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Z the IVth posted:I do hope it's "Bollocks, we're rogered." And not. "Bollocks to this, fire torpedoes!". It could also mean "That's a load of Bollocks, you're bluffing". It's quite an ambiguous word.
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Jul 16, 2021 01:32
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Servetus posted:It could also mean "That's a load of Bollocks, you're bluffing". It's quite an ambiguous word. They went active-sonar. They know exactly where all six of our submarines are, and that all our submarines know exactly where they are.
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Jul 16, 2021 01:37
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Servetus posted:It could also mean "That's a load of Bollocks, you're bluffing". It's quite an ambiguous word. Nuts! They sent an active ping, they know we're here, they know we found them and this isn't a chance discovery. It's either capture or death, although I assume we give them the chance to surrender and assurances that etc etc etc.
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Jul 16, 2021 01:38
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Telsa Cola posted:Nuclear Launch Detected At this range they are merely going to turn the launch tubes into very expensive water tanks and probably render the missiles themselves permanently inoperative, they need to move up a whole lot for that and even if they emergency blow and fire they still need to stabilize their angle. They may be (very slightly) rugged, but it still is literally submarine rocket science. E: Actually, depending on if someone decided to be thorough in saving mass, it might be that rushing opening the tubes and surfacing might just sink the sub for good. Crazycryodude posted:The phone only works within minimum range (or so the unclassified numbers on the internet claim but who am I to argue with the guy at the DoD editing Wikipedia to have the propaganda numbers), there's half a dozen other subs in effective range ready to torpedo the gently caress out of Revenge if she makes any of the wrong noises like flooding a torpedo tube. The DoD, or at least the navy, traditionally lies about submarine specs ever since some idiot senator told the press that the IJN was setting depth charge fuses to explode far too shallow to hit USN subs and that article found some very interested eyes in a lot of places. SIGSEGV fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Jul 16, 2021 |
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Jul 16, 2021 01:59
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Trying to launch at 800ft probably just immediately destroys the sub. Interior spaces meant to be used at 50ft depth / ~20 psi are not going to do well when exposed to 800ft depth / ~500 psi. Even if you didn't care about that, the steam / compressed air system intended to throw the missile above water isn't going to work at all at 25x design pressure
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Jul 16, 2021 04:54
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Now, the launch is sure to fail and the missiles are almost certainly going to need to be entirely rebuilt, except the actual warheads depending on the design, and size and space being at a premium and likely post upgrades, it's likely the warheads would be hosed too, but there's a chance the design allows for a non total loss if the tube's hatch ceases to be waterproof.
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Jul 16, 2021 05:10
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Assuming the Japanese or GLADIO haven't equipped them with a Trans-Newtonian launch system...
Veloxyll fucked around with this message at 10:15 on Jul 16, 2021 |
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Jul 16, 2021 10:01
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Veloxyll posted:Assuming the Japanese or GLADIO haven't equipped them with a Trans-Newtonian launch system... Better to know the capitalists have a functioning TNE wmd program now then
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Jul 16, 2021 14:50
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The Trauma of the Final Conflict: Mental Stress, Disability and Mutation. Circa.1982 An Excerpt It is in the no-mans-lands of Europe, America and Australia that we find the worst incidences. With the complete collapse of civil society and order in many areas, data gathering becomes piecemeal. Mortality rates become uncertain, but it is clear from the sheer damage to infrastructure that there has been a return to almost pre-industrial health outcomes if not worse in terms of healthcare outcomes. Child mortality rates in particular suffer when clean water and sanitation break down. Areas along the Ruhr and the Mississippi in particular, due to their high levels of radioactive contamination report estimated rates of close to 120 in 1000 births, optimistically, perhaps the very worst in recorded history. This was before the cleanup efforts: with the decontamination of the Rhur megaplex, it is unclear what the current situation is. Direct casualties of the war alone still remain uncounted. It is certainly far more than any other struggle to date, but likely is equal to that which followed. War, famine and disease have claimed tens of millions since and for every one that dies, there is another left permanently crippled. Lost limbs are common enough, but in the areas that saw the use of nuclear weaponry, blindness caused by the flash and the slow, lingering consequences of radiation poisoning and exposure remain to this day. Cancer rates compound with healthcare shortages to create castes of the exposed: everyone living there today knows someone with the marks. But they are just a subdivision of the great wave, the lingering pain of the war: veterans and civilians both comprise those who are left unable to work and in dire need of assistance, often concentrated in those areas most unable to offer it and in most need of able bodies for the reconstruction. Perhaps the greatest consequence of all is the completely invisible: mental illness. Even among those who never had the material consequences of the war, the growth of neurosis has struck deep. Symptoms of PTSD are near universal in the waves of refugees who fled in the wake of civil and military collapse. Depression, anxiety and diagnoses too numerous to name go unreported, lost in the idea of rational reaction to what was for many, the end of the world. Less restrained reactions were also common: delusion and hysteria mounted when nuclear annihilation seemed imminent and never went away. We cannot know the full extent of this damage: many of the worst affected may never even realize that they are affected. A total reform of the very idea of health care may be needed.
