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I’ll get working on the K2 crew soon
Ximena Huang

Ximena didn't like the ground plan at all, but unfortunately she didn't have a good argument against it. Any operation that involved her loitering while some jerk with a Strela searched for her signal was a bad one...but that's just how things went. If the ground crew got cut to pieces, the operation was a bust, and stopping the ground crew from getting cut to pieces meant waiting for targets of opportunity to rear their big, ugly heads.

There was something nagging at her about the setup, but unfortunately there was no planning around it. It was probably nothing anyway and yet-

It nagged at her because everything nagged at her, all the small details presenting themselves as glaring risks. That's what being a spy did; it taught you how to catastrophize. She hated living things undone, every hanging thread a potential problem down the line. She needed them tied down or snipped off, accounted for in some way.

------
She figured it was best to bring the question to Heartbreak privately as opposed to weighing everyone down with heavy details. Instead she caught him on the way out of the locker room, her own helmet tucked under her arm.

"Lieutenant-Colonel, not to make mountains out of molehills, but-"

She shrugged apologetically, well-aware she was doing just that.

"I've never seen flown a combat mission with this outfit. I don't have the regulations down pat, and it occurred to me that once we start knocking out their SAMs and blowing up their planes, the OpFor might panic. If they do turn and start beating a hasty retreat to Libya or wherever they came from, how should we handle it-?

It had been against protocol in Lucky Dog to let the enemy escape if doing so didn't interfere with the safety of the pilot or the wider flight. If you were scrambled against bandits you returned only once you were out of ammo or targets, whichever came last. Shattered Steel seemed nicer, for lack of a better word. Not pushovers or anything, but she wasn't sure if they adhered to her 'it flies, it dies' mentality or if they still held onto some of that old knights of the air chivalry. Seeing Scott's reaction to Brightspark last night, she thought it wise to check with him before she started chasing retreating targets.

@Rhona W
Ditto on the profile picture, it's great. Good to meet you
Fuka Nakano

Fuka dipped her head toward the Wonderkind, clicking her tongue sympathetically.

"Who knows about patrols, but those HAWKs typically have radar attached to them. Kitten's not exactly in a stealth bomber, so they're probably going to become aware of you quicker than you'd like."

The Warthog was iconic, but it was also as subtle as a crop duster towing a banner that said 'TARGET HERE.'

"When Chevy and I flew over they scrambled Mirages, fast. I doubt they've gotten any slower in the day since. This matters more for those of us dealing with Lampedusa; we outnumber their fighters, but if they get airborne, we run the risk of dropping bits of fuselage on the locals' heads. "

Ximena Huang

"Well then, I guess we'd better lead our friends on a merry dance away from the grandparents' timeshare. "

She wasn't overly concerned about collateral damage. She'd do her best to minimize it of course, but when it came down to it she'd put the life of herself and her flightmates ahead of the unfortunate civilians on the ground. Bystanders got roped into war all the time, it was just the nature of the beast.

...that wasn't the healthiest way of thinking. Spycraft and mercenary work had definitely taken a toll on her, twisting her priorities in ways that only intensive therapy could undo. Therapy was of course out of the question, so Ximena had to just focus on being the best combat pilot Shattered ever saw.

"That said, what's the plan if ground forces can't dislodge whoever's left after we have our fun?"

@Letter Bee @Rhona W



















OOC


This RP is set in @Rhona W's Heavenfall setting, an alternate history where the Cold War continued up through the 90s before the world was hit by multiple meteorites causing immense destruction and the reshaping of the geopolitical landscape. You can read through the primer he wrote Here, but the key information is the section on the New United Nations. You'll be playing as a member of an elite secret task force put together by the N/UN for the purpose of removing an unfriendly dictator from power in a covert operation. Your character does not have to be from the N/UN or a friendly nation (having a wide variety of nationalities on the team makes it easier to disavow) but you have some sort of elite military, intelligence, or law enforcement experience and are considered trustworthy. There is no space on the team for people who have only been mercenaries or are unable to work as part of a unit, ever part of the whole needs to be rock solid.

The tone will be largely serious and sometimes dark, but with room for levity. I don't intend for it to be nonstop action, there'll be periods of downtime for character interaction and whatnot. This story is largely unrelated to the Heavenfall RPs already ongoing, although there may be some references here and there.










Alright, I'm going to call it here. Thanks for the interest everyone, I'll get to work on an OOC and the character creation rules. Just as a heads up, this will be a Casual rp. I don't need novel-length posts with incredible prose entirely devoid of grammatical mistakes, but the limit is a good-sized paragraph or two every couple of weeks with at least some editing.

@Damo021 @PrinceAlexus @Letter Bee @Rhona W @Kensai @Finetales @Theyra @teenangstlife @Alfhedil @AvaP
I didn’t expect to see so much interest so fast! It’s a nice problem to have.

While we’re over the original player limit I’ll leave this open to one or two more, since it seems to be popular.
March 23rd, 2004. The world shatters.

They say the first meteor that struck us was smaller than the one that wiped out the dinosaurs—hardly a consolation when it was followed by a storm of projectiles. The Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, entire regions were devastated and millions killed by the impacts themselves or the tidal waves they generated, to say nothing of the chaos in the aftermath.

