Born to Fight
Act 1: Fight or Flight
The EA ships, well-built and slender, formed up in a line and assemble at their rally point. Observers on the bridge of these ships updated the captains that the AU ships were also forming up their lines about 3 klicks ahead. Much smaller signal boats travelling alongside the battleships relayed the message down the line. In the EA flagship, Prosperity Dragon, Captain Chen assessed the situation.
The wind was in their favour; the AU ships had to perform some form of tacking in order to travel up the line towards them. This would tax the commanders of their boats with additional workloads and would also mean that their gun crews will have to adjust their aim more often. Good thing he had chosen this rally point after winning the coin toss.
The Watcher signal boat relayed the go-ahead to Prosperity Dragon and Captain Chen acknowledged by ordering his signal officer to fire a green and an amber flare. The EA ships unfurled their Draft Nets, which quickly filled up with the tail wind. The glorious Dragons were on the move, while the AU ships took some time to move up into the head wind.
The EA's medium-bore steam cannons scored higher overall accuracy and managed to hit the AU ships even as they tacked past. Even with their numerological superiority, the AU ships were being battered by the Dragons. This is another victory in the EA streak, thought Captain Chen.
From amongst the AU ships, a contraption was launched. According to Captain Chen's spotters, it had the shape of a man, but many times the size. They also note a sizeable torso (presumably to house the massive steam engines, the same ones that power the ships) and a backpack assembly (presumably to house the gravity repulsion generators also found on the ships). The man object darted through the air towards the EA ships, firing the gun it held in its hands. Every shot that landed on a Dragon resulted in a huge plume of smoke and debris. Jade Dragon was heavily damaged and listing to her right, while Imperial Dragon (the previous flagship of Eastern Sun flotilla) had failing GRGs and was falling down towards Earth at an alarming rate.
Captain Chen broke into cold sweat. All these were still being recorded by the Watchers. It will not look good on EA's scorecard and will result in several penalties in the subsequent engagements against the AU. The EA had to find a way to develop their own Demon Armour.
Act 2: The age of Frames
It was the golden age of Frames. The common name given by both sides was "Fully Articulated Armoured Mechanics", or Frames for short. (The EA still informally refer to them as Demon Armour.) In place of battleship engagements, which were taxing on raw materials and manpower, more battles were fought as Frame duels.
Imagine: A ship of the line will sit in the dock for an equivalent of 40000 man-hours to construct, using 4000 tonnes of raw materials. In a battle, it needed a crew of 200 men in various positions on board:
chiefly in gunnery and engineering. The steam engines burned through 100kg of fuel to the minute. If the ship was shot down in battle, it was a burden to replace the materials. A Frame only took up 1% of the resources to construct, burned through just 5% of the fuel and only needed 1 pilot.
Frame pilots were the new gladiators, prized by both sides. The Watchers had a comprehensive set of rules for Frame duels, just as they had for battleship engagements. Military commanders preferred not getting themselves killed in their flagships, and liked that Frame engagements usually lasted much shorter than ship battles.
In the EA, the up-and-coming Frame ace was Chen Long. He had survived enough battles to be noticed in the EA public and participated in the "blockbuster" battles that earned him the reputation and fanbase he enjoys. His crowning glory was participating in the Watcher-sanctioned battle with him leading a lance of 2 other Demon Armours in a surgical strike against an AU flagship. Although other gladiators would have gladly snatched the glory of delivering the finishing blow on the stricken ship, Chen Long made a display of allowing his juniors deliver the coup de grace. This display of humility and sharing the limelight made him immensely popular with both the EA public and military. There have even been rumours that the Watchers contributed into the EA coffers as a direct result of that battle. Too bad both pilots died within the next 2 months in seperate incidences in matches.
The Watcher-sanctioned match for the day involved 2 EA ships of the line supported by 2 platoons of Frames going up against 5 AU ships and their Frame detachment (estimated equivilent to 2 platoons of Frames). As the opposing lines approached each other, the AU ships cut between the EA ships and having isolated it from its sister ship, began pummeling the Silver Dragon. Chen Long's lance launched with orders to "surpress the Frames surpressing the Yangtze Dragon so that it can assist the Silver Dragon". It was a messy affair. His lance mates were picked off by the AU sharpshooters. To even the odds, he had to get close enough for their muskets to be a hindrance more than a threat. He pushed the limits of his body dodging the flak thrown against him, at one point splattering his displays with the blood he threw up. However, once he got in range, he opted to use his heat blade and carve vengeance on the AU frames.