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Jul 27, 2021 07:15
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Transcript: Interview with Felix Schlosser, hotelier and masseuse, Baden-Baden, German People's Republic. = = = = = You want my life story? Well, I suppose I am not surprised. Though I will admit, I am more surprised than you might think, because I know why you are asking me. I was born in 1920, right here in Baden-Baden. My father owned and ran the Markgraf before me -- he liked to call it the town’s best-kept secret. I always thought he was full of it, back when I was young. It wasn’t until after the War that I would understand. Yes, that War. I was young, angry, and starving. Everyone was in Germany, those days, even here in the oldest spa in Germany. It made us easy targets, which I’ve done my best to continue to remind the Council of whenever they think of pinching pennies on keeping the people fed. Unhappy, uncared-for people may march in revolutions, yes. But not only socialists can lead them. So all we young, angry, starving men were easily swept up by Hitler and his Nazis. Heh. I would like to say it was not true, but let us be frank. I was born in a spa town frequented by the rich and the military, six miles from the French border. There were no communists around to talk to me about liberation or injustices, but there were plenty of respected army officers, well-off socialites, and bold young Nazi fire-breathers cycling through to talk about the New Germany. My father remembered when Elsass-Lothringen was on our side of the border. No-one in my family was a hard sell. It is still not a comfortable topic, not that many of those who marched with the Nazis are alive to talk about it anymore. Is it shameful? Beyond belief, yes. But I came to realize that I can do more by talking about it, prevent it from happening again. It does help that I did precious little for the Third Reich, because of these. Eh? Thick as Coke bottles. My eyes have never been worth a drat. So I was a clerk and a paper-pusher for evil, which is bad enough, while my poor father went off to serve our New Germany in the Wehrmacht. So it went, until the landings in Normandy. I was conscripted into the Wehrmacht, given barely a month of training, and thrown face first into Lorraine. Where the Americans promptly blasted apart our line of invalids and rejects and surrounded what was left of our collection of clerks with guns. My glorious stint as a soldier lasted less than two months. I spent the rest of the war in the loving care of the Americans. It was not often remembered how we were treated -- perhaps because we were fascists, and more importantly, losers. But we were denied even the label prisoner of war, and left to starve and fend for ourselves in camps up and down France and Germany. There was not enough food for anyone in Europe in those days, no, but we were left at the bottom of the chain. Can I blame them? Did we deserve it? I have asked myself such questions often over the years since. What we enabled as Nazis was unthinkable, unforgivable. But where did responsibility come into the picture for me, barely a man, blind as a mole, freezing and starving in shacks outside Chambois? I watched the newsreels confirm in black and white what we had all thought we did not know about the Jewish question, and could see how even the nothing camp around me measured well past what was there. But why was I here in Chambois, and the officers across the channel in England where all the food was? My time as a disarmed soldier destroyed my faith in fascism. But it also planted seeds against the Allies. It did not help, of course, that any idiot with eyes could return to a Germany blasted by war and watch all the people with actual power and influence escape unscathed. Oh, yes, men were hung at Nuremburg. But I could stand there in my father’s looted hotel, trying at age 27 to pick up his life in my hands while my mother grieved and the victorious Allies told me they had no idea of where to even look for his body, and listen on the radio as that asslicker Manteuffel, that baron who had sent clerks and cooks to stand against tanks, was hailed as a paragon of liberal politics and spoke from the Reichstag that West Germany must rearm, we must take our place in NATO, alongside countries that would not even allow us to sit at the table and watch their United Nations rearrange the world to suit them, that were already drawing up plans to turn our country into their chess board. It was not a perspective many of my generation shared. I could not blame them. Even though Hitler’s spell had been broken, the cost had made everyone exhausted, rudderless, riddled with self-doubt and hatred. It was not as though he were actually a magician who pulled such prejudice and hatred out of thin air. And we were now suddenly to stand up and take up arms against what had been our own country? To hate communists again, as the Nazis had said, under the direction of Wehrmacht officers who had led us to shattering ruin against communists already? It made Germany long for peace. It took our own sons and daughters to truly rouse us to just what was happening while we sat in shock, to the injustices peddled under our name. I was busy enough, trying to learn my trade from my mother and a man now dead. I had little time for politics, and no taste for it anymore. Which was, I think, the point. Keep me too busy to be involved, and too exhausted and beaten to care. Why would I spend the time? This time, however, my