Mecha Space Pirate Quest XXXV

Perhaps you can give us some restrictions? Build a mech within such and such range of weight, with such and such systems available? It's not like Moe will have access to all technologies in the ATM, and even existing technologies will have limitations on how much power they can use or put out.

Mechs of a given cost should rightfully be at roughly the same power level, so restricting us from some of the more cheesy exploits would probably be for the best even though it would make my inner munchkin cry.

Also, houserule or not, every mech in this game has been built on the assumption that Weight Efficiency is added last. I looked at the flowchart user mentioned in the ATM, and while it's sort of vague unless the writers clarified in a totally unrelated section, it looks to ME like you buy thrusters with and for the BASE WEIGHT of your mech, and purchase Weight Efficiency after that. It's then written on the sheet in a later step for some dumb reason.

So, for 10 MA (and please put it down as 500 meters per turn, for my sanity, since we aren't using hexes), you would need 17 spaces of thrusters. QM's call.

Also, there's an absolute and complete ban of space efficiency use for thrusters. I thought I mentioned this earlier, but I want to be sure everyone is aware of it. Absolutely everyone. A single thruster is considered its own miniature one-Space one-CP system, and cannot be further reduced.

well, consider a 4 kill beam would be 1 kill anyways, I went with fragile since there was no point in it being heavier but not getting any benefit from it. It also fits with my idea that the machine was basically using parts of a mech that was suppose to be rather idol like.

I will add the striker thing as well next time so apologies there. As for why the MV? Well, the thing with Moe that I've seen is he's not quite built for anything heavy. He's still pretty young and anything with more skill could crush him like a ant. So, I simply made it so that on the same field he would be able to trade blows(as is, he'd be at 15 to KK's 14-15 to hit, so fair footing.) So rather than build him super strong, I went versatile and light. Of course, he can't go any lower and soon the Kaiser will be able to lower his Weight and increase the gap once more.

It's also more costly for him to keep his systems light since his beam weapons, shields, and body eat up CP fast. Even a minor upgrade will have to force me to use Weight efficiency instead of verniers since it's be a huge waste in space and cp.

Though feel free to steal the moe system and customize it. With the build I went for, I had to downsize it since the costs were crazy.

I don't know. Honestly, the fact that the recent chapters have been all mech construction and people's homebrewed mechs that they write up in their own format with often vital information missing and need an immediate response on, frequently one I haven't thought about, when I'm trying to type plot, is the one thing that kills my enthusiasm the most. If this quest goes on hiatus ever it will be because of that.

Minor decision reached. For me to accept a mech, it absolutely HAS to be in the Rogues' Gallery format, because I can glance at those and immediately understand how they were built and for what purpose.

Apologies. I try to do what I can, but reading the rules makes it a bit tricky to figure out and when I find something I missed something, I tend to have work from scratch. Like when I found out flash and smoke/scatter use blast only and other missile rules. I don't mind if you tweak my designs so they fit though. I'd rather not take up the entire game with my stuff.

>buy thrusters with and for the BASE WEIGHT of your mech, and purchase Weight Efficiency after that
As I read it, you're told to buy thrusters for the base weight of your mech, and then purchase weight efficiency, and then overview your mech, calculate stats, realize 90% of the time that you need change something anyway, and rebuy that shit.

Because the designers of the flowchart were probably high on something when they wrote it.

But it's your call on this one - you're the boss here.

That said, how would Weight Inefficiency then affect the MA and MV of your mech?

Unless it's going to be specifically for this quest, you really have no obligation to respond to people's designs for their home games or whatever. Hopefully there might be enough people in thread with a decent enough grasp of the rules to give a response.

If you do feel so obliged, perhaps you could look them over during voting periods, or at the end of the thread?

If that's the case, I'd suggest homebrew mechs go to the discussion thread in between quest threads.

You're comparing Mohammed and Roarke as they are now, which is an absolutely terrible idea for balance because Roarke is by this point a renowned pilot and Mohammed isn't. If you want to balance Mohammed against someone and something, use Caesar and the King Swordfish.

