wikkit

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

"...Thank you for being quick about it." She gave him one, brief, look of discontent. "Usually, people wait a very long time to be honest with me. In exchange, let me give you my own honest estimation."

"There is little to be gained from the acquisition of this world by any major power beyond the Canopians - beyond the badge on the chest of whatever general spearheads the conquering of it. It's a meagre world barely fit to be a salt farming outpost, filled with costly discontent, and it lies on a border that is barely worth considering in the grand scheme of things. In truth, perhaps having an independent world to act as a buffer from Periphery dogs would be its biggest benefit - they take the brunt of the piracy, and you do not have to work to protect it. It kicks the problem down the line a generation or two."

Such she spoke with a very firm confidence. After all, this field was the forte of her kind. Even if House Daschke wasn't even a speck in the eye of the galaxy's political movers and shakers, it was certain that they spent quite a lot of time theorycrafting about what could be done. Ingrid was ultimately a professional scholar in this field of realpolitik.

"The Canopians would like any world they can get their hands on, but even then, they are being saddled with a burden they aren't ready to deal with. House Steiner has no need for a world this many jumps out from their border - there's a very old saying that you might be familiar with, 'Selling a bridge'? Buying something that sounds useful but ultimately can't be handed to you. And while the Mariks," there was a certain venom when she spoke that word, "could conceive some use in drawing another minor polity into their number...I do not wish to aid the Free Worlds League. I have my reasons."

"Now," she put her hands on her hips and looked right at him, "do you figure that you're going to play empire builder, Mechwarrior Rivers?"

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Whatever faux pas Raven might have committed was kept a secret from him. She turned, looked him up and down, regarded him coldly for a moment before simply speaking: "I am."

Ingrid figured that this was just some kind of brownnosing tactic thrown at her in a moment of weakness. It never took any kind of expertise to speak as a genteel man, at least influently, just the will to do so. She expected little out of this conversation.

She pulled a pair of gloves that she'd be riding into battle with out of her pocket, and said "But speak like you normally would. I won't tolerate you if you keep trying to sound like a simple chivalric stock character."

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

The Colonel didn't take her bait...or saw through it. Ingrid couldn't get a read on that man sometimes, and it worried her.

Their reputation was her concern, but so was her own personal interpretation of honor. To fire on unarmed people simply trying to run away was a shameful thought, and yet she couldn't get that across in a way that mattered to these people. It's true, yes, they were already being slandered. Did they need to fuel the fire even further?

Ingrid stepped away from the table with a composed look on her face. She was going to be leading them directly; didn't need to slander her own reputation any further - her reservations were kept to herself.

A short while later, she was standing below the green hull of the Ostroc, looking up at a man standing on a makeshift gantry - in the absence of real repair bays, the astechs had to find creative ways to get up to the Battlemechs' levels. "Sanders." She had taken the time to memorize the names of those on her machine's duty, though they often didn't care to remember hers. "Have you loaded this yet?"

"Not much to load, ma'am," he said, his gray beard hanging down as he looked over the edge of the gantry. "Just the SRMs, right? We'll get those done last."

"Tell the lead that I wish to have but one shot loaded. Distribute the remainder to the rest," she said, "I'll be fine without them."

He looked away from her at a printed sheet on a clipboard, flipping a couple of pages. "Ma'am, yer 'Roc's ain't even got a half-ton of ammunition for it anyway, without dipping into the Hawk's...does it make much difference? Don't think anybody else can even load these things with the long-ass name."

Her nose scrunched up. She tapped her foot, and put her hands on her hips. "Then so be it! If it's that much of a problem, I won't ask...and they are Totschlagens. TAWT-shla-gens. Not difficult."

"Ma'am, I'm from Bluford, Crucis area." He wiped sweat from his wrinkled head. Even with Ingrid's snappyness, he doesn't seem to have enough energy in him to get truly annoyed. "They don't teach German there; they barely teach English! I'm sorry, but I got to get to your hand actuators before the boss comes 'round. We can talk about pronunciation later, if you don't mind."

"...I'll leave you to it." She kept any further clarification to herself.

Thornwood Asylum For The Criminal Insane- A Villain Roleplay. (Closed Indefinitely)

As the others figured their own problems out, an eye passed through the contract line by line, each sentence being scrutinized for its potential to screw her over in a few years. Demons love this kind of legalism where they'll follow the letter of the law but twist it with some kind of unfavorable interpretation, but at the same time, they'll also just outright lie. Professor Perfection was certainly on the losing end of this contract in either case.

Did she have much chance to find a better offer, though?

Oh well, she could finagle her way out of this one when the time came. She laid it out on the table, wrote it, and with a hidden mechanism drawing blood from her neck she sealed it in her own sanguine fluid.

"We were finishing this contract."

She passed it off to him without much more thought given to it. It'll just be another mine she'll have to walk around in a while.

"Q, for your end of the deal, I will need you to act in the role of chauffer. A waste of your undoubtedly fantastical capabilities, yes, but the only other option is for us to travel by road. I doubt you want to sit in the car with me for weeks."

"I figure the safest plan would be the immediate destruction of the internet."

