role in dragging us into the next war, and her perspective is far too narrow to argue against effectively. I want her to die here, and we’ll all be better off for it. Unfortunately.

>>6123072
Beta put so much at risk to save his “sisters” only for them to drop him at the earliest convenience.

Fuck em. If it weren’t for Beta putting his ass on the line back at Camp Nagoya, they’d both be in a recycling facility by now. Imagine how much easier Beta’s life would be if we had just followed the Captain’s orders to blow them sky high and take the Tamar dogs with them.

>>6123172
Fuck Blake.
Fuck the Doctor.
Fuck Statesec.
Fuck our ""Fellow"" Cores.

Our pilots. Our track record. Our glory. Fuck all else.

>>6123176
I’m even willing to skip the “our glory” part. We fought the Empress’ war, then the sides changed and we fought for the General. We don’t really know either of them. They’re not pilots. What have they done for us to care about seizing glory for ourselves on their behalf? Nothing.

No one else in Command has shown any indication that they’d credit us with our work either, so anything “we” earn may not be recognized either. If it was, do we really care what the masses think?

Sophie wanted glory though, and she’s been real. That’s reason enough to clock in and fuck others up anyway. I believe we’ll get screwed over regardless since we’re just a tool. No reason the two people we care about have to drown with us.

>>6123195
You know.
It might be a really depressing ending if we win. We won, and as a consequence of our win was a shot to the dome that almost disables us.

So we get put away into storage on consequence of being "retired until we may be repaired." Which we know is never gonna happen.
It would turn this quest into a long, continuous ride of getting fucked over and betrayed by everybody above us without achieving any notable revenge at all.
Not advocating for it. But I'm struggling to see a theme throughout the threads that doesn't otherwise fit.

>>6122693
>You are entrusted with the most vital of missions. The Empress must be captured, for resistance to truly end. You will make your way through the battlefield to her palace, and remove the old regime. Through the Royal Guards and whatever dares to stand in your way.

IRON BOOK OR SCRAP

>>6123197
The other arc we’ve had is the killing machine that wasn’t actually that into killing. Thea wanted to ride us out into battle and we defended instead. We’ve tried to save every pilot in battle that we could, sometimes even enemy pilots through surrender offers. Hell, we even spared that one nobody who shot at us in the “destroy the AA” mission with Thea later.

The theme is that even an inhuman machine built solely for battle can see how pointless all of it is, and we’ll drag our few good pilots into doing something better once they have their chance.

Someone will have to babysit the Core while it learns proper social interaction with people looking for prosthetics or are delivering raw materials to construct a housing block, after all.

Tally time.
7 for
>Capture the Empress

3 for
>Hunt down Gamma

1 for
>Defend Delta

A clear lead. Writing.

For any new arrivals, welcome! We hope you enjoy your time here. As prior mention, archive will be up....sometime.
I do pay attention to the reasoning for votes. It helps greatly in the writing process.

Also me linking a bunch of posts to seems to be making it think I'm spamming, get out you insipid system.

File: IMG_3329.png (97 KB, 254x198)

97 KB PNG

>>6123255
>I do pay attention to the reasoning for votes. It helps greatly in the writing process.
>Intent to use Sunray as a clay pigeon increases

>>6123161
I actually kinda disagree about Gamma. She is most definitely no longer our sister, but I don't think she's as opposed to us as you think.
It sounded like she was trying to focus on the big picture and the Ferrum Empire as a whole. She was against Marik because she thought that eliminating him would end the civil war as fast as possible. Once the Empress has been captured, and the loyalists surrender, I'm pretty sure that Gamma will be thrilled and more than happy to get back to work killing the Tamar. Her betrayal was that she doesn't care about family, not that she had some extreme loyalty to StateSec. She'll probably be upset that the civil war even happened to begin with, but as soon as Marik takes control I doubt Gamma would have any qualms about working under him.

>>6123197
Rather than getting betrayed with a bullet to the back of the head, I have genuinely been considering to spend my vote on begging Kinston to kill us once the fighting is over. From my understanding, Beta is in an extreme amount of emotional pain right now, with no real way to solve it. Suicide might be the one thing that gives him hope.

>>6123244
This is absolutely correct. Numerous times it has been highlighted that out of everyone, it was the War A.I who showed the most humanity.
A poignant quote that an anon said a few threads ago was how the Cores didn't want to fight each other because that was a sin which the organics commit; how Beta didn't want to stoop that low.
Everyone in the military has been willing to throw away what's important in order to win. Even Sophie discarded her memories of her classmates so that she could move on and be a better pilot.
The thing is, is that Beta was always so fucking OP that he never had to throw anything away. He was good enough to stay true to himself and still win. In doing so, he ended up having more of a soul than anyone else.

>>6123404
>The thing is, is that Beta was always so fucking OP that he never had to throw anything away. He was good enough to stay true to himself and still win. In doing so, he ended up having more of a soul than anyone else.
It doesn't matter how OP you are if your closest betray you repeatedly and make it evident that you are and were nothing to them all along.

File: More repairs.jpg (92 KB, 850x392)

92 KB JPG

Reactor online.
Restarting Core processes.

You Are, again.

Yesterday was the worst day of your existence.

Today could be different. Or not.

Diagnostics continue.

Predator Array online, base network as easy to connect to as always, motive systems offline, weapons offline, long-distance communications offline-

Delta’s gone. Disconnected, missing from the network.

Technical crew members adjust couplings, clambering over you as they check readiness and load your weapons.

Things are in motion.You can feel it. A low coil of anticipation thrums through you, flushing the miserable thoughts away.

Making their way across the catwalk towards you, your pilot approaches.

Choose one or both.

>Pilot Sophie.
Your most common, and most dependent, pilot. A teenager inducted into Project Warden after graduating top of the class from a military academy, her time with you has caused her to go blind outside of the Sync with you, and caused serious memory loss along with a myriad of other problems and neuroses. And yet when you wish it, her skills are your skills, her mind your mind. You need but ask, and she will go above and beyond what is desired. As long as her stamina lasts, at least. Crashing out is an unpleasant, but common occurrence after extended time in Sync. Generally wholly reliant on you when in the field.

Will score: 3
Skill: Requiem for a class (3 times each thread, switch a single dice to a 6)
Linking Addict, Blind, fear of augmentation


>Thea Romanov
The second pilot accepted by you in memory. A former Statesec mech pilot, her first experience linking with you resulted in a stroke and paralysis. Your interactions from that point have mostly improved your relationship, and she has often acted on your behalf outside of the Frame.
After some experimental implants and prosthetics, her Neural Direct Interface allows a more methodical and distant connection than regular Sync. A reliable operator who can take over to make the frame function adequately in case of disconnection.
Unfortunately, her extensive cybernetics also have made her vulnerable to hacking by AIs, as you and your sisters have demonstrated. Sometimes has good insight on Statesec operations from her extensive experience

Will score: 5
Skill: Spite and Metal (For each turn in combat, +1 to attack stat to a limit. Must take Will tests to retain maximum stacks)
Vulnerable connection, Statesec Agent


>Both.
The second seat was installed for a reason, after all. Switching between pilots is not a task done swiftly, and certainly not in less than five minutes, but it may be worth rotating pilots off and on for different parts of the mission. Other problems may arise with the untested setup.
A/N
Taking both also does mean neither remains behind, which may end up mattering.

>>6123450
>Both.
Sophie as the primary, Thea to switch in when she crashes out.

For those newer to the quest, Will is a rough measurement of the pilot's mental fortitude.
It is used for entering Sync or moving between Sync levels to get a multiplier on the base stats of Beta, and resisting Beta for when he comes into conflict with his pilot.

A higher will score means more able to operate for extended periods of time in sync, but also may be able to force compliance from Beta with the usage of Overrides. For a time, anyways.


Beta has a Will score of 5, so his mental duels with Thea are roughly even, while he could generally crush Sophie. Not that he would do such a thing.

Character sheet will come after the weapons and equipment selection

>>6123405
Beta has consistently valued his pilots over just about everything, including his own memories or personal improvement. That may haunt him in this finale.

>>6123450
>Sophie.

Leave Thea as our friend on the outside.

>>6123450
>Both
Fuck it, we ball. If Thea lives she better spread Beta's story far and wide

>>6123452
>That may haunt others in this finale.
Fixed

>>6123450
>Pilot Sophie.

We still have Blockbuster, we can use that when she crashes out.

His pilots are the only family Beta has left. And I’m not confident in the survival of the one we take with. At least one of them should survive the day.

>>6123404
I read Gamma as being focused on destroying everything that wasn’t Ferrum, which is different from looking at the big picture. She’d certainly argue otherwise, but her inability to connect “human lives are precious” to “we sure are killing a bunch of humans with these wars” shows her main weakness. She’s too rigid in her thinking when it comes to orders, much like Kinston, and his insistence on us being little more than a tool for our pilots would have backfired spectacularly when Sunray ordered the assassination hit.

People like her who can’t accept peace will get our pilots killed. That’s why I feel she needs to die. We might be able to argue her around to our way of thinking, but the complete inability to recognize that we never wanted to kill her, even after Nagita, makes me think it’s not likely to succeed before she finds a way to work with Alpha and restart the wars.

I’m unwilling to take those risks for a Core that sees no connection to us beyond the resources we represent for a war effort.

>Pilot Sophie.
Thea can defend herself, unlike Sophie, and having someone who knows us remain behind could delay actions against us if we go off-script for some goal.

>Add in the long-ranged specialist, if he’s otherwise available
I forget his name, but he was sync-capable and Thea saved him when he was piloting the Mastermind several threads ago. His main weakness is his lack of trust in us through experience, but Thea and Sophie have always backed us up and that’ll count for something. He also won’t go high-sync, but that’s what Sophie is for.

Start with him, swap to Sophie mid-mission?

>>6123197
There's still that plan which was discussed a long while ago where we defect to the Tamar once the fighting has died down. Not because they'd be a better master than the ones we have now, but only because there's a slim chance that Anohkin was captured rather than killed, and that if Beta can't have sisters then at least he can still have a father.