position helped me. By the time of the Great Revolutionary War, I was now the dignified, experienced hotelier you see before you. And the noble French had chosen my little town for their occupation headquarters, because the hotels and resorts were nice enough for their tastes despite being German, and yet they were not too far from home to be unable to run off to their mistresses in Champagne for a weekend. My old Markgraf was greatly favored by a certain set, who considered its “low profile” compared to the Kurhaus or the Friedrichsbad spa a benefit. They found it… discreet. I found them repulsive. I also knew that to alienate them would mean losing what little I had left of my father overnight. So for fifteen years I gritted my teeth and took their francs. And hired unattractive servants. I will relish, until the day I die, what I watched on their faces after May of 1968. It was shock, at first, and outrage. How dare the people of France declare that they were unhappy to be ruled, to be complicit in the American rape of Vietnam and the destruction of France’s independence! They were disdainful, and arrogant. Then they were not. It was not overnight, but oh, it happened. I watched the confidence fade from their eyes, saw them march over my threshold with ever more worry and frustration as the French refused to be governed. I felt the knots in their backs as they lay on my table, blathered to them as they moaned and whined their deepest fears. They couldn’t lose to these ants, could they? This faceless mass that dared to think it knew anything? I never did tell them what I knew to be the answer. Not outside of my mind, anyway. I am a courteous host, you see, and my duty is to my guests, of course. But I once thought I could never lose it all, either. And every day they continued to be stuck there, in a Germany that was waking up and angry, while their home they thought so precious and docile and thankful showed them just what it thought of them. It was the first nuclear weapon that really drove it home, I think. When the Americans bombed Abbeville. That was when they knew there was no going back. The Americans were still deluding themselves that if they just were ruthless enough, hard enough, they could break the will of the people and force them back under the yoke. The French followed along in the song, but underneath, the delusion was broken. I remember well one officer, Mirabeau, sitting piss-drunk in the back garden, and wailing. Crying like a child. He was not one of the old men, he had fought in La Resistance during the War. He knew that brutality cannot win against resolve. It can hold it at bay, but not kill it. “They are stamping on the fire, but have not stopped fanning the flames.” I remember the look in his eyes, when he looked at me then. I knew it. And he knew immediately that I knew it. It is the look of a man whose delusions are shattered, who has had the shell torn off of his back and been left shivering and raw, wholly dependent on others, with no idea where is safe to stand anymore. I had worn that look before. Mirabeau was the first one to ask to stay at the Markgraf “for the duration”. He was from Bordeaux, there was no chance to go home for him. The ones that followed him in were the older men, the ones who still believed they could control this, that they could win. I had a reputation for discretion, you remember. My father had known this, and at some point I had truly understood it -- when you live in the shadow of fame, you seem invisible. A hotel in the lee of the Kurhaus may as well be Shangri-La; it gets little attention and visits of worth, until it becomes known for being unknown. Then it gains the reliability of being known to be anonymous, discreet, a place to be unseen. And many of my long-term customers believed this to be of utmost importance, because while they may not have believed they could lose, they had fought the War, too. They could tell when it was time to retreat and regroup. And in another world they may have been right. They did not account for Germany. I think they had wholly disregarded us, thought us truly a chessboard and carven pieces to push around. But, heh. That was not so. I remember them sitting around the television in the common room, watching the news from Frankfurt as things unraveled completely, seeing the world go to pieces around them. Listening as Sudwestfunk told them that the Americans had thrown it all to poo poo, that NATO was going to pieces in the hellfires of Fulda and the Somme and the Rhone, as the fleets died off of Orkney and Norway and Cape Hatteras. Most of all I remember Colonel Simon when Bonn fell to the revolution. I remember seeing him slumped in that chair, in the corner, like a dead man. His cap had fallen off and he was staring at the floor as if to see through it. It was the first time I had ever seen one of them so shattered. It was also when I knew I had to get out ahead of things. I knew something was coming. Baden-Baden had largely escaped the last war; I did not expect luck to carry it twice this time. And certainly not for myself, a hotelier with Wehrmacht service on record and a hotel check-in book full of bourgeoise French officers. So I made my decision. It is why you are interviewing me, after all. When Bonn fell, the French command in town immediately began to plan to run for it. I knew this intimately -- I could hardly miss my guests fretting about it. So I told the cook and the bellhops to organize a large lunch in the garden, “take their minds off of the world for a