For the Knuckle Kaiser to reach -1 MV would cost, using this version rather than the mid-season upgrade, 80 CP.

Also, you may absolutely not under any circumstances as an officer of the Iron Kestrels reduce the kills of a mech's limb for more spaces. Not only does it make my job harder, it puts valuable aces at risk, the same way that having a hot powerplant puts them at risk.

My snap decision is that I'll use your model to build Moe's mech, but I'll do it myself. Really, all of this is my fault.

Half hour break while I get my head back in the game. I told you already, fucking with math when I'm trying to write is bad for my writing.

>may absolutely not reduce the kills of a mech's limb for more spaces
welp there go literally all my designs

that i'll never use because they're cheese as fuck anyway

This seems to be the best option I would mich rather get more plot posts then spending time discussing peoples mechs

You did nothing wrong! In fact, you did a lot right! The only one to blame here is me, and any snappishness on my part stems from certain people I know throwing fits at me because of certain real-world political events.

Also Blast is profoundly legit, and the weak spot of a certain pirate's mech because holoshadows can't block AoE.

I haven't really messed with Weight Inefficiency. As far as I'm concerned, if you want, say, MA 10 and have a mech whose weight would require 20 thrusters for it, you buy 20 thrusters and have MA 10, even if you subsequently purchase Weight Efficiency to reduce its tonnage to the point where 15 thrusters would be normally be required to achieve MA 10. I justify this partially on the idea that Weight Efficiency in-setting frequently uses microthrusters and tiny vernier arrays as well as more expensive materials and alloys. Effectively, the spaces you save are used for those microthrusters.

I'm going to do that, I think.

>Also Blast is profoundly legit
Blast is hilarious, because when it misses, it can't deviate from the target by more than 4 hexes, but Blast Radii can be bought up to 6 for Projectile Weapons, or 20 for Missiles.

System clearly working as intended!

So did you decide between which upgrade Clemmy gives?

I should clarify - missiles aimed at mecha can miss by more than 4 hexes, but Indirect Fire (that is, missiles and similar weapons aimed at hexes) cannot.

At least you're finally free of distractions. Fatima seems to have taken the dispute between Karen and Clemmy in the mech bay personally, and has spent the entire week bullying the girls into getting along. Normally, you would suspect that this would lead to her mysteriously vanishing and never being seen again, but Samantha has helped her to the best of her ability, despite being visibly frightened of leaving you alone with Lieutenant Farragut for very long. Getting the three pilots to play Bluegill Joe as a team was a brilliant idea, and surprisingly it was Karen who came up with it. Granted, you suspect her motives stemmed from the fact that while all of her rivals (barring Fatima) were playing the simgame, she was on your lap trying her hardest to impress you with her new schematics and designs. Love and hate are both powerful motivators, and the fact that their initially appalling teamwork has led to repeated losses against SOUL A's team and the Iron Kestrel Officer Squad despite a higher average skill level on the girls' part has given them something to be mutually infuriated about. As for you, your schedule has been rather unusual. As far as you're concerned, trying to train with an elite like the Undefeated is futile at your current skill level and emotional state so you've been sparring with Clemmy to improve your out-of-mech martial abilities. This has the side-effect of giving you some time to accept the facts of your brother's death. You have a lot of anger to work out, but venting it on a punching bag or through viciously intense sparring sessions is healthier than any other outlet you can think of. Revenge can wait, charging headlong after it would only cost you time and lives. Despite her take-charge attitude, Fatima grows progressively more quiet and withdrawn over the course of the week, no longer going for her usual flights in the Tarrasque and barely speaking to you. Finally, it's time to trade.