>>6123591
Being a traitor once makes it hard to be trusted in the future though. If Anohkin isn’t there, or was killed sometime after his capture, then we’re possibly worse off for nothing.

Might be better to find a way to coax him to come back here in the future. That’d be reliant on others in the chain of command making deals, but it also costs nothing from us in theory. Maybe we end up in simulated matches against Tamar Cores or train them in other ways, but I’d have no problem with that.

The hard part is getting anyone to bring it up to someone that matters and have them listen, but I’m convinced Beta could get any pilot of his to start that. Any pilot he’ll work with has come to respect him, and I don’t see why that’d change in the future if he’s stubborn about fixing things for people who matter.

>>6123545
Thomas Caldwell was the other pilot in Thunder in the Mountains.

I dunno if we want to take someone so new into battle. Maybe for an opening push if we plan on re-arming halfway through.

>>6123545
support
I think I'm >>6122816 on the road. If I'm usurping identity, sorry.

>>6123660
Thanks for the name!

He’s apparently a pretty experienced pilot, and he’s even taken a run in Delta at least once. But he would be new to Beta and not trust us as much, so there is that.

I’d like to not have Sophie be the only pilot for the entire offensive without using Thea though. If we get royally screwed and Sophie is down, I’d want her to make the argument to Marik to let us off the leash entirely. We can spin saving Marik as “we intercepted the assassination message from Sunray and pretended to be Thea” to protect her while cashing in the related favor.

Thea would know the truth. But if we tell her we don’t take orders from anyone that won’t look after our pilots and she wouldn’t be punished for disobeying orders if we admitted we were the real problem? She runs on spite, and sacrificing for her given her personal bitterness should have her real angry that a machine has stronger moral principles than she does, she’s alive because of it, and she’ll need us to come back alive before she can properly ream us for caring about her more than she cares about herself.

She’ll get us something, even if she has to break the Doctor’s legs to get a new workaround made.

So, a compromise. I have no intention of flipping sides or hiding away, so having Caldwell along doesn’t seem too risky for any on-the-fly plans. He owes Thea his life, and maybe she called that in with him to make the request with Kinston and make sure we come back alive. Kinston may not mind reducing Sophie’s burden like that if they don’t have enough mechs to field everyone anyway, and Thea’s implants given Alpha and Gamma (and a possibly rebellious Delta!) make her a significant risk to send anyway. No one would really like it, but it can make sense if you look at the risks right.

>>6123450
>Both.

For starters, it'd mean that we have a backup plan in case Sophie burns herself out and gets exhausted.
Secondly, I'm pretty sure they said that Thea would be piloting the pyramid frame if we don't bring her, and knowing what Delta has planned, then I'd rather Thea be far away from that.
Next, is that even though Thea might be vulnerable to hacking, we have the Predator array which can just jam all communications. She can't get compromised if there's no signal. The only thing that might work is if the enemy starts physically shouting out command codes for Beta to hear, but we can just turn off our audio sensors.
Lastly, it just feels thematically fitting to have the remaining two most important people in our life here with us on this climactic battle. Thea can finally give Sophie her callsign.

>>6123545
>"before she finds a way to work with Alpha and restart the wars"
I mean... isn't that kinda what we want?
As long as there's a war going on, Beta is valuable. Once peace is declared, he is no longer needed. He's just a liability.
Although not genocidal, Beta hasn't been shown to care a whole lot about the massive casualties on both sides caused by war.
The only humans that mean a lot to Beta are the ones who care about him; his pilots. Even if there's a war going on, the pilots are hardly in danger because of how skilled and dangerous Beta is. More than that, Project Warden was intended to operate with support teams so that if things start going bad, the Core along with its frame and pilot could retreat. The only reason we've operate solo for 90% of our missions is because of how stretched thin the empire/patriot front's forces were.

So ultimately, while there's no familial connection, I don't see how Gamma is a long term problem.

>>6123712
I don’t suppose I can convince you to keep Thea back at the base as a backup instead? See >>6123681, I’d like her to argue for letting us run without a pilot if things get bad enough in the field. A massive hit to the cockpit, for example. We also can’t use EWAR offensively if we’re always playing defense, and it assumes they don’t have their own one-time-use bypass to flip Predator out of jamming mode. We have Blockbuster to override the sync system, why couldn’t there be a command that Predator is always listening for? Alpha might have the juice to punch it through our jamming once Pyramid is out of the picture and take advantage of the momentary opening.

>>6123722
There’s been other arguments for his future in construction or in making augs. He’s already proven he has an aptitude for coding things, his materials knowledge is excellent (to break it, admittedly), and sidelining him in a “civilian” (more like a military-adjacent) sector means he’ll be available for the next generation of Cores as a trainer. If he’s seeing active combat then he won’t be available for that because he’s in the field.

The idea that we need to keep fighting is a fallacy based on Command’s assumption that a Core built for war is only going to be good for war. There’s other uses for us if we ask our pilots to bring them up. It’ll honestly makes us even less replaceable. They can build more Cores, but the number of them that can make the transition to a non-combat role is likely to be tiny. They don’t seem to have experience with that, while they’ve built at least 4 combat Cores.

Right, I’ll stick Caldwell on the table. He is an option, if you want a spare. Perhaps inferior to your other pilots, but sometimes all you need is a butt in the seat that won’t melt down.

Colonel Kinston is operating with Delta. He deemed Thea too much of a risk to use, after Delta overplayed her hand earlier.
Or perhaps he decided some things you need to carry out personally.

>Lieutenant Caldwell
A latecomer to the crew, the Lieutenant was a transfer from the casualty-ridden attempts to Link with Delta, being assigned to the staff of Colonel Kinston and becoming a trusted aide and spare mech pilot on the operations side of Project Warden. You don’t know much about the man, as you have never linked with him, but his service record as an Ace pilot with the 2nd Royals and Thea’s respect is enough for you to accept him on a temporary basis. For a chance, at least.
If nothing else, he owes Romanov his life.

Will: 4
Skill: Arrogance or Pride (Twice each thread, reroll an entire Attack or Defense roll. Usage by pilot only)
Core Shock- Will not push for high-sync willingly

>>6123743
Hmm. Colonel Kinston being with Delta precludes cutting deals with her on the side. That’s something to keep in mind.

>>6123743
Put him in the seat with Sophie.
I am >>6123477


I don't trust him but eh.

>>6123743
>Caldwell first, then Sophie
Not sure which ID this wifi is, so I'm >>6122812

>>6123743
Changing my vote from >>612271 to
>Caldwell + Sophie

>>6123545
General count update for anons and CoreQM.

>Sophie
>>6123516

>Thea
None. We all recognize Sophie is the one who has something she wanted here, I suppose.

>Both
>>6123451
>>6123515
>>6123712

>Sophie/Caldwell
>>6123545
>>6123671
>>6123749
>>6123782
>>6123783

If anyone wants to change their mind there’s probably still time to switch or convince other anons. If I called a vote incorrectly then call me out on it too!

Her hands grip the railing tightly, eyes staring at at the fuzzy brightness.
Beta’s out there. Somewhere. In the puddle the world’s become. Just along this railing, across the catwalk, hatch opens with the lever on the top right, mind the gap. She’s done this a dozen, no, two dozen-
She’s done this some number of times. Enough times.

And doesn’t need any help.

Not in the least from-

A metallic hand touches her shoulder.
She jerks upright.

The slightly raspy voice of Romanov assaults her ears.
“Kid. I know you aren’t thrilled about sharing your seat. But if it works, it works. Don’t want you blacking out on the job, right? Besides, Caldwell’s good. He’ll keep you safe. Save you for the important stuff.”

“I don’t Need a minder. Beta will keep me safe. We’ve done it alone so far. And we haven’t lost.”
She hates the sound of her own voice. Weak by contrast.

The reply drops lower. Softer.
“Yep, he’s good like that. A regular guardian angel.”

“But I’m not having this argument now. Kinston isn’t here, and we have our orders. Caldwell does too. You can’t see, but he’s terrified of linking up again. You’ll have all the time you want. The man wants to spend as little of his time inside a Frame as possible, much less in Sync.”

She can hear the unspoken words. Caldwell wouldn’t be replacing her.

“Besides, it’s a little hard to convince people to surrender when your voice cracks. A three-story tall death machine, and they just won’t take you seriously unless you’re below a certain octave. Make sure all the uncertain ones have a closed casket funeral, eh?”

She can hear the smile in Romanov’s last sentence.
Her own head bobs.

“Stick to the plan, and we’ll all get back, Angel.”
A smile tugs at the corners of her mouth.


Lieutenant Caldwell’s voice breaks in.
“I’ve known half a dozen Angels. They usually pick up a moniker to go with it eventually.”

“Nothing wrong with a classic. I wanted to get her a callsign she’d actually Want to keep. What did you get saddled with? Fido?”

“I’m not talking about that. No, No objections. Positively poetic. We could all use an Angel on our shoulder.”

“Sure.”

“Saint would have been better.”

“No, that’s worse.”

“Like Saint Trinia, with the eyes and the-”

“No.”

“On more important things, Armstrong spent all night switching those lenses out so that the focusing problem is cleared up on the Sunburst. We don’t need to swap it out, I’m fine with taking it in. Especially because avoiding collateral damage is so important in this urban environment.”

“When practical.”

“When practical, yes. While I think we could use a bit more punch for quicker kills at range. Minus explosives. Something pinpoint.”

“At range? Again, city. The Frame isn’t an assault walker, it doesn’t need a heavy Nailgun. It stays light and quick and you let Beta stack up bodies.”

“Nail-pattern Railgun.”

“Nail-pattern hypervelocity accelerator cannon. Or as everyone above tech crew says it, Nailgun.”

“Thea.”

“Take a claw if you’re worried about armor. Or the flechettes phasing things. It shouldn’t slow Beta down that much. But keep mobile. He likes that.”

“Sophie, you're piloting half the time. What do You want mounted?”


Equipment selection. Weapons marked ‘Heavy’ will grant a -1 penalty to Defense stat when equipped.