while.” And then I left, and walked downtown, to where I knew the revolution would have beaten me there. To where I also knew the town’s young firebrands met, in the same rathskeller myself and the other firebrands of my day had met and plotted. I could hardly miss my guests talking about “dealing with” the place, and Baden-Baden has never been a town with an overabundance of young people. I walked in, located the crowd of youths glued to the television set, asked around for their leader, and then told them I could tell them where the French officers in town were. And then I ordered a drink. Things moved very quickly after that. The Soviets didn’t break through the line in central Germany for almost another fortnight, because they could not secure the railroads. By the time they finally reached the French Occupation Zone, however, there was no French Occupation to resist them. Its head had been cut off, its officers trapped in spas, restaurants, hotels, and clubs by its angry and terrified citizenry. When the Soviets rolled into the city, they found the cream of the French military tied up in the town square, waiting for them. Less Herr Mirabeau, I will admit. Having sold out the French occupiers, no-one was willing to imagine I might have only had three bellhops for the house, rather than four, one of whose uniforms did not fit as well. I had no love for the rest of the French, you understand. I had experienced more than enough of their tender mercies. But I had been a devoted, ideologically sound fascist before I was told the truth of it all and broken in a shoddy prison camp outside Chambois. I had been a true believer, until I was not. And then I had come to aid the revolution, and watched as another man was broken in front of me. I will not pull up a ladder that I have climbed. Herr Mirabeau I have not heard from since. He left the city afterwards, to attempt to find what had become of his own hometown near Bordeaux. I cannot know what has happened to him, though I do hope he managed to find the truth for himself. But my life, meanwhile, goes on. I was feted for a while as a hero of the revolution, key to breaking French control of the occupation zone, but I avoided it. I was not one of the ones to charge their security details, who was wounded or died capturing them. Not even my own guests, who were seized without a fight. They had counted on anonymity to hide them, on hiding under the coattails of my own invisibility. When I destroyed it, it left them with nothing, and they were marched out as stunned as they had been when Bonn fell. History does not remember the countless little men like me who make up the supports for its big names and great battles -- it cannot, for you cannot tell a million life stories whole in the span of less than one. My father had understood that from the First World War; I learned it from the Second, from watching Manteuffel and Nuremberg. I understood just how important those people are from being broken and imprisoned, from watching the generation below me learn from what mine did not say. I learned how important it is to have your say, from what happened to me when I did not, and what happened when I did. And that is why you are telling my story, after all, instead of that of Richter at the Fraulein or Jagermann at the Edelweiss. And why I know I must tell it. Why it is so important that I stand at the town meetings and raise my voice for the whole, remind them what they risk becoming and losing if they do not, and they murmur and remember who I am and listen based on what I have done, not just what I say. If I do not speak out, then I will be spoken for, and my invisibility will strangle me -- will drag another generation into becoming faceless numbers in Wehrmacht casualty lists. But at the end of the day, I stump out of the hall and down the street, in the shadow of the Kurhaus, and there is so much work to do. People may follow me with their eyes for a time, but eventually, they must handle their own life. And so I go from hero of the revolution, to a major local figure, to a significant hotelier, to just another man in the street, my hotel another front in the row of buildings. And this is what my father knew, and what I know. Even without bourgeoise, not everyone can visit the Kurhaus, for it is only so large. So then there must be a Friedrichsbad, and then a Grand Hotel, and so on, and then you get to the Markgraf, where there is a plate describing its role in the seizure of the French high command, and an old proprietor and his young staff. And because you are here, it is the most important to you, more than the Kurhaus up on the hill, because you cannot know the Kurhaus, but you know the Markgraf. So it becomes your secret. And to you, it is worth more than the world. And that is important itself. My son, of course, does not understand at all. His world is so much larger than mine, and mine was larger than my father’s. He can talk with his friends in New York and Rostov and Lubeck on the Internetwork, while being imprisoned in Chambois is about as far as I have ever been from home. I suspect, though of course I cannot prove it and you would not tell me, that his working at Sudwestfunk is part of why you are here talking to me, when there are so many others. Hah. He thinks I should be a hero, and does not understand why I do not want it. One day, I think he will understand. I do not want him to be broken, but... I think we have already done the breaking. I certainly hope so. And I think that one way or another, he will understand.