[Continued]

...You cross your arms, staring evenly at Commodore Rashad Abujamal over vidcomms, your ships facing each other from across a sufficient gulf of space that neither of you could hit the other with your beam batteries from here, in accordance with common sense. Also in accordance with common sense, neither of you came here directly. Your vessel gated in a sufficient distance to reach this location using the conventional engine twenty-four hours ago, giving the microgate projector time to recharge in the event of a trap. While you arrived slightly after Rashad, you strongly suspect that he's done the same. Otherwise, he doesn't deserve his rank in the slightest. He immediately hailed you on vidcomm and is staring intently at your face as if trying to memorize it. Or because he's vividly imagining beating it into a shapeless mass of bone shards and bloody mush with the butt of his sidearm. His ship resembles a massive crimson double-bitted axe hovering in space with the axe's pommel as the fore, with its flaring wings and long, forward-jutting neck. It's big and powerful, and clearly built for speed, but arrayed against it you have the Yamato, the Heart of the Sunshine (which poor Rosita is having a difficult time renaming), and the Pure Pure Puru with a temporary Iron Kestrel paintjob.

The Rhinehawk is still being upgraded, Auditorium is strained to its very limit just handling that one ship despite all of the parts available. The normal mech repair and production the colony is capable of has virtually ceased, aside from the easy work of fixing the turrets on the Pure Pure Puru. You wonder if you're growing soft, feeling naked without the comfort of having an A-Particle shield aboard. Neither the Heart of the Sunshine or the PPP is a match for even the original Rhinehawk before it had the shield installed, but you should feel safer with a trio of warships than you did back when you only had a single one and would scurry away from the military's ships.

[Continued]

“You have her?” It's a surprisingly brusque opening. You have suspected for some time now that the Commodore doesn't intend to play fair, which is why you have the Knuckle Kaiser prepped for launch and are sitting in the cockpit. It wouldn't do to let him know your own ship isn't here, and the bridge of none of the three other vessels would send the kind of message you want to an opposing commander. You hope he tries something. You're ready for it. You have a song picked out and everything. He may not be a fan of The Clash by the time you're done with him.

“Fatima is here, yes. She's unharmed, in case you were wondering.” You tap a few buttons on the system Karen rigged up for you, displaying vidcomm of Fatima sitting with her hands folded on her lap and her head downcast in the passenger seat of a Tern you borrowed from the Jaburo (after swearing on your mother to return it to the Colonel once you're done). One of your Kestrels is piloting it. Little does the Commodore know that you actually borrowed a PAIR of the saucer-shaped vessels, and that one of them is a dummy. It's empty, devoid of a pilot. Instead, it has a system Karen rigged up as a prototype for the drone control array she's been working on during her moments of spare time, letting it be remotely flown out and brought back. Normally, this wouldn't work, the distance would be too great for snap commands to be given...but fortunately you have the modified S-Betta, and Sam is controlling the Dummy Tern. Naturally, seeing Fatima sitting in the cockpit of a Tern and having a Tern flown out to his ship, he'll assume she's in it and spring whatever stupid trick he has waiting for you.

>[Anything else you want to say to him?]

Yes. I'll post it up later, but her Kaiser Clutch upgrade allows the Magnetic Grappling Harpoon to be used at Long Distance with a -4 penalty. This represents the fact that no matter how far away you are she loves you a lot.

We need to try and make him say that he doesn't actually care about Fatima

>Im suprised that you didn't try to haggle me down

>that long silence

>I'd assume you have the ransom? Otherwise it would be pretty awkward for your bride to have an extended stay with us when your wedding is supposed to be soon.

Keep it cool, 'playful', but asking the big questions. Simple things like wondering how much he knows about her and the like. I honestly want to get a read of him, figure out what he's thinking and try to get as much info as safely as we can.

Chances are it's simply a man and his tool, but got to make sure.

sorry, this is taking a while for me to think properly.

>"I assume you have many better things to do than waste time dealing with the likes of me. Shall we get this over with?"

Huh. I had assumed that this was already the case. This bit from the Core Rulebook (or at least my reading of it) seems to indicate that Combat and Maximum Range rules apply to all weapons; it's just that most melee weapons have a Maximum Range equal to their Combat Range of 0 (since 02 is still 0).

Your call, though.

Hate to sound like a broken record but people might have forgotten that you were running today, I know you don't like twitter but it can probably help with this I mean all you would have to do is just send out a tweet a little before each thread

Let's say it's at -2 Penalty, then, instead of -4.

