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 Foyle is about a year and a half subjective out from Rysy Station. Nice friendly G-type star, single big Jovian sweeping out all the junk you don’t need in a system while keeping all the resources you want, a couple of terrestrial planets scattered around for when you want to put up your feet. Just enough to make a colony viable, without being unique or valuable enough to be at the top of anybody’s priority list. Which is precisely why Clan Foyle Colonization Holdings picked the place to settle. The history of the Foyle system could be written anywhere else in the galaxy, for the most part. Terraformer system drops in a few hundred years ago, first colony dump a few less hundred years ago, a whole bunch of proud pictures of Handover Day taken from the Loch Phan overlook. People pay their taxes and throw a big party whenever a ship comes in from out-system. A couple of jackasses upset the cart about a half-century back and established a junta, but then that got overthrown, and everyone agrees that things are much nicer now that the military is defanged. About the most exciting thing that’s happened in recent memory is SSC setting up a Cultural Sampling Mission to do some research on the airborne microfauna that crap up the air outside the domes. Until Buto. Nobody’s sure who Buto is or where she came from. Nobody’s claiming her as part of their colonial lineage, but nobody’s disavowing her either, which would surely reveal the guilty party. She’s not affiliated with the junta as best as anyone can tell. Mostly, she seems interested in sensational, escalating acts of terror and finding ways to commit grand larceny in an effectively post-scarcity society. Last month, she blew up the moon. Put aside nothing safely getting on- or off-planet for the foreseeable future, that kind of behavior cannot be countenanced. Drastic measures were necessary. That’s where you come in. The Extraordinary Situations Group is composed of literally everyone that could be found on Foyle who had a chance in hell of taking on Buto and her crew. An uneasy group of regular police, adventurers, Cosmopolitans, and other weirdos are now charged with taking down the worst criminal in the history of this system. Can Foyle survive Buto’s reign of terror? And can the colony survive you? ---- This’ll be a less than serious Lancer game. Your characters are a bunch of mech pilots working to apprehend a cartoon supervillain; presumably you’re equally cartoony lunatics. For tone, imagine something along the lines of Dominion: Tank Police, the Patlabor TV series, or Hot Fuzz. The game itself will be run by asynchronous Discord chat, so like PbP but a little faster, plus Roll20 for combat scenes. What I want to see in applications are pitches, not full writeups and character sheets. A couple paragraphs at most, just to give us a sense of what your character is like. Pitches will be due by Wednesday the 17th. I’m dumping a bunch of background info in this post. If you want to use it, cool. It’s there to be used or not as is necessary for your character concept. If you want to be some sucker who stepped off your transport right as the moon blew up, here’s the important part - you’re one of the few mech pilots around, and you’ve been bribed/pressured/enlisted to help fight a ridiculous supervillain. The role of police action in society is an important issue, and this cartoon game about explosions and jokes is probably not the place to give it the serious treatment it deserves. Let’s assume in the Lancer universe of ethically-sourced fully automated luxury space communism, you’re morally compromised by being a weirdo in control of a highly destructive weapons system, rather than just by being a cop. Here's a Discord link: https://discord.gg/ZzqtVGP ---- People and Places Foyle Colony “Foyle Colony” refers most often to the inhabited parts of the second planet in the system. The planet itself and the local star are also called Foyle; locals use context clues to differentiate, and don’t really care if outsiders are inconvenienced. Terraforming continues to this day on Foyle-the-planet, though the orbital blockade may make the process a good deal more complicated in the near future. Most of the planet is still badlands - untouched, barren rock and the sterile seas. About a third is terraformed with scenic dirt, lichen, grass, trees, and a hell of a lot of bacterial life. The domed settlements dot that terraformed portion like fungal spores, ranging from tiny homesteads to the capital of Edina, home to two and a half million humans. A small collection of extra-planetary habitats can still be found in extremely high orbit and scattered elsewhere in the system, though they’re on their own for the time being. Some resource extraction operations roam out in the badlands. Total planetary human population is about twenty million, with another several thousand NHPs running the automated systems. Foyle is a willing participant in Union’s hegemony, and maintains links with Cradle through the planetside omninet transmitters. A new main omninet facility is being built in the badlands not far from the Banks river, to compensate for the loss of the big orbital relays; right now, the signal to the rest of the galaxy drops at night, Edina time. There is no current Union administrator for Foyle. The system pays its taxes in currency and material resources, having successfully argued against a manpower tribute after the fall of the junta. Edina Political and cultural capital of the system. The single greatest concentration of human life for light years. Picturesque, pocked with lakes and full of elaborate brick architecture. Kind of dull for starfarers, but at least you have omninet access most of the day. The major local corporations and off-planet CS legations all have their offices here. The Smith-Shimano gardens are a particular highlight for lovers of the organic, if not necessarily natural. Those with a more industrial bent would be interested in the planet’s solitary Schedule 3 printer, though tourists are not currently allowed to visit the printer facility owing to the current emergency. Inhabitants of Foyle are big on lineage in general, as is the case in many small and new colonies, and Edinans in particular make sport of seeing how distantly they’re related to any new association. Informal clout comes from being related to great figures in Foyle history, and the greatest are the original charter board for the colony. The closest the charter members ever got to setting foot on the planet was through several generations of descendants, but that doesn’t stop the locals from ascribing all kinds of tall