She let it hang in the air dramatically for some reason. Even if she came across as devoid of emotion, she couldn't deny her love of dramaturgy.

"Since my incarceration, the internet has spread to every corner of life, it seems. Every other news bulletin, they mention websites - politicians are discussing matters of world policy on whatever Twitter is supposed to be. Billionaires make their money that way. If we were to disrupt the lifeline of modern society, we would only open up new opportunities. Now, there's only one thing for us to do."

"We must visit the nearest library to learn about the internet's weak points."

Deleted

@Dead Cruiser
I don't know for certain and I don't think it'll be all-encompassing protection. I'll figure it out when sign-ups go up.

Deleted

The thing with being an actual, functional God (as the title is understood in Heaven) is that it basically means you have a job. There's a function you serve in Heaven's multiversal society, and what that function is typically describes what you are the "god" of. Many Law Gods, judges and other judicators, exist within Heaven. In fact there are multiple, competing "pantheons" which pay homage to different "supreme" deities.

@Dead Cruiser

This works fine by my reckoning; a character forced to work in some kind of divine capacity just to get secured in a world bigger than them sounds like a fun idea. Whether or not the kind of broken-for-their-own-setting powers this idea would have counts as some kind of true apotheosis or just "good enough to fit in", I haven't decided yet.

The overall concept is someone who's, as a result of whatever dumb stuff is causing this, basically unchallenged in life and has gotten so far without really needing to do anything. They've got everything handed to them by freak coincidences and can't be seriously hindered, and as such they live in a malaise of boredom. Nothing ever really causes problems, everything goes right even if they just sit there, and so on. Having a character like that suddenly being thrown into a new life where everything can cause problems would be great fun to write.

This is kind of an abstract question, but would a god of (mis)Fortune/Luck/Probability end up similarly "untouchable" in this setting? I know it's a lot to ask and I am fine if the answer is 'no', but the nature of this domain giving some level of protection would help make it more believable that they're not instantly wiped out.

Deleted

@Dead Cruiser
Hey, fine by me. Wasn't necessarily thinking of a sci-fi universe, something more like urban fantasy/horror where someone with luck manipulation powers managed to bullshit their way into warping reality. Alternatively, being part of the established deities in this setting and doing death/disease or the like.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Every push-up requested had been delivered, without complaint. Not even so much as an acknowledgement of the punishment beyond a flat 'Yes, sir'. Really, the shame was enough of a punishment on its own. She could rationalize it as being in defense of her House's honor, but she was this close to striking a fellow Mechwarrior...over just a petty, schoolyard tease! Ingrid was nothing short of ashamed that she had let herself slip that much.

Of course, not all of it was directed at herself. Though she wouldn't dare look directly at Ziska for the rest of the day unless spoken to, she seemed to squint every time she came into her field of vision.

Which she was, unfortunately, at the time of the briefing. Directly across from her in the circle of equals.

Ingrid could only wonder why this happened in the first place...

Her arms were sore but she remained standing at attention as the Colonel spoke, not letting the fatigue show. Back when she was younger, the thought of committing what was effectively banditry written off as asset acquisition would've been unthinkable. Far below her status, or pretty much anyone's. Now she had grown a little more sensible, perhaps. Beyond wishing to be in better times, she would do nothing. This sort of thing is a fact of war.

"They're hardly a hospitable group," she said in agreement with the tankers - the mere tankers. "If they seek to cooperate with us, I've seen no such hail from them yet - and we've a web of diplomatic ties to navigate. However, we should not leave them in the cold--"

Ingrid shivered a little as she remembered how cold she is.

"--because they could have some sort of use down the line. Establishing a means of communication will be of use, but I don't see the trouble being worth the reward yet."

On the mission itself, and its current topic...she immediately showed some hesitation. "Sir, while I understand the outcome behind your suggested action," she said to the Colonel, looking him straight in the eyes after glancing away, "do you believe that firing on unarmed transports will end up being in our favor? The enemy certainly holds the public's attention at this time, and handing them a ready-made propaganda piece about firing on non-combatants - even if they are military personnel - would not be advantageous for receiving aid from anyone on this planet."

...She thought for a moment, and added something more.

"In the worst case scenario...future employers, as well."

Deleted

Is there any limitations on what kind of universe a character can hail from? Is it specifically fantasy-only?

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Ingrid had a moment with Ziska just earlier this hour. A moment. She hadn't had a moment with almost anyone else up until this point! All this time in the company and she had to go it alone for some reason, as if everyone here resented her. So, surely, that moment of kindness should excuse some of Ziska's indiscretion.

And indeed it did. Some. Not all.

She stood there while Ziska walked up, stepped back as she literally waltzed up (with oddly practiced form for a Periphery bumpkin), and then simmered, bubbled...

By the time she had offered to defend her honor via a duel - in much the same way Ingrid herself had said multiple times prior - she was just short of boiling.

"Ziska," she said, low and quiet as she began to roll up her carefully maintained sleeves, "I would thank you for the thought if you were sincere, but I am not stupid enough to fail to notice when I am being made a mockery of...