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Aug 13, 2021 06:52
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Aug 13, 2021 07:58
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Aug 13, 2021 08:36
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February 14, 1983, cont. "Bollocks" could mean anything, and the time spent awaiting further communications is tense - especially when it stretches for longer than it should. Seconds of silence stretch out to a minute. Captain Sera is pretty sure his allies can kill the sub before she makes it to launch depth, if she tries to surface, is almost certain they can take her out before she gets any missiles off even if she makes it to launch depth, but he can't be sure, and knowing he just has to risk it makes him extremely nervous. The sonar operators strain their ears, listening for anything unusual between the periodic PING of Revenge's actives. After nearly four minutes, they do indeed hear something - a series of strange, sharp, irregular popping sounds, in rapid succession. They're puzzling over what they could be, and fearing the worst - maybe they're preparing the tubes for launch? - when Revenge rings them on the Gertrude. It's a different voice this time. "I'm afraid the captain is deceased. We will comply with your instructions. Revenge out." The active sonar pings cease shortly after. February 15, 1983 The first proper Navy ships arrive at the Ranger wrecksite, officially part of a rotating honor guard that will hold position over the wreck site for the next two weeks. More are close behind. The net is closed. How exactly to secure the boat has been a matter of some contention. Some suggested bringing the Hawaiians in, for the Hawaiian Royal Space Agency's state-of-the-art experimental seafloor TNE mining vessel Glomar Explorer is operating in the Pacific Ocean relatively nearby, doing...whatever it is they're doing with it. This was rejected - the Hawaiians are closely integrated allies, but they're not actually in the Comintern, and it's too much of a security risk. In the end, what gets sent out is a hastily modified seafloor dredging vessel and a team of Navy hardsuit divers. It'll take a couple days for it to actually arrive. At the wreck site, tension gives way to that most common of emotions in wartime - boredom. Now that the deed is done, it's time to just sit here, staring at each other, for days. The Revenge responds tersely and laconically to status reports but is otherwise silent. At China Lake, an inspection team coming by to make sure everything is in order before the summit finds the prototype railgun fully powered, rigged up to a pair of cranes, and pointed West and skyward, and the science team are, as cordially as possible, asked to explain what the gently caress they were thinking. The weapon is sheepishly returned to its test stand. February 16, 1983 The salvage team is on station, along with a sizable Navy escort. Instructions are relayed. Divers will secure the 'clamp' (a roughly-worked and inelegant piece of metal fabricated from a dredge in just a few hours) to the Revenge's missile silos, weld it in place (the welds will definitely not last, but it'll be enough to keep a missile from launching), and then the boat will be taken under tow to a Californian naval base, arriving - if the schedule holds - in the middle of the night, to avoid drawing attention. The crew will then be deboarded, taken into custody, and interrogated, and the work of stripping the boat down to her keel to glean every last possible shred of useful intel will begin.
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Aug 14, 2021 09:37
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It actually worked. Hell yes.
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Aug 14, 2021 09:40
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Of all the potential scenarios, this is the one I didn't think of.
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Aug 14, 2021 09:46
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Rest in peace Captain Bollocks. Died a death befitting a hero to capitalism.
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Aug 14, 2021 09:58
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NewMars posted:Of all the potential scenarios, this is the one I didn't think of. I had assumed the captain was going to prevent this scenario by keeping the information from the rest of the crew. Clearly he did not succeed in doing so.
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Aug 14, 2021 12:01
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The Lone Badger posted:I had assumed the captain was going to prevent this scenario by keeping the information from the rest of the crew. Clearly he did not succeed in doing so. Hats off to the goon who suggested blasting the message loud enough for the entire crew to hear. Maybe Brenda decided that living in a commune was preferable to following captain bollocks down with the ship.
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Aug 14, 2021 12:25
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Hahahahahha fantastic
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Aug 14, 2021 16:42
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Turns out that when their lives are on the line, Capitalists are very good at selling themselves out
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Aug 14, 2021 16:48
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Everyone on the sonar would know how hopelessly outmatched they were. They had been located in what they believed was a perfect hiding-place, basically impossible to find with pre-war equipment, MAD, active or passive sonar and even SOKS. They were ambushed by a hostile sub, which snuck up basically to point-blank-range and called them by telephone. When they went active, they saw a whole squadron waiting for them. They can't be that indoctrinated to mindlessly commit suicide, without even the slightest chance of even striking back.
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Aug 14, 2021 18:35
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Kodos666 posted:Everyone on the sonar would know how hopelessly outmatched they were. They had been located in what they believed was a perfect hiding-place, basically impossible to find with pre-war equipment, MAD, active or passive sonar and even SOKS. They were ambushed by a hostile sub, which snuck up basically to point-blank-range and called them by telephone. When they went active, they saw a whole squadron waiting for them. They can't be that indoctrinated to mindlessly commit suicide, without even the slightest chance of even striking back. Pretty much. I think the only question they had to decide among themselves was whether to scuttle themselves, or comply.