tales to their distant ancestors. Older colonists are self-consciously proletarian and equitable in their habits and dress, while those born after the junta was thoroughly dead favor ostentatiously severe formal attire and put on airs, given the chance. Marianne Frazier, CEO of the largest heavy manufacturing concern in the system, is never seen in public without her boiler suit and flat cap, and scrupulously greets everyone she meets as “citizen;” her son Jeong’s famous mugshot features him in a light-leaching black tailcoat and an elaborate platinum chain wrapped around the wrist of his gesturing hand. Detached single-family dwellings tend to be the preserve of the affluent and the rural; most Edinans live in apartment blocks, rowhouses or their union barracks. The basic unit of local cuisine is the street cart vendor; those who cook for themselves privately are seen as either dedicated hobbyists or antisocial. Live theatre and concerts are this year’s entertainment fad, though last year’s mounted racing courses still pack folks in on the regular. Government Foyle’s government is aggressively democratic, and its remote polling systems are given the same security priority as the heavy printer and the omninet nodes. Citizens are expected to propose new legislation and to vote on the issues brought to their attention by the NHP consultants, though abstention is a legally-enshrined right. Executive personnel are chosen by the Civil Service Draft Board, which is in turn elected by the general populace every five years. Draft Board Election Day is a system-wide civic holiday, so that the typical electronic polling can be supplanted by ritualized in-person voting. Colonists will often display their first ceremonial paper ballot in their homes, while others make a collection of different district authentication stamps. The next Board election is coming up in about a year, and apart from the anti-campaigning starting up, there are some constitutional anxieties brewing if the off-planet districts can’t make landfall to deliver their ballots. Big executive agencies include the Departments of Agriculture, City Planning, Air Management, Polling, and Justice. The Department of Person Services controls the military, among their other higher profile portfolio pieces, and the primary defense responsibilities these days are cleaning up parks and performing historical reenactments. Police, and by extension the ESG, answer to the Secretary of Justice and an oversight panel put together by the Draft Board. Colonel Orlov Prior to the coup, Foyle was a tiny, tiny corpro-state managing the exploitation of the system for its profit. Its military wing functioned as both defense and police forces. Colonel Orlov was a middling officer in all senses of the word, but he did have the most important quality for success in a military organization: raging, unchecked narcissism. Initially, Orlov’s coup was a way to advance his own career past his merits as an individual, and to enrich a similarly lackluster group of stakeholders in the corporate bureaucracy. The newly created Field Marshal Orlov soon had to invent crises to maintain his power and keep the wealth flowing. Like many Diasporans, the people of Foyle are temperate and slow to embrace political change, but when the gendarmes started breaking open NHP caskets and extrajudicially imprisoning or executing humans, it was time for a change. The revolt lasted about a month. By the end of it, the remaining executives were exiled and the soldiers detained for counseling and punishment. Alexi Orlov was tied to a tree outside the Edina dome, and his breath mask removed in front of the crowd of spectators. To date, the current regime has handed down no other capital sentences. The fastest way to get in a fight on Foyle is to call someone an Orlovist in public. Bacteria Humans and most animals can’t survive in the open on Foyle for prolonged periods of time. The abnormal volume of microbial life is suffocating to anything that breathes, rather than aerates. The bugs themselves are sufficiently strange to draw the attention of an SSC Foreign Body team, which has established a number of extraterritorial enclaves across the planet. The prevailing theory puts the microbes as either hitchhikers on one of the cometary impactors during initial terraforming, or something that was lying deep and dormant in the crust of the planet until said bombardment stirred them up. If someone can figure out how to process and control the bugs without their explosive reproduction, they’ll be fantastically wealthy. As it is, the overwhelming quantity of oxygen the microbes produce is hampering the spread of plant life in the terraformed zones, and killing the things that would like to live there. Buto  Buto is a mystery to the authorities. Prior to her criminal debut, no record of her exists. The average colonist prefers to think of her as an outsider, or some kind of mutant, or one last throwback to the junta. Buto has so far declined to share either her origins or her purpose. What she has shared is a set of often-contradictory demands, incoherent threats, and a substantial amount of munitions in places where there should be no munitions. Local forensics and X-Div both have failed to uncover any coherent pattern in her actions, and profiling continues to be useless. Buto’s crimes include the abduction and ransom of an entire settlement, the theft of thirty tons of grain from a supply convoy, sparking a riot by bequeathing astonishing amounts of manna to random colonists during Harfest, razing an abandoned monastery, and destroying the moon, among numerous other incidents. Her body count continues to increase.  Buto’s organization includes several known prior criminals, both from Foyle and elsewhere in the galaxy. Others, like her lieutenants Terms and Conditions, are just as mysterious as their leader. All of them carry enormous rap sheets. The Fuzz After the whole extrajudicial killings thing, the people of Foyle are understandably cynical of the state’s monopoly on force. Most peacekeeping is done by neighborhood watch committees, with judgement rendered by a magistrate chosen by the election method of their district’s choice. Trials are performed at the bench, rather than by jury, with the prosecution selected by the presiding magistrate. Defense is always provided by a professional attorney from the Department of Justice, and is always brought in from out-of-district. While devolved, community-based policing tends to work well overall, sometimes there’s a need for professional law enforcement - increase your population and eventually someone’s going to break the law in a sufficiently spectacular or