Alright. As an aside, here is the Angelfish design that I sort of pictured the MOE x2 systems coming from. Or at least what could be.

"I assume you have the ransom, Rashy? You were paying enough attention to know I wanted five hundred million credits, right? Not five million? It's going to be very awkward if you don't have it, I might stop trusting you entirely and just keep Fatima for myself. She's a very skilled pilot, or did you not know that? Your wedding is supposed to be quite soon, after all." You keep your cool, allowing a huge, irritating smirk to spread across your face at the glare of barely suppressed rage on his, "I'll be able to restore another ship with this."

"Fully aware. I had to sell off some very profitable manufactories that had been in my family since the War, an insult for which you will someday pay in full." You can hear his teeth grinding over the comms.

You nod in faux-sympathy, "That must sting. I'm surprised you didn't try to haggle me down to something more reasonable."

"You filthy infidel pirates cannot be trusted to determine the price of property through negotiaton, and she is too important to my plans to be potentially lost. Her use to me is greater than the profit those manufactories produced." He growls at you through clenched teeth.

"Use? Are you saying you aren't heartbroken without her?" Your smugness could choke a hippopotamus.

"Silence, dog, your voice grates on my ears. You speak of things you have no comprehension of. Now send her over and let us be done with it." He slams his fist on his desk.

"Very well." You read off a string of numbers to him, "That's a throwaway account, which expires in twenty-four hours, at which time all funds will automatically be transferred to my real bank account. I don't want to have it tracked and my assets frozen by one of your people or someone in the UJCIDF, after all. I'll get a notification on my PC once you've made the transfer. Chop chop, I don't have all day either." You fold your arms against the headrest of your chair, behind your head.

[Continued]

You filthy infidel pirates cannot be trusted to determine the price of property through negotiaton, and she is too important to my plans to be potentially lost.

Bloody hell man, pretty sure some of the nastier fanatics don't consider their wives property and tools. Then again, not really big on muslim culture.

>consider their wives property and tools
I think that's more to do with politics, uniting the Jovians and Mars against Avalon and all that.

Most Muslims do consider wives property

depends if also if they re-adopted some of the older parts in this future and if they got rid of somethings, as unlikely as that is. like the multiple wives thing

Add the fact that daughters are not automatically included in the inheritance should the father dies without a will

Nah they definitely kept the multiple wives things since Fatima knows alot about it she was most likely brought up learning how to be a head wife

"Send. Her. Over. I am a Commodore of the Holy Militia of the Red Planet, YOU are a filthy space hound of uncertain parentage. My word is as immutable as the laws of space, yours is a damp rag easily torn at convenience." His knuckles turn as white as pearls, and you can see him shaking with anger.

"As a filthy space hound I've learned not to trust people like you. I want my money." You fold your arms over your chest.

"SEND HER OVER OR SO HELP ME I WILL-" He roars.

You hold your hand up, "Enough. I'll send the Tern across, prepare to receive her. Any funny business, though, and you won't like what happens." You considered stuffing the Dummy Tern with explosives, but you're aware that active fusion mines would trigger all sorts of alerts from a scanning crew, and even if you were forced to detonate it it would kill a lot of innocent people while his bridge would very likely survive.

Fortunately, Samantha is listening in, and as the Puru's catapult launches the Tern into space she's already floating invisibly nearby to guide it in. You think the little touches she makes to have its flight look realistic are a bit TOO much, but you won't argue with results. It coasts easily into the open hangar of the Martian warship.

"And now, my payment." You grin cheekily. You're ready for it. You're braced for more ships to pop out of a gate, or for him to launch some sort of giant Martian war-machine and challenge you.

Instead, he picks up his PC and messes with it. Moments later, you receive a boop telling you that you've received a transfer of funds. Suspicious, you check. Five hundred million credits, enough to take the shards of the Green Skulls' missile cruiser and turn it into a proper Iron Kestrels warship.

[Continued]

Now we wait for the Snackbar that he's planned or we just caused with the dummy.