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Aug 14, 2021 19:32
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The gunshots might have been a mutiny, also. I can't imagine every single crew member of the submarine was a die-hard zealot, capable of defiance to the bitter end.
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Aug 14, 2021 19:38
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"So, this is my job. It's gross, it's dirty and it's dangerous. But it means something, you know?" The documentary cold opens to a scene of a figure in a full on yellow pressure suit, standing on the edge of a massive blast crater. The voice, hard to make out through the muffling of the suit, gestures over the burned out hole in the earth. "This wasn't even a ground level blast. Thankfully for that. Not so many rads kicked up, picked up." Narrator Voice Over: Annette Collins, 32, Born in Canada, was one of the ComInterns Reclamation Team Chiefs, in charge currently of the task of remediating the crater outside of Chičvres, Belgium where the US Air Force airfield had been struck in the Great Revolutionary War. She's been on site for the past two years. Annette takes us on a tour of the site, which took us an hour to suit up for. "It's not so bad anymore. I mean, you still need the suits, yeah? But, most of the fallout in the crater's run down into the cracks and gullys. They're hot, but the rest of this you could probably get away with just a scuba mask, maybe a suit, to be honest. It's the dust with the contaminants that get you more than anything." Annette leads the film crew across the broken, seared earth. Here and there small patches of grass can be seen, even a couple of flowers. "Hardy fuckers, even after we put the planet through hell, it keeps surviving." A couple minutes of just quietly walking through the now decades old devastation, they are walking up to ground zero, more or less. A map comes up of the area, showing the now well familiar nuclear detonation rings, radiating outwards from Chičvres Air Base, the smaller tighter circles noted with "Airburst, 1.5km high". Annette stops, and pounds her suited hand down on a round pile of something. "Used to be a Sheridan tank. I think, don't quote me on that, military history isn't my forte, yaknow? State of the Art and it's some guys tomb when the sky got a new star. [Beep]." Eventually, Annette leads the film crew to a spot that does not look any much different from the rest of the shattered earth, a few structures broken, burned, and bent can be seen. "So, rough as we can tell, ground zero is up there, about... a click and a half up. This was one of the smaller bombs, it wasn't meant to obliterate the place, just make it not usable any time soon. You can see the air strip over there," she said, pointing a yellow gloved hand to a flatter portion of the blast zone. "Main base was right there," another point to a pile of rubble that had a single, desperate tree and a few piles of weeds growing from it. A cluster of more steel tombs outside, remains of trucks. "Tactical weapons like this, too many people in the war treated them as just... a bigger artillery barrage. We've been at this for two years now, just this crater, barrelling up the radioactive soil. It's hard work, we got some bulldozers and tractors, but mostly we got shovels. But it's got some honesty to it. Before the war, my dad worked in an ad firm, finding ways to convince house wives to buy cleaner that wasn't really any better than some soap and water. It was... it was so meaningless." There's a pause as she starts to take the crew around the base to head on back. "This, well, at least it means the worlds going to be a bit better than I left it, even if I have to shovel the dirt myself."
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Aug 14, 2021 19:42
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Yeah pretty sure the gunshots were some part of the bridge crew deciding they weren't interested in letting the captain get them all killed, if the captain was feeling suicidal all he had to do was order a torpedo tube opened and try to take one of ours with him. If he got shot it was by someone else not himself.
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Aug 14, 2021 19:43
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Crazycryodude posted:Yeah pretty sure the gunshots were some part of the bridge crew deciding they weren't interested in letting the captain get them all killed, if the captain was feeling suicidal all he had to do was order a torpedo tube opened and try to take one of ours with him. If he got shot it was by someone else not himself. Yeah, given it was several pops and not just one, some other bridge officer likely decided better to potentially get minimum security prison for turning rogue rather than a potential slow death in a collapsing sub
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Aug 14, 2021 20:13
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Really, is prison WORSE than being trapped on the most wanted submarine on the planet? How much shore leave did any of those guys get, you reckon?
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Aug 14, 2021 20:17
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Gwyneth Palpate posted:Really, is prison WORSE than being trapped on the most wanted submarine on the planet? How much shore leave did any of those guys get, you reckon? God can you imagine the smell in there?
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Aug 14, 2021 20:31
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Josef bugman posted:God can you imagine the smell in there? I dunno, they probably kept the place fairly clean. At least if the conspiracy theory is true and the Queen is on-board.