horrible way to go beyond the means of a neighborhood vigilance association. DOJ maintains a small professionalized police force, spread thin across the system. The Administration Police (variously federales, les chiens, the pigs, kerovi, the bulls, etc.) are primarily investigators and forensics specialists. The ADP are carefully selected for a fixed term by the Draft Board, and are generally looked on by the public with a mixture of pride and pity - their job is unpleasant and gross, but necessary for a healthy society, like sanitation workers, graduate students or organ farmers. A group of hyper-specialized subject-matter experts and a rapid deployment tactical team used to operate out of Edina, known as the Exigency Division. They’ve been wholly cannibalized into the ESG as Squad 1, which rankles the geniuses and the door-kickers alike. Privately, they make quiet, nasty noises about being subordinated to a civilian. The Chief  Chief Seton is probably the most famous person in Foyle right now, favorite of young men and women across the system. The dashing young paladin made himself known to the public, just like the folklore said, just after the first fragments of the moon started to rain down. It was Seton who proposed the formation of the Extraordinary Situations Group, and who was put in charge of it by instant popular acclaim. One of the youngest Loyal Wings ever to make that rank, Seton now faces off against his brilliant, dastardly adversary, with the ESG pilots and staff his loyal soldiers in a war against villainy. Chief Seton answers to the Oversight and the Secretary of Justice directly, and in addition to his fight against Buto, he manages the goings-on of the Group, mentors his staff, and handles press affairs for the crime-fighting team. He’s a little haggard-looking these days, but with the kind of hours he works, that’s no surprise. grassy gnoll fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Jul 18, 2019 |
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Jul 12, 2019 00:36
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I dunno if I’ll app but I’ll be disappointed if Detective Munch isn’t present in this game in some way.
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Jul 12, 2019 00:46
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Open palm slamming some interest right here.
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Jul 12, 2019 01:10
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aw poo poo here we go again
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Jul 12, 2019 02:01
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Deffo interested.
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Jul 12, 2019 02:28
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Angry hillbilly with explosives will appear soon. A key component of all good police squads!
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Jul 12, 2019 02:31
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 Carrie Retamar, callsign Braincase, seen here handcuffed after an incident involving the destruction of an omninet-hosted poetry archive A pleasant volunteer sanitation worker who -- either despite or because of her unfailingly cheerful mien, depending on who you ask -- comes across as deeply creepy to basically everyone. With a brain moderately suited to chassis-tier neural uplinks made irrelevant by a personality unsuited to combat, Carrie seemed set for involving herself in absolutely no military actions whatsoever... until she caught the attention of HORUS, in an incident which left her stranded in the sewers beneath a suburb of Edina for a solid month. Whatever that experience entailed -- she doesn't discuss it except while blind drunk on local wines, and then only in fragments -- Carrie wound up a lot more amenable to combat, and a lot more suitable for it, too. Also, she talks about having died before, sometimes. Usually while blind drunk on those local wines. Not to mention her dream journals full of liturgicode, her fully-integrated HORUS subjectivity suite and its unpleasantly organic look, her steady heart rate during intensive exercise... a whole lot of red flags, basically. The ESG treats her the way you'd treat a perfectly ordinary briefcase which you can't open, and which occasionally makes a noise that might be ticking -- that is to say, they carry her around and hope to God that either they're just imagining the ticking, or that she doesn't detonate until they've flung her at Buto and run like hell. -- Quick pitch for the ground floor! Planning to futz around with complex controller-type mechs like the Lich, i.e. punching way above my tactical-thinking weight class. If not, will probably opt for some less complex HORUS mech, like a Gorgon or Balor. Poltergrift fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Jul 13, 2019 |
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Jul 12, 2019 03:14
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Lili Teng Th-th-the moon exploded? Oh no. Oh no, oooooh nooooo.... They're definitely going to blame me for this one too! After the time that Hangcho Station exploded... And that time the Emergency Express caught fire... And that time the Polder sunk... The bosses are definitely going to blame me for this moon! I can't get a message out through this mess, they'll find out before I can do something... It's ok, Lili, it's ok... You know you didn't do it. You can prove it. All you have to do is your job! You're a Disaster Inspector. You solve disasters! Ignore all the people who keep telling you you cause them. Just punch 'em right in the face!
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Jul 12, 2019 03:31
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Bunk Morlan Two weeks from retirement. My term was almost up with ADP. I was an investigator. Nothing serious, accidents mostly. Then this poo poo goes down with Buto. Crazy poo poo, like the old days but more… Nonsensical. So, the job gets more intense and people start to notice I’m good at it. They give me some kudos and push back my term. “Emergency measures, here’s another medal.” Fine, fine, everyone’s gotta give what they got. But then some chucklehead looks at my records. They read “Union Medal of Valor” and their underpants get bunched. Then they read “Lancer” and make some rash decisions. Nevermind I haven’t sat in a cockpit for 20 years. No, I gotta take the fight to Buto. I was two weeks from retirement. But, I wanted to retire here. Whattya gonna do?
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Jul 12, 2019 04:54
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gently caress yes! Will cook up something.