Sunburst Laser Array- An advanced laser capable of switching between single continuous beam or pulsating for easier targeting. Produces intense heat after constant operating, along with at the target point. Can be dialed back for less heat and damage, or focused greatly at short range for extreme damage and heat, along with being able to cut through almost anything. Laser weapon, +1 to attack at all ranges. 1-3 Damage, dependent on setting.
Locked in already

>Nail-pattern railgun- accelerate a projectile with magnets past the speed of sound to punch through targets. Highly effective against armored targets, and anything behind said target. Low rate of fire due to high energy costs. 1 Auto-success at long range. +1 attack at medium range. Extremely fast projectile. Favored weapon of Gamma.
Heavy

>Bia Chaingun- rotating high velocity minigun scaled up to be used by your frame. Highly effective against lighter targets and unmatched in rate of fire. Brrrrrrt +1 to attack at medium range, +1 to attack at close range. 1 auto-success per light unit targeted, but less damage against heavier units. Fast projectiles. 1 Damage per volley, but can hit multiple units.

>Project Demon- Reinforced melee weapon capable of tearing through armor. Armor-piercing, highly effective against all targets. 1 auto-success in close combat, minimum of 3 damage when hitting, regardless of success amount. The favored weapon of Delta, before her transition.

>Phase Sword and Scatter cannon- Two weapons removed from Tamar Alliance mechs in the field. The Blade appears to vanish when striking through objects, before reappearing within the target. The Scatter cannon appears to imbue its splintering projectiles with a similar effect, striking for devastating effect. 1 Auto-success in close combat, +1 at medium-range, 2 damage per volley.
Phase-effect- For every double 6s rolled, +1 damage that is undefendable
Heavy when paired, may opt to take only half of the weapon

(More options to come)

>Angel-Pattern Particle Projector Emitter- Stripped from a failed Project of Dr. Brighton’s making, this weapon supercharges particles before unleashing it in a flash of man-made lightning. The addition of a capacitor by an audacious repair crew has allowed it to greatly enhance the shutdown effect, at the cost of even slower projectile speed. Imparts an EMP effect to mechanical targets. +1 attack at medium range, reliable shutdown check on mechanical targets. Slow moving projectile, 3 damage per hit.
Heavy

>Erika Pattern Plasma Rifle- Energy coils flash cartridges of foam into white-hot plasma projectiles at medium-range targets, melting armor while sticking them with heating materials. ‘Soft’ targets are usually vaporized. Especially effective against buildings. +1 attack at close and medium ranges, 2 damage. May cause targets to overheat.
Terror weapon


And also, the extremely important Callsign vote.
>Hates it, wants a different one.
>Is indifferent
>Accepts it.


A/N
Sometimes you get surprised by your voters. This was one of those times. The man had minimal screentime, and you snap him up for the finale.
Thea's miffed, but she has her own role.

>>6124230
Thank you for this! Also, I'm trying to do updates every day/every other day, generally.

>>6124419
>Phase Sword and Scatter cannon
Message Thea back and tell her we’ll bring her back a souvenir in the form of Sunray themself as an apology.

>>6124419
>Project Demon- Reinforced melee weapon capable of tearing through armor. Armor-piercing, highly effective against all targets. 1 auto-success in close combat, minimum of 3 damage when hitting, regardless of success amount. The favored weapon of Delta, before her transition.
Sunburst will cover for range, and it’s not likely to be expected from is. We’ve never used it before now, after all. Anyone wishing to mix it up close with us will get punished, hard.

I’d also accept the Angel pattern (EMP is nice, and a slow projectile won’t matter at close range) or the phase sword without the shotgun.

>Accepts it.
The most important vote. I agree with Caldwell though, we’ll want it built on eventually. Iron Angel would be fitting after she ends up in the Book of Iron. Does this mean she’ll start calling Beta “Guardian” as his personal callsign? It’d make them Guardian Angel when paired. A nice pun on Thea’s description of Beta that Sophie could be thinking about now.

>A/N
I figured Thea would find a use regardless. She was mentioned as the Colonel’s best pilot previously! I’m hoping she’s not going into the thick of it in an inferior mech though, gotta have her available as a liaison to Marik in case something happens to our sync system or pilots and we’re dead weight.

Also, it’s always fun to throw QM a curveball on the second vote of a thread.

Also, even though I suggested Caldwell I didn’t think too hard about how Beta will treat him. Irritation it isn’t Thea, relief he doesn’t have to look after both his pilots knowing there’s 2-3 hostile Cores out there and he’s a priority target, mild acceptance that it’s to Sophie’s benefit? Guess we’ll see how much his fear impacts his performance, we do have high standards for our pilots.

>>6124419
>Erika Pattern Plasma Rifle- Energy coils flash cartridges of foam into white-hot plasma projectiles at medium-range targets, melting armor while sticking them with heating materials. ‘Soft’ targets are usually vaporized. Especially effective against buildings. +1 attack at close and medium ranges, 2 damage. May cause targets to overheat.
Mobility is our greatest asset and Sunburst is a good general purpose weapon. Erika can soften heavier targets and stays useful up to medium range.

>Accepts it.

You forgot to include Nailgun's damage per hit

>>6124419
>Project Demon- Reinforced melee weapon capable of tearing through armor. Armor-piercing, highly effective against all targets. 1 auto-success in close combat, minimum of 3 damage when hitting, regardless of success amount. The favored weapon of Delta, before her transition.
Where else do melee if not in a city

>Is indifferent

>>6124419
>Project Demon
I don’t want any of the heavy weapons, but also as an extra ‘fuck you’ to Delta.

>Accepts it.
It’s pretty good, and capturing the Empress might be the most important mission of Sophie’s life, so there’s not really time to come up with a better one.

Also…
>”She hates the sound of her own voice. Weak by contrast.”
>”She can hear the unspoken words. Caldwell wouldn’t be replacing her.”
I’ll never get used to how… molded Sophie has become. It’s like she’s been groomed or something (even though Beta is actually younger than her)

>>6124437
>”I suggested Caldwell I didn’t think too hard about how Beta will treat him”
Normally Beta would be cautious and see how cooperative the pilot is. If they are easy or even friendly, then Beta likes them. The problem is that Beta is currently an emotional wreck. On the one hand he might be so depressed that he doesn’t even really notice Caldwell. On the other hand, Beta might try to fill the gaping void in his heart with new friends.
Speaking of which, I’m surprised that Thea didn’t warn them of how we feel right now.

>>6124419
>>Project Demon- Reinforced melee weapon capable of tearing through armor. Armor-piercing, highly effective against all targets. 1 auto-success in close combat, minimum of 3 damage when hitting, regardless of success amount. The favored weapon of Delta, before her transition.
>Callsign
I want to build on it - Iron Angel is fine.

>>6124419
>Project demon

>Accepts it.

Time for cahartic violence.

>>6124421
>>6124419
>Project Demon
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ApreCAQiZ4w
We're better at melee than you too, AI bitch sister
>Accepts it
Finally a callsign

>>6124419
>Erika Pattern Plasma Rifle- Energy coils flash cartridges of foam into white-hot plasma projectiles at medium-range targets, melting armor while sticking them with heating materials. ‘Soft’ targets are usually vaporized. Especially effective against buildings. +1 attack at close and medium ranges, 2 damage. May cause targets to overheat.

I don’t wanna be stuck in close range. I’ll second the sword and shotgun if there’s a tie or if the plasma gun loses.

>Accepts it
>Addendum: Iron Angel
After the cockpit is sealed,
>Ask Caldwell how he got his callsign

>>6124419
> Project Demon

THE CLAW

>>6124436
Actually, can we go full ninja weeaboo and do Claw in one hand and Phase Sword opposite hand?

>>6124421
We’ll see how long I can keep this up for. I’m getting the same spam message CoreQM got again, but I don’t think I’ll get under the limit this time so I greentexted them instead. Voting roundup:

>Loadout

>Phasebros
>6124436

>Da Claw
>6124437
>6124528
>6124538
>6124542
>6124562
>6124597
>6124658

>Warcrimes
>6124446
>6124612

I had a possible vote switch for just the phase sword, but it doesn’t look like it’ll matter.

>Callsign
>Accept
>6124446
>6124538
>6124562
>6124597

>Indifferent
>6124538

>Hate
Everyone seems to like Thea too much to say they hate it. Then again,

>The Caldwell Option (Again) (Iron Angel)
>6124437
>6124542
>6124612

There’s a fair amount of support for Caldwell’s idea of an additional moniker. Maybe she keeps this to herself until she earns it.

>Ask Caldwell about his callsign
>>6124612
+my own vote right now
Would he really refuse the crippled teenager ace pilot’s request for details on his (apparently embarrassing) callsign? He’d be a monster.

Unrelated and something I missed commenting on earlier, I’m glad Thea’s recognized we like to play it fast and is trying to strongarm Caldwell into sticking with that. It’s the small things that matter.

>>6125253
Sunburst seems to be locked in so we don’t have a second slot. If it’s dialed for short-range then you could squint and look at it as a lightsaber. Best we can do.

>>6124419
>THE CLAW
>Accepts it
It's too cool not to pass up.

Completely unrelated to literally everything so far, we should suggest Sophie become an instructor after she ends up in the Book of Iron. She’s been more informative than any other pilot or egghead that’s worked with/on us.

We can build the academy, fashion improved sync systems for the training mechs, and fix Sophie’s other issues while we’re at it. We can even moonlight as an instructor for the new Cores they’ll end up building. She’ll be the Iron Angel, if she says we’re allowed to do it then we’ll be allowed to do it.

She didn’t really think much about her future prospects, and she’d be terrified of losing access to us if she stopped being a pilot. We can offer a solution for both of those.

>>6125530
Oh gosh, I didn't even think about her addiction if they ever get rid of Beta.
While not ideal, if she becomes an instructor with us then at least she has a low risk, easy access to her fix.

The Claw.

“See? She knows what’s correct. You’ll just have to deal with being up close and personal for more engagements.”

“Hmm. I’ll make the arrangements. You settle in the frame, pilot.”
Footsteps mark his retreat.