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Aug 14, 2021 20:32
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Asterite34 posted:I dunno, they probably kept the place fairly clean. At least if the conspiracy theory is true and the Queen is on-board. Imagine being trapped in a metal tube with 149 men and a lizard.
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Aug 14, 2021 21:07
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I just binged this, awesome AAR so far! Some of the suggestions for foreign policy are unbelievably crazy though, I absolutely dread the idea of seeing how first contact (with actual organised aliens, that is) will go. If that's even possible that is, I would assume so. Never played!
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Aug 15, 2021 00:12
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How did we get from the Soviet vanguard party to actual socialism anyway? Did the war really kill that many of the party's ruling class?
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Aug 15, 2021 00:31
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Klaus88 posted:How did we get from the Soviet vanguard party to actual socialism anyway? Did the war really kill that many of the party's ruling class? The soviets are still a vanguard party as far as I'm aware: there's no player for the USSR per say, I think, although there is one for their international logistical operation COMRAIL. They're currently headed by the young internationalists, with the general secretary being https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov this guy. The USSR are only one of the big three who formed the initial alliance of the comintern though, the other two are china, who are extremely inwardly focused due to a delicate political situation and France, who are very experimental. The general collapse of power in the wake of WW3 did allow for smaller nations like much of eastern europe, the republic of california and the UAWR to set their own developmental and political policies without much interference though. For more on the USSR: the young internationalists couped during the war to stop the launch of strategic weapons.
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Aug 15, 2021 00:47
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Wasn't it the opposite? They coup'd because Brezhnev was unwilling to launch the nukes?
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Aug 15, 2021 01:41
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VideoWitch posted:Wasn't it the opposite? They coup'd because Brezhnev was unwilling to launch the nukes? That's how I remember it. It didn't escalate to full strategic exchange because things just fell apart on the NATO side.
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Aug 15, 2021 01:43
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Oh yeah, my bad.
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Aug 15, 2021 01:45
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February 18, 1983 The Californian drydock is kept under heavy guard, and all the lights in the base are extinguished as the Revenge is brought in, arriving at around 3 AM local time. The covered dock she's moored in was originally used to host US Navy fleet ballistic missile submarines, so she'll fit right in. In addition to the engineers and technicians, a full battalion of troops are stationed in and around the dock, in addition to the guards keeping people out. All of their guns are pointing in. No chances are being taken here. The dredging ship towing her was never designed for this work, and using it to maneuver the boat into the dock is going to be almost impossible, so, for probably the last time in her long history, the Revenge sails the last few hundred yards under her own power. The men and women on the shore watch as the weathered, stained old hull surfaces, clearly visible in the gleaming moonlight, and tiny human figures pile out, taking up positions on the conning tower, the decks, guiding her in and preparing the lines. She glides slowly and silently into position, the crew on the boat performing their tasks with practiced ease and in near-complete silence. Lines are thrown and secured. Instructions are shouted from the shore and acknowledged. The screw stops turning. She is reeled in. Finally, finally, she is in position, in what may be her final resting place. The massive doors shut behind her with a deep, resounding, and very final boom. The voyage of the last submarine has ended.  stock photo from happier times, for reference The People's Army and Spetsnaz commandos who raid the boat meet no resistance, just a lot of very pale, very tired-looking men, who are taken into custody. There are clear signs of a firefight on the bridge - shell casings in the gratings, damage from stray bullets. In the sickbay are three wounded men and four dead bodies, one of them the captain. There is some tension in the torpedo room - three men in officer's uniforms are bound and gagged and held under armed guard by underdressed enlisted men, and they have to be disarmed by the commandos. The men are quiet, defeated, and the clearing of the boat is orderly. They will be thoroughly debriefed, of course, and the boat will be gone over with a fine-toothed comb. Unfortunately, the Queen is nowhere to be found. Acting without orders, one of the Spetsnaz men pulls down the surprisingly pristine Union Jack hanging on the wall of the captain's cabin and replaces it with a little Comintern flag. It's our boat now. February 19, 1983 The boat is in generally good condition all things considered, but this thing has clearly gone without real, proper shipyard maintenance in a very long time; makeshift repairs and extensive jerry-rigging can be found everywhere, and, cosmetically, everything is showing its age. It will take weeks, maybe months, to learn everything that is to be learned, but there are a few immediate revelations. First, the reactor was refueled relatively recently, probably about 5 years ago; this would require substantial expertise and infrastructure. Second, while all of the