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Jul 12, 2019 05:10
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 Chakra In facilities carefully hidden from the eyes of Union Smith-Shimano Corpro produce only the the finest genetically and psychologically sculpted facsimile pilots, tank bred from the DNA of famous aces and raised in creches under optimal conditions to produce the physical and mental quirks that make up a 'natural' warrior. Of course, when one hand crafts such a highly specialized and high performance item there is always a certain amount of...wastage. Some percentage die in training, some fail to make an exceptional connection to the mech or otherwise meet the expectations of an SSC product, and some...some develop the other unfortunate traits of elite pilots. Arrogance. Narcissism. Excessive independence of thought. Well enough in ordinary soldiers, but not appropriate for release to paying customers. And so they are made use of in other ways to try and recoup their expense before being decommissioned. Like Shana Azwhar: sent to Foyle to babysit a CSM through a routine research assignment, and then being 'volunteered' with almost indecent speed to join the new special police unit by her frustrated corporate supervisors. A perfect place for an imperfect perfect pilot to work off some steam, establish her own worth, and maybe save a planet. shooting for a role as the insufferably cool but emotionally brittle ace thatbastardken fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Jul 17, 2019 |
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Jul 12, 2019 07:11
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Interest post goes here.
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Jul 12, 2019 10:02
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 Angelo Garcia A former soldier of Orlov's junta, Angelo was one of the first to turn against his superior officers once things came out of hand, but despite his help in bringing down the tyrant's regime, he found himself a pariah once the new government came to power, with most people still believing he held allegiance to the Marshal, and he was immediately discharged from the military, and ironically the only place where he could actually manage to find a new job turned out to be the ADP, where Angelo eventually managed to stall his career in homicide and assault investigation. Now perhaps the Buto incident and his reassignment to the ESG might be a way for him to actually redeem his reputation. Plutonis fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Jul 15, 2019 |
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Jul 12, 2019 14:07
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 Jinho Rao, callsign Rookie For as long as anyone can remember, Jinho has wanted to be a hero. Whether fantasies of joining the Albatross and protecting people across the reaches of known space or far more reasonable fantasies of joining the (now former) Exigency Division, he'd loudly proclaim his aims to anyone in earshot. It was always a bit of a joke at school, at home, in Foyle in general... but one that was made with an undercurrent of affection. Who could hate a puppy? Who could hate someone that devoted to the idea of do-gooding? Of course, given the Rao family's historical connections to the very founders of Foyle, it just so happened that he had the opportunity to do the very job he'd always dreamed of. He enrolled in the ADP academy and, over the course of his studies, quickly developed a reputation for being a hotshot pilot (if one prone to fiddling with his reactor in frowned-upon ways) and one prone to charging into situations headlong without proper consideration. In a word, he's a hotblooded idiot. When Jinho sees injustice, he can't not try to deal with it... and given most of these training sessions are mech-based, well. Frankly, if it wasn't for Buto's sudden case of lunar destruction, he'd have been quietly shuffled into an office gig in the ADP and people would perhaps breath a little easier with one less loose cannon in the mix. Instead, he's been handed off to Extraordinary Situations. The hope is that Chief Seton, noble paladin and hero, will manage to wrangle the sheer enthusiasm and potential of the young rookie for positive ends... with a minimum of property destruction.
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Jul 12, 2019 15:32
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 Weir Watt Listen lawyer boy, you're wasting your time unless you've got a key to this straitjacket and a deal for me. ... Oh, well in that case, LEMME AT 'EM! I don't care if you got me locked up in my off hours, I'll burn every operation they got to the ground! Buhhhh Weir, fix Buto's stuff. Weir, do the cool lightning thing. Weir, clean up our books. Buuuhhhhh Weir, troubleshoot my C/C because I'm a loving idiot. All that hard work and they throw me under the bus like a speed bump the instant they got spotted trying to bust into the Level 3 Printer! I've got names, I've got faces, I've got numbers, and the only way you're gonna hear about any of them is if you put me back in the seat of a mech and let me pull the trigger myself, got it?
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Jul 12, 2019 17:25
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Cartwright Orenstein Davies, Vengeful Prospector Excerpt, ESG Application Interview #213 posted:Interviewer: So Ms. Davies, why do you want to be on the Buto Task Force?" The Davies have always lived on the edges of Foyle society, maintaining terraformers, patrolling badlands, farming on small homesteads. Not antisocial per se, just enjoying their own company and occupations that pitted their skills against the wilderness. Cartwright is no different, although her prospecting skills did actually take her off-world (a first for her family). Of course, seeing how that turned out, her family rightfully points out that it probably wasn’t the best idea. Cartie had been doing some freelance work on the moon, trying to track down a possible vein of exotics, when Buto did her thing. By some quirk of geography or macro-demolition, the mountain she had been traversing was blown free relatively intact, taking Cartie’s frame with it into a relatively stable orbit. And while it was preferable to being vaporized, having to survive the 10 days before someone found her signal on nothing but a bento lunch, two beers, and her recycled wastes was no walk in the park either. Normally a live-and-let-live type, Cartie was angry enough to go to the ESG recruiting office the very day she made planetfall. Like most of her family, Cartwright’s rustic exterior and quiet demeanor hides a keen eye for detail and a near-encyclopedic knowledge of their trade. In Cartie’s case, that’s geology and ways of making said geology explode. Big City life isn’t something she’s going to enjoy, but the noise and people will be worth it if she can catch up to Buto.