The first one, he simply sliced through its torso and put its steam engine out of commission. The second one, he took the time to carve the armour off the cockpit, then yanked the pilot out from his seat. The third one, he soured its GRG with a deft stroke of his blade, then grabbing it against his Frame, guided it in a headlong fall towards earth.
Act 3: Watch, and learn
It was a battle worth mentioning in the fables. The entire amassed fleet of the AU and EA formed around the Watcher Headquarters building in a show of force. They had to see that they couldn't be the puppetmasters forever. The puppets refused to be pawns in a game. Even if they understood that the Watchers only had a tiny proportion of their population in that massive fortress of a Headquarters, even if this rebellion were to incite the vengeance of the other Watchers living higher up in the sky, even if the Watchers had technology far surpassing that of the AU and EA, even if an all-out war between pawns and the ruling class turned out to be an absolute defeat and annihilation of the pawns, they refused to bow before the rulers.
For isn't it in man to fight? From fighting against the elements, against wooly mammoths, against discrimination, against opposing values?
To expect man not to fight is to deny over 2 million years of evolution.
Chen Long's heart raced in anxious anticipation. He was flying amongst AU Frames, Demon Armour he would have shot down in a previous life. But today, he is just a small part of the hundreds of craft in the attack meant to overwhelm the Watcher's fortress. The battle commenced and it became apparent that even the battleships' largest cannons did little more than scar the fortress walls. Frames were being shot out of the air by the armour-piercing defence cannons. In true Chen Long style, he led his lance through the hellish wall of metal slugs and began slicing through the cannons with his heat blade. The defences might be overwhelmed afterall.
They had not planned how to make the entire structure crumble as they did not know enough of it structurally to exploit any weaknesses. They had banked on total and overwhelming firepower (which was already proven
insufficient) or total defeat (which seemed slow in coming). As the siege continued, Chen Long heard reports of a new Watcher Frame chassis that had appeared. It's swatting Frames like flies, they said. Being a gladiator, Chen Long had this urge to meet the best contender in the field and gauge his skills against such competition. He streaked off to find this formidable Frame.
His fate was to be the same as that of the underclass. -Jimmy
The wind was in their favour; the AU ships had to perform some form of tacking in order to travel up the line towards them. This would tax the commanders of their boats with additional workloads and would also mean that their gun crews will have to adjust their aim more often. Good thing he had chosen this rally point after winning the coin toss.
The Watcher signal boat relayed the go-ahead to Prosperity Dragon and Captain Chen acknowledged by ordering his signal officer to fire a green and an amber flare. The EA ships unfurled their Draft Nets, which quickly filled up with the tail wind. The glorious Dragons were on the move, while the AU ships took some time to move up into the head wind.
The EA's medium-bore steam cannons scored higher overall accuracy and managed to hit the AU ships even as they tacked past. Even with their numerological superiority, the AU ships were being battered by the Dragons. This is another victory in the EA streak, thought Captain Chen.
From amongst the AU ships, a contraption was launched. According to Captain Chen's spotters, it had the shape of a man, but many times the size. They also note a sizeable torso (presumably to house the massive steam engines, the same ones that power the ships) and a backpack assembly (presumably to house the gravity repulsion generators also found on the ships). The man object darted through the air towards the EA ships, firing the gun it held in its hands. Every shot that landed on a Dragon resulted in a huge plume of smoke and debris. Jade Dragon was heavily damaged and listing to her right, while Imperial Dragon (the previous flagship of Eastern Sun flotilla) had failing GRGs and was falling down towards Earth at an alarming rate.
Captain Chen broke into cold sweat. All these were still being recorded by the Watchers. It will not look good on EA's scorecard and will result in several penalties in the subsequent engagements against the AU. The EA had to find a way to develop their own Demon Armour.
Act 2: The age of Frames
It was the golden age of Frames. The common name given by both sides was "Fully Articulated Armoured Mechanics", or Frames for short. (The EA still informally refer to them as Demon Armour.) In place of battleship engagements, which were taxing on raw materials and manpower, more battles were fought as Frame duels.