missiles are in their tubes, only three are in anything approaching operational condition - the remainder have been defueled and very thoroughly stripped for parts, almost certainly cannibalized to keep the remaining missiles operational. The warheads of the cannibalized missiles are gone. Debriefing the surviving officers and men, and searching the ship for documents and intel, focuses right now on immediate concerns - namely, what happened, why were they there, what were they planning, and where are the remaining warheads. The captain apparently ordered an emergency blow, intending to try to fire off all of his remaining missiles as soon as they surfaced, wildly, without really targeting them, in the hope that they'd hit something valuable somewhere. Some of the bridge crew were strongly opposed to this idea, and, when he attempted to have them relieved of duty, well, one thing lead to another. Neither he nor his closest loyalists survived. The officers stress that the boat receiving direct orders of any kind was extremely unusual. Up until this operation, they had almost no direct contact with their superiors except to coordinate resupply, and were otherwise on orders to keep moving, keep silent, and stay alive. During a routine status report they were urgently contacted to await further instructions, and, when they did so, a plan was delivered. The plan, referred to in the orders as Operation Hastings, was as follows: The boat was to launch its missiles at a specific time, at Vandenberg and two other Californian military bases. It was specifically to do this in the middle of the planned summit. The boat was then under orders to expend its remaining ordnance on 'targets of opportunity' - basically a suicide order, the boat was not intended to be used in that role and the Californians would have absolutely been on high alert. If it survived expending its torpedoes, it was to retreat, re-establish stealth, and await further orders. The briefing for Operation Hastings indicates that the missile launches are to be a signal to 'allied forces' to begin the 'primary phase' of the operation, and stresses how absolutely vital it is that they take place at the appointed time. As for the warheads, they were offloaded during the last resupply stop, about five months ago, which involved mooring alongside a civilian bulk freighter the crew claim was actually operated by MI6. They do not have a name or flag for us, but they can supply the exact date and time, and the coordinates. From that, if the ship is a registered and legally-operating vessel whose location is logged, it should be trivial to find which ship was there at the time, and where it is now. The interrogations have been surprisingly easy. If there were any true fanatics left on that boat, they died, or are very good actors. The remaining men are exhausted and utterly broken, barely a shred of defiance left in them. They just want it to be over. Though it is a week early, the first dignitaries are already beginning to arrive in California for the summit, mostly representatives of various American polities and local governments, who want to meet informally before the actual event. February 20, 1983 Director Fedya Kuzmin of MOSA has been getting little sleep lately. It seems like there's a million different crises all demanding her attention at once, and, when she does find free time here and there, she can't take her attention off her little pseudo-scientific side project. She is writing a proposal, a proposal which she fully expects to be ridiculed, but is it really that much more absurd than TNEs or aliens? The short paper, 'On the Establishment of the Psychonaut Corps', is nearly done, nearly ready for presentation to her superiors. It just needs one more touch. The first dreamer was a Hawaiian. She needs to talk to the Hawaiians. She, specifically, needs to talk to the one who selected that particular scientist, the one who sent her there. It is for this reason that she has, secretly and without orders, requested a personal video-conference with the Director of the Hawaiian Royal Space Agency. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, right? An in-person meeting would be better, but there is simply no way she can disappear for days right now, so this has to be the way. The technology to do this is in its infancy, and the image will be low-resolution and heavily pixelated, but she needs to see the man, she needs to know for sure. She hoped the draft of the paper she sent to him would be enough to get him to show his face. It was. The video-stream begins at exactly the scheduled time. She isn't sure what she's looking at, at first, but as her eyes adjust to the low-resolution image, she realizes she's looking at a human face, on the other side of a transparent window from the camera, and floating in a bluish fluid. Only the face and neck are visible, an elderly, withered white man surrounded by a huge shock of hair and beard, with tubes snaking out of his nostrils and down out of sight. The voice that emerges is strange, tinny. "You rang?" She forces a smile. "Director Hughes, I presume? Or may I call you Howard?" Mister Bates fucked around with this message at 08:23 on Aug 15, 2021 |
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Aug 15, 2021 07:40
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I have many questions. I guess this calls for a general alert, too. But.. I can't get it out of my mind: what is Huges floating in?
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Aug 15, 2021 11:31
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NewMars posted:I have many questions. I guess this calls for a general alert, too. But.. I can't get it out of my mind: what is Huges floating in? Tang.
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Aug 15, 2021 11:37
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The Lone Badger posted:Tang. It all makes sense now. Gladio's plan is to start third impact! Edit: we've got to tell Gorbachev to get in the robot!
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Aug 15, 2021 11:41
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