..Damn bugger actually called our bluff. That is a new one.

Somethings gonna happen Wong even said this thread isn't going to be a breather he probably has some suicide bombers or something thats going to come after us now

I now have a name. Hello all! And as for the Paladins, they're going to be used in a game I am going to be in set in this universe. My character is going to be a Lagrange Pirate that normally operates at L3. She's picked a really bad name for her crew and mech while knowing absolutely nothing about Avalon, so that might come and bite her in the ass.

Paladin C = Mediumweight, MA 10, MV-1, 168.3 CP.
Paladin S = Medium Heavy, MA 10, MV-1, 256.8 CP.
Paladin G = Armored Heavy, MA 15, MV-1, 349.8 CP.

C and S have Maces, G has an Energy Lance. All of them have one regular shield that matches their size and armor rating.

Honestly I expect a third party to suddenly attack. Have a fake out when it turns out the Martian is actually being genuine, then BAM enemy battleship here to kill us all incite conflict from the Martians

"Apparently the laws of space are quite immutable." You grudgingly admit. You don't want to give Fatima back, but you know how she would feel if you didn't, "Forgive my deception, I'll send over the real Tern now."

"You scum, I should have known! I swear, by the Prophet I will-" You mute his audio feed.

Fatima smiles at you over the comms. You smile back. It's a sad smile on both sides as the Dummy Tern takes off again and the real Tern sails over. She disembarks, and your pilot returns to you while you watch Rashad's howling face and silent threats over vidcomm. Normally making a member of the Holy Militia this angry would be a lot of fun...but right now, it just feels hollow and a little cold. Until recently, you never would have imagined that you could miss razor-tongued Fatima Ahmad of Mars. On the other hand, Rashad did keep his word. Maybe, just maybe, this is the right thing for her. Sometimes, you have to be unhappy for someone else to be happy.

He seems to have calmed down, so you unmute him. Apparently he caught on to the fact that you weren't listening, as he's been glaring at you in silence for the past few minutes, "Are we done here?" You ask.

"For now. I know where your lair is, Bull of Io. Should the Jovian general, although she is an infidel and a degenerate, prove more trustworthy than you, perhaps I will be able to convince her to join me and destroy your wretched little den of sin soon. Inshallah, it will be soon...wait, what is that? What the hell did you do?" His eyes widen, staring at his instruments.

You receive a communication from Oda, "Aniki, something ain't daijobu, we're getting gate readings. Huge ones."

Between your ships, the stars seem to warp, compressing and then stretching as a massive gate opens up and something begins to pull through. A long, bone-white cone of a ship, with a blocky rear, it almost resembles a titanic lance floating between the stars.

There is absolute silence over the comms.

GATE AWAY NOW

O-oh shit. That's the thing that was at Suleman (or however it's spelled, I'm bad at that shit).

Welp, looks like the War outside just found us. Time to grab Fatima out of transport and haul ass.

...oh boy. That is not a good. Sign. Get Fatima out of there along with us. Cancel the transfer! Because thats the thing Fairchild decided to fuck with!

She's on Rashad's ship already.

>I know where your lair is

This is why I don't like being chained to one place if we ever go out for a mission we might come back to see the colony destroyed and Rosita captured, we should either sell it or figure out a way to move it with us

Is it time to convert the Auditorium into the Mothership?

You... want to sell Auditorium. Thunderbird, I worry about you sometimes.

Why shouldn't we, we don't have the might to actually fight the Jovians or the Martians our biggest advantage is mobility if we stay in one place to long were going to get the shit beat out of us

No Bird. We are not getting rid of the auditorium. As is, we need a spot to resupply and rebuild as well as a rallying point. Being constantly mobile will not take away logistics issues and in fact make them worse. If they want to, they CAN starve us out by simply not allowing us near neutral stations. With Auditorium, we have a place to repair the Rhinehawk and other ships with no worry.

Ok, run this by me one more time... You want to sell Rosita's colony. Which was expressly founded for her and her fans, by her and her fans. Which is also basically our one true friendly port, and arguably our home.