Imagine: A ship of the line will sit in the dock for an equivalent of 40000 man-hours to construct, using 4000 tonnes of raw materials. In a battle, it needed a crew of 200 men in various positions on board:
chiefly in gunnery and engineering. The steam engines burned through 100kg of fuel to the minute. If the ship was shot down in battle, it was a burden to replace the materials. A Frame only took up 1% of the resources to construct, burned through just 5% of the fuel and only needed 1 pilot.
Frame pilots were the new gladiators, prized by both sides. The Watchers had a comprehensive set of rules for Frame duels, just as they had for battleship engagements. Military commanders preferred not getting themselves killed in their flagships, and liked that Frame engagements usually lasted much shorter than ship battles.
In the EA, the up-and-coming Frame ace was Chen Long. He had survived enough battles to be noticed in the EA public and participated in the "blockbuster" battles that earned him the reputation and fanbase he enjoys. His crowning glory was participating in the Watcher-sanctioned battle with him leading a lance of 2 other Demon Armours in a surgical strike against an AU flagship. Although other gladiators would have gladly snatched the glory of delivering the finishing blow on the stricken ship, Chen Long made a display of allowing his juniors deliver the coup de grace. This display of humility and sharing the limelight made him immensely popular with both the EA public and military. There have even been rumours that the Watchers contributed into the EA coffers as a direct result of that battle. Too bad both pilots died within the next 2 months in seperate incidences in matches.
The Watcher-sanctioned match for the day involved 2 EA ships of the line supported by 2 platoons of Frames going up against 5 AU ships and their Frame detachment (estimated equivilent to 2 platoons of Frames). As the opposing lines approached each other, the AU ships cut between the EA ships and having isolated it from its sister ship, began pummeling the Silver Dragon. Chen Long's lance launched with orders to "surpress the Frames surpressing the Yangtze Dragon so that it can assist the Silver Dragon". It was a messy affair. His lance mates were picked off by the AU sharpshooters. To even the odds, he had to get close enough for their muskets to be a hindrance more than a threat. He pushed the limits of his body dodging the flak thrown against him, at one point splattering his displays with the blood he threw up. However, once he got in range, he opted to use his heat blade and carve vengeance on the AU frames.
The first one, he simply sliced through its torso and put its steam engine out of commission. The second one, he took the time to carve the armour off the cockpit, then yanked the pilot out from his seat. The third one, he soured its GRG with a deft stroke of his blade, then grabbing it against his Frame, guided it in a headlong fall towards earth.
Act 3: Watch, and learn
It was a battle worth mentioning in the fables. The entire amassed fleet of the AU and EA formed around the Watcher Headquarters building in a show of force. They had to see that they couldn't be the puppetmasters forever. The puppets refused to be pawns in a game. Even if they understood that the Watchers only had a tiny proportion of their population in that massive fortress of a Headquarters, even if this rebellion were to incite the vengeance of the other Watchers living higher up in the sky, even if the Watchers had technology far surpassing that of the AU and EA, even if an all-out war between pawns and the ruling class turned out to be an absolute defeat and annihilation of the pawns, they refused to bow before the rulers.
For isn't it in man to fight? From fighting against the elements, against wooly mammoths, against discrimination, against opposing values?
To expect man not to fight is to deny over 2 million years of evolution.
Chen Long's heart raced in anxious anticipation. He was flying amongst AU Frames, Demon Armour he would have shot down in a previous life. But today, he is just a small part of the hundreds of craft in the attack meant to overwhelm the Watcher's fortress. The battle commenced and it became apparent that even the battleships' largest cannons did little more than scar the fortress walls. Frames were being shot out of the air by the armour-piercing defence cannons. In true Chen Long style, he led his lance through the hellish wall of metal slugs and began slicing through the cannons with his heat blade. The defences might be overwhelmed afterall.
They had not planned how to make the entire structure crumble as they did not know enough of it structurally to exploit any weaknesses. They had banked on total and overwhelming firepower (which was already proven
insufficient) or total defeat (which seemed slow in coming). As the siege continued, Chen Long heard reports of a new Watcher Frame chassis that had appeared. It's swatting Frames like flies, they said. Being a gladiator, Chen Long had this urge to meet the best contender in the field and gauge his skills against such competition. He streaked off to find this formidable Frame.
His fate was to be the same as that of the underclass. -Jimmy
posted by Jimmy at 11:30 PM
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