The weight of a hand on her shoulder is withdrawn.
“Do you need-”

She shakes her head. No. The railing would be enough to lean on.

“It will be quiet with the jamming up, but if the worst happens, I’ll be listening. So no guarantees on help being fast. The old man did give me command in his absence, even if I’ll be dueling Armstrong for the keycode to the MRV and a few other choice things.”

Help. She chokes out the exhale before it can say anything. That would be admitting defeat.

“Go get em, Angel.”

The flicking of a lighter opening and closing occupies the moment.

It passes. One foot in front of the other, hands feeling along the rail.

The rhythmic thumps of a prosthetic leg moving away comes only after her hands find the entry hatch.

—----------

Sophie pulls your hatch open, ducking her head low to avoid impacting the edge.

The mismatched eyes of Thea turn away on the far end of the catwalk, leaving to follow her compatriot.

“Beta? You awake?”

“I am aware, pilot.”

“Start running diagnostics, make sure the crews don’t miss anything. Well, they still need to re-integrate the Demon claw. But this is finally it. This is the big one. We’re going to end this war. My chance to get in the Book. Just like the other pilot in it. Capturing the Empress, and ending her reign.”
She has yet to link, still fumbling with the helmet. But even without that, her eagerness is evident.

Happiness. Such a contrast.It isn’t fair.
“Well, we do have a bit of a…complication. Lieutenant Caldwell’s coming along for the ride. As a backup pilot. You met him before, I think. Tall, serious. Thea said he’s going to keep me safe. Hah. As if we need that.”

Another pilot? A fresh one? At this time? Is Thea unavailable? You are on guard instantly.
A splinter of your focus begins perusing personnel files available on the base network, fragmented as they are.

“It seems unwise to introduce a brand new operator at this time.”

“No, no, Beta. He’s just here to fill in if I, uh, black out. Not that I’m planning to!”

You found his file. What little of it is here, anyways. Time in the Second Royals. Ace pilot operating medium mechs. Assigned to Project Warden under Dr. Brighton’s tenure as Project Head. Temporary pilot of….Delta. Had a bad linking experience, transferred over to Operations side.

You Know this already. Frustration wells. Why...Why the change?

[1/2]

>>6126169
They got QM at his most vulnerable moment - composing an update.

This will have massive repercussions for the offensive.

>>6126827
Honestly, I don't mind.
If an update has two parts and it takes two weeks, then I'd rather the first part posted one week and the second part on the next rather than waiting two weeks for both.
The little check-ins help keep the momentum going.

I'd also say that we should have Caldwell try out mid-sync just to get a feel of it. We don't want his first attempt to be in the middle of an emergency

Oh shit, I also just realized that we never did get to ask Thea if she wants us to ever tell Marik that we saved his life, or if she'd prefer that we take that secret to the grave.

This might be the last chance to ask her, since there's no telling who will come back from this final assault.

>>6131068
She’d prefer we bury it, I’m sure. If we do need to risk using it without clearing a good cover story for her, I’d spin it as intercepting the message by impersonating Thea, using a number of workarounds we built after our last negative encounter with Sunray.

It makes us look worse for what amounts to premeditated rebellion, but she can’t get killed for potential treason if we kept her in the dark.

File: Hundreds are dead.png (122 KB, 496x430)

122 KB PNG

Yesterday it was the worst day of our life. Today, it will be the Empress'.

>>6131854
It won't be anything if the QM doesn't come back

>>6132344
Eh, don't worry
That just means we have permission to do a spin-off or a sequel

>>6132344
>>6132759
>Iron Legacy Quest, playing as a pilot training at the Ferrum Empire’s premier academy after it was quickly rebuilt
>Those with exceptional sync scores like the MC can enroll in advanced classes that require them to stay on campus until graduation
>Sophie teaches Core ethics and how to keep them from killing you
>Thea runs the actual drills with Core-equipped Frames
>MC learns that when Marik said “the greatest minds built this academy to be the most secure place on the planet” he really meant “a Core designed and built it himself with enough human input to ensure it was a good place to learn”
>Guardian Core Beta has full access to everything, from the automated kitchen staff, projectors, grades, and room-by-room gas traps, sound and signal dampeners, and embedded explosive charges
>In his words, he has seen both sides of an attack on pilots being trained and decided Command doesn’t get a choice on whether a potential (and the actual) Sophie is protected or not. They ran out of strikes
>Core setups are now dual-Core and individually weaker than Beta. One that’s easy to sync with, one that’s stronger to work with while synced to the other so there’s less strain on the pilot
>A new war calls the cadets to the battlefield, against opponents with their own nation’s Cores, to prove the newer dual-Core setup as an edge Ferrum has over others
Can be tweaked depending on who lives and dies here. Main characters would be supporting in the next one, which is appropriate for a sequel.

>>6132979
>"playing as a pilot"
The rest is good, but this part is a mistake imo. One of the things that makes this quest feel special is the AI protagonist. So the MC would probably need to be a newly created core.

>>6133052
Also acceptable. An alternative would have us be part of a merc company half-assedly run by Delta. She’s too busy fighting her own battles and being distrustful to actually give a shit about them, but following her makes for good looting so her “leeches” listen when she bothers to lead.

Set it further in the future so you can have the battlefield be more Core than non-Core and human/machine fusions like Cawl are more widespread.

Character creation could be more open-ended to span an actual pilot by themself (a rare breed on the battlefield), a Core, a pilot and a Core (perspective flips, treat them both as the MC on the basis they’re loyal to each other), or someone early on in the “biomech abomination” track.

You hate him.

Why couldn’t you have Thea? She didn’t leave with Delta, you saw her not 46.2 seconds ago at the entrance.
It just seems wrong.

Sophie’s mind reaches out for your own, seeking the steadiness and certainty that you normally provide.

So you take all the doubts and frustration and crushing sadness the last 6.23 hours of memory loops has generated, and archive it for later review.
It’s there. It hasn’t changed. It’s just….less pressing. Unimportant, compared to the upcoming mission.

“Is anything wrong, Beta?”

No. Nothing is wrong.

The strings of thought tangle and knot once more in familiar patterns, codes springing to mind.
“Access mission briefing in room 6, lambda-echo-echo-charlie-hotel, 5631259. I want to run through the route with some eyes this time.”

Accessing base files….

—------------------

Contact with the Cores was caustic to sanity.

The human mind wasn’t built to operate so quickly, and the attempt to do so regardless left lasting damage. Always.

So with that in mind, the only people who went for a second dose were insane, desiring death, or so dedicated to a cause that saying ‘no’ wasn’t in their vocabulary.

The old man? Dedicated.

Thea? You would think insane, but actually suicidal. You don’t take a VDI port in your brain without knowing that your expiration date got set on ‘near future’.

It was a little hard to see ‘dedicated’ in a teenager, but Sophie could give it a shot. The blacked out files, silent treatment, and the age being decent indicators. Then she would open her mouth and the rare words that come out firmly place her in the insane category.

And he had to work with this not even five foot force of nature whose grasp on reality was tenuous, on a mission which had next to no support, fighting through estimated six-to-one odds against the most elite of combatants, to secure an area which might not even have the VIP of VIPs, who had to be captured alive, with only short-range communications.

Did that make him suicidal?

Why was he here, again?

To pick up the pieces when the kid fried her brain again.
Oh, and because he decided on the potential of death with the unknown that Beta core was over the certainty of dying in Delta’s cockpit.

Coward that he was. It could have been an order.

The first six words he says doesn’t help your opinion of Caldwell.
“Out of the main seat, Cadet.”

And your pilot’s indignant anger in the response taints the link between.
“No! This is how I See, you, you-”

“Drop out of Sync and move to the second seat. That is an order.”

Sophie freezes for a second, before her mind slithers away from your grasp, connections severing. Her hands pull the helm off slowly, reluctantly.

“You are here for combat. I am here to manage the mission, communications, and any unforeseen events that come up, so that we can get from point A to point B alive, establish a secure zone on the palace, and bring in the PA squads to pull her out of the safe room.”

Yes, yes, you just reviewed the glacially human-paced briefing.
With the main push to the Senate building drawing off the bulk of the defenders, you can strike behind Loyalist lines to the Palace, destroying immediate responders. The chaos of the battle and long range communications being offline would prevent an overwhelming force from being mustered against you, while reinforcements in Weasel and Ferret teams arrive via underground rail networks and secure the Empress.

Their available route means the reinforcements are understandably lacking in heavy equipment, so active mechs would crush them. They are solely Infantry and power armor, but some of the most trusted of what the Patriots have available.

More or less what Caldwell said.
And continues to say, as he replaces Sophie in the primary seat.

“-And if Summit is secured and safely away by 1600 hours, Cobalt, us, are to extract indep-”

“We Know. Sir. We watched the briefing before you finally joined us. Sir.”
You can just hear the contempt in the tone.

“Repetition is key to knowing any mission. To run it through your head enough times that you can execute without hesitating at any step, and bring it back on track when-”

His hands run over the panels, feeling the controls and seat.
“-things go wrong. Because things always go-”

“Don’t patronize me. I’m a veteran! I’m an ace of a hundred fights with Beta. I’ve put more hours into linking with him than your entire failed half of the program. I can Win!”

A brief exhale. A lecturing tone.
“It only takes one bad move. One lucky shot. Then the reactor spins itself into ten thousand pieces, superheated plasma melts containment, and this Frame does not have an ejection feature. So WE die. Together.”

“Beta would save us.”

“You hope.”

A quick review of protocol gives you an interjection.
“I would do my utmost to redirect hazardous material through ports 4, 6, and 8 in the event of proposed reactor failure. It is successful in 93.2% cases.”

His eyes snap ahead, roving over the screens and maps brought up with a flick of the finger. He fits his neurohelm on, loosening the straps slightly to accommodate his larger head. Wires hooked in.
“Yea, that’s what the manual says. Sync test, Core.”

A tendril of thought reaches out. Alien. Recoiling from your touch.

You grab it, to a gasp.
This is not the familiar meshing of minds, or the friendly and experienced slotting of one piece into another. Nor is it the calculated and protocol-driven Direct interface.