But whats to stop them from just attacking it? Its a know pirate colony and is related by the two biggest pirates in the belt who have a been a huge thorn in both the Martian's and Jovian's side

I would prefer if we could make it mobile but if we can't I would rather sell it rather then have it constantly be a hindered to us. Just look at our last mission when we had to save the doctor we left Oda there to defend it when we could have used him on the pick up

>"That's not one of mine. Run."
If Rashad doesn't get out not, Fatima kicks it. So we need him to get out too.

>But whats to stop them from just attacking it?
The reason the pirates haven't been wiped out is because everybody's busy fighting the extrasolar war. And now that the outside is in the solar system, they have much bigger problems than a bunch of pirates.

>could make it mobile
Maybe we can stick a bunch of reactors on and buy a big enough microgate projector to teleport Auditorium around.

Whats stopping them from putting a few ships on each port? Whats stopping them from just sending everyone at us anyways? Whats stopping them from who knows what?

A lot. The factions are still fractured. They have to face multiple fronts, and while we are Fairchild's public enemy, she is not in the state to even try to bring a army at us. A defensive position HELPS us by keeping us supplied and providing support. You never cut support in muddy waters and even mr mad isn't dumb enough to rush in.

So do we actually have any information on the extrasolar war? Avalon are the guys with the knightly mechs, and the REAL Paladins and such, right?

Probably not sell. But turn it into a ship that can warp out at a moment's notice.

Vote not run. Fatima's onboard and firing will only spell doom

Fair enough. is switched to that. We make sure everyone leaves safely. Do not fire, and open comms to try and communicate.

So Wong is the big twist going to be that the aliens are really Monstergirls?

Pretty sure Avalon are humans. The green men pretty much shattered the old big federation with their shit and Avalon is likely a big part of the extra solar colonies that went "Fuck those tossers for ditching us, RULE BRITANNIA MOTHERFUCKERS!"

Oi, are you guys running or not?

Fatima is, as I mentioned, aboard Rashad's ship.

Don't fret, I'm not being lazy, my post was almost done when I saw votes had been changed.

No. OOC, you know the information has been suppressed (from Caesar listening in on Lysa and Keith in the church) and Caesar had also heard something about the UJCIDF losing a few battles to some extrasolar faction known as the Principality of Avalon.

No. No running. We need to make sure Fatima gets out safe to.

Well. Running, yes. But making sure the idiot husband runs too. Then running VERY FAST.

And then we begin our plan to re-obtain our Den mother.

Lets make sure shes alright before we leave

Pretty much. So long as we don't fire or do anything stupid, they will likely not fire first. Need to be calm after all. Safety first.

"That's not one of mine, and I won't pretend it's Martian. Get out of here and take Fatima with you." You stare at it as it hovers, seeming almost confused in the way it turns neither towards you or him.

"This is NOT the end! Helmsman, gate!" He snarls, the whites of his eyes showing nearly all around the irises. You watch the gate form, and only the fact that you need to delay long enough for Fatima to get away determines whether you do the same.

Panels open up on the smooth nose of the white ship, gigantic beam batteries as large as those of a Wels' main cannons swiveling towards your ships.

You receive a hail from the great white vessel. Your heart is pounding. A Wels is bad enough, you saw what a damaged one did to the Green Skulls with your help. This thing made the Jaburo turn tail and flee according to Doctor Clancy, you want no part of it.

You collapse into the Knuckle Kaiser's chair, and slam your fist against one of the panels. This isn't how you wanted it. Much to your surprise, as you reflect on your anger on the short trip back to Auditorium, you realize why. You had never counted on actually receiving your payment. That money was just a number to you. You had fully believed that Rashad would play some trick on you, and that when he did you would either destroy him or run away with a witty one-liner. In either case, you would have Fatima on your ship, she would have nothing left but contempt for her betrothed, and her father might be sympathetic towards you. You had even been thinking of going to him with the information about Suleiman 1 and working out a way to disrupt General Fairchild's plans with his help and some of the more reasonable members of the UJCIDF. You never would have thought that a hostage would be more valuable to you than their ransom, but it's happened now.