The old order was irrevocably broken. Entire cities were swallowed up and coastlines forever changed, an ecological disaster of a scale never seen in human history. In total, more than two billion people died.

And yet the more things change, the more they stay the same. In any crisis comes oppurtunity, and with the Cold War powers of the United States and the Soviet Union crippled or outright collapsed new players have entered the game. The world now tilts on a southern axis, with the balance of power having shifted to those nations that had been spared by the Heavenfall. Megacorporations rule their private kingdoms, able to do what they want without fear of backlash due to their control of industry and global trade. Criminal syndicates have taken advantage of the chaos and in many places superseded their remnant governments. Old borders have been carved up by squabbling feudal states, and the Neo United Nations, one of the international alliances trying to keep the carnage to a minimum, is stretched far too thin to deal with all of them at once.

Sometimes it falls on someone else to make things happen. PMCs are a regular part of geopolitics now, openly engaging with hostile nations and other mercenaries on behalf of their client states. However, not every conflict is one the N/UN wishes to be publicly involved in. There are times when even the use of PMCs is too transparent. When prudent, the N/UN turns to stealth and sabotage. The operators involved are experienced, intelligent, well-versed in subterfuge, and most importantly...

Entirely deniable.

----------------------
So, I've been inspired by @Rhona W to run an RP for the first time, using his Heavenfall setting. You can read the lore in the link Here, but the gist is that the Cold War didn't end in 1991, and the Soviet Union continued to exist as a world power until 2003 when the planet was rocked by a series of massive meteor strikes, the Heavenfall. While not quite science fiction the setting is very much advanced compared to real-life 2014, or even 2025.

Whereas Shattered Steel (the original RP) is centered around air combat, this one focuses on special forces operations, drawing heavily from military and espionage fiction. The characters would be elite operators inserted covertly to do elite operator stuff: kick in doors, shoot people, and exfiltrate under heavy fire.

In terms of tone I'm shooting for things like Sicario, Ghost Recon, and the Jason Bourne books/movies. While I'm not interested in strict adherence to realism I am going for 'heightened' reality as opposed to pure guns-akimbo old-school action movie logic.

Tone-wise, it'll be somewhat dark. The setup is that you're hired guns in a foreign country working with shady people to overthrow the local government, but said government has it coming. That said, we'll be keeping it professional. No gunning down civilians, no lone wolves who can't work with a team. It won't be nonstop action, I plan on including downtime so that characters can interact and form relationships.

As this is my first time GMing I'm looking to keep the group relatively small, four or five players. We might extend the roster down the line, but for now the team will be a single squad.
Fuka Nakano

Fuka arched an eyebrow at Amelia's apparent realization, all sorts of thoughts running through the older woman's head. Most of them were amused; a young recruit trapped in a contract she didn't like was a tale as old as armies themselves. But Sparrow seemed farther up shit creek than she would have gotten had she just not read her papers well enough. What exactly was going on with the Luftwaffe that they would transfer an active pilot into a PMC, and why didn't the pilot know anything about it?

"Well, good luck to you I suppose. Hopefully you get that hashed out soon."

Fuka smirked dryly at the mention of her family, making a noncommittal noise as she shifted in her seat.

"I wouldn't say that. No, they're more disappointed than anything. I'm by far the lowest achiever among my siblings, so it's no surprise that my parents would be a bit put out by my career choice. Can you imagine them trying to talk about me at dinner parties?"

Her voice changed, getting higher in pitch as if to emulate an embarrassed mother.

"Oh yes, Fuka used to be an Army Ranger before she was wounded in service of her country, and then she became an officer in the Navy! We're very proud...what does she do now? Oh, ahem, well, she's a 'contractor' I think they call themselves? You know, guns for hire."

The Astor-Nakano boys were career officers; a major and a lieutenant-colonel. Three of the girls were politicians, and good ones too, well-versed in economics and diplomacy and a million other subjects that impacted their constituents. Yōko, the family darling, was staring down the barrel of a term as Prime Minister.

Fuka flew surplus aircraft and dropped bombs on people who didn't see it coming.

"Every family has to have a black sheep."

Ximena Huang

Kat seemed to buy into the whole brotherhood of soldiers deal, with her talk of providing fire support for those who needed it most. She was nobler than Ximena was by a damn sight...as if that weren't obvious. Kat had ideals and stood by them, Ximena fled her country to avoid being punished for her failure.

And yet there they were, sitting and soon fighting side by side. War was funny like that.

"Well I suppose any friends we have on the ground will be grateful to see you sliding through the sky above them."

Jefe sipped from her cup as Freyja (damn that bitch to Hell) riffed on her pills comment and Kat responded, looking over her sunglasses in amusement.

"I'll keep an eye out for the good stuff, just for you. I've never been on a base totally devoid of contraband; if you think everyone here is doing their jobs sober you're sorely mistaken."

Case in point: Ximena herself. God, she needed a drink.

Tablets pinged in unison and Freyja finally took the hint, Ximena giving her a friendly wave goodbye.

"Au revoir." she purred, before turning to face the Battle Kitten.

"So, what's there to do around here until it's time for the briefing?

I’m tentatively in, just depends on what time looks like coming up
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