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Jul 13, 2019 00:31
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 Jay Taggart You know, getting kicked out of Black Fortune might have been for the best. I mean yeah, I miss the merc life sometimes. Travelling the galaxy, seeing the sights, crashing into enemy bases riding on top of a meteor, etc. Fun stuff. But between the anger issues and my boss riding my rear end every time I broke formation, I was stressed the hell out and causing a lot of property damage. Which I mean, nobody really got hurt but it turns out when you crash through 17 floors of a luxury O’Neill Hotel, they expect you to pay for it. So yeah, Foyle’s not too exciting but I’ve been seeing a therapist, doing community service at the local youth rec center, and just overall getting my poo poo together. Hell, I’m even chaperoning a field trip to the moon for the science kids. And to think, all I needed to do was step away from mecha piloting. … What do you mean the moon blew up?
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Jul 13, 2019 03:08
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 Gamma-N "Wow, you humans sure can be weird. 'You can't just fight evil, that's for the police, and also, it's a crime.' Fighting evil is a crime? Justice is a crime?" "Well... according to the result of case High Court of Edina v. Dr. Alvis, I am legally required to state that threatening a criminal from a lamppost is a form of assault; a flying kick is a form of battery; and heroic speeches exceeding three minutes in length are a form of harassment. However, as these actions were in accordance with my initial programming, I am not legally responsible for them provided I am of sufficient sentience to act in accordance with the law upon education. However, as his creation, I am legally allowed to act on his behalf in serving his community time." "..." "I have ceased to lock up for more than a few seconds upon processing that contradiction! My neural matrice can learn! Taking in account the purpose of my design and experience, I have been assigned police duties to fight crime. Which, as I understand, is a means through which society deals out justice against evil parties." "...." "How long was I out that time? Only three seconds! Excellent! I am here to ensure that my legal duties to state and creator are performed in tandem! For justic- what does say in my assignment here? My duty with the ESG as an android is to pilot a robot?" "....." "If you could stop it with the contradictions... I'm not sure my neural matrice can learn this fast..."
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Jul 13, 2019 03:50
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Carrie, where are you from, anyway? Lili, exactly how can you prove you weren't at fault this time? Can we really say for sure? Bunk, what did you do to get that medal? Chakra, what was your last assignment/punishment before Foyle? Angelo, why did you originally join the military, way back when? Jinho, how are you and Chief Seton getting along? Weir, did you actually even get a chance to engage in criminal behavior before you got picked up? Cartie, what was life on the homestead like before it, y'know... Jay, how did they rope you back into the game? Gamma-N, what is the difference between what is legal and what is just?
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Jul 15, 2019 00:18
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grassy gnoll posted:
"Because when you are a dumb kid it sounds like the coolest thing to do. They advertised it differently back in the day. Adventure, friends, riding a cool mecha, being recognized as a 'badass'... Everything some brat that just came out of high school with mediocre grades and from a family of people that the rest of Foyle considered nobodies would want in his life. And then you see yourself as a junior lieutenant being ordered to lead soldiers to crack protestors heads or worse for daring to go against the Field Marshal. If the recruiters mentioned that before I would have doubled checked the offer, I must say."
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Jul 15, 2019 00:38
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Jinho Rao, callsign Rookie grassy gnoll posted:Jinho, how are you and Chief Seton getting along? Hmm, if I had to put it into a word... great! We really click when it comes to the whys of the work and, believe me, with a pedigree like that... man, the Chief is a next-level hero for sure! I mean, okay, it isn't to say that I never get lectured on my methods, but I know that deep down he really understands that I had to blast apart those apartments — they were empty, of course, for fumigation, which is why I knew it was safe to shoot through them and... What? I'd know that hazard-yellow tenting anywhere. One of my cousins, Shin-Hye, runs pest control for the station. You get all sorts of stuff slipping the SSC cordon when they get distracted or think that some unauthorized sample needs to be station-side or just don't feel like a full-spectrum decon routine. Eggheads, right? Anyways, I put a lot of thought into all of this, is all I'm saying. If I hadn't cored that GARM-V Hive before it started spraying nanite swarms all over, we'd be worried about a greywash incident, not property damage. But... I guess, having seen all the paperwork, maybe the Chief has a point? Well, whatever. I'll try and tone it down a bit, if only so I don't have to pull another all-nighter writing up the report, but I'm not gonna hesitate when it comes down to doing the right thing! Hey, maybe when we sort this all out he'll recommend me for the Albatross? That'd be great! Heroics on a cosmic scale!
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Jul 15, 2019 00:38
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Jay Taggart grassy gnoll posted:Jay, how did they rope you back into the game? Honestly it’s pure spite. I was driving back from another job interview (as an aside, I think it’s a bit presumptuous to say a history of destroying buildings and international landmarks makes a person unqualified to be a janitor), and what do I see but my apartment complex completely flattened by a big ol’ hunk of moon rock. Couch surfing in a city where you still don’t know anyone particularly well is an experience I would recommend to just about no-one. Now there are some, like my therapist Cathy for example, that might say I should count myself lucky that I didn’t die sitting in my underwear watching the Jet Zero Grand Prix. I tell them they don’t know the suffering that is holding the ashes of your favorite leather jacket, made of Redstar Crocodile skin, that cost you your entire first paycheck so you had to spend 2 months living out of a van. Now take that feeling and multiply it by everything you own. So I don’t care if anyone thinks getting back into the cockpit for something like this is undoing all the progress I made in therapy. I am going to apprehend Buto, find out where her secret base is, and smash a giant rock into it until everything she owns is dust. Completely reasonable.