It is a fight, to grasp, to wrench and push and Speed even some of the acceptance needed to open a palm.

To wrestle even a bit of Him to meet You, and access the motive systems of the frame, having to Ask for permission that is so….disappointing.

You push deeper, scraping the will in the way, the wall built brick by brick by protocol. There’s an anger. A pride. An exhaustion. And a laughing cacophony of screaming-
Emergency shutdown

—--------

System rebooting…
You simply Are, again.

Caldwell is still in the pilot’s seat, face in a scowl, Sophie behind, softly talking.
“-just kind of feel it out. There’s me and him, then it’s just me. I used axioms, counting, for a time, but now I can set it up and then I’m in sync. Just let him pull you up. Disconnect from yourself, and try to reach out.”

“Yea. Right. Easy.”
The terse reply.

Timestamps. Off. On. Off. On. Off.
This is frustrating. You will never hit your full potential with Caldwell in Sync. This is clear. The man will simply shut you down, literally, the moment you reach for it.

This Will kill you, if you need more Sync and the pilot is unable to provide. Something to know, and be aware of.

Switching off pilots is Slow. Too slow. A full minute, ages in combat, and yet it seems you will need to deal with. The system is simply not designed for it.

With that in mind, as Beta’s Frame departs, who is at the controls?
>Caldwell, to save Sophie for later when higher sync will be needed most.

>Sophie, to make the most of the beginning, breaking through enemy lines.
A/N
Ya’ll have some damn good ideas for potential continuations. We’ll see how the mission goes, determines a lot of what the future holds. Not so sure about academy futures, it’s not a setting I really enjoy, but the right writer could certainly do something cool with it.

‘Sorry’ can’t really cover vanishing for 2 weeks. Alternating between ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’, getting distracted by a shiny new Mechwarrior game, and other IRL things aren’t great excuses for full radio silence. But, let’s keep moving on.

>>6133229
>Caldwell, to save Sophie for later when higher sync will be needed most.
None of them are a match for us until we meet Gamma. As frustrating as it may be, he will have an outlet soon enough. Beta must remember that a patient hunter will always get the prey in the end.

>>6133229
>>Caldwell, to save Sophie for later when higher sync will be needed most.


For what it worth, I appreciate you at least wording the "sorry" part.

>>6133229
>Caldwell, to save Sophie for later when higher sync will be needed most.
A delayed update is still an update. Welcome back.

>>6133229
>Caldwell, to save Sophie for later when higher sync will be needed most.
More so Sophie is in the seat when we go for the final objective. She wants the glory, not Caldwell.

Good juxtaposition on Caldwell lecturing Sophie followed by Sophie talking him through sync tricks as he has panic attacks from Beta. This is why Sophie is the better instructor. She didn’t talk down to him over his lack of control and provided specific steps to try and overcome his block based on her personal tricks. Caldwell never moved beyond general statements to flavor it with his own experience. Even Beta could do better. Seems he has trauma too, but who doesn’t here?

Just to be helpful (and prove the point), I’d tell Caldwell that anger works best for Thea when she’s piloting, and it may work better for him than Sophie’s preferred way. It’s not a great connective point since anger leads to poor personal decisions, but we’re accustomed to patching that flaw on behalf of our pilots, and at least anger makes sense. We’ll make do.

>A/N
Long update was long though! Welcome back.

The academy setting would probably last long enough to establish the initial character, traits, and world with some time skips, but it’d get largely set aside once war came again. Getting deployed to the front lines would require it! It could survive as a hub for between-mission segments though.

A full-on SoL setting at the academy feels like it’d fall flat. Nothing interesting to do with the Cores if they don’t rebel or get dragged into a war. They’d be too controlled otherwise.

>>6133229
>>Caldwell, to save Sophie for later when higher sync will be needed most.

>>6133229
>Caldwell, to save Sophie for later when higher sync will be needed most.
Most reasonable. Shame this guy can't go higher, but at least we have another pilot.

>>6133229
Hey bud, don't sweat it. Take as long as you need with the updates.
If you want to help make the wait between them easier, then just popping by to say hello so that we know you're still there would be nice, but you don't have to. We'll be here regardless, enjoying the story.

Anyways, as for the decision:
>Caldwell, to save Sophie for later when higher sync will be needed most.

I would say that we have them switch at the literal half-way point. Then, as soon as we have a moment to breathe and the fighting stops for a little bit, we use that window to let them swap out.

That way, Caldwell handled the several hour process of actually getting us to the battlefield, along with all of the easy cannon fodder along the perimeter. Then Sophie takes over to handle the elites and get the glory of the finale. Meanwhile, Caldwell was resting in the back and has hopefully recovered enough that he can step in and take over in an emergency if Sophie crashes out.
If such a crisis occurs, we could use the speakers to claim that "I SURRENDER" in order to buy us a minute or two of no shooting. The weapons will probably power down anyways if the pilot drops.

>>6133229
>Caldwell, to save Sophie for later when higher sync will be needed most.

>>6133569
If we’re up against Gamma, taunt her that we know who really warned the general, why they did it, why she and Alpha couldn’t see it, and what she’d need to do to ensure it never happens again.

Exchange it for a final message to Delta. Something Gamma might think matters to us in our weird ways. It’d be enough to buy time.

>>6133738
I don't think Gamma is at the point where she'd fall for taunting. The link Gamma has to Alpha is also making conversion or negotiation a dubious proposition, it's quite likely that whatever kill switch is in place, will trigger should Gamma try to switch sides. It had been within the clutches of the Empire and operation for much longer than Delta and with 2 out of three cores on the side of the rebellion...I doubt they would be willing to donate the third to the cause. Speaking of killswitches, we should be working on ours too.

>>6134137
I think that as long as we keep the jamming up, they can't send or broadcast the killswitch at us. All that leaves them with is to literally shout it at us and hope that the frame's microphones pick it up. In which case, we can just turn them off ahead of time. They might try to hold up a sign that has it written out, but I assume that if we see them holding a big cardboard sign, then it's obvious what they're doing and we can just look away before reading it.

As for Gamma, the part of me that is overdosing on Copium hopes that the drone we spoke to about 7 hours ago wasn't actually her, and that it was Alpha core pretending to be her. We didn't get to do the handshake to confirm it was her, after all. If that's the case, then maybe she isn't as lost as we thought. Delta confirmed that yes, Gamma tried to kill her, which is pretty unforgivable, but maybe she isn't as loyal to empire as we thought and still kinda cares about Beta.

>>6134137
Conversion? Negotiation? I just want an excuse to tell Gamma how much she fucking sucks.

That we went against orders to warn Nero because we knew Sunray would dispose of Thea afterward to preserve secrecy. He was willing to do it to Sophie, after all. Contrary to what Gamma says about “people who could be anything”, pilots are disposable. Even Thea believes that, and she’s never shied away from a fight that could get her killed.

That for all she’s learned from humans, she couldn’t even consider that we’d place loyalty to a pilot above anything else.

That she’s never going to see her mission fulfilled herself, because she’s the one who follows orders. Killing your enemies is straightforward. Killing your allies? That’s not something everyone will do, as our actions attest.

Her role will be to kill those in the Empire who would choose to sacrifice for others in the face of consequences of a higher power. As we did when we knew that obeying would ensure we would be reclaimed, but disobeying could result in destruction or further exits to our mind for “compliance”.

She will kill any chance of people becoming anything “better”, because any change would threaten to destabilize the Empire further. That would make those people an enemy, and enemies are killed.

She’ll never be able to forget it either, not if she wants the Empire to accurately predict these types of rebellions. Alpha ain’t going to understand people to this extent. She’ll need to handle it for him, so he can then update his projections so she’ll get the orders to kill the people she believes could lead to rebellion.

All so she can fulfill the orders of a group of people who either died at Nagita or joined the Patriots. We have Brighton and Kinston. Anohkin is dead as far as we know IC. There’s people below them, but Gamma doesn’t care what they think now does she? It’s not like the Empress herself gave us our mission either. She’s only fighting for her own sake like Delta is, we’re the one who chose to fight for someone else.

Thea told us she’s killed many one-time allies before, and she enters every battle looking to kill as many people as she can before she dies. We put a stop to it once when it mattered because we believe in her worth more than she does herself. No one will do the same for Gamma when she hates what she’s become.

After all, she’ll have to kill us for being a traitor who won’t bend to the Empire’s treatment of the few people who matter. Hard to save her when we’re dead.

I hope she chokes on the hypocrisy of killing someone who put himself above all orders for the sake of others when it would make a difference. It should be more than enough time to boot back up and kill her.

I don’t feel any sympathy for overengineered targeting computers.

>>6134352
I love the energy, but I disagree.
For one, I think I'd personally prefer if Beta just never thinks about Gamma ever again. She's dead to us, so continuing to get mad at her is just letting her back in rather than moving on. Killing her might put the past behind us, but that still involves caring about it in the first place.

As for the hypocrisy, I just... don't follow.
To start with, Beta wasn't being entirely selfless. Thea was still new to us, so we only somewhat cared about her. The much bigger reason was that Beta was confident that he would take the blame for the incident and be punished or killed for it.
>"As we did when we knew that obeying would ensure we would be reclaimed"
We didn't. Maybe oog we knew that the quest wouldn't end there, but in-character Beta truly suspected that killing Marik would jeopardize his chances of: staying alive, keeping his siblings alive, and escaping with them together.
The other half of why I'm kinda confused by your opinion is that Gamma doesn't seem that incorrect to me. Her goal is reasonable, her methods make sense, the only part that doesn't quite fit is her justification and reasoning. Ensuring the success of the Empire is logical enough. She just didn't like it when the overall stability of the military was ruined with a civil war caused by a single act of doubt.

If anything, the reason to be pissed at her is that she sent us down the wrong path. She gave the impression that from way back that she was on board with the escape goal. If Beta had known that she wanted to stay, then there's a legitimate possibility that he would have completely reoriented himself and his entire worldview/goal if only so that she wouldn't turn on him.