>[Answer the hail, which might very well just be demanding your immediate surrender.]
>[Flee]

Not running. We know how much firepower Avalon carries. Rashes might do something stupid and endanger everyone. Better to be the lone voice of reason rather than leave things up to chance.

>>[Answer the hail, which might very well just be demanding your immediate surrender.]

As you're making up your mind, you see Rashad's ship vanish into its gate. Fatima is safe, for now.

>[Answer the hail BUT BE READY TO BAIL]

>[Answer the hail, which might very well just be demanding your immediate surrender.]

>Answer.

Shit's beyond high space piracy now. And we need answers for Suleiman I

Just making it clear here that Fatima got away. She is no longer here. You no longer have to worry about her being in danger from that ship, at least.

>>[Answer the hail, which might very well just be demanding your immediate surrender.]
We can book fast if we don't like the answer. Problem is, we still need information if this is the ship that Fatima fired on.

What have you got planned for her you sick monster

> as you reflect on your anger on the short trip back to Auditorium

...Also you can clearly see where this post was edited. Oops~

Oh. You know. Stuff.

>[Answer the hail, which might very well just be demanding your immediate surrender.]
Just be ready to punch it if things go bad.

>Pretty Ominous.

Fair warning: Never kill a waifu. The only quest I've ever seen that's survived that is Joker Quest.

Why? What happened?

Shiticane will occur.

Viewership falls off, interest dies, etc. Or the QM just doesn't run again. Like Badge and Bullet. We get a waifu... and then she dies like a thread later. GUESS WHAT THERE WAS NEVER ANOTHER THREAD OF.

"Roarke, you owe me. You owe me big. You owe me so big for this. I want half of what the Bearded Blunder gave you." Fucking Scavvies!

"Darling, we need to leave! It's too dangerous, even with three ships, I can't let you put your life in danger. She's gone, Roarke, it isn't worth it." Rosita sounds uncharacteristically shaken.

"TAISHOU-SAMAAAAAA! THE STORM DRAGONS WILL SUPPORT YOU TO THE LAST BREATH! KESTRELS BANZAI! Shall we unleash the might of our hanabi upon them!?" Oda's voice drowns out the other two, he almost sounds gleeful about this. Crazy bastard, but you're glad he's here. In the background you can hear his crew shouting 'Kestrels banzai!' and the unmistakable sound of dozens of swords being drawn at once.

"Everyone, calm down. Rosita." You're on her ship, after all. "Answer hails, put it on my screen. I want some answers anyway." Yes, this is reckless, but so are you.

"Please, dear..." She replies.

"It's gonna be okay, China Girl. I won't let anything bad happen to you. Just trust me." You manage to smile for her sake.

For a moment, you expect her to gate anyway. She isn't formally under your command, she doesn't have to listen to you, but apparently she does trust you, because the Knuckle Kaiser's monitors flicker and an image appears.

The bridge of the enemy ship is strangely akin to a throne room. Banks upon banks of machines, arrayed in layered semicircles, surround a high raised dais in the center upon which is seated the man you presume to be the captain. He's surprisingly young. Behind him are rather severe couches upon which a few members of his staff are sitting.

Their attire is surprisingly ornate, and surprisingly old-fashioned. Most oddly, the captain's ears are elongated and come to a sharp point, but his smile is friendly and human enough, "Salutations, indigenous inhabitants of the Solar System."

[Continued]

Oh no.. it's worse than I thought. SPACE ELVES.

Oh. Wong, if you're interested in having my character and her crew being in the setting officially (I'd fangasm everywhere), I can supply a little backstory for her if you want. Her crew are the Ardent Chevaliers, her ship is a Striker called Cheval, and her name is Madison Reich and she pilots the Paladin C (and then S and then G and then finally X but X is not statted yet). Just say the word if you want and/or care about her backstory or any info about her.

Shit, we can't win. Only people with literal cancer can stand a faintest hope against this faggot.

I'm interested, but it's probably better saved for a discussion thread.