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Jul 15, 2019 01:00
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grassy gnoll posted:Lili, exactly how can you prove you weren't at fault this time? Can we really say for sure? Well, it's my job to investigate disasters, and capture the people responsible... so all I have to do is my job! I just gotta help these folks catch Buto and get them to confess to blowing up the moon and bam! I'll be in the clear, right? Can't be my fault if someone else admits it! Just got to get them alive. Not like the others! ...I'm pretty sure they'll still blame me, somehow, but chin up! Even if they do capturing Buto would be a "feather in my cap!" I could get permission to use artillery again! I've missed having that. It's really hard to stop a mudslide without blowing up a few mountains! It's so hard to do my job when I can't at least clear out some of the rough terrain! K Prime fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Jul 15, 2019 |
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Jul 15, 2019 03:48
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 grassy gnoll posted:Gamma-N, what is the difference between what is legal and what is just? Gamma-N "Laws are put forth by humans to maintain society, and justice is... well, it's what they want laws to do, I guess. Like a process and a result. Only sometimes the laws have bugs and don't output justice." "But what do humans want? Not to get hurt or lose all the stuff they identify with, I think. So justice is getting the things that cause harm to where they can't do harm. Of course, humans have a hard time agreeing on what 'harm' is, or figuring out how to help somebody else without harming another... I don't really have all the answers, either! But I'm more impartial with my data than they tend to be." "And that is why I should be able to just go punch that guy instead of just staking out... huh? You say there are more productive forms of justice? Well, it's just how my priorities were set... my designer had some weird priorities, huh? Seriously though, this boredom is a form of harm, when you really think about it."
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Jul 15, 2019 04:40
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The medal is for being dumb. You don’t get medals like that for doing sensible things. You want the full story? I was a Lancer, Alpha Strike, White Hats, best of the best. They sent my squad far afield, place called Ambrosia. Never heard of it, right? Well, it was small settlement at the far edge of Union’s reach. We heard a group of pirates led a coup on the local government and made it their own pirate fiefdom. Union sent 6 Lancers to fight a few dozen pirates and set things right. When we got there, the pirates were already dead. Somebody, I don’t know if it was local resistance or the pirates, they put a virus in the whole replicator system so it shat out killbots. Autonomous weapons systems with basic AI, killing everything in sight. By the time we got there, the place was overrun. So, you go to scrap with a few pirates and find a grey tide with guns. What do you do? The smart play is to tell Union they need an army, or a bombardment. But there were still people on that planet. So we pick an evac point, send a signal on all bands, and hot drop in. I was the only survivor. First to drop, which means they had a chance to pick me up after I punched out and stick me with the civvies. Everyone else died keeping the horde at bay long enough for the transport to do its thing. Medal of Valor went to the whole squad, my buddies just got it posthumously. I never Jockied again. Until now.
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Jul 15, 2019 04:45
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 Saul Slart: Maul Cop I've always wanted to be a cop. I joined the academy as soon as I could. Did pretty well, too. The written exams were easy, got through physical training without much trouble, did a lot better at piloting than I thought I would. The shooting, though. A few lessons in, they told me that I should never hold a gun again, ever. People even stopped going to lessons when I was around, that's how bad a shot I am. So after I flunked out, I ended up working at a junkyard near the badlands. I was piloting the only mech there and it did pretty much all the work. Heavy lifting, pushing scrap around, flattening junk, that sort of stuff. I thought about trying to get better at shooting and going back to the academy but it's hard to practice something when you're a danger to yourself and everyone. So that was my life for a while. And then these thugs showed up with knives and mechs and decided they owned the place. We figured we'd give them some stuff and hope they go away. They go around, taking whatever they feel like, then one of them decides he wants our worker mech too. Our boss starts arguing, their boss gets pissed, people starting swinging at each other, and before I know it, I'm in the worker mech beating their mechs with a giant junk bludgeon. At the end of the day, the thugs were on the run and we added their mechs to the scrap heap. And that's how I got my name. Don't know if it's out of respect or if they're making fun of me. Probably both. But I guess someone liked the name because here I am. Oh, and I know what you're wondering. The answer is yes. I'm a terrible shot in a mech too.