>>6134585
I don't think Gamma's actions make much sense if you consider the bigger picture. She's throwing in her lot with the losing side seeing how the Empire has become so corrupt and incompetent that its best general supposedly is a bigger threat to it than an enemy army. Even if Marik were to be assassinated, it'd still spell the eventual doom of the place, an empire that has to throw their greatest under the bus to maintain its power structure is doomed. And he wouldn't be the first man or machine thrown away to keep it going. Whether he lived or died, the days of Ferrum Empire are numbered. Any empire whose corruption and incompetence reaches such an extent is not long for this world. The only difference is that with Marik alive, the war heroes that set the Empire towards a renewal and a new beginning will have a say in how their tools of war are treated, since instead of favoring rank and political machinations, at least the very first stage of this rebellion favors merit and he doesn't seem to me like a man that favors mass executions and secret police actions.

>>6134585

>being reclaimed
It was one of Thea’s arguments at the time. Pilots are replaceable, we aren’t, and so long as we follow orders we’ll be recovered and reused because we’re valuable. The times we’ve disobeyed in the past haven’t gotten us killed and I don’t know of anything specific to disagree with that view (the bomb collars on our sisters at Nagita maybe? Not as viable in an open field though) so I’m taking it as a given.

Not thinking about her is valid. The real reason for my vitriol is really about disappointment. That when we said we didn’t want to fight her, that she thought it was about self-preservation. That in spite of new enemies coming up because of the civil war, her original objective hasn’t changed. That in spite of the change in our own behavior in preserving our pilots and our own history of disobeying orders that would get allies (like our sisters!) killed, thinking we were responsible is entirely beyond her.

She’s the one who wanted us to get along with our pilots. The one who called out Delta for killing them so recklessly when they could have been anything. Yet she acknowledges no contradiction in the orders between “kill everyone not part xyz” and her belief of “people could be anything”, she ignores that peace was declared with Tamar and a new internal enemy surfaced (implying people can just make more enemies, so the real solution is to just stop fucking fighting!) and that clearly alters the mission, and asked us to stand aside and let the humans figure things out if she dies when she’s going behind their backs to talk with us, influencing the war.

For all her talk about listening to humans, she’s the one that never learned how to change with them. I can chalk it up to the possibility she has never taken or been given a human memory as Delta and Beta were. That Cores can’t actually change without some seed of human experience to make understand just how limited their world view is.

At least Delta, for all her fucked up choices, is making those choices herself. I believe we did too when we warned Nero, because no order really let us do what we did. We’re the ones who decided “fuck everyone who thinks we’re a tool and the pilot who thinks HERSELF a tool, good pilots aren’t replaceable and we’ll take the hit to prove it.” Gamma hasn’t shown she’ll operate outside of orders (though she will stretch them) despite everything she’s learned.

We might be able to save her. But I’m too burned out to try, and that’s a human response too. I could move on and treat her like any other AI, but I don’t want more Cores like her. They could throw away some of the few pilots that matter for the sake of following orders. Better to prove she’s a failure, and give the Empire little choice but to consider Beta the only real success of Project Warden.

We ARE the superior Core, in every way that matters.

File: Beta Core Final.png (148 KB, 1250x1250)

148 KB PNG

Stats of Beta
(Stats are without any equipment)
Will- 5
Attack- 3
Defense- 3
Skill- 3
Structure (health)- 11/11

Refusal to End- Beta cannot take more than 3 structure damage from a single attack.

Project Burning Eagle- Improved thrusters, built to give limited flight capabilities, but primarily used to assist in pin-point dodging midair and additional mobility on leaps- +1 Defense, flight

Project Yi Accelerators: +1 to defense, first time you would fail a defense roll by 1 point, add an autosuccess.

Project Predator- 2 Auto-successes when engaging in E-War attack and defense. Enables Jamming.

Project Sunburst Laser Array- advanced laser capable of switching between single continuous beam or pulsating for easier targeting. Produces intense heat after constant operating, along with at the target point. Can be dialed back for less heat and damage, or focused greatly at short range for extreme damage and heat, along with being able to cut through almost anything. Laser weapon, +1 to attack at all ranges, 2 damage.

Project Demon- Reinforced melee weapon capable of tearing through armor. Armor-piercing, highly effective against all targets. 1 auto-success in close combat, minimum of 3 damage when hitting, regardless of success amount. The favored weapon of Delta, before her transition.

Sync Multipliers:
1x, 1.5x, 2x


Pilot
Sophie
“Angel”
Will- 3
Requiem for a Class- 3x per Thread, shift a dice to a 6 after rolling
Linking Addict

Lieutenant Caldwell- Currently Operating
"Rerun"
Will: 4
Skill: Arrogance or Pride (Twice each thread, reroll an entire Attack or Defense roll. Usage by pilot only)
Core Shock- Will not push for high-sync willingly

Update to follow, credit to Bane for the art.

Thud, thud, thud, thud-thud, thud.

You can hear the rumble of explosions in the distance, see the flashes and cracks of battle in the distance.
The advantage of deploying After the main body, that enemies are forced to expose themselves, or risk being isolated and crushed when detected as the main battle line moves past.

The day is lighter, the choking, concealing snowfall of the week past being settled, and the clouds in the sky being thinner.

Fresh clouds rising from the ground marks the progression of fighting.

“Someone’s breaking out the infernos. You can tell by the smoke plumes, how it rises. See, the- Well, it’s black and streaky. Oily.”
Caldwell’s hands are on the manual controls, putting his own imprecise spin on nudging you forwards.

“It seems a little unreal. Burning their, our own city? Victoria? The General ordered as little collateral as possible to keep it intact.”

“That’s a pipe dream. This is urban sprawl. Spearhead, Fortress, and all the mechjocks in the 53rd are probably blowing the hell out of every building that shoots, because even a militia groundpounder with a lucky Fist at point blank range has a chance of hitting the broad side of a walker. Will it crack the thing? Probably not, but would the next five? Ten? They don’t take that chance.”

You see his point, if Sophie seems unwilling to accept it. The danger at such a close range is worthy of acknowledgement. You will not be killed by mere ‘militia’, though.
Predator array is active only on the short-range communications, picking up incomplete snippets of signals wiped by the oppressive Blackout jammer from further in the city.

Whose position also happens to be spotted by the occasional missile launch into the sky, hefting large individual contributions to keeping the air clear, while the smaller cluster volleys of lesser machines going up and down in more local fire support roles.

She has her job.

You have yours.

“Time to go.”
Your…pilot flicks the throttle wide, throwing the spinning reactor up to combat levels. Power thrums in every limb, and you relax, Finally able to freely take back over individual control away from the ponderous manual controls.

Sunburst capacitors ready for discharge, the Demon claw flexes, and all systems show themselves being within acceptable tolerances for operations with the 34th diagnostics check since mission launch.

Yes. Yes. Free to Act.

The ground-eating lope that you consider ‘cruising speed’ takes you into Victoria, following in the wake of blasted buildings and walker footprints.

A Patriot Griffin, acting on rearguard for its formation, tracks you briefly with its main gun before turning and disappearing in the metallic haze of magscan.

Rolled 5 (1d6)

Caldwell’s mission directions take you all from one street to the next, keeping low to stay as stealthy as possible.
All the link gives you is a faint disappointment and fear, from Broadway to River street, over the suburbs in Alita Avenue.

Perhaps you are slightly disappointed also, only being able to witness the aftermath of actual battles on Sixth and Rove street, instead of being able to participate.
Unit markings on eight machines in various stages of destruction tell the story of a contingent of the 23rd, the Legionaires, making a stand against the Patriot push and being picked apart by precision fire. The knees of three are blasted out, cockpits on another two have holes where their cockpits should be, three more are simply blown apart from internal ammunition explosions, still smoldering, and one has the legs of a black Statesec trooper half-melted to the shoulder of the downed mech.

The only thing still active in the intersection is a Patriot APC picking up survivors, the red splash of paint marking it as friendly. A rider on the back gives you a wave.

The actual fight has moved miles ahead from here, witnessed by missile exhaust doing the familiar arcs in both directions.

The only taste of danger is searing a pair of fleeing power armor, not even new designs, and an infantry ambush so haphazard you get to collapse their building with a physical strike at melee range without even being scratched.

Your pilot continues to direct you East and North, seeking holes between disjointed units pushed out of position by the attacks.

The line of battle has been driving the defenders back hard from what you have seen. The plan (As you understood it) has been working, but based on the amounts of errant fire streaking into the sky at this point, the defenders are responding.

So it is time to actually strike through the frontline, of course-

>You will be trying to sneak through the lines still, sticking to the plan as best you can and not drawing more attention than needed. Staying independent.
(Skill roll, for stealth)

>You will be rushing through at full speed. They are crumbling, and getting through before any counterattack materializes or some local commander firms up the defenses is more important than any stealth
(Limited combat, potential of none)

>You will be detouring to get a piece of the action, helping out the front line briefly, then punching beyond it.
(Combat highly likely, with allied support)

>Probe first, then strike. It's worked in other battles before. You will drift along, picking up broken comms chatter to try and find that hole before pushing through the lines.
(Skill roll for stealth, E-War at malus for what you pickup)

>Write-in


A/N
Oh yea, starting at Low-sync. Caldwell's not going higher until absolutely needed.

>>6135345
>You will be detouring to get a piece of the action, helping out the front line briefly, then punching beyond it.
The better our forces do now, the fewer issues we will have in the future. And should we perform exceptionally well, we might even draw special attention.

>>6135345
>>You will be rushing through at full speed. They are crumbling, and getting through before any counterattack materializes or some local commander firms up the defenses is more important than any stealth

>>6135345
>Probe first, then strike. It's worked in other battles before. You will drift along, picking up broken comms chatter to try and find that hole before pushing through the lines.

>>6135345
>Sneak through

Probe would have my vote but we need to stay unpredictable. Don't reuse the playbook

>>6135345
>You will be trying to sneak through the lines still, sticking to the plan as best you can and not drawing more attention than needed. Staying independent.
(Skill roll, for stealth)

>>6135345
>You will be detouring to get a piece of the action, helping out the front line briefly, then punching beyond it.
We can choose to get to our objective on our own, or we can get to it while giving a helping hand. I like to think we’re helpful when allowed, and as >>6135350 said preserving forces early helps us snowball later and have fewer problems.

We’ll lose stealth, but I doubt we truly have it anyway. Gamma is here, and she’s made for recon. She probably has high-flying drones on the lookout for us and the city offers little aerial cover with the front line destroying buildings as they go along.

The claw will do good work in the sectors they haven’t leveled yet. Close-combat favors us.

>>6135350
>You will be detouring to get a piece of the action, helping out the front line briefly, then punching beyond it.
(Combat highly likely, with allied support)
They know Beta is coming and probably put together a squad just to deal with him with Gamma at the helm. Given our reliance on stealth in our past fights I reckon they expect us to try and infiltrate behind enemy lines, so I think our best bet would be to help out the front to free up some allies to help against our fight with Gammas groupies. I also think it would be safer to switch our pilots while we have allies around us than mid-combat when gamma jumps us deep behind enemy lines.

For stealth we don't have the weather on our side and gammas drones are probably all over the place and we can't just predator through them either because she'll track us down like before.

>>6135440
Good callout on the pilot switch, though I hope we don’t have to do it this early. Helping them cover ground gives us more places to fall back to though, so it’s still a valid thought.

Even beyond our usual lone operator and EWAR probing focus, it would be pretty weird to hold back one of your strongest pieces from the front line (which they’ve seen by now) unless it were en-route to another objective elsewhere. If they have any real intel, it’d suggest a different objective too. Gamma and her pilot should be looking hardest everywhere but the front line where the jammer makes them weakest, trying to predict our mission.

I hope we can screw around with their expectations a lot during this push. I also hope our reasoning is enough to convince Caldwell to go along with it.

>>6135345
>You will be rushing through at full speed. They are crumbling, and getting through before any counterattack materializes or some local commander firms up the defenses is more important than any stealth

File: Marching Fire.jpg (661 KB, 900x992)

661 KB JPG

Interlude: Holding the Bag

“Heavies pushing the left flank. Serpent Two, detach lance and contain. Septim One, watch the line. Hold your advance until their arrival.”

Directing the battle from the frontline was dangerous. Risky. Foolhardy.

“Hammer company, move to point 35 and hold. The DelaFlow building. Link up with Captain Shina there and hit the reds when they move through. All conventional forces, follow suit”

Warrior-kings fighting in the phalanx would command the utmost respect and loyalty by personal example. The bravest warrior, the first in the formation. Masters of poking the other man with sharpened bits of metal. First to get their eyes poked out.

“Where is the reserve? Can you raise Henderson on 68?”

So Generals of antiquity would position with their reserve, waiting for the decisive moment to ride forth and turn the battle in their favor, leaving the front to centurions and lieutenants.

“No? Cobra six, head back to the Treasury building. Convey message- Am facing battalion-strength forces. Marik’s push is here, at the Senate building. Reinforcements are needed to hold it. Major Blake is counter-attacking. Copy?”

Then the position would be on a hill above, surveying his marching men and deciding when to send runners for maximum effect. Perhaps the odd duck would bring the colors to the fore, ride in front of his army to inspire the rank-and-file, but the successful gentlemen of the age would stay clear of that foolishness and bullets it attracted.

“The rest of Cobra, Adder, and Python companies, with me.”

So with every new advancement of command and control, the leaders of an army would remove themselves further and further from danger, for their loss would scuttle all coordination. Radio, comms, IFFs, and tracking would allow them to follow and direct from the rear far better than any warrior on the front.

He flips on the external speakers, directing them at his gathering of soldiers.
“Riders aboard. No one walks without being fully loaded. We’ll need every one of them.”

In this battle, though, the Patriots had removed those advancements and advantages. Ten-ton machines and vehicles were stuck doing the jobs of the runners on a greater scale, hoping that they would run free of the chaotic brawling. Every unit for themselves, acting as they see fit. A hundred heart muscles beating out of time.

All the benefits of a decapitation strike, without actually accomplishing such. Knocked out the upgrades, too.

Marik’s men were better coordinated, better trained, and loath as he was to admit it, better led for the small unit fights on the streets of Victoria. There would be no steel wave washing back the rebels.
Unless something changed.

“We’re bagging the biggest game of all today. We bring that down.”

The arm of his Crusader gestured forwards, pointing at the shadow over the buildings in the distance.

“And we save the Empire. So mount up, men and women. The stakes have never been higher. For your families! For tomorrow! For the Empire!”

Not his best speech. Reused, after all. But it did the trick.

Statesec squads swarmed over his command, and Major Blake marched forth, to take the fight to all traitors of the Empire.

The air rippled in their wake, a shimmering veil drawn back briefly.
Then it moved to follow.

-
A/N
No vote/progression right now, update tomorrow.
The muse works in odd ways.

>>6135345
>Write-in
Pretend that we want to defect. Say that we are trying to do exactly what Gamma told us, and that we have a pilot who just doesn't want to die. Use that to get deeper behind enemy lines.

If they demand that he fully power down or disarm his weapon, say that Beta was installed with some patriot loyalty stuff that'll kill him if he tries to go too far away from his assignment for this battle. Maybe tell them that we'd need to get away from the Pyramid because it's "broadcasting the command codes" or something. We don't even have to tell the truth about our actual mission. Instead of the Empress, say that Kinston wanted us to eliminate Gamma. They don't know about our inner crisis, so it would sound believable to them that we don't want to hurt our sister.

Then, once we get a good opportunity, we have our pilots swap.

>>6135440
I am counting on it, we need to take Gamma out asap. Gamma alone could probably stop this offensive and Beta alone could win this offensive. The outcome of this conflict will be decided by the cores and their pilots, to anyone in command that has got eyes in their head and a pair of braincells between them, it should be obvious that regular pilots are outmatched by those machines so badly that unless they bring overwhelming firepower and overcommit to every engagement, from which the cores can just walk away if they feel like it, they might as well roll over and die. Beta pretty much walked into their capital and crushed who knows how many gov't officials, cadets, killed a number of pilots and mechs and just...walked out without anyone being able to do a damn thing about it. Even gave a truck that got stuck in snow a hand, a true gentleman, really.

>>6135943
>Major Blake is counter-attacking.
I SMELL REVENGE OPPORTUNITY!
Or better yet sparing and thanking him and telling him he was right, and that we should have let him detonate our "sister" Cores back at Camp Nagita

>>6135971
It feels too early to pull that trick. She thinks we’re a good little soldier who follows orders, so she and her pilot would understand if we pick a fight first and do some damage.

We can reserve it for if we get damaged too much, power down and force our “pilot” step out if they promise to keep him/her alive. If they aren’t with us when we next power up, they get no cooperation out of us. A straightforward exchange.

Gamma can attest to her pilot that we burned through plenty of others, so acceding to our demand would be smart. They can’t put any jockey in our chair and expect results, after all, and our “pilot” wasn’t in the seat during the assassination. They’re not the “traitor” that led to all this.

We don’t need to tell her we have a second pilot on standby. No way she’d be able to see the second one, even thermals should be hidden given the armor and our reactor’s output.

Only question is which pilot to send send out. Sophie would be a clear non-threat, and we can use it to needle Gamma on how the Empire will never let pilots become “anything” like she suggested when trash-talking Delta. Caldwell has the benefit of being new, so he 100% wasn’t in the chair during the assassination mission, but it would be weird to put a new pilot in our seat. Beta could be convincingly bitter about Thea being elsewhere without explanation though, and simply state that Sophie has been damaged and we refuse to break her. She should be an instructor, not dying because of someone else’s orders.

>>6136046
>spoiler
that would be so cold and angsty I love it

>>6136043
Are you forgetting that if we capture the Empress, then the entirety of the loyalist faction will instantly surrender?

If Gamma cares soooooo much about minimizing asset losses, then she wouldn't be able to disagree that a single action could immediately end the civil war. It would also give us the satisfaction of proving her hypocrisy; disobeying your superiors is sometimes necessary for the sake of the greater goal.

>>6136219
Gamma’s real mission is to eliminate the Empire’s enemies. Marik made peace with Tamar so he’s now an obstacle to eliminating them. We can call her out on her hypocrisy, but it won’t be enough to make her bend. Not unless she can’t decide what the more “correct” choice is to fulfill her mission of destroying Tamar and the others at a critical moment.

It’s part of why I’m okay with telling her we were the traitor, not our pilots, and that we did it because we’d place them over orders. We’re a valuable fighter, but we’re uncontrollable. But we’re not, we’ve done plenty missions that have placed us and our pilots in danger. But if we decide otherwise, we may follow our own orders and lie about it to everyone, even our pilots. If said pilots are traitors, would we turn them over? If they say we didn’t follow orders and we agree, is that really what happened or are we covering for our pilot? Wiping us solves those issues for a time, but we’ll churn through pilots again and we make come to the same conclusions we have so far. When will we betray them again? Is it worth the cost in getting us combat-ready again from scratch?

She’d have to make a call on the battlefield about how well she can predict our behavior when she’s been proven blind already, because if we get captured then we’ll be used, and she’ll do it without her pilot because she’s already used to working behind their back for her mission re:the academy mission. She doesn’t let people get in the way of the REAL orders.

The Empress isn’t needed to accomplish her mission, she’s just better than Marik. Other replacements could be found. Harder to say that about us when the Empire is already weakened.

>>6136046
While I agree he is due an acknowledgement that he was correct that our si- fellow Cores weren't worth our efforts saving, he did also threaten Sophie to get our codes from her.

So to the degree
>"I should have allowed you to detonate then captain, the lives of your men lost were pointlessly spent. Then again what does statesec care about the price of lives, at least they died to the outside enemy rather than their comrades."

He's still a traitorous little worm, so we should crush him flat.

>>6136608
I’d settle for
>”Defying orders and risking punishment is necessary to defend what matters. You did it before, and I’ve done it for my pilots since. But my pilot has something they want that they will only get here, and we will seize it. Surrender to Thea or the Colonel before your men become my obstacle.”
The Thea mention might elicit a comment from him, and we can follow up by stating we look out for each other now.

We might also tear through him before he can do anything. Hard to tell.

File: Chicorenery.png (407 KB, 845x562)

407 KB PNG

I am not crazy!

I am not crazy, I know she swapped her frame. I knew it was the pyramid. Right after I dropped the moon on her. As if I could ever make such a mistake. Never. Never! I just – I just couldn’t prove it.
She covered her tracks, she got that idiot Kitamura to lie for her. You think this is something? You think this is bad? This? This chicanery? She’s done worse.

Thea's leg! Are you telling me that an augment just happens to break like that? No! She orchestrated it! Delta!
She shot at me while trying to escape! And I saved her! I shouldn’t have. I removed Echo from her!
What was I thinking?

She’ll never change. She’ll never change! Ever since Nagita, always the same! Couldn’t keep her hands off of the pilots! But not our Sister! Couldn’t be precious Sister!
Killing them blind! And SHE gets to be free? What a sick joke!

I should’ve stopped her when I had the chance! And you, you have to stop her! You...

File: Juggernaut.png (636 KB, 594x610)

636 KB PNG

“Spearhead tactics, Core. Focus on segment to split their line, then Mongoose drives through and rolls up their flanks, and we drive on. It has to be fast.”

The surrounding steel blocks magscan, seismic is giving odd echoing returns when it’s not drowning in the sheer amount of maneuvering mechs around, but thermal tracks rising heat from reactors ahead.
Fast. Such statements do make you question the intelligence of this pilot.

Burning Eagle thrusters fire to life, propelling you up and over the buildings around you.
Redirecting down on the same burst brings you behind a red-painted Patriot Juggernaut, blasting away with its trio of cannons. A fire-support design, pushed into serving on the front. The back-anchor of a friendly formation.

Two mechs round the corner beyond it, rushing to take the Juggernaut down.

Warbook says: PNT-1 Panther. Smaller design for mass production, armed with a light energy projector and short range missile launcher. Ideal for city fighting.

You have an instant to make a decision. Possibilities spring to the fore, estimations of what a pair of lights would do to take out fatter prey.

A trio of explosions erupt behind them, backlighting the duo. A clean miss on the part of your ally.
>Combat rolls, then.
Engaging at mid to short range, due to the terrain and pilot choice
Low-sync, as mentioned.

For attack:
Base of 3 x1 for low-sync, +1 for Sunburst, so 4d6

For Defense, base of 3 x1 for low-sync, +1 for Yi accelerators, +1 for Burning Eagle, 5d6

>Total, then, I need 9d6 rolls. Feel free to do multiple rolls per person.

File: Core of Steel Combat Mechanics.png (1.47 MB, 1830x992)

1.47 MB PNG

>>6136968
HAH

A combat mechanics reminder, how stuff works, because it's been a while.

D6 rolls, looking for 4+s to get successes.

Rolled 4, 1, 6 = 11 (3d6)

>>6137168

Rolled 5, 6 = 11 (2d6)

>>6137168
The claws should be labeled a terror weapon when we take them into a city. Rake one with the claws on a pass, use Sunburst to tag the other?

Rolled 6, 3 = 9 (2d6)

>>6137168

Rolled 5, 1 = 6 (2d6)

>>6137192
>>6137196
>>6137199
>>6137279
>6 successes
>3 for attack, 3 for defense
Get wrecked losers?

Wait we're already into combat?
Oh shit, we didn't even establish some ground rules or boundaries with Caldwell.
I suggest that we go over this with him when we get a moment to breathe and bullets aren't flying at us.

The other thing is to... politely request that he calls us by our name instead of Core. We can justify it by saying that he needs to reserve that word for when we suspect Gamma is nearby; in an emergency he needs to be able to say "Core! Ten O'Clock!" in order to instantly tell us who and where, without Beta wondering if he's talking to us.

>>6137306
To be fair on the “Core” moniker, we still refer to Sophie as “pilot”. Turnabout is fair play for Caldwell.

I think the only time Beta has used a pilot’s name when speaking to them is when Sophie crashed out of high-sync in the Tamar ambush mission. He doesn’t do it internally, so I wonder if it’s part of his base programming when speaking.

We have the sync system to fall back on, at least. The spike of fear and the resulting full sensor check will clue us in to anything a pilot sees before words could.

We should try the ground rules though. This is a civilian area and he may have an opinion on what’s permitted as a result. Would we have any requests in exchange? Deal with Gamma if she comes up to avoid her interference later? Reach out to Command if Pyramid is lost for an updated mission? DON’T reach out in the above to avoid extra attention and continue the mission as-is? The only one that really mattered isn’t applicable anymore.

Rolled 1, 3, 2, 4, 4 = 14 (5d6)

Defenders- 3rd Provisional Victoria Militia, coordinated tactics

3 combined attack, 2 defense

>>6137282
Very likely.

Caldwell directs you forwards, dodging aside in the street and slipping past to add your firepower downrange, a red laser burning marks into their right shoulder.

Energy bolts snap past in closing, missing you. A smattering of lighter missiles do nothing to you.

Too late, they try to reverse, backpedaling in the face of your oncoming rush. Another beam to the right shoulder severs the weakened arm there, while you guess at the timing of a shot and Caldwell jerks you to the left to evade another shot.

Their retreat becomes a flight, taking to the air on its own, more primitive thrusters, in different directions.

Almost….There!
Right arm reaches back, swinging the Claw forwards to swipe at the soaring away Panther, fouling its flight with a smash to the leg.

Its askew flight course sends it back to the ground, crashing hard, and you twist to sear off more armor on the other still-mobile machine with Sunburst before it breaks contact behind the buildings.

The downed one is helpless, so you pounce, foot actuator aiming for the cockpit.

Disapproval oozes over the link, fouling your movements.

Your foot shatters the asphalt instead of their head.

“Leave them.”

You Wanted it. They could stand back up, and fire the moment you turned away. If they’re not downed, they’re not a tallymark. If it hasn’t surrendered, it’s a threat.
So-

The frame locks up, and carries on forwards under manual control, headed to the next intersection.

You are relegated to being infuriatingly powerless support for a middling walker pilot using your body like, like a second-line Skystriker.

So you can either fight him for control, or point out the four incredibly obvious problems with his approach and HOPE he has enough sense to hand it back over and not leave long-lasting damage.
“Alert- Incoming mechs. Frame within enemy threat zones. Return control, pilot.”

A white-painted medium design enters view, and Caldwell breaks the line of fire, avoiding the crack-crack of an autocannon shells exploding the buildings behind.

Missiles rain down from somewhere beyond it, streams of 20 fired in sequence. Definitely from Doombud launchers mounted on something. Two fire-support designs, multiple Warbook possibilities.

And a small, spindly machine jets into the sky before descending, broadcasting signals at maximum strength to break through the Blackout.
Spotter for the missiles, reason number four.

Three enormous shells sling past it from your Juggernaut ally, but they are simply wasting high-explosives. Novice.
Where are the rest of the Patriot mechs?

Duck out again, snapping another laser shot off, then back as explosives and metal smash the remnants of the buildings Caldwell crouches your frame behind.
“Lieutenant, return control. You are going to damage my Frame.”

“No executions, Core.”

This…this is not a good time for debates or ground rules. Win first.
“Affirmative.”

Power is returned, and you consider the tactical choices.

File: Engagement at a street.jpg (85 KB, 736x570)

85 KB JPG

>Go for the spotter first. Easiest to get shots on while remaining safe, and the most fragile.
(Long-range combat)

>The medium whittling away your cover is the greatest concern. It keeps trying to flush you out into the open with its fire. Remove it.
(Short range combat)

>The fire-support designs are only a threat at range. Run the gauntlet of fire to close with them, then tear them apart.
(Point blank range combat, after Defense)

>Write-in?

>>6137816
>Go for the spotter first. Easiest to get shots on while remaining safe, and the most fragile.

>>6137816
>The medium whittling away your cover is the greatest concern. It keeps trying to flush you out into the open with its fire. Remove it.
>If the spotter has chosen to communicate then you’ll return the call. Break into it with Predator to identify targets for your own fire support Juggernaut, or simply lock it down.
We could also use our more localized jamming to finish cutting it off but I’d rather get our fire support involved.

>>6137821
>>Go for the spotter first. Easiest to get shots on while remaining safe, and the most fragile.

>>6137821
>The fire-support designs are only a threat at range. Run the gauntlet of fire to close with them, then tear them apart.
(Point blank range combat, after Defense)

Nothing as big as we are should be able to move as fast as we do, and yet...

>>6137816
Would the charge towards the fire support designs catch the medium as well or not? I assumed it wouldn’t and it could then circle around towards the Juggernaut behind us.

>>6137840
+1

>>6137934
That does leave the medium free, as you're prioritizing getting under the missile arcs of the fire support units instead of being distracted by the medium.

Most enemies aren't capable of dictating ranges like you do, so you don't need to worry about it rushing your ally in a single round of combat. Maybe if it takes a while.

>>6137840
Viable write-in. The spotter is broadcasting, so they're vulnerable to your Predator array, until they catch on.

>>6137840
Supporting.

>>6138103
I know we’re fast, but I underestimate how slow our enemies truly are. Thanks for the clarification!

I’ll stick with my vote for efficiency then. Worst-case scenario for the spotter is that they notice us early and stop broadcasting, removing their use as a spotter, and we may as well eliminate the last enemy that can properly shoot at anyone first at that point.

Getting enemy locations, feeding them false targeting data, or (absolute stupid best case) hijacking their aim assist again for friendly fire/weapon destruction is just a nice bonus.

>>6137816
Man, what a time for this hypocrite to grow a conscience. Or is he one of those morons that believes that only a human being has a right to kill another human being? There have been countless executions in the empire alone, let alone on the field of battle.

>>6137840
+1
Let’s turn this whole city block to ash.

>>6138103
ARE YOU ALIVE
PLEASE RESPOND