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Jul 15, 2019 05:47
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Chakra grassy gnoll posted:Chakra, what was your last assignment/punishment before Foyle? Chakra lets out a sustained groan and rolls her eyes with such tactical precision it could kill a person not prepared for the level of disdain on display. "they sent me to this stupid little colony world called Bellwether as part of a security detachment for a group of grave-robbing, bloodsucking, spit-swabbing data collection 'experts'. because the locals who had totally already agreed to hand over their junk genes were trying to renegotiate their contract with head office after they had some rebellion or whatever, and they had a new 'government' or something? so of course the science creeps pushed too hard, and the locals started rioting, and I had to extract a bunch of personnel and assassinate some agitators and the whole was a huge waste of my time and potential. put that bit down in like, big letters. bold. 'huge waste', yeah. then on the way back to the local blink gate they put me in cryostorage like any of it was my fault, which is just unfair." She flicks her hair back and looks at the interviewer with the same bored expression she used when describing committing murder. "so am i on your police team or what? the executive team here are super scared of me but if i'm working they probably won't freeze me again which would be nice." thatbastardken fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Jul 17, 2019 |
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Jul 15, 2019 07:21
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 Dominic Baines Dominic grew up on Lostranus bordering the fringes of Union space, where if you weren't tough you were ground into the dirt and left to rot by those around you. Fortunately for Dom, he was that tough, and quite a few people who were too full of themselves found this out when they tried to take what was his from him. Dom soon had a reputation of someone you could rely on to take back what was taken from you but if you crossed him nothing short of getting off-world would prevent him from correcting this injustice. Dominic acquired his Lancer through unconventional means (took it from a pilot who got too deep in his cups) and once it was in his name he set out from his homeworld. At first, he went after those who'd escaped his wrath on the planet, but eventually, anyone left on that list had gone to ground or had ingratiated themselves with people he'd rather not cross. His travels in Lancer work eventually led him to Foyle shortly before the moon got destroyed, hearing that the government were looking for pilots to go after those responsible for it Dominic decided this sounded like a good job and possibly just as good a paycheck.
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Jul 15, 2019 10:20
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 Kyle Vandehey Callsign – “Sheriff” Kyle is a delusional yet competent pilot who seems to be a bit obsessed with the old earth historical period of the Old West. This self-identified cowboy has been known to actually try to lasso the occasional perp. It should also be noted that Kyle has never once been on a ranch or farm in his life. Nonetheless he has proven to be capable in a fight whether it is on foot or in his frame. “Howdy yall, This Buto is really causing us quite the problem lately and if any of you could point us in the right direction I’d ‘preciate it. Also, the next one of you to say Ah-nawk-ra-nistic gets to taste pavement.”
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Jul 15, 2019 22:34
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Cartwright Orenstein Davies, Vengeful Prospector “Well, it twarnt a real homestead, I’s freelancin’ right? Workin’ outta one of dem modular mo-bile dealies, GMS Typetwo somethingorother. Me an’ Rushi an’ Oak, workin’ over wherever tha carryall planted us for the week. Good gig too, spend tha day out in ya walker slammin’ spikes an’ chippin’ bits, drink beer an’ shootdashit at night while tha analyzer looked over tha samples. Rushi an’ Oak were good folk too, knew when ta let ya alone with ya thinking, when ta kick yur butt into gear. We three cleared our part o’ tha Crystal Reach faster than tha other two teams, we made a good tri. Was gonna chatemup on maybe a long-span teamup maybe, but they was on the other side o’ tha faultline when tha moon blew, and aint noone heard a peep from them since.” Stares off in the middle distance for a while* “I’s don’t make friends easylike, an’ Rushi an’ Oak were gooduns. I’s know its mighty selfish o’ me, cause lots o’ folks lost friends an’ family. But we’d still like ta lay out Buto a few times for ol’ Rushi an’ Oaks, personallike.”
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Jul 15, 2019 23:45
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grassy gnoll posted:Weir, did you actually even get a chance to engage in criminal behavior before you got picked up? Weir Watt Pah, stupid question! Of course I did! Like felony theft, and uh... Fraud, and... Er... Vandalism? Or was it destruction of property? And I totally would have had tax evasion if this place actually ran on currency. I never did - er, got to do any violent crime. I definitely would have gotten that if everyone didn't scatter like cowards without telling me the first time I finally got time to print my mech! I mean, any idiot thug can pull a trigger, so the bosses had me doing book work even though I already had a GMS license. They were just demonstrating good personnel management! In the time it would have taken someone to rough someone up for names, I could have stolen a hundred peoples' data. That's just math. Atlatl fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Jul 18, 2019 |
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Jul 16, 2019 01:35
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Hideaki Takeshi, callsign "Kyodai", "Motivated Investigator" aka ex-convict Listen here pig, you have the ability to rouse me out of bed with this explosive collar to have me catch the terrorist of the week, but try to be polite about it will ya? I'm human too, still. Takeshi is a man who ran afoul with the wrong side of the law, and had enough sense to work alongside the law rather than fight against it. With eight counts of possession of drugs with intent to sell, six counts of illegals arms and tech trade, twelve counts of assault and battery, and years of "Properly motivated local protection" by his words, his laundry list of crimes would have him put behind bars of many local cluster prisons. However, the police structure of Foyle knew well enough to keep an inside man around when they needed it. With the rampant and escalating crimes on this outer colony combined with a general lack of proactive efforts put in from the higher ups in the police structure, Takeshi soon found himself agreeing to be part of their experimental "Remedial Job Experience" program, which was the police's way of putting an explosive leash on the man's neck and utilizing his knowledge to crack down on crime rings. Takeshi had no qualms about this, he saw fit enough to use this opportunity to bring the pigs down on local competition while "conveniently" missing any crackdowns on his old mob family. If the cops are aware of this, they sure don't seem to care either way. A new job has hit his desk this morning though, and it's kind of a doozy: Someone blew up the moon.
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Jul 16, 2019 01:44
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Call it about 24 hours from the time of this post to get your applications in. Meanwhile, more questions. I think I got everyone, but sound off if I've somehow missed you. Saul, apart from piloting and the obvious, what did you excel at during training? Dominic, how are you liking Foyle, as opposed to Lostranus? Kyle, the brass say you can't carry your revolver anymore. [b]Hideaki,/b] with your deep ties to the criminal element on this planet, how come you never heard of Buto before she started raising hell?
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Jul 16, 2019 14:30
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 Claudia Rose "...And I just friggin told you, shits-for-brains, ya can't see the chief without a frigging appointment. I don't give no shits if it's an "emergency" or some kinda crap like that, them's the friggin' rules, ya got that?" "...Who am I? I'm the goddamn secretary who's going to beat your bitch-rear end down unless ya leave right the hell now, that's who I am." Claudia, during her younger years, used to lead the Hearbreakers, a gang of very angry delinquent girls who were very well known for their propensity for violence and smashing things. But the older she got, the less appealing that lifestyle got for her. Causing random property damage and setting things on fire just didn't do it for her anymore. She found herself wanting something different, and that's when she realized that what she really wanted... was to live a stable, and normal life. Now in her mid-30s, Claudia is no longer leader of the Hearbreakers. She now a normal secretary, living a normal life, like she's always wanted, and her past as a delinquent is far behind her now... Except not really. Claudia is only "reformed" in the loosest sense of the word. Foul-mouthed, quick to anger, and prone to acts of violence, Claudia quickly earned herself the nickname "The Demon Secretary." They would've gotten rid of her a long time ago if she wasn't so surprisingly good at her job. She was a ticking time bomb, ready to blow at any moment, and her bosses knew it, but why not use her skill for violence and destruction in a more "constructive" manner? Why not have the demon go after another demon? So, she was transferred over to The Extraordinary Situations Group as "the official group secretary." A secretary who's sometimes called upon to pilot a mech. Whether this all seems like a good idea or the worst decision that anyone could have possibly made... Well, I suppose that's something we'll see soon enough.
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Jul 16, 2019 19:02
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grassy gnoll posted:Kyle, the brass say you can't carry your revolver anymore. Kyle Vandehey "Okay, first ya take my bullwhip, my sawed-off, and my brass knuckles, Now you are taking mah pistol? You are aware this woman DESTROYED THE MOON! Do you think when we find her she is just going to come along peacefully? Am I expected to shake my finger at her and say 'Bad Buto- No biscuit'?" "How long till yall say we can't have our mechs?"
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Jul 16, 2019 20:39
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Claudia, how are you getting along with upstanding citizen and general tight-rear end Chief Seton?
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Jul 16, 2019 21:28
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grassy gnoll posted:Dominic, how are you liking Foyle, as opposed to Lostranus? "I'm liking it a hell of a whole lot more than back home, out here I don't have to be constantly looking over my shoulder watching for the next knife in my back. In fact, I've actually been able to sleep like a normal person for the first time in my life, at least that what sleeping a full eight hours without having to leap up and throw someone out of my home for trying to rob me of some of my good stuff"
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Jul 16, 2019 22:15
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grassy gnoll posted:Saul, apart from piloting and the obvious, what did you excel at during training? Saul Slart Um, well, hm. I don't think I really excelled at anything back at the academy. I was just okay at piloting back then, maybe above average. But I think I'd excel if I went back, I got a lot of practice with the work mech. I'm not really sure what the other thing is either. But I wasn't bad at anything! Except for, you know. Okay, I should answer the question. Let's see, my talents are that, uh, I'm a great listener? And I got a positive work attitude.
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Jul 16, 2019 22:37
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grassy gnoll posted:Hideaki, with your deep ties to the criminal element on this planet, how come you never heard of Buto before she started raising hell? If I opened a frikken phone book and pointed at the first jobber I saw, would you have heard of them? The crime scene has just as big a showing of half wits, crime lords, tweakers looking for a fix and psychopaths; it's hard enough tracking who did what these days when dealing with our..."legitimized businesses" without having to deal with this loon what out of a comic book. I can probably find a guy who knows a guy though...
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Jul 17, 2019 00:51
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grassy gnoll posted:Claudia, how are you getting along with upstanding citizen and general tight-rear end Chief Seton? Claudia Rose "We'd get along better if he stepped off my goddamn rear end an' let me do my friggin' job. Apparently my behavior is "too inappropriate" or some poo poo for Mr. Boyscout. Look, if they wanted me to stop smokin' in the elevators, then maybe they should start putting one of them no-smoking signs on 'em, and it ain't my fault that all the people I gotta deal with are a buncha dumbasses who don't know what goddamn proper procedure is!" "An' another thing! Why in the goddamn frig am I the one who gets lectured at all the time!? Yeah, I might've broken some furniture when I was trying to smash some dumbshit's head in, but so frigging what? Maybe it wouldn't be a problem if the furniture wasn't made outta paper frigging towels. Why do I gotta be the one who gets blamed for that poo poo!?"
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Jul 17